Shapers of Darkness (23 page)

“Not yet,” Evanthya whispered. “Lie with me for a while.”

She hesitated. The Weaver hadn’t entered her dreams in some time, and she expected that he would soon, perhaps this night.

Evanthya’s fingers wandered gently over her back.

“All right,” she said, lying back down. “Just for a while.”

It began to rain, slowly at first, then harder. Lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled in the distance.

“A storm in Amon’s Turn,” Evanthya murmured sleepily. “Just like the day we met. Remember?”

“Of course,” she whispered. It seemed like a lifetime ago. They had been so young, so devoted to their dukes and the realms they served. How could she have changed so much, and Evanthya not at all?

She lay in the bed, listening to the rain, and to the rhythm of her love’s breathing, which slowed gradually as sleep came to her.

Fetnalla didn’t realize that she had fallen asleep as well until she found herself on the Weaver’s plain. A cool wind brushed her skin and she remembered that she was naked.

Not now
, she thought.
Can’t this wait until tomorrow night?

To which the Weaver’s voice replied, “Why should I wait?”

Usually she had to walk a distance to find him, but on this night the Weaver appeared before her immediately, the brilliant light behind him burning her eyes.

“You’re not alone, are you?”

She shook her head, crossing her arms over her breasts.

“Dantrielle’s minister is with you?”

“Yes, Weaver.”

“Are you any closer to turning her?”

She had already felt what he could do to her if she angered him, and so she didn’t dare lie. “No, Weaver, not yet.”

“You still think it’s possible, though.”

“I want to believe it. I’m not ready to give up yet.”

She saw him nod. “A good answer. Very well. Tell me of your duke and his plans to defy the regent.”

“He remains convinced that the war with Eibithar is a bad idea. He fears a civil war, but he believes that with the support of the other houses, he can prevail against the Solkarans.”

“Tounstrel and Bistari are with you?”

“No, Weaver. Only Tounstrel. Bistari’s new duke refuses to take sides in the matter.”

“Ah,” the Weaver said, nodding again. “He aspires to the throne.”

“That’s what the dukes think.”

“Did Dantrielle win over Kett and Noltierre?”

“Yes, Weaver. In all, five houses have pledged themselves to stand against the regent.”

“Good. Very good. Bistari might have tipped the balance too far. I’m pleased.”

She lowered her gaze. Already she had learned what the Weaver expected of her. “Thank you, Weaver. I wanted to ask you, when war comes, shall I wield my power on my duke’s behalf?”

“You’ll have to. If you refuse, you endanger yourself and the movement. But if your duke is like most Eandi, he knows little of Qirsi magic. You can use your powers on his behalf without using them well. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Weaver.”

“Good. I’ll leave you now, since you’re with the minister.”

“Thank you, Weaver.”

“Time runs short. You know that. If you don’t turn her soon, it will be too late. We’ll have no choice but to kill her.”

He may as well have reached into her chest and taken hold of her heart.

“Yes, Weaver,” she managed, and woke.

The candle flame beside the bed flickered and danced. Evanthya was sitting up, staring at her, a single crease like a scar in the middle of her forehead.

“You were dreaming.”

Fetnalla’s throat felt dry. “Was I?”

“Yes, and you spoke in your sleep.”

She pulled up the bed linens, covering herself. “What did I say?”

“It was hard to make sense of it. But you said something about a Weaver.”

“A Weaver.” She tried to make herself laugh as she said this, but it came out sounding breathless and desperate to her own ears.

“What was it you were dreaming about?”

“Honestly, Evanthya, I don’t remember.”

“Was it a vision?”

Fetnalla shook her head. “I’d remember a vision.”

Evanthya looked as if she wanted to ask more, but Fetnalla didn’t allow her the chance.

“What’s the hour?” she demanded, kicking off the linens and swinging herself out of the bed.

“I’m not certain.”

She began to dress. “I should return to my chamber.”

“Have you had this dream before, Fetnalla?”

“I told you, I don’t remember it. How should I know if I’ve had it before?” She winced at what she heard in her voice. Even in the dim light, she could see the hurt in Evanthya’s eyes, the color seeping into her cheeks.

“You seemed frightened,” her love said, low and sad. “Whatever you were dreaming seemed to terrify you.”

It did. He’s going to kill you
. Fetnalla stopped buttoning her shirt and sat beside her on the bed. “We all have dreams that
scare us, Evanthya. You can’t tell me that Shyssir has never brought demons to your sleep.”

“Of course, but—”

“It was a dream, that’s all.” Fetnalla kissed her lightly on the lips. “I promise.”

Evanthya gazed at her for several moments, then nodded.

She stood again and finished dressing. “I have to go, but we’ll have breakfast together in the morning. All right?”

“All right.”

She bent to kiss Evanthya again. “I love you,” she whispered.

“And I love you.”

Fetnalla turned and let herself out of the chamber. She could feel Evanthya’s eyes upon her as she opened and closed the door, but she dared not look back for fear that she’d weep. She could almost feel her love’s lips still, warm and soft. But she could only hear the Weaver’s voice.

Time runs short. . . .

He hadn’t said the one thing she feared most. He didn’t have to. She knew it, just as she knew that Ilias would follow Panya into the sky, and a tide once high would soon ebb. When it came time to kill Evanthya, she would have to wield the blade.

Chapter
Nine

Kentigern, Eibithar

e was awake before daybreak, driven from his slumber by visions that made him tremble with rage and terror. Aindreas of Kentigern, the tor atop the tor, duke of one of Eibithar’s great houses, had been
frightened from his bed by wraiths. Again. It almost seemed that his castle was haunted, that the tor had been swallowed by Bian’s realm and that shades walked everywhere. Brienne, his beautiful daughter, whose murder had started this spiral down into misery and hatred and, ultimately, betrayal, hovered at his shoulder. The king’s man, the soldier of Glyndwr, killed in Aindreas’s ducal chambers by Jastanne ja Triln, lurked in corners, silent and grim, his eyes following the duke’s every movement, his very presence an accusation. The duke’s wife, Ioanna, had fallen back into the dark torpor that first gripped her in the turns following Brienne’s murder. She lived still, but as a mere ghost of the woman he once loved.

As always, Aindreas sought shelter in his pursuit of vengeance and his stores of Sanbiri red. But in recent days, he had come to understand that revenge was further from his grasp than it ever had been and that the flagons of wine brought to him by his servants were no longer adequate to ease his mind. Walking through the dimly lit corridors of his fortress with two soldiers in tow, the duke found himself wondering if he wouldn’t be better off taking his own life, and joining the specters roaming about his castle. He dismissed the notion immediately, horrified by the workings of his mind, ashamed of his cowardice. But he also took as a measure of how desperate he had grown that such an idea should even occur to him.

Reaching his presence chamber, taking hold of the door handle Aindreas hesitated for just an instant, suddenly aware of the two men behind him. As soon as he opened the door, the smell hit him like a fist, just as he had known it would. He was amazed that the guards didn’t notice, so strong was the stench. Blood.

The smell had lingered in the chamber since the murder of the soldier Kearney sent to speak with him. He could still see it all so clearly—the way the soldier fell when the Qirsi woman used her magic to shatter the bone in his leg, the glint of firelight on Jastanne’s blade as she raised it to cut open his throat, the man’s blood flowing like an ocean tide over the
floor of Aindreas’s chamber. Jastanne had walked out a moment later, seemingly unaffected by what she had done. And though Aindreas knew that he should stop her, that she deserved to be imprisoned and executed for what she had done, he let her go.

Unwilling to reveal to anyone what truly had happened, Aindreas made it seem that he had killed the man himself, going so far as to pull the man’s dagger from its sheath and drop it in the crimson puddle that had formed around his body.

“He insulted me and our house,” the duke told Villyd Temsten, his swordmaster, when Villyd arrived in the chamber with several of his soldiers. Aindreas’s hands were trembling, and he felt unsteady on his feet, but that served only to make his story more convincing. “When I took offense and ordered him from the castle, he pulled his weapon. I had no choice but to defend myself.”

“Of course, my lord,” Villyd had said at the time, though his tone left Aindreas wondering if the swordmaster believed him. After making certain that the duke was unhurt he eyed the corpse for several moments, his brow furrowed. When next he spoke, he surprised Aindreas with the direction his thoughts had taken. “Under the circumstances, my lord, we might be best served to keep his death a secret. If the king learns that he’s dead, he’ll march against us.”

“That may be.” The duke hesitated. “What would you suggest we do?”

“We should tell the king’s other men that he offended you, that he threatened you with his blade in hand. But we’ll say that you overpowered him and placed him in your dungeons, and there he’ll remain until the king offers a formal apology for the soldier’s behavior. That should give us a bit of time to decide . . . how to proceed from here.”

“Yes, of course. A fine suggestion, swordmaster.”

“That leaves us with the question of what to do with his body.”

Aindreas considered this for but a moment. “Is there anyone in the dungeon right now?”

“No, my lord.”

“Then we’ll put him in the forgetting chamber. Let him molder with the corpses there.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Villyd ordered his men to dispose of the corpse and clean the blood from the duke’s chamber. Then he approached Aindreas again.

“A word, my lord?”

He stepped from the chamber, giving Aindreas little choice but to follow.

“You must understand, my lord,” Villyd said, turning to face the duke once more. “I seek only to understand the circumstances of his death. But I have to ask you: what happened to the soldier’s leg?”

Aindreas just stared him. “His leg?” he managed at last.

“I couldn’t help but notice that his right leg was broken. I’m just wondering how that happened.”

“It . . . it must have broken as we struggled. At one point I fell on top of him.” He tried to grin, failed. “It isn’t that hard to imagine, is it? A man of my size. . . .”

Villyd frowned. Clearly he knew the duke was lying to him. “Yes, my lord.” He paused. Then, “Forgive me, my lord. But I heard talk of a woman—”

“Don’t, Villyd.” The duke rubbed a hand over his face, thirsting for his wine. “Some things are best left unsaid. Kearney’s man is dead—I killed him. Nothing else matters. Do you understand?”

“No, my lord. I don’t.”

At another time, Aindreas might have taken offense. Villyd, though, was not a man given to impertinence, and in this instance he deserved more than Aindreas’s lies. How was the duke to explain? He had betrayed his kingdom, his house, his people. He had tied himself to the Qirsi conspiracy, thinking that they might help him strike at Kearney and Javan. He had given his word in writing—in writing!—expecting that he could turn the renegades to his purposes. That, he had believed at the time, was his path to vengeance. Only recently had he come to realize the truth.

Tavis of Curgh hadn’t killed his beloved Brienne. It galled him to think it—he hadn’t yet found the courage to speak the
words aloud. Even alone in his chambers late at night, drunk on Sanbiri red, wrestling with his grief and fury, he hadn’t been able to give voice to this horrid truth. Yet he knew it to be so. Brienne was a victim of the conspiracy, and—gods be damned for forcing him to confront this truth as well—so was the boy. The conspiracy had been deceiving them all, making them see enemies in the other courts when in fact the white-hairs were the danger. Others had been saying this to Aindreas for the better part of a year now—Javan of Curgh, Kearney, the strange gleaner whom the duke suspected of having helped Tavis win his freedom. But for so long Aindreas had refused to hear them. He still hadn’t found the strength to tell his wife all of this. How could he tell the swordmaster?