“Was anyone else with her?” Julienna asked.
“I saw no one.”
“Why did Alastair say you burned the body?” I asked.
“I did not burn her, Lady Daired, but she was burned. That was how I found her.” Teg looked away. “I pray someday I will forget the sight. Her body, charred on the floor of the hold, and nothing else touched.”
My mind raced. Julienna looked at me, a frown creasing her forehead. Burned alive in the hold of a wooden ship, leaving no trace?
Teg poured herself another cup of kaf and drank it in a single swallow. The silver rang faintly as she replaced the carafe with a trembling hand. “I have had a year to think on it, my ladies, and I have come to one conclusion: Sareen Yula smuggled a ghastradi aboard my ship. What other creature could conceal itself so well? Your legends call these creatures living shadows, and that is what I felt aboard my ship. A shadow over everything, though I could not find its source.”
“Ghasts can’t control fire,” I said.
She shrugged. “Perhaps not, but there are many Oldkind creatures that can. You see, I do not think it was a human ghastradi Yula brought aboard my ship. She gave it passage, and it repaid her by taking her life. I can only assume it did not want its errand or identity betrayed.” Teg stood. “That is why I was speaking of the ghastradi in the tavern, Lady Daired. Yula’s killer cannot be the first to arrive on our shores in this manner, but I will do all I can to ensure it is the last. Now I have answered your questions. I cannot help you further.”
The blood hummed in my ears. The pieces were there, falling into place. Late summer of last year, after Midsummer but before Martenmas. Right around the time a certain poor manor had celebrated the arrival of five Riders with a banquet at Hall-Under-Hill. I swallowed, then swallowed again. It made sense. It was the only thing that made sense.
“Thank you for your time, Captain Teg.”
We rose and followed her back through the tiled hallways to the front door. Julienna nearly trembled with the need to discuss this new information, but I shook my head and mouthed, “Wait.”
Teg bowed us through the door. “Sacred Twins show you favor, Ladies Daired. I should prefer it was not necessary, but if it is, know that I will provide what assistance I can in your further inquiries.”
We thanked her again. She shut the door after us, and we heard the sound of bolts.
Mar’esh stood. “Well? Any luck?”
I nodded grimly. The answer danced before me with the cold blue light of the Shadow Minister’s conjured flame. He’d needed transport to and from Els. He’d said as much in his note to Gwyn. That creeping cloak of darkness moving with a mind of its own, hiding him from sight? He’d even shown me his ghast, though I’d not realized it at the time.
A minister of Els, Tully the lithosmith, Wydrick, the Vesh, our heartstones. The threads binding them together stretched back across the ocean, spreading into the spider web of darkness and silence that lay across the desert of Els.
I swung onto Mar’esh’s back. “Head for the Sword and Crown,” I said. “We need the Riders.”
It was a hard climb to the Second Circle, weighed down now by this new, more sharply defined fear. Els had interests in Arle; I’d known that since my first encounter with the minister. After Tully, I was prepared to accept that there was something more sinister than mere profit in the Elsian moneylender’s campaign among the desperate of Arle, but to what end? Heartstones? Why does the Silent Kingdom want heartstones?
Mar’esh climbed over the wall separating the Third and Second Circles, and for a moment I caught a splendid view of the entire city spread out below us, white and yellow and crosshatched with violet where the streets lay in shadow. A flash of dark gray and burnished red-gold danced like sparks above the dull green swath of the Royal Park. Knowing Akarra and Herreki continued their aerial patrol comforted me a little, but nowhere near enough.
“Julienna,” I asked suddenly, “when did Els first suggest opening their ports?”
“Right after”—she ducked sideways and I followed just in time, narrowly missing a rope of laundry—“the Battle of North Fields. I think.”
Convenient. With our forces decimated from the Worm’s campaign, we had not thought to suspect the offer, so unexpected and fortuitous, even from the kingdom we knew nothing about. And why should we? The war was over. No one suspected we’d fought only the first battle. Except you. I gritted my teeth as Mar’esh slipped through a narrow archway and into the broad Avenue of Vines. Perhaps that was why the ghastradi brotherhood had spoken so freely in Hatch Ford and Morianton. They knew you couldn’t stop it.
“Thell!” Julienna cried as a wagon cut in front of us, nearly sending its iron-shod wheels over Mar’esh’s claws. “Watch yourself!”
The driver, a slight woman with a hood pulled low over her face, started to make a rude gesture before catching sight of us. With a gasp she snapped the reins, and her horse trotted out of our path.
“Blast the traffic,” Julienna growled.
“Is it always this busy in this part of the city?”
“Midday, yes.” She pointed up the avenue to a heavily timbered building rising two stories above the street. Leafless trees swayed in front of it next to the battered sign that declared it to be The Sword and Crown. “We’ll walk from here, Mar’esh.”
He smiled and I caught the scent of dragonfire. “I could always clear a path, khela.”
She gave him a look as she dismounted, and he heaved a dramatic sigh.
“Oh, very well. If you insist. Call for me when you’re done.”
Pedestrians with heads bent to the cobbles jostled us from either side, their attention absorbed by their errands. Vendors shouted their wares all around and dust rose underfoot, stinging my nose with the scent of woodsmoke and manure and overripe fruit well out of season. Carts laden with baskets of vegetables and crates of raw wool wove through the crowd, ushered by the shouts and curses of their drivers. One wagon, the one that had nearly run into us, at last gave up and edged out of the crush of passersby. It rolled up to the curb in front of the tavern to wait out the worst of the traffic.
“I wonder how many Riders Alastair was able to gather,” Julienna mused. “Master Doublegray knows all the—”
I gripped Julienna’s arm.
“Aliza? What’s wrong?”
A man was coming out of the narrow alley around the opposite side of the Sword and Crown, a lantern in one hand. He hailed the wagon driver with a furtive gesture and she swung down from her perch, leaving the cart in front of the door to the tavern. The man’s other hand was bandaged. A thrill of horror shot through me.
“Rookwood!”
His head jerked up. His companion spun around, her hood falling away to reveal a tangle of fiery red hair that I’d last seen in the inn at Langdred. Dimly I heard Julienna gasp, and the sounds of wheels, and footsteps, and the shouts of drivers, but all were muted by the thundering rush in my ears, all blood and hatred and heat and terror and rage. A spasm of shock crossed Rookwood’s features as he recognized me, but it passed in a moment, and slowly, like a cat gloating over its cornered prey, he smiled.
It was then that I noticed the first curl of smoke rising from the rear of the tavern.