Once the Covârleasa—Trusted Advisor—to Most Aged Father, Fréthfâre was a fanatically loyal anmaglâhk and a sometime cunning strategist. Dänvârfij had never wanted the crippled Covârleasa included in this current mission, and her doubts grew with every passing night.
Fréthfâre’s appearance was somewhat unique among the an’Cróan. Her hair was wheat gold, not the white blond of their people. It hung in waves instead of silky and straight. In her youth, she had been viewed as slender and supple. Approaching only middle age, somewhere shy of fifty years, she appeared beyond such a reckoning and almost brittle.
“Tea?” Fréthfâre repeated.
“It is likely gone,” Dänvârfij answered. “I will make more.”
She went to the room’s small hearth, built above the one below on the inn’s main floor, and set a blackened kettle in the remaining coals.
Fréthfâre nodded and then coughed, and a cough turned to a spasm as she grimaced. She buckled even more where she sat and pressed a hand against her abdomen. That hand remained there until her shudders ceased.
Dänvârfij watched this in silence. Her concern was not all for her companion’s state.
Fréthfâre had aged quickly in the past two years, since the night that Magiere had run her sword through the Covârleasa’s abdomen. Fréthfâre had spent long moons recovering under the constant care of healers, but she had been crippled for life ... however long that would last. Her suffering only fed her hatred and obsession for the one who had done this to her.
Dänvârfij knew passionate emotion had no place in service to a purpose. But there had been nights since Hkuan’duv’s death when she doubted even herself in this.
“Would you prefer the mint,” she asked, “or savory?”
“The savory,” Fréthfâre whispered with effort. She finally settled back in her chair, her breaths coming quick and shallow. A sheen had developed on her strained face.
Lately, they spoke of nothing of import, if at all. There was little to say until sound information had been gained to fulfill their purpose.
When the water began to hiss, Dänvârfij scalded leaves in a clay cup and held it out. Fréthfâre nodded and took it, and Dänvârfij prepared a cup for herself. It would be another long night of waiting.
“I know,” Fréthfâre said. “I tire of this, too. But we will have our revenge.”
There the truth slipped, and Dänvârfij said nothing. She returned to watching and poking at the floating leaves steeping in her own cup.
Fréthfâre seemed driven only by a need for vengeance. The crippled Covârleasa should never have been assigned to this purpose, this mission—and likely she had not. At a guess, she had demanded it of Most Aged Father.
Dänvârfij would not succumb to rage or hunger for revenge, though she had reason for both. Instead, shame and sorrow burned inside her. She had failed Most Aged Father once. She had lost a secret treasure of her own in Hkuan’duv. And her caste was tearing itself apart.
When Most Aged Father had asked her to prepare a team and sail to a foreign continent, she had not hesitated. Their purpose was direct and clear on the surface: locate Magiere or Léshil or the tainted majay-hì, learn anything possible concerning the mysterious artifact they had recovered, and then eliminate all three.
She had balked at the thought of killing a majay-hì until Most Aged Father convinced her the one the humans called Chap was an abomination, like the pale-skinned monster he guarded. She would always follow Most Aged Father’s counsel—as had Hkuan’duv.
“Perhaps we could go over the city’s layout again?” Fréthfâre suggested. “Has anything further been added in scouting?”
“Nothing,” Dänvârfij replied, though she would take any excuse to fill the nagging silence. “I will get it just the same.”
As straightforward as their purpose was, its execution had proven anything but simple. Even as the rift among her caste had grown, she could not have foreseen—
The window opened from the outside.
“Fréthfâre,” a voice breathed, as someone climbed into the room.
Dänvârfij was not alarmed and calmly turned her head. She knew the sound of every member’s movements, like a second voice. But when Én’nish landed lightly on the floor, she wore a makeshift bandage around her upper left arm. Three tall forms—Rhysís, Eywodan, and Tavithê—followed after Én’nish before Dänvârfij’s stomach tightened and she rose to her feet.
Rhysís was bleeding from a head wound, and Tavithê took a moment to check it. Tavithê’s cloak and tunic had been slashed open across his chest, and a slow stain spread into the forest gray cloth at his shoulder.
Wy’lanvi and Owain were missing.
“What happened?” Fréthfâre demanded.
“Where are Wy’lanvi and Owain?” Dänvârfij asked.
Én’nish hesitated, as if not knowing which question to answer first. She was another team member for whom Dänvârfij held great reservations. The smallest and youngest of the team had a blemished history among the caste. She had even been cast aside by her own jeóin.
Én’nish was rash, overrun by her own emotions of hatred, born from an even deeper grief than Dänvârfij could truly imagine. All here knew that Én’nish had mated with her bóijtäna—prebetrothed—before their true betrothal and subsequent bonding. As with all an’Cróan, intimacy linked two people in a way that any ritual of bonding could never represent. It was why a period of waiting was always required before commitment or the actual pairing. Én’nish would now suffer the loss of Groyt’ashia like a sickness that could never be cured.
It had been Fréthfâre who had brought Én’nish back into the caste. All Én’nish wanted, her whole reason for hounding Fréthfâre to be included, was the blood of Léshil.
“Answer—now!” Dänvârfij commanded.
“Wy’lanvi was in position, but he never appeared.” Én’nish said quickly. “Owain circled back to look for him, in case—”
“Position?” Fréthfâre cut in. “For what?”
Én’nish shook her head hard, as if to clear it. “We spotted our quarry. All three of them, leaving the guild’s castle.”
“Here?” Dänvârfij said, taking a step toward Én’nish. “In the city?”
Én’nish’s eyes shifted several times to Fréthfâre and back before she answered.
“Yes. We decided to follow. When they headed into one of the more barren, decrepit districts, it was decided to try to take them before—”
“It was decided? You mean you decided!” Dänvârfij returned, for she knew how this had truly come about. “And when were you given lead in our purpose? You were to watch ... and report!”
“Dänvârfij, enough,” Fréthfâre said. “Continue, Én’nish.”
Én’nish turned fully to Fréthfâre, ignoring Dänvârfij.
“We thought to capture one or more of them—tonight—and bring them to you,” Én’nish went on. “Our position was as good as could be ... in a narrow, nearly deserted street. Four of us blocked the street’s ends, prepared to drive them into a side path, where Wy’lanvi would cut them off. Owain stayed on the rooftops to cover us, but ...”
She trailed off, and Dänvârfij knew what she was about to say.
“Again ... Brot’ân’duivé,” Fréthfâre whispered.
Dänvârfij briefly closed her eyes; Owain would never find Wy’lanvi.
When they had left their homeland, they had been eleven in count. Dänvârfij had counseled Fréthfâre in choosing three trios of their caste. Never before had so many of the Anmaglâhk taken up the same purpose together. Their task had been that dire in the eyes of Most Aged Father, who greatly feared any device of the Ancient Enemy remaining in human hands.