I closed my eyes and considered the state of my health. Wriggled my hands and feet, stretched my neck a bit, and started drawing my knees up underneath me as well as I could with a body crumpled under me. "I think I'm all right. Bruised"—my belly felt as if one of the brick walls had been dropped on it—"but not bleeding."
He offered me his hand, the back of it the color of good earth, the palm lighter. Je'Reint.
I accepted his help, as I was tired of the paving stones digging into my face and Zhid bones poking everywhere else. And I wasn't sure I could get up on my own.
We stood alone in the center of the sloping lane. Two men hefted the bodies of dead Zhid onto horses. A man stood guard at either end of the lane, preventing anyone from happening across the scene. Je'Reint slung his helm on his saddle and watched as I confirmed to my amazement that the blasts of power from the Zhid had not even broken my skin.
"We'd ridden out to escort you into the city," he said, shoving his damp, matted hair out of his eyes. It hung almost to his shoulders. "After this week's raids, the prince was concerned about the Lady traveling with so little protection. But obviously we weren't watching the right roads. Who would have expected you to take back alleys?"
"Someone did." Someone had directed us to this very lane. "The Lady's consiliar . . . how is he?"
"A little rough—a stab wound to his back—but he'll live. Your horse seems to have trampled his assailant at a critical moment. The consiliar was fit enough to ride and chose to remain with the Lady."
Nothing conclusive about Na'Cyd, who once was Zhid. I clucked to summon Stormcloud, who stood fidgeting and blowing alongside Je'Reint's mount. "So how did you find us?"
"We were right on your heels. A young woman witnessed the initial attack and rode for help. Said she had followed the Lady here from Gaelie and insisted that Prince Ven'Dar be notified. Persistent enough to see it done. I didn't get her name." A good thing Je'Reint's eyes were not knives. His examination would have flayed me. "She said the Lady's 'lover' traveled with her."
Sefaro's daughter. That would take some thinking about when I had time and sense to do it.
Happy to have something to hold on to, I fondled Stormcloud's ears and stroked his neck. He was still quivering. So was I, but I didn't want Je'Reint to notice. Five years since I had killed a man with my bare hands. Such an elemental thing. Power for the taking.
"Well, if you ever introduce me to the young woman, I'll have to thank her. And I'll thank the prince for sending you to watch over—"
"Here, my lord. We've found something with one of the bodies." One of Je'Reint's men tossed him a small leather bag. As the soldier returned to his fellows, Je'Reint dumped the contents into one hand: four silver rings, a bracelet made of entwined strands of gold and silver, and a long silver neck-chain with a plain circle pendant.
"Those belong to the Lady," I said, as I moved slowly to Stormcloud's middle, my belly protesting at the thought of getting up on his back.
Je'Reint lifted a hand to stay me. "While we're here alone, I need to speak with you."
Needed to, perhaps, though he definitely did not want to. But I welcomed a longer time to recover. I laid my forehead on the saddle for a moment while a wave of dizziness passed. "Go ahead."
Piece by piece he dropped D'Sanya's jewelry into the leather bag. "Three days ago thirty to forty Zhid attacked a settlement and a supply caravan. Witnesses swear that the Zhid attacked in formation. Not a ragtag few after the same prize, not undisciplined warriors joined together for a raiding party only to kill each other over the spoils, but small marshaled bands that hit swiftly, took only adult male prisoners, and retreated. How is that possible?"
"Marshaled . . ." Organized Zhid acting under tactical command. But the Zhid had never devised their own tactics in Zhev'Na. Every direction, every initiative, every plan had come from the Lords.
I glanced up at Je'Reint, sure he must be mistaken. But his demeanor stated that he was not merely purveying rumor.
"In all the years we fought the Lords, we were never able to extract strategic or tactical information from captive Zhid," he said. "No mind-bending or thought-reading or arcane investigation revealed anything of how orders were passed. Ever. We couldn't even distinguish between commanders and the lowest warriors." He stepped closer and lowered his voice. "You were one of them. They trained you to command their warriors. How did you do it?"
I had trained as a commander for months, and yes, eventually the Zhid had obeyed my voice commands with the same ferocious, terror-laced loyalty they yielded to all their brutal leaders. But I had never learned the final piece—how the Lords deployed so many thousands so seamlessly. "I don't know. I never commanded in the field. Only in training."
"Has someone else learned how to do it? How could they? Do you believe—? Are the Lords truly dead? We must know what enemy we fight. We've heard rumors of thousands of Zhid. If you are what you claim, then you must tell what you know."
"I told you I don't know anything."
A blatant lie. As I had told my father, I did know the information Je'Reint wanted. Or rather, I could know it, if I chose—as I could know everything the Lords had known, everything they had done, every depravity and despicable plot that three beings of corruption had been able to devise over a hundred lifetimes. Even the truth of the Lady. The sum of their memories lived inside of me like another organ, another stomach or heart, only rotted and loathsome.
I hated that it was so. Feared it, as I feared nothing else in my life. To touch their memories was to use that rotted heart to pump poison into my veins, weakening the barriers between the person I wanted to be and the vile creature of power I had once been. I could not afford to pity these Dar'Nethi blithely going about their summer-evening entertainments, or to regret the families who had moved out into the Wastes believing their prince and their small bands of warriors could root out these few Zhid stragglers, because I dared not uncover those memories. Certainly not with the smell of blood on me. Not with the feel of snapping necks still vibrating in my fingers. "I can't help you."
"Or is it that you won't?" He moved in close, where I could feel his breath on my cheek and smell his sweat and leather. ."What is your purpose here? To unmask the Lady? You've gone far beyond that. 'Her lover,' this woman said. Does the prince, your father, know how shamefully you use a kind and generous heart?"
Shoving past the big Dar'Nethi, I gripped the saddle rim and Stormcloud's mane and swung into the saddle, anger muting my body's complaints. "You chose to remain ignorant about this matter. Master Je'Reint, and have clearly been successful. I don't have to tell you anything."
"Does your father know that you kill to protect her . . . and how you kill? And is that more evidence of your suspicions or a sign of your good heart or is there some other method in your deeds? Tell me why these Zhid magics left you walking, young Lord, even though you put on this impressive show of killing. Did you not find that strange?"
I clucked to Stormcloud and rode down the lane and through the thinning crowds of the grand commard to the palace gates. The enjoyments of the evening had evidently continued unabated, only the late hour sending the people of Avonar home to their beds, unaware that five Zhid had attacked their princess a hundred paces from their city's heart.
My fury at Je'Reint's self-righteous accusations had not robbed me of simple reason. The dangers that concerned him were real, and his last point was well taken. The Zhid enchantments were not designed to kill. Why? Je'Reint believed the Zhid wanted to protect me . But evidence indicated that D'Sanya had slain two Zhid before wandering into the Gardeners' camp. She swore she could not remember how that had occurred. It seemed clear that these Zhid tonight wanted to take D'Sanya alive. Take her back.