Singe would have smiled if he’d felt at all like smiling. Instead he turned to his other side. “What about you?” he asked. “How are you feeling?”
Dandra’s long, black hair whirled in the breeze, tangling around the shaft of the short spear she wore strapped across her back. Her eyes were fixed on the heights of the city. “Sharn’s a big place,” she said without shifting her gaze, “but whatever Dah’mir has planned, he’s not going to get away with it. We’re going to stop him.”
Her voice was determined, but it was seldom less than determined. Singe reached over and put his hand over hers where she gripped the rail. “That’s not what I meant.”
A flush stained the bronze-brown of her cheeks. “I know.”
Determination didn’t mean that Dandra wasn’t afraid. He lifted his hand and put his arm around her shoulders, holding her tight. “We can’t face Dah’mir alone again, Dandra. We’ve been lucky so far. If Dah’mir came to Sharn to turn kalashtar into servants of the Master of Silence, we need to warn them. And if we need allies-”
“-we should start with the kalashtar elders.” Dandra sighed and leaned into his embrace for a moment. “You can keep saying that, but it doesn’t make this easier. You can’t understand. The kalashtar here know … knew Tetkashtai. How are they going to react to me? I’m not Tetkashtai. I’m not even a kalashtar. I’m a psicrystal in a kalashtar’s body. I killed Medala and Virikhad. I absorbed Tetkashtai. That’s going to scare them.”
Her hand came up and clutched the yellow-green crystal around her neck that had once been her physical form and more recently a prison to Tetkashtai. Singe could feel the tension in her body. He held her tighter. “That’s all the more reason for them to listen to you,” he assured her. “Dah’mir exchanged your mind with Tetkashtai’s. Dah’mir drove Medala mad. Because of him, Tetkashtai would have destroyed you and turned on us if you hadn’t stopped her. You’re living proof of the danger Dah’mir represents. The elders have to see what will happen if we don’t stop him.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “I don’t know which scares me more, Singe: that we might not find Dah’mir or that we almost certainly will.”
“You can do this,” he murmured in her ear. “I know you can.”
Footsteps came along the deck behind them, and Singe released her. The captain’s mate, a Brelish man, stopped a pace away from them. “See to your gear,” he said. “Captain wants you off and out of the way so we can unload our cargo.”
If Singe had any lingering doubts that not all of the goods in the White Bull’s hold were strictly legal, the mate’s warning eliminated them. The ship had been the least questionable to call on the squalid port of Vralkek while they’d been there. She was far from the swift elemental galleon Lightning on Water-now lost if Vennet d’Lyrandar could be believed-but they hadn’t had much choice. Singe didn’t doubt that the ship could put on a turn of speed if she were being pursued, but day-to-day she traveled at a snail’s pace that left him grinding his teeth in frustration. Lightning on Water could have made the passage to Sharn in days. The White Bull had taken nearly a month. “Tell the captain we’ll be off as soon as the gangplank touches the wharf.” He swept into a bow. “It’s been a pleasure sailing with you. I’ll recommend you to my friends.”
His sarcasm passed over the mate without even ruffling his matted hair, and the man turned back the way he had come. Singe took another look up at the looming city, then stepped away from the rail and picked up his pack. “Come on.”
The final member of their little party waited for them by the gangplank, her lean body as tense and coiled as a hunting cat’s. Ashi was the only one of them who had never been to Sharn before. Singe wasn’t sure that she’d even believed their stories about the city until the White Bull had passed the headlands of the coast and Sharn had come into view that morning. Now she paced back and forth near the gangplank, looking out at the docks. When she turned at their approach, there was a strange mix of emotions in her eyes: the fear and wariness of a predator entering new territory, and the curiosity of an explorer on the edge of uncharted terrain.
In fact, her eyes were all that could be seen of her face. A scarf hid everything below Ashi’s eyes and a wide headband covered her from eyebrows to hairline. Virtually every other bit of her skin was covered with clothing scrounged in Vralkek. Her shirt had long sleeves and a high collar, and she wore close-fitting leggings. Her palms and the backs of her hands were covered by fingerless gloves. Singe had even covered the pommel of the sword, a bright honor blade of the Sentinel Marshals, that had first led him to suspect that the hunter might carry the blood of House Deneith.
There wasn’t a hint of the powerful Siberys dragonmark that had manifested during their confrontation with Dah’mir in the ruins of Taruuzh Kraat, tracing her body in bold and complex patterns. The mark had the power to shield Dandra from the terrible fascination that Dah’mir wielded over kalashtar. Unfortunately, Siberys marks manifested so rarely that the dragonmarked houses watched for them with proprietary avarice. Once House Deneith learned of Ashi’s mark, they were certain to seek her out and claim her for their own. Singe had served Deneith for nearly fifteen years as a mercenary in the Blademarks Guild. He knew what the house was capable of-and that his years of service wouldn’t mean a thing to Deneith.
Ashi saw him inspecting her and gave him a glower. He raised his eyebrows. “People are going to stare at you,” he said. “It can either be because of the way you dress or because of your dragonmark. And we can’t let Deneith take you.”
The glower deepened for a moment, but eased. “Betch,” Ashi cursed. “I know.” She regarded her shrouded arms with disgust, then flexed them. “At least I can still fight in this.”
“Hopefully you won’t have to-at least, not for a while.” Singe looked from the hunter to Natrac to Dandra, then drew a long breath and nodded. “Let’s go.”
Stepping onto the wharf was like walking into battle. Big, muscular men and women moved back and forth with deliberation, wielding their loads like weapons against anyone not quick enough to get out of their way. Carts and wagons rumbled like siege engines. Warforged-artificial creatures given life and intelligence by the artificers of House Cannith-trod heavily across the planks and stones as well. The sight of them only reinforced in Singe the sense that he was back on a battlefield.
Warforged had been created for only one purpose, and even two years after the end of the Last War, it still seemed unnatural to see them engaged in something as routine as manual labor. Singe’s fingers itched with old instincts, ready to draw his sword or fling a fiery spell should one of the constructs turn on him.
None of them did, of course. Still, it was a relief to make a strategic retreat from the wharf into the crowded streets that hugged the waterfront and were cut into the steep base of the cliffs. Ashi’s eyes were wide, and it seemed that every few steps, she stopped to stare in wonder at some new sight. At the warforged. At a wagon, driven by a hobgoblin and hitched to a pair of heavy tribex, their long horns blunted but still impressive. At the famous skydocks, cranes high on the cliffs lifting massive loads up to the city along lines of glowing light. At a group of five human men with faces identical down to the blotch of a birthmark.
“Changelings,” Natrac spat in explanation. One of the men must have felt Ashi’s gaze or overheard the comment, because he turned and grinned at the hunter as his features melted briefly into a duplicate of Natrac’s face. The half-orc scowled and tugged Ashi onward.
Natrac wore a tunic with a cowl, and Singe saw him pull the cowl up with a sharp motion to hide his face. Curiosity stirred in Singe. Natrac had always been close-mouthed about his past, and the only reason Singe and the others knew that he’d spent time in Sharn at all was because Bava, the half-orc’s old friend in Zarash’ak, had let a fragment of the tale slip. Singe eased closer to Natrac. “Expecting trouble?” he asked.