Brother Qown forced himself not to make a sign of thanks to his god.
“What are you going to do with us?” Brother Qown asked Senera. “We’re no threat to you.”
“Oh, now let’s not be liars to each other,” Senera said, looking back. “But don’t worry. I have no plans to hurt you. We’re just taking a little trip. Someplace far from here where I don’t have to worry about you talking to the wrong people.”
“And why do I get the feeling I ain’t dressed near warm enough for this little getaway?” Dorna muttered under her breath.
Senera’s smile broadened for a moment.3
Brother Qown kept an eye open for any sign of the others—Sir Baramon, Ninavis, the Red Spears. If they were near, they hid very well.
For her part, Senera didn’t try to hide. Like Janel, she’d mastered the art of being a queen in her own kingdom. Her posture screamed idorrá,4 suggested everyone should stay out of her way.
Mostly, they did.
Brother Qown found himself back in the Stavira compound, in the azhock where Senera had met with Sir Oreth. Guards pushed Brother Qown and Mare Dorna into chairs, while the other guards placed Count Janel’s body on a large table.
Senera removed the tournament flag covering the count’s body.
Mare Dorna made a strangled sound and looked away.
Brother Qown almost did likewise, but his professional training took over. Janel had suffered a nasty penetrating injury, running through her torso just underneath the sternum. On anyone else, Qown would have assumed the wound fatal.
But this was Janel. Qown knew her metabolism slowed when she “slept” to the point where she seemed dead to the uninitiated. Could she still be alive?
The tent flap flew back as Sir Oreth entered. He took one step inside and stopped, staring at Janel’s body with an unreadable expression.
Senera frowned at the Joratese knight. “Don’t tell me you loved her.”
“Is she dead?”
“That question doesn’t mean what you think it does,” Senera replied. “In any event, we need to leave, before the wrong people ask the right questions.”
Sir Oreth scowled. “My father will take this personally.”
“Of course he will. What happened today was an insult to his honor. What you can’t protect, you forfeit the right to rule. Isn’t that how it works here?” She smiled at Sir Oreth.
Sir Oreth’s expression turned ugly. “She wasn’t supposed to die.”
“Life is unfair.”
Another man entered the tent then, looking harried. The plump, well-dressed man looked more Kirpisari than Joratese.
“Kovinglass, what is it?”
“Your father is coming this way,” Kovinglass said. “And the duke with him.”
“That didn’t take long,” Senera said. She looked at Kovinglass with pursed lips. “I’ll need you to provide us with an exit.”
“Absolutely not. I can’t just—” Something made him gasp, and the air seemed to catch in Kovinglass’s throat. He grimaced in pain.
“Hurry, sorcerer,” Senera said. She’d her hand raised toward him, and although Brother Qown couldn’t see any obvious spellcasting, he knew magic must be involved. “We haven’t much time.”
She lowered her hand, and Kovinglass seemed to deflate. He caught himself before he fell and, gasping, nodded.
Sir Oreth’s gaze shifted to Brother Qown and then to Mare Dorna. A hateful expression settled there.
Mare Dorna winked at him.
“I’m never going to be able to explain this to my father,” Sir Oreth said.
“If we leave now, you won’t have to,” Senera said. She gave Kovinglass a significant and menacing look. “Do you not understand what hurry means?”
“You don’t tell me what to do, woman,” Kovinglass snapped. Perhaps he had convinced himself whatever spell Senera had cast, just moments before, had been a fluke. Or perhaps his pride wouldn’t let him admit he couldn’t open a gate without a Gatestone.
The soldiers stepped toward him.
As they did, Sir Oreth drew his sword. Instead of moving toward the soldiers, Oreth did something else.
He stabbed Dorna.
The old woman looked at him with dull-eyed shock before sliding off his sword in an untidy little heap on the floor. Brother Qown cried out, but no one paid attention to him, and his outrage had little impact on the outcome. He tried to run to Mare Dorna, but his guards held him back.
Senera’s expression tightened. “Why?” she asked Sir Oreth.
“She knew my father,” he spat out. “Had some leverage on him. I think blackmail, but I could never be sure. In any event, he’d believe whatever lies she fed him.”
Brother Qown tried to center his feelings, tried to slide his vision past the Veil. Impossible. He barely stopped himself from sobbing. He saw the light fade from Dorna’s stare, and unlike Janel, he had no reason to assume Mare Dorna faked her death.
Senera stared a moment at Dorna’s body, her expression unreadable, then she snapped her fingers. “Negrach, Molash, carry the count’s body. Pragaos, take the priest. Kovinglass, why isn’t that gate open?”
Even as Kovinglass attempted to open a magical portal, a quick slicing sound filled the air. A long panel of tent fabric fluttered down.
A split second later, an arrow took Kovinglass through the throat.
The soldiers spread out. Some had shields, but they didn’t know who had fired the shot.
Brother Qown, familiar with Ninavis’s archery skills, had a better idea, but he saw no reason to educate them. As a soldier grabbed him by the elbow, Qown faked a stumble and fell, using his weight to throw both himself and the guard off balance.
Arrows penetrated both azhock and Yoran bodies in equal proportions. Qown heard shouts and the sound of fighting.
“If you want to do something right…,” Senera muttered.
Brother Qown had the terrified thought Senera might have more blue smoke.
But no. She’d opened her own gate to replace Kovinglass’s failed portal. Several azhock walls had fallen by this point, so she’d also done it in full view of a great many Joratese. Whether she’d be considered Blood of Joras or not, she’d just given a lot of credence to Janel’s story.
As Brother Qown stood, a soldier saw him and swung his sword. A passing swing, much like swatting a bug. Qown heard his agolé rip; the sword edge parted skin. He fell backward, in agonizing pain, bleeding.
Another soldier grabbed him. He felt himself hoisted up onto a shoulder.
Senera ushered her men through the portal, including the ones carrying Janel’s body. “Well?” she said to Sir Oreth. “Are you coming or not?”
Sir Oreth scowled at her, but a shout from outside the tent made him leap through the portal. The soldiers followed with Brother Qown. Finally, Senera retreated with her puppy, closing the gate behind her.
By the time the Markreev, the duke, and a band that included Ninavis and Sir Baramon entered the tent, it was empty.
Or rather, it was empty, save for the corpses of several guards, one Gatekeeper, and a single old woman.5
PART III
WINTER’S CHILDREN
32: BY THE SEASIDE