Raed turned to her, his face written with anger and rage in equal amounts. “What do I say? By the Blood—what did they do to her?”
“I don’t think our Chancellor is dead at all—but he certainly used this poor girl for something . . . evil.”
“But what do I tell her?”
It was terrible, but all they had to go on was what the girl had seen in her last moments. To tell her the truth of her state would destroy any chance they had of learning more.
When Sorcha whispered the words he needed to use into his ear, the Young Pretender looked at her with horror. After a moment he nodded firmly, understanding that if they lost this chance, his sister might be lost as well.
He sighed, cleared his throat and then looked directly at the poor girl. Sorcha was used to the forms a geist could take, but the shade was most difficult to get used to, being a reflection of a dead person.
“You may have your money and go home,” Raed said, his voice stern with command. “But first you must tell us about the people who brought you here.”
The girl’s empty eyes darted back and forth. “The guards brought me to the palace—I’ve never been here before. There was a lady, she was standing there.” Her finger pointed to the spot by the window. “She was wearing a cloak of gold, so pretty.”
The poor child of the slums must have been dazzled by a woman from the harem—the cloth of gold was the signature of one of the Prince’s consrts.
“She said I was pleasing to the Lady—my purity was a blessing in her eyes.”
“Always with the purity,” Sorcha muttered under her breath, “right up until the moment that they sacrifice the innocent.”
The curtains fluttered, just at the corner of her vision, and suddenly the temperature in the room plummeted. The two living humans’ breath was now visible in front of them, a worse sign still.
“What about the lady do you remember?” Raed’s words tumbled out. “Quickly, sweetheart. I’ll give you that coin.”
The girl’s form flickered, the wind from the window buffeting the edges of the apparition. Sorcha strode to the window, and with some difficulty jerked the shutters closed.
The poor sacrificial shade’s voice was down to a very faint whisper. “She was veiled—but she had the prettiest blue eyes.”
Blue eyes in Chioma were certainly highly unusual. Sorcha, however, didn’t have enough time to feel victorious, because suddenly her Center was overcome with darkness. She cried out, for a second completely blind.
Something raced toward them through the ether like a bull charging. Reflexively she pushed Raed back behind her. Even though nearly blinded, Deacon training told her there was only one type of geist that moved that aggressively. A ghast.
A gleaming set of ethereal fangs, the stench of sulphur, and a wave of nausea confirmed Sorcha’s suspicions. Yet it was not the humans who were the target of the attack.
The shade screamed, screamed louder than she would have when she was killed. Her shadowy hands reached out toward Raed, the person who had promised her the one thing she wanted.
He started forward, as if she were a mortal creature, as if he could do anything to help. The Rossin within him was writhing—inflamed by the danger to his host.
Sorcha grabbed the collar of the Young Pretender’s shirt and yanked him back; he could not be allowed to follow the shade. Her reaction was so swift that he stumbled and fell against the desk. Sorcha was already releasing him and letting the fire of Yevah flare from her Gauntlets. The shielding rune sprang up before them with a roar like a gout of flame.
The room distorted through it, but still enough to see the final howls of the girl’s shade in it. The ghast was outlined in fire, the dark orb of its eye fixing on the Deacon, but then it faded back into the ether.
They stood there for a long moment, panting, Yevah enclosing them. Merrick, by the Bones, she missed Merrick.
Finally and with caution, Sorcha let the Rune fade from her Gauntlet. The gagging smell of rotten eggs and a faint burn mark on the carpet where there had once been blood was all that remained to say anything had happened.
The geist had only come to destroy the shade—not, it appeared, to take on one of the Order. Sorcha let out a ragged breath and turned to Raed.
“Are you all right?”
His face was pale, his jaw set, but he nodded tightly. “Yes, but by the Blood, I have not seen a geist so close without the Rossin”—he cleared his throat—“appearing.”
Sorcha reached out along the Bond, twisting past the coil of Raed’s fears and deeper into the Rossin. The geistlord was close to the surface, and she caught a glimpse ohis great muzzle, yet he did not venture out.
It was not just unusual—it was against the very nature of the geistlord. The Rossin was designed to feast on both human and geist. It reveled in destruction, blood and pain. Now it was something odd indeed: cautious.
“He’s afraid.” Rossin’s shoulders were tense. “Only the Murashev has ever made him feel like this. It . . . it can’t be another one, can it?”
She would have loved to deny it—but she didn’t have enough information to be sure. “I hope not. I am not much of a Sensitive, but I can tell this much—something was controlling that ghast.” She touched the back of his hand lightly, just enough, she hoped. “I think it is about time we went back to the harem and find out how many blue-eyed women it has.”
“I wish Merrick were here.” It was good for him to say it—it meant Sorcha didn’t have to. She merely nodded in reply.
As they stepped out into the corridor, they were almost knocked down by a flood of young bureaucrats racing down the hall. Raed put an arm across Sorcha and held her back against the wall as half a dozen footmen dashed in the other direction.
It was as if they had stepped into a completely different palace from the one they had entered. Something was most assuredly up.
Sorcha exchanged a glance with Raed, and together they grabbed a passing servant who was laden down with a stack of books.
“What’s going on?” The Young Pretender inquired, managing to sound both commanding and kindly at the same time.
“The Grand Duchess,” the boy gasped, struggling to keep his pile straight. “Word came from the port—she is making her way to the palace this very minute.”
Sorcha closed her eyes for a second, trying to balance this new information, but like the boy, she was failing miserably. Zofiya—of all people!
“What is she coming here for?” Raed, who had only briefly met the Grand Duchess when he was saving her in Vermillion, could not possibly comprehend how much trouble the cursed woman was.
“No one knows,” the boy squeaked, trying to tug his arm free and keep his pile from falling on the floor at the same time. “But nothing is prepared, and she may want to see the Kingdom’s tax records.”
“Thank you, lad.” Raed released him, and the poor thing scampered off to join the melee. By the Blood, those papers better be in order!
“It can’t be a coincidence,” Sorcha hissed into her lover’s ear. “Zofiya isn’t the type of person prone to flights of fancy—and there was no word of her visiting here when I left Vermillion. She could have come with the Ambassador, and yet she didn’t.”
Raed closed his eyes for an instant. “The ossuary wasn’t everything, then.”
It wasn’t a question, and Sorcha knew they had better hurry. The Grand Duchess meant not just panic for the palace, she also created a delicious target for whoever was manipulating geists in Orinthal. The mess had just gotten larger.
TWENTY
A Grand Arrival
Zofiya stepped off the dirigible to be immediately bathed in sweat. They had burned four weirstones to get here in th days, and two engineers had been injured replacing the last one. The curious mathematics of this did not matter. She was here as her goddess had commanded.