“Rienne.” His voice was flat, betraying no surprise or emotion.
The woman stepped into view behind him, peering over his shoulder into the office. She was an elf, pretty in a fey sort of way, with eyes too big for her face and stained with blue makeup. Her lips were full and also painted, the bright red of a streetwalker, and she wore heeled boots and a chest-hugging coat to match. Rienne scowled.
“Rienne?” the woman said. “So she is in Vathirond after all. What a nice surprise!” The red lips twisted into a sardonic smile as she looked at Gaven.
This was nothing like Rienne had imagined.
“Where’s Krathas?” Gaven said.
Rienne stood. “‘Where’s Krathas?’ Hm. It’s good to see you, too.”
Gaven stepped into the room. “I’m s-no, I’m not sorry. What do you expect me to say?” His voice and his face came alive with anger. “The usual pleasantries don’t seem to fit. The last time I saw you, a pack of Sentinel Marshals were dragging me out of the room. You put on quite a show of grief, as I recall. No, Rienne, it’s not good to see you. I didn’t come here to see you, I came to find Krathas. Where is he?” Without waiting for an answer, he stepped into the room and started peering into the shelves that lined the walls.
“Well said, Gaven,” the streetwalker chimed in.
Rienne put her hand on Maelstrom’s hilt and stepped around the desk to face the woman. “Would you leave us? We have a lot to talk about.”
The red lips pouted, but the mocking smirk lingered at their corners. “And miss all the fun?”
Rienne noticed the woman’s hand settling on the hilt of her own sword, which she hadn’t seen before. Perhaps she wasn’t a streetwalker after all.
“We haven’t been introduced,” Rienne said. “I am Rienne ir’Alastra.”
“Yes, I know. The one Gaven was to marry. I gather it ended badly.”
“And your name?”
“Senya Alvena Arrathinen.” Rienne heard the first hint of an elvish lilt in her voice.
Gaven began looking around the desk.
“Pleased to meet you, Senya,” Rienne said.
“Remember what Gaven said about the usual pleasantries?” Senya smiled and blinked her too-long eyelashes at Rienne before dropping the smile and stepping past her into the room. “What are we looking for, Gaven?”
“An adamantine box, about the size of a small book, but thicker. Maybe two small books.”
Rienne felt a surge of fury replace the love and guilt she had felt on first seeing him. “You will not ignore me, Gaven.”
He glanced at her, then bent to open a desk drawer. “I’m not ignoring you, Rienne. I just have nothing to say to you.”
“Well, I have some things to say to you.”
“Go ahead.” He slammed the first drawer shut and slid another one open.
“Don’t you think I deserve an explanation?” she said.
He glanced up at her again, then back down. “No.”
“I think I do. I loved you once, Gaven, and you made me believe you loved me.”
He straightened and folded his arms. His mouth was a thin line as his eyes bored into her. “Funny way of showing your love,” he said, “turning me over to House Deneith.”
“I had to! You were out of control!”
Rienne heard the window behind her shake in its pane as Gaven bent to the desk again. “You had to,” he said with a snort.
“Gaven, please talk to me.” Rienne had lost any shred of control she might have had over the situation, and she resigned herself to pleading with him. “I need to understand what happened-and what’s happening now. What is going on?”
Gaven stood again and looked at her. She saw something in his eyes-pity, maybe, or compassion-and thought for the first time that all might not be lost.
“A great deal has happened, Rienne. I… I do regret your part in it.”
Rienne felt her face flush as tears sprang to her eyes. “I do as well.”
He held her gaze for a moment, then pushed past her to search the drawers on the other side of the desk. “So I think it would be best if you don’t have any part in what’s happening now,” he said. Rienne felt the breath squeezed out of her chest. “You should go.”
He was so close, she could just reach out and rest a hand on his back. For a moment she thought that if she did, her touch would bring everything back to normal, would bring him back to her. Just as she began reaching for him, the elf woman interrupted.
“Didn’t you hear him?” Senya said. “You should go.” Her hand was back on the hilt of her sword.
Rienne walked around the desk and stopped in the doorway. She turned back to Gaven and produced a thick box from beneath her outer cloak. “Is this what you’re looking for?”
Gaven leaped around the desk and snatched the heavy metal box from her. “Krathas gave it to you? Or did you steal it from him?”
“Steal it?” Blood pulsed at her temples as fury surged in her heart again. “I have done things I regret, Gaven-a great many things. But I have not stooped to theft. Or murder.”
“Murder?” Gaven barely glanced up from the box, which seemed to consume his attention. She wondered again what was inside. What was so important to him that he asked Krathas to keep it safe?
Her throat was tight, and she blinked back a fresh wave of tears. It was too much to bear. “Goodbye, Gaven.” She kept her pace tightly under control as she strode out of the room and down the hall, without a backward glance. Only then did she break into a run. She ran down the stairs, out of the building, and into the street, and a shadow detached itself from an alley to follow her. She pulled Maelstrom from its sheath and turned to face this new attacker. The poor fool would bear the brunt of her fury.
“Lady Alastra!” His voice brought her up short, and she lowered Maelstrom’s point. A dwarf hurried up to her, dressed for the neighborhood except for a signet ring that gleamed in the starlight. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” Rienne answered. “Who are you?”
“A friend,” the man said, but his tone was not convincing. “Gaven in there?”
Rienne’s eyes darted back to the building that held Krathas’s office, and that was apparently the only answer the dwarf needed. He turned and ran back the way he’d come.
CHAPTER 23
She’s going to turn us in, you know,” Senya said. “We need to get out of here.”
“In a moment.” Gaven had set the adamantine box on the desk and was on his knees in front of it, carefully manipulating a set of dials set in the front. For twenty-six years he had clung to these numbers, the key to unlocking the one thing he still owned in the world outside Dreadhold. They were the numbers of the Prophecy, and as he set the dials to open the box the Draconic verses danced through his mind: the land of thirteen dragons, three ages of the world, sixteen gods. Then five beasts at war, three shards of three dragons for nine, and another thirteen-thirteen moons. He stared at the numbers before opening the box. “And the Storm Dragon emerges after twice thirteen years,” he whispered. Then he shook his head and opened the box.
Senya gasped, and Gaven felt a chill wash over him. It had been haunting his dreams, but he had not seen it in so many years. Cradled in black velvet, the clear crystal glowed with a purple-black light from a writhing vein of color at its heart. It mesmerized him as it had when he had first found it, and he stretched out a hand to it without consciously willing it. His hand brushed against Senya’s as they both touched its surface, which seemed to jolt them both out of a trance.
“A nightshard?” Senya said, drawing a hand across her eyes. “What’s this all about?”
“It’s called the Heart of Khyber,” Gaven said quietly, “sort of a dark twin to the Eye of Siberys. It-” He stopped, listening. Yes, there were footsteps in the hall, slow and heavy. “They’re here. Come on.”
Gaven shut the adamantine box and spun the dials. Senya moved to the door, still open from Rienne’s departure, and quickly jumped back, taking cover behind the jamb.