Daughter of Dusk (21 page)

Lapses that perhaps could have been avoided had Tristam and Kyra been more forthright about what she was. Something twisted in Tristam’s stomach. Had they been wrong to keep the secret
from Malikel?

“What direction do you see for Forge?” asked Willem. “Do you share Malikel’s goals, giving handouts to the poor, fighting their battles for them? Your father and your
brothers patrol your family manor every day at great personal risk. Why shouldn’t the common people help defend the lands?”

Tristam gave grudging credit to Willem for bringing up his family. The thought of losing Henril or anyone else was hard even to consider. “We believe it our duty, Your Grace, to take those
risks.”

Willem gave a hard smile. “That’s admirable, but have you ever considered that it might be an empty endeavor? Truth is, we could clear out the Palace treasury and sacrifice all our
lives to serve the needy, yet the poor will still remain. Malikel caters to the tenderhearted, but he picks a fight he can’t win. Meanwhile, he takes resources from initiatives that could
make real change. Forge could be great. We could make Forge a city to be remembered in the history books, and everyone within it would prosper.”

Everyone, or simply those in a position to benefit directly?
Tristam didn’t voice his thoughts.

Willem picked up the parchment from the table. “You may go, but I hope you’ll think on what I said. How much will you sacrifice for those who may not deserve it?”

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

Right before Tristam reached the door, Willem spoke again. “That’s a nasty bruise you have on your jaw, Tristam.”

Tristam paused, his hand hovering above the doorknob. The spot on his chin where Kyra had struck him was still tender to the touch. “It’s getting better,” he said.

“It’s a rare sort of creature who would cause such harm to a supposed friend.”

Tristam left without replying. He half expected the soldiers outside the door to tackle him, but they only watched him pass.

The courtyard outside resembled a market more than the Palace grounds. Throngs of citizens lined up in front of harried scribes to enlist in Willem’s new army, pushing past one another in
their impatience to get through the wait. They were a far cry from the disciplined Red Shields who usually lined up within these walls. Conscripting new soldiers had caused problems in the Palace,
and the difficulties didn’t just stem from the recruits themselves. Word was that the record-keeping was sloppy as well. Several groups of citizens had already been called back because
harried scribes had misplaced their records. The Palace simply wasn’t equipped to handle an influx of so many new soldiers at one time.

Tristam hunched his shoulders and threaded through jostling bodies. The noise faded as he left the crowd behind, and he finally gathered his thoughts. He’d been cleared of suspicion. That
in itself was a minor miracle. Unfortunately, that almost certainly meant that Malikel was taking most of the blame on himself. Tristam wondered again at the Defense Minister’s reaction upon
finding Santon’s body. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that Malikel hadn’t been surprised to learn Kyra’s identity. The Defense Minister had suspected
something about Kyra, but for some reason, he hadn’t taken action. Now he would pay the price.

When Tristam got to his chambers, he found that the guards posted there for the past week were already gone. He closed his door, walked into the middle of his room, and surveyed the silent
furniture around him. What now?

His breastplate hung on a rack against the wall, polished to Malikel’s exacting standards. He could see his face reflected on its surface, and he leaned closer to examine the bruise on his
chin. There was a scab on his lip where it had split from Kyra’s blow. He saw her again in his mind’s eye—confused, horrified, and covered in Santon’s blood. Where had she
gone? Was she safe? If only he had some way to contact her.

Everything had happened so fast that night. He’d known Kyra’s bloodlines and what the Makvani were capable of, but Tristam never expected to find Kyra changed in the Palace
courtyard, or see her standing above Santon’s corpse. What had driven her to this?

Someone knocked on the door, and Tristam answered to find a servant in the corridor holding a stack of parchments. The servant was an older man whose build suggested a life spent indoors rather
than in the fields. “Sir Willem has requested that your armor and equipment be inventoried, in light of the new recruits,” the man said.

Now Tristam recognized him. The man was part of Willem’s personal staff. “Are all the Red Shields having their equipment inventoried, or just me?” he asked, not bothering to
hide the suspicion in his voice. After hearing Willem’s speech about Forge and its future, Tristam had thought the Head Councilman was trying to earn Tristam’s trust. This seemed a step
in the opposite direction.

“Only those that His Grace has listed,” the man said in a maddeningly neutral voice. “May I come in? I’m instructed not to touch or take anything at this point, just to
take note of any equipment that might belong to the Palace.”

Tristam didn’t really have the leeway to be difficult right now. He surreptitiously checked the dagger at his belt as his unwelcome guest came to stand in front of Tristam’s sword
and armor.

“The weapons and equipment are my own,” Tristam said, aware that he sounded like a petulant child.

The manservant nodded. “And livery. How many sets do you have?”

“I surrendered anything marking me a knight when they stripped me of my rank.” His frustration was rising with every passing moment. “I have two Red Shield tunics that I wear
on duty.”

The manservant nodded and jotted something down on his parchment. “We may have to take one of those.” Finally, he raised his head and looked around. “That will be all. Thank
you. My name is Orvin of Forge, if you have further need of me.”

He let himself out the door, and Tristam closed it none too lightly behind him. When he turned back around, he noticed a piece of parchment on the table. Had the servant left it there? Tristam
unfolded it to find words inside.

I have a message for Kyra,
was all it said.

Tristam read the note two or three times. A message for Kyra from Willem’s household? If this was a trap, then they were woefully misled. Tristam had no idea where Kyra was, whether
she’d fled to the forest or other cities, or somehow found a place to hide within the city walls.

Or could the man be sincere? Not all of Willem’s servants were personally loyal to the Councilman. Tristam took two quick steps to his door and pulled it ajar, remembering at the last
minute not to throw it open in his eagerness. He peered outside, hoping for another glimpse of Orvin, but the man was long gone.

F I F T E E N

F
lick hated the idea of leaving Kyra by herself, but after the near miss with Adele, it was clear that the forest wasn’t safe for him and the
younger girls. So when the flat stone near Mercie’s window turned to signal an all clear, he took Idalee and ­Lettie back to the old woman’s house. Kyra set up camp in a cave nearby
with a small stash of food and supplies from Mercie, and Flick left her there with a promise to return soon.

Mercie ran a tight ship. Flick, Idalee, and Lettie posed as grandchildren of a friend of hers who’d come upon hard times. They had chores every day, but the workload was reasonable. After
a few days, Mercie went into the city and brought back news, along with a note on a piece of parchment.

“It was left for you at your old home,” she said, handing it to Flick.

The message was actually for Kyra. It looked like she’d been using Flick’s address without telling him again. Flick didn’t mind, though the vagueness of the wording piqued his
curiosity. The next day, he packed up some bread and dried meat, and set off into the forest.

He walked quickly, not eager to spend any more time out here than he needed to. Kyra hadn’t wanted him to come to the forest at all, but she was such a consummate city lass, and Flick
worried about her having enough to eat. He supposed she could have hunted, but she hadn’t seemed very eager to change shape.

The bare winter landscape was both a blessing and a curse. It made it easy to see people coming from far off, but also made it harder to keep oneself hidden. He found himself scanning the trees
as he walked, wondering if any Demon Riders were watching him. His recent encounter with the Makvani had been one of the most frightening and fascinating experiences of his life—to be so
close to death, and then to be granted entry into a world that only a handful of humans had seen. It had been terrifying, yet Flick had also come out of it feeling strangely honored. The Makvani
were a brutal people. There was no doubt about that, and Flick had seen humans die at their hands. But his experience in the forest had shown him that there was more to the Makvani. Their culture,
their way of being together…it made him wonder.

He was mulling this over when two Demon Rider women stepped out of thin air.

Flick stopped in his tracks, feeling a prickle travel down the back of his neck. He knew only one person who could move undetected like that, and that was Kyra—though he supposed he
shouldn’t be surprised that these women were just as silent. The first woman he recognized as Adele, the one who had tried to kill him. The second woman was a stranger, much taller than the
petite Adele, statuesque with a long, graceful neck and chestnut curls. Her arm was in a sling.

As he stood frozen, Adele stepped forward. She walked with the same Makvani grace that he’d grown used to seeing in Kyra, though there was an otherworldly quality about Adele, something
about her movements that was not quite human. She regarded him with her head cocked to one side, like a bird. (Flick wondered briefly if he should amend that to a cat watching a bird. But
she’d been friendly enough the last time she came.)

“We mean no harm,” she said. She held something sizable and grayish brown in front of her like a platter. When she came closer, Flick realized it was a dead rabbit. Newly killed, by
the look of it, with blood still matted in its fur. She held it out to him.

“This is for you,” she said. “In thanks for the herbs.”

“Thank you.” Flick took it from her, doing his best to give the impression that he received dead rabbits as presents every day. “This will…be a welcome addition to our
dinner tonight.”

Adele gestured toward her friend. Even that motion seemed smoother on her. “Mela’s shoulder is greatly improved.”

Mela’s shoulder. Of course.
The woman standing in front of him was the injured demon cat he’d helped. As if following the direction of his thoughts, Mela met his eyes and
inclined her head.

“I’m glad,” said Flick. He paused again, wondering how best to proceed.

Adele looked around the forest. Her eyes darted quickly from one thing to the next, giving an impression that she didn’t miss much. “You’re traveling alone through the
forest,” she said. “This is dangerous.” It wasn’t immediately clear whether that was intended as a warning or a question. Flick decided to take it as the latter and hope for
the best.

“Aye,” he said. “But Kyra’s been alone out here for a while. I worry she’ll go hungry.”

Adele’s eyes moved over his features. “Do you share blood with Kyra?”

“Blood? Oh no,” said Flick. “We met as children.”

“But you are close.”

“As close as brother and sister at this point, I’d say.”

Adele nodded with something that looked like approval. “It’s good that you are loyal to her.” She exchanged a glance with Mela. “We will escort you. It will be safer for
you that way.”

That was unexpected, but it took a weight off his chest. “Thank you,” said Flick. “I’d be grateful.”

She fell in step beside him, with Mela trailing right behind. Adele asked him questions about Forge as they walked—how many people there were, how they felt about the Makvani, what kind of
food they ate…If Flick had been the suspicious type, he might have thought she was trying to get information to use against the city. But he didn’t think that was the case. Adele had
an air of genuine curiosity, as did Mela, who occasionally interrupted with more fanciful inquiries about the colors that humans preferred, or why they wore tunics that required pulling over their
heads to remove. Occasionally, Adele gave Mela a reproachful look, as if she thought her friend’s question was too silly.

Presently, Adele slowed. “Kyra is there,” she said.

It took Flick a while to spot Kyra, and by the time he did, his old friend was running toward him. Kyra’s clothes were wrinkled—she’d probably slept in them for several days in
a row now—but she otherwise looked healthy. She was about to throw her arms around Flick when she noticed Adele and Mela. Her expression became more guarded.

“We came with him to make sure he didn’t get attacked,” said Adele. She turned to Flick. “We will rejoin you when you’re ready to return.”

Neither Kyra nor Flick said anything until the Makvani were out of sight.