At the last moment, she slid her knife from its leather sheath, stood tall, grabbed the mage’s forehead and bent his skull back, slitting his throat in the same movement. She let the blood spurt over the vegetation and the man shuddered his last, too confused to attempt to cry out in alarm. The Cloak dropped to reveal black, close-fitting clothes and a shaven head. Ren’erei never looked at their faces when she killed this way. The look in their eyes, the surprise and disbelief, made her feel so guilty.
She laid the body down face first, cleaned and resheathed her knife and signalled Tryuun to move.
There was another out there, Erienne and Lyanna were running scared and the day would soon be done.
Denser sat in the fireside chair in the cold study, an autumnal wind rattling the windows. Leaves blew across the dull grey sky but the chill outside was nothing to that inside the Xeteskian mage who sat in Dordover’s Tower.
The moment the Dordovan envoy had arrived on horseback to speak with him and ask him to come to the College, he had known circumstances were dire. The dead weight in the pit of his stomach and the dragging at his heart hadn’t shifted since but had deepened to a cold anger when he discovered that it had taken them six weeks to agree he should be called.
Initially, he’d been disappointed that Erienne hadn’t tried to contact him by Communion but breaks of weeks between touchings weren’t uncommon and now, he realised ruefully, sheer distance might be stopping her even making the attempt.
He folded the letter in his hands and pushed it into his lap before looking up at Vuldaroq. The fat Dordovan Tower Lord, dressed in deep blue robes gathered with a white sash, was sweating from the exertion of accompanying Denser to Erienne’s rooms. He shifted uncomfortably under the other’s stare.
‘Six weeks, Vuldaroq. What the hell were you doing all that time?’
Vuldaroq patted a cloth over his forehead and back on to his bald scalp. ‘Searching. Trying to find them. As we still do. They are Dordovan.’
‘And also my wife and child, despite our current separation. You had no right to keep her disappearance from me for even one day.’
Denser took in the study, its stacks of tied papers, its books and parchments arranged in meticulous fashion on the shelves, its candles and lamp wicks trimmed, a toy rabbit sitting atop a plumped cushion. So completely unlike Erienne, who delighted in untidiness where she worked. She hadn’t gone against her will, that was clear. She’d cleaned up and intended to be away for a long time. Maybe for good.
‘It is not as simple as that,’ said Vuldaroq carefully. ‘There are procedures and processes—’
Denser surged from the chair to stand eye to eye with the Tower Lord.
‘Don’t even think of trying that horseshit with me,’ he grated. ‘Your Quorum’s damned pride and politics has kept me away from the search for my daughter and the woman I love for six bloody wasted weeks. They could be absolutely anywhere by now. What exactly have your searches turned up?’
Denser could see the beads of sweat forming on Vuldaroq’s red, bulbous face.
‘Vague clues. Rumoured sightings. Nothing certain.’
‘It’s taken you six weeks to find out “nothing certain”? The entire and considerable might of Dordover?’ Denser stopped, seeing Vuldaroq’s squinted gaze dart momentarily away. He smiled and stepped away a little, half-turning, his fingers playing idly with a stack of papers. ‘She really took you by surprise, didn’t she? All of you.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘You never had any idea that she might leave or where she might go, did you?’
Vuldaroq said nothing. Denser nodded.
‘So what did you do? Send mages and soldiers to Lystern? Korina? Blackthorne? Even Xetesk perhaps. Then what? Scoured the local woodland, sent word to Gyernath and Jaden?’
‘The search area is large,’ said Vuldaroq carefully.
‘And with all your great wisdom, none of you had the wit to know her well enough to consider in which direction she might have headed, did you?’ Denser tutted, and tapped his head, enjoying, for a moment, Vuldaroq’s embarrassment. ‘No instinct, was there? And so you sent for me, someone who might know. But you left it so very, very late. Why is that, Vuldaroq?’
The Dordovan Tower Lord wiped the cloth over his face and hands before pocketing it.
‘Despite your relationship to both Erienne and Lyanna, they were both under the care of Dordover,’ said Vuldaroq. ‘We have a certain image to uphold, protocols to observe. We wanted them returned to us with the minimum of apparent . . . fuss.’ He spread his hands wide and tried a half-smile.
Denser shook his head and moved forward again. Vuldaroq took a pace back, struck his leg against the seat of a chair and sat heavily, face reddening anew.
‘You expect me to believe that? Your secrecy over Lyanna’s disappearance has nothing to do with risking public embarrassment. No, there’s more. You wanted her back in your College before I even knew she was gone, didn’t you?’ Denser leaned over the sweating face, feeling the warm, faintly alcohol-tainted breath spatting quickly over his cheeks. ‘Why is that, I wonder? Scared she would fetch up at the door of a more capable College?’
Again a slight spreading of the hands from Vuldaroq. ‘Lyanna is a child of utterly unique talents. And those talents must be channelled correctly if they are not to provoke unfortunate consequences.’
‘Like the awakening of a true all-College ability, you mean? Hardly unfortunate.’ Denser smiled. ‘If it happens, we should celebrate.’
‘Be careful, Denser,’ warned Vuldaroq. ‘Balaia has no place for another Septern. Not now, not ever. The world has changed.’
‘Dordover may speak only for itself, not for Balaia. Lyanna can show us the way forward. All of us.’
Vuldaroq snorted. ‘ “Forward”? A return to the One is a step back, my Xeteskian friend, and one talented child does not herald such a step. One child is powerless.’ The old Dordovan bit his lip.
‘Only if you stop her realising her potential.’ What started as a retort finished as a whisper. Denser paced back, his mouth slack for a moment. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? By all the Gods falling, Vuldaroq, if one hair on her head is harmed—’
Vuldaroq pushed himself out of the chair. ‘No one is going to harm her, Denser. Calm yourself. We are Dordovans, not witch-hunters. ’ He moved towards the door. ‘But do find her and bring her back here, Denser. Soon. Believe me, it is important to all of us.’
‘Get out,’ muttered Denser.
‘Might I remind you that this is my Tower,’ snapped Vuldaroq.
‘Get out!’ shouted Denser. ‘You have no idea what you are toying with, do you? No idea at all.’ Denser sat back down in his chair.
‘On the contrary, I think you’ll find we have a very good idea indeed.’ Vuldaroq stood for a while before shuffling out. Denser listened to his heavy footsteps receding along the wood-panelled corridor. He unfolded the letter they hadn’t even found, though it was barely hidden in Erienne’s chambers. Denser had known it would be there, addressed to him. And he had known they wouldn’t find it, just as she had. No instinct.
He read the letter again and sighed. Four and a half years it had been since they had all stood together on the fields of Septern Manse, and yet The Raven were the only people he could possibly trust to help him, depleted as they were. Erienne was gone and Thraun presumably still ran with the wolf pack in Thornewood. That left Hirad, with whom he had had a bad falling out a year before and no contact since, Ilkar who was working himself to an early grave in the ruins of Julatsa and, of course, the Big Man.
Denser managed a smile. He was still the lynchpin. And Denser could be in Korina in a little over two days if he flew all the way. A supper at The Rookery and a glass of Blackthorne red with The Unknown Warrior. A pleasant prospect.
He decided he would leave Dordover at first light, and turned to ring for a fire to warm Erienne’s chambers. There was a great deal of work still to do. Denser’s smile faded. The Dordovans would continue their search and he couldn’t risk them finding Lyanna first. Not that that was very likely, given the contents of the letter, but he couldn’t be certain. And without certainty, his daughter was at risk from the very people Erienne had turned to for help.