“Jov!” I called out with sudden urgency. But my cry was lost in Eliska’s, and the cries from the animal handlers as they started the herd off on its pull, then the screech of stone as the harness tightened around the acid-weakened pillars. I caught another glimpse of the woman, closer this time, coming behind Ectar, her face a stone mask—or was that just the distance?
A great jolt shook the bridge as the supports buckled under the strain. Some of the crowd behind me cheered as it groaned; others merely cried out with wordless grief as the stone cracked and shuddered. The woman came closer still, just behind Ectar.
“Ectar!” I yelled—it came out as a desperate screech, and his head whipped around to find me below. “Behind you!”
He pivoted just as she lunged forward, and they came together in a confused scuffle just before the great stone pillar gave way in an explosion of rock and a drenching spray of water. The great stone pillar gave way in a sudden explosion of rock and a huge spray of water. I must have been the only one looking up instead of down, and saw Ectar wrestling frantically with the woman, their bodies tugging to and fro as onlookers scuttled away.
Then with a final pivot they fell against the wall and the woman’s body bounced over the barrier in one horrible jerky motion. I covered my face, but not fast enough to miss the sight of her plummeting like a rock to the lake below.
Amidst the shouts and screams and roars of the animals and the cracking of the bridge, I looked up again to see Ectar leaning against the edge, hand on his heart, staring down at me with eyes huge in his pale, stricken face.
Feverhead
DESCRIPTION: Common water weed with bulbous roots and serrated, fleshy leaves. All parts of the plant but particularly the leaves are toxic on ingestion or inhalation of fumes from heating.
SYMPTOMS: Short-term overstimulation of the brain and heart, increasing heart rate and causing intense hallucinations. Longer term with repeated doses, interferes with bodily functions including absorption of food, and kidney and lung function. Causes weakness, listlessness, weight loss, shortness of breath, starvation or suffocation, heart failure.
PROOFING CUES: Peppery, hot taste with a metallic aftertaste.
15
Jovan
No one seemed to know what had happened. Shouts clashed around me and the platform was suddenly a press of panicking bodies: some hanging off the edge, trying to see below, some fleeing from unspecified danger. Several figures in physics’ blue sashes splashed into the water, trying to pull out the body. Oku and graspads had broken free of the harness and trampled about, hooting in panic and confusion from the noise.
But my sister stood alone, ten treads clear of the crowd, staring up at us, and I’d heard her voice in the moments before. She’d warned Ectar of something behind him. Which meant Ectar hadn’t initiated whatever had happened here.
I pushed through to where Marco was holding the Talafan noble’s shoulder. “Marco, please,” I said, and the Warrior-Guilder obliged, releasing his heavy grip as he regarded me quizzically. “I saw what happened,” I lied. “Lord Ectar was attacked.”
“We’ll take care of him,” Tain agreed. “I need you down there to keep that crowd back. See if Lord Ectar’s attacker survived the fall?”
Tain’s gaze flicked down to Kalina; he must have heard her, too. Marco nodded. His big form sprang away down the steps, nimble as a child’s, and moments later his voice boomed out, pushing back the approaching gawkers.
“Everyone move off the platform now,” Eliska shouted, trying to herd her Guild members away from us. “Down the stairs, please, and wait with the Warrior-Guilder down there.” She leaned over the opposite side. “Someone get those damn animals under control!”
Finally, a moment of space around us. I kept my voice low. “Lord Ectar, what happened?”
“That woman…” His face blanched. “She pushed into me. Your sister, Credola Kalina, called out a warning. I did not…” He trailed off, looking again over the wall behind him. “I did not mean…”
“Did you recognize her?” Tain asked the question of me as much as Ectar, but we both shook our heads. I had been on the wrong side of the platform and hadn’t seen anything through the press of bodies.
“She came up behind me,” Ectar said. “I do not understand. Was she trying to push me over the edge?”
Kalina, puffing and shaking, stepped onto the platform. “No. She was trying to push you into the Chancellor.” I caught her under the shoulders as she slumped a little. My heart pounded with worry as much as confusion. But she shook me off and moved to the edge of the platform. She pushed at the stones experimentally, and checked the ground. “Here.”
I crouched beside her. “It’s greasy.” I touched the slick substance to my tongue out of habit. “Gadfish oil.” The kind of thing that might have been accidentally spilled on a bridge near a major fishing spot.
“You were standing right behind the Chancellor, on slippery ground. If you’d shoved into him, he could have gone over.”
“And you’d have taken the blame,” Tain murmured. He squeezed Kalina’s hand. “How did you know to warn him?”
She glanced around. We were temporarily alone, above the chaos below. “It was the sewer guard. I saw her following Lord Ectar. I don’t know. I don’t like coincidences.” We exchanged glances deep with shared memory and pain. Oh, Etan. What I wouldn’t have given for his steady presence and years of experience here.
Ectar mumbled a string of Talafan, shaking his head. “I do not understand,” he said again. “What is a sewer guard? Who was this woman?”
“She probably started the rumors herself,” I said, and Kalina nodded. We should have realized Thendra never would have been so careless as to let someone else see the body in the hospital. I looked Ectar over, weary. He had never looked so young. I doubted he had known much of anything. “Your servant Geog tried to bribe that woman into helping him get out of the city via the sewers.” He took a stumbling step back in apparent shock. “He was killed in the attempt.” And almost certainly not by accident.
“I am sorry for not telling you,” Tain said. Someone below called up to us, and he went on quickly, his voice low. “But we didn’t know if you were working with someone outside.”
“We were meant to think that,” Kalina said. “I suspect your man was just trying to get help from your family. You said he was loyal. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guard initiated the so-called bribe herself. Imagine what would have happened if half the city had seen you knock the Chancellor off the platform.”
“They’d have torn him apart.” A chill came over me at the thought of how close we had come.
Another insistent shout from below. “We have to go down,” Tain said. “Lord Ectar, I don’t know who that woman was working for, but I’m sure she wasn’t acting alone. Whoever tried to kill me wanted you to take the blame—and the blame for my uncle’s death, too. I want you to move into safe custody at the Manor. No more training, no more duty on the wall.”
“I’ll take him back to the Manor,” I said. “Stick with the story that I saw the whole thing. No one is to blame Lord Ectar. In fact, he’s the hero who saved your life.”