The High King’s witch held an ancient red book with one hand, vertically, like a ledger pressed into her thigh. The faded black sigil decorating its cover delivered a jolt to the center of Taelin’s head.
Taelin looked away.
In the other hand, Sena twirled a fountain pen languorously across her thumb. She was radiant, powerful and relaxed. Taelin began to understand by increments that this was not likely the place or manner in which Sena took most of her appointments. This had been blocked out, carefully. There were no curios. No distractions. Even the anemic lemon-chrome glow of a tiny window, which must have been unique to this quarter hour, kindled a halo around the witch’s head and enflamed the highlights presumably burnt there by the sun. Taelin got the feeling that everything had been perfectly timed and staged.
Finally Sena stopped spinning her pen. “Lady Rae, would you care to sit down?”
Taelin managed to keep from curling her lip. “No … your majesty. I wouldn’t dream of taking your stool.”
Sena smirked, showing spare amusement. “You don’t have to call me that.”
“What would you like to be called?”
“Sena.”
Taelin watched the woman tousle her curls. Pure swagger.
Then Sena’s neck extended slightly in Taelin’s direction. A feral cat catching the wind. “You smell like apples.”
Taelin laced her fingers. “Strange. Your priest said the same thing.”
“My priest?”
“I assume he was a priest. I visited your temple, what? Over a week ago now, I think.”
“Really?” Sunlight basted Sena’s naked waist as she leaned back on one arm. “What did you think of that?”
“It didn’t make me feel like I think a temple ought to make you feel. Let’s put it that way.”
“Haugh.” Sena pushed her tongue into her upper molars as she made the pensive sound. “Well it isn’t exactly a temple.”
Taelin sneered. “Then what is it?”
“It’s a colligation.”
“My father is an attorney. I—”
“I know who your father is. He used to come to Sandren.”
Taelin laughed. “No offense, Miss Iilool, but I doubt you and he were in the same circles back then.”
“Well, it was only a few years ago. Summer of ’59? Bishop Wilhelm introduced us. I had dinner with your father one night at the Black Couch.” She smiled thinly.
Taelin’s face turned hot as a lightbulb. “What are you suggesting?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just telling you that I know your father.”
“I doubt it. My father is a good man.”
“Is he? I’m glad to hear it. You asked about the colligation?”
“No, I don’t think I did.”
Sena smiled.
“I’ve come to build a mission in your city … and to speak with you … candidly.” Taelin took a breath, ready to begin her rehearsed admonition.
“It’s all right,” said Sena. “You’re not the first impassioned clergy that’s wanted me to publicly disavow all this”—she stirred the air with her finger—”blasphemy.”
Taelin’s mouth twitched. The witch was hard to read.
Sena grinned, not maliciously. “You are, however, the first I’ve granted an audience.”
“Thank you,” stammered Taelin. “Thank you. I … which I, appreciate … of course.” She wrung her hands behind her back. “Why did you grant one to me?”
“Someone from the south put in a good word for you. And besides, you were called here by Nenuln, weren’t you?”
“What? Yes.” Taelin had just noticed the faint glimmers that decorated Sena’s waist, tracing the muscular hollows as if a spider had crawled crazy over her skin. She was so distracted by the designs that the question hit her broadside. “Have you? I mean … who is it that you know? From the south?”
Sena’s eyes moved from where they had been boring holes in one of the room’s featureless walls and centered on Taelin’s face. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Does your goddess love me?”
Taelin fumbled mentally. Finally she said, “Yes. I mean…”
“Does she love me as much as you loved Aviv … or your son?”
Taelin’s blush returned. Unfair!
But before she could respond, Sena’s cool, gravelly voice scraped over her. “Let me tell you what you were sent here to learn.”
“I wasn’t sent here to lear—”
“You were sent to learn that I am, in fact, going south. I’ll be passing over Mirayhr, over Skellum, near midnight on the twelfth of Tes. You will be unable to stop me there and I will proceed to Sandren. Send whomever you want. The Stairs will kill them.”
Taelin felt Sena’s words dissolve reality; the logic of the moment was crumbling into chunks. What’s going on? What is she talking about?
“From the Stairs, I descend toward Bablemum. If you’re still following me after that, I’m afraid I’ll have to drag you through the jungle.”
She’s insane. Of course … Taelin felt the Duchy of Stonehold as a political entity wrap itself around her, more sinister and entangling than before. This wasn’t about bringing some power-hungry shakedown artist to repentance. That clearly wasn’t who Sena Iilool was. No. Sena Iilool was crazy. Maybe the king too, if all of this was true. Or maybe … what if? Maybe this was all an act.
Taelin fixed Sena with a dubious scowl. “I’m sorry … I don’t…”
“Shh.” Sena put her finger to her lips. “They’ll hear you.”
“Who will hear me?”
Sena unleashed the perfect white smile from her billboards. “It belongs to you now. Don’t let them take it.”
Enough nonsense! “Nenuln sent me here to—”
“Nenuln sent you here as part of an agreement.”
Taelin gave up. “I think I should leave.”
“Only because you’re frightened and you don’t know what to say.”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“I’ll keep you safe, Lady Rae. Don’t worry.”
“Stop it. Stop it!”
“Better than your grandfather’s amulet…” Sena held out her hand, sideways, fingers extended ambiguously. Whether she was pointing toward it or asking for it, Taelin couldn’t tell. Her hand shot up to protect the demonifuge. “No! You can’t know that. It’s impossible that you know about that!”
“Impossible? What about the scroll from the Valley of Dust that you translated so painstakingly out of Veyden: Gnor-ak Gnak Zith’yn Auth-ich Aubelle Aubiel Gnak Naen’Uln Thu-ru Ryth-ich El? And what it means to you is: ’In the darkness there are many lights; Nenuln is One that will end an Age of Sadness.’”
“Stop it. Stop it!” said Taelin. “You can’t know that. It’s impossible! Your holomorphy…”
“Shh—” Sena hushed her again, gently, as if tending an infant. “We aren’t enemies.” Then she spoke in the Unknown Tongue, which Taelin recognized mostly from those short examples of blasphemy handed out by priests at the church her parents attended, two or three phrases uttered as warnings, as examples of what to fear. The dark glottal sounds popped from Sena’s throat with the sound of volcanic glass cracking.
Taelin clenched her grandfather’s demonifuge as the panicked sunlight withdrew from the window. A thickening cocoon of shadow concresced over Sena’s body.
Darker. Sena became a spectral pit of blackness straddling the stool. Instead of sunlight, a halo of dust or smoke obscured the shape that might or might not have been what Taelin was looking at. Taelin felt her eyes being pulled out of her head into the relentless gravity of the thing. Thin platinum lines, like starry charts, fluoresced within the blackness and a pair of burning eyes opened: white and blue.