"Not that I know of," Carroway replied, his voice a few tones higher and more pinched than usual.
"I try not to disobey a ghost," Tris observed dryly, urging his horse down the steep road. "If it was important enough for Hassad to send us there, he had a reason. Let's go."
A very solid wooden door gave reassuringly to Tris's touch. The common room was empty, but the air was heavy with the smell of roasting meat mingled with tobacco smoke. Despite a log fire glowing in the hearth, a chill hung in the room.
"Awfully quiet place for a feast night, isn't it?" Soterius murmured, his hand on the pommel of his sword.
"Considering how we must look, maybe that's lucky," Tris replied under his breath with a glance at their disheveled costumes. They approached the empty bar warily, and Tris thudded his fist against the wood to call the innkeeper.
"We'd like a room for the night," Harrtuck rasped as the innkeeper appeared in the kitchen doorway, a florid, heavy-set man whose ample apron was stained with ale and meat.
"Ah yes," the man said flatly from the shadows, gesturing for them to enter. "Two coppers a person. Find a room for yourselves upstairs."
Tris stretched out his senses, feeling the warning tingle of nearby spirits. It was strong here, but wordlessly reassuring. He eyed the silent innkeeper, extending his mage-sense. The image, seemingly solid, wavered and blurred to Tris's sight, and the revenant bowed his head in acknowledgement.
On my soul and by the Lady, you and yours are safe here tonight, Tris heard in his mind. Tris glanced at his companions, who were edgy from the fight and unnerved from the ride, but who did not seem to sense anything other-worldly about their host. He said nothing as they climbed the steps, noting that neither of the fighters took their hands far from their swords, and even Carroway kept his hand near the shiv in his belt.
"Bed for four here," Soterius said, opening the first door. A candle was already burning on the nightstand as they entered. On the table lay a platter with sausages, cheese and hard biscuits, and two full buckets of ale with four mugs.
"Nothing but dried meat and cheese," Carroway groused, collapsing into a chair. "Can't tell me that's not venison stew I smell."
"Yeah, well, it's food and we're off the road," Soterius growled, walking around the perimeter of the room like a caged thing. "I'm just as glad to eat up here." He stood to the side of the single window and glanced down at the street below, but only a few travelers made their way through the night.
"Not exactly the friendly types, are they?" Harrtuck muttered as Carroway passed around the tray of food and began to fill the mugs. "This whole place feels wrong," he said. "Morning can't come fast enough for me."
"I've had my fill of adventure for one night," replied Carroway, downing a mug of ale. "But Soterius was right. After tonight, I'll have ballads they'll pay gold to hear!"
Tris let them talk. He could feel the reassurance of the spirits in this place, promising their watchfulness and protection. And something else, a pervasiveness of magic that seemed to surround them, like a warding. He started to say something to his companions, to explain the spectral nature of their host, then reconsidered. He saw too clearly the discomfort on Soterius's face and the fear in Carroway's expression back at the palace, when they saw him speak with Kait's spirit and they glimpsed what his power might truly mean. They won't stay if I tell them, he knew. We're safer here than on the road, I'll stake my soul on it, but I'll never convince them. Too weary to argue, unwilling to feel the weight of incredulous glances, Tris resigned himself to silence.
He was chilled through from the night's ride and bone weary, too overwhelmed to take in the evening's events. The king, dead. His family, slaughtered. Jared, a traitor. And now, he and his friends were wanted men, running for their lives. He struggled against the images of Serae's and Kait's bodies, of Bricen's murder. The cold numbness that tingled in his fingers and chilled him had as much to do with the ache in his soul as it did the chill night outside. They were gone. All gone.
"Let's get a look at that gash," Soterius said. A pot of water'already boiled on the fire.
"Look there," Harrtuck said, his voice wary. On the scarred mantel lay a packet of healer's herbs and two vials of oil, along with a pile of torn cloth bandages. "I don't like this at all, for what it counts," he murmured. "Too damn strange."
Soterius knelt next to Tris and gently lifted up the ripped, blood-soaked shirt. "By the Whore!" he stammered, looking up uncomprehendingly at Tris. "What happened to your wound?"
Tris glanced down. Where an open gash should have been was unmarked flesh.
Carroway exchanged astonished glances with Soterius and Harrtuck. "Before I decide I've lost my mind," the bard said incredulously, "someone please tell me they saw a knife gash here? Ban? Tov?"
Soterius and Harrtuck nodded wordlessly. "Aye, and a bad wound, too," Soterius murmured.
Carroway and Harrtuck crowded closer, and Tris felt Soterius's uncompromising stare. "Lady and Childe," Harrtuck swore. "I've never seen anything like it."
Carroway met Tris's eyes, levelly awaiting an explanation.
Certain of just how mad the story sounded, Tris recounted what had happened in the procession. Soterius continued to stare at the site of the wound, and Tris knew that the explanation sorely tested his practical friend's credulity. Harrtuck frowned, but faced with the evidence of his own eyes, could do nothing but shake his head in wonder. Carroway's eyes were alight at the thought of true intervention by the Goddess, and Tris guessed that it was only with great effort and out of respect for the tragedy of the evening that Carroway refrained from grilling him mercilessly about the experience.
They ate their cold dinner in silence. Out in the street, someone was playing the lute and drunken voices rose in chorus as boots pounded time. The inn itself was silent, and Tris gathered his cloak around him.
"Coldest damn inn I've ever stayed in," Harrtuck said with a mouthful of sausage. "The sooner we're out of here, the happier I'll be."
Secure in the knowledge that Soterius stood the first watch, Carroway and Harrtuck retired for the evening, with the bard moving a bench closer to the fire and Harrtuck settling himself into a chair. When they were asleep, Tris paced to the window.
For the first time since the tragedy, Tris felt despair finally overwhelm him, and he sagged against the window frame, sobbing silently. The enormity of what had happened, the finality of the loss, the growing awareness of the danger now surrounding him rushed over him in waves. Roused finally from his grief by the chill draft that slipped through the closed window, Tris looked up at the clear stars outside. He caught his breath. There, auguring for all to see, a faint ring burned around the full moon, testimony that a king was dead this night. Eyes still fixed on the stars, Tris sank to one knee, placing his sword flat across his open palms.
Chenne, Avenger of Wrongs, hear me! By all the magic of Margolan, on the souls of my grandmother and my family, let me be the instrument of your judgment. Take my life, my soul, whatever you require, but let me put right what has been done this night.
From everywhere at once and nowhere at all, came a woman's voice so beautiful that it pierced Tris to his soul, and so powerful that his heart thudded in his throat at the sound of it.
Like your grandmother before you, I accept your vow, the voice said, and Tris felt an unseen presence far more powerful than any of the ghosts of Shekerishet brush past him, though nothing save the wind stirred in the darkness. Then, as quickly as the presence came, it was gone.
"Are you all right?" a very human voice said from behind him.
Tris startled, and turned to see Soterius, standing with his hands on his hips. While his face showed concern, there was nothing to suggest to Tris that his friend heard the voice that still echoed in his own ears, the vow of the Lady. Tris lowered his sword and resheathed it without explanation, rising to his feet.