They stood talking below where Sliver sat, but the dwarven smith never looked down. As the last of the filing shirvêsh exited onto the floor, their chant died away. Wynn saw the dark, uncertain expression return to Mallet's old face. Carrow made some sharp exclamation, and one warrior thänæ gritted his teeth. The youthful shirvêsh in white frowned as well.
Wynn craned her head, wishing she could hear them. Something troubling passed among those five. She took one step, peering about to see if she might sneak closer.
Chane's grip closed on her arm.
Wynn tried to pull away but couldn't break his hold. "I'm just trying—"
"Quiet!" he rasped.
Chane was also staring at Mallet and his four companions.
Wynn had known a few Noble Dead since first meeting Magiere, Leesil, and Chap. Like their skin, their disquieting eyes lost some color in death. Still, there was always some tint that remained.
Any hint of brown drained from Chane's irises, and Wynn shivered as his eyes turned as colorless as ice.
The instant Chane gripped Wynn, halting her, he heard Shade snarl. Wynn tried to pull free, but he was not going to let her try to sneak up on Mallet. He fixed upon the far gathering around the old shirvêsh. As the chant died away, and the amphitheater remained quiet for the moment, Chane quickly widened his senses, listening.
Unlike the others in the small group, Carrow looked more outraged than forlorn.
"Heârva!" he snapped.
Whatever that meant, the closest thänæ clenched his jaw as the white-clad monk frowned in silence. Chane was uncertain if they disagreed with whatever Carrow had uttered, or if they just disapproved that he had said it aloud. No one verbally denied the young one.
Chane heard Wynn suck in a sharp breath, but kept his gaze locked on Mallet and the other four.
"Your eyes … what's wrong with …" she began, but never finished. "What are you doing?"
"I am trying to listen."
"Why?" she asked. "You don't understand Dwarvish."
True—especially if she kept interrupting—as it was hard enough to pick up on the conversation. But he might catch something she could translate.
"You would hear nothing," he answered, "if caught sneaking up on them … in plain sight!"
"You can't possibly hear them from here," she argued in hushed voice. "Can you?"
"Not if you keep talking!"
Wynn's intelligence and education were never in doubt, but not so for her wisdom at times. She did not always make wise choices in the moment. Her rashness had already lost them one potential source of information.
Mallet leaned close to the monk in white, and Chane could not pick up their whispers. In frustration, he glanced down at Wynn.
"He-air-va," he said, trying to pronounce the one word he had caught clearly. "What does it mean?"
"You mean … heârva?" she asked, and he nodded. "Umm … a past-tense verb from the root heâr, referring to ‘slaughter' … so ‘slaughtered.'"
"In other words, killed … or slain?"
"No, marû is the root for a killing or execution. Dwarvish and Elvish, akin in structures, have more specific terms for—"
"This is no time for language lessons!"
Wynn's brow furrowed in anger. "Heâr is the concept of ‘slaughter' … the killing of that which cannot defend itself or does so to no effect!"
Some of her ire faded when she glanced across the amphitheater floor.
"What is going on over there?" she whispered.
Chane wanted to know as well.
Only Mallet and the other monk still spoke in close whispers. The three warriors listened in silence. Wynn's question stuck in Chane's head as he looked to the stage and the body covered in gray cloth.
Hammer-Stag, braggart that he was, seemed more than able to defend himself. So what made Carrow so angry at a time of mourning? And by Wynn's accounting, why had he used such a specific term for his kinsman's demise?
Wynn watched that quiet gathering with intensity, until Shade suddenly inched out ahead of her. About to grab the dog, she realized Shade was standing at full attention, ears raised, staring at Mallet and his companions. Carrow turned away from the others in sudden disgust—and Shade's head moved.
Shade wasn't watching the gathering, just Carrow. Then she looked up at Wynn and whined softly. Her face almost expressed frustration, as if she didn't know what to do next.
Wynn reached down. The instant her hand lighted between Shade's shoulders …
… a memory erupted in Wynn's mind.
She was looking down a long passage lit by braziers spaced far apart. Then she was moving, walking along it. Hunks of stone lay on the floor among scattered chips of pulverized rock. She looked aside, running her hand across stone, feeling and seeing the deep gouges and pitted marks. All along the way, the walls were beaten and broken by something swung with great force.
One pit was so deep that her thick fingers slid in to the last knuckle.
Wynn went cold inside. That hand was broad and heavy, callused of palm, its wrist nearly three times as thick as it should be.
This wasn't her memory.
Wynn glanced down at Shade, now watching Mallet weaving his way back among others on the amphitheater floor. Another image rose in Wynn's mind, and it flickered with a third.
She saw Hammer-Stag's face, seemingly pale and shocked but with hints of frozen rage at the instant of death. The dead visage quickly vanished, replaced by one of two shirvêsh from the temple of the three warrior Bäynæ.
She saw them speaking to her, their expressions strained, but their voices were muted and garbled, as if not remembered clearly. Then it dawned on Wynn that these weren't Shade's memories either.
Wynn snatched her hand off Shade's head, sucking in a breath so fast she heard it.
"What?" Chane asked. "What is wrong?"
Shade cocked her head and one ear twitched in a hint of puzzlement.
Wynn shuddered. Those memories couldn't have been Shade's. They had come from someone else—perhaps someone here in this place. But that wasn't possible.
Chap couldn't pass the memories he'd dipped from others, and Wynn had been among other true majay-hì. They didn't have even his ability to read people's memories from a distance. He'd once told her they could memory-speak only by touch with one of their own. They couldn't even pass on a "heard" memory not their own unless it was given to them by another. This accounted for how Shade had received a few hazy memories through Lily long after Chap had left his chosen mate behind.
And Wynn … she was the only exception.
Chap's dual nature—Fay-born within a Fay-descended body—combined with how he'd tried to suppress the taint of awry magic left in Wynn, somehow ended up allowing her to hear him inside her head. This also had to be how Shade was able to memory-speak with her alone.
But not with stolen memories.
"How could you?" Wynn whispered.
Shade's blue eyes widened until their yellow flecks showed clearly. She crept closer, sniffing wildly at Wynn—then lunged suddenly.
"No!" Wynn squeaked.
Shade slammed her forepaws into Wynn's chest.
Wynn toppled flat on her back. Before she could fend off the dog, Shade shoved her face hard against Wynn's cheek. A cascading flood of images followed.
A shattered passage …
Hammer-Stag's dead, pallid features, his hair streaked with gray …
Two elder shirvêsh in white vestments, faces lined with fearful worry …
"Get off of her!" Chane hissed.
Wynn's head was still spinning as Shade wheeled away. Her sight had barely cleared when she heard Shade's jaws snap. When Wynn sat up, all the hackles on Shade's neck and upper back stood on end.