“Are you sure you want Sebrahn there?” asked Seregil.
“What safer place could there be, eh?”
“Safe for Sebrahn, maybe,” Seregil reminded him.
“That may be so, but we won’t stay long, and if we’re really headed for Plenimar then I want a chance to see my family.”
Seregil made a quick sign against ill luck. “Don’t talk like that if you still want to go.”
“I just meant we’d be away longer. Once we’re properly equipped, we’ll call for Rhal. He can meet us back at Silver Bay and take us across.”
“You make it sound easy,” Seregil said with wry grin. “It would be easier if either of us knew how to find Yhakobin’s house. Neither Alec nor I was in any position to mark the way.”
“There’s that farm, where the tunnel from the workshop ends,” Alec mused. “But I’m not sure I could find that again, either. We just sort of ran away and got lost.”
“No, we’ll have to start at Riga, and ask the way however we can,” said Seregil.
“Could we use that tunnel you told me about to get back into the place?” asked Micum. Seregil could tell his old friend was enjoying this. Micum had always liked the planning stage of a job.
“I don’t think we could lift the trapdoor from underneath,” Alec told him. The door was hidden under a heavy anvil in Yhakobin’s workshop. Pulling it up with leverage from above had been hard enough; trying to balance on a rickety wooden ladder and push up from below was probably impossible.
“We could get back out that way, though, if we have to,” Seregil said. “I think we’ll have to figure out the rest once we get there.”
“And hope Illior’s on our side,” added Micum.
“What about Sebrahn?” asked Alec. “It’s not like I can just leave him anywhere. And you’re not going without me!”
“No, it’s probably going to be a two-man job, at least,” said Seregil. “And here we are, at the crux of the Sebrahn problem.”
“Yhakobin is dead. As far as we know, he was the only one in Plenimar who knew what Sebrahn is, right?” Alec pointed out.
Seregil shook his head, frowning. “We’re definitely going to need to talk to Thero about this. Let’s see what he can do for us and proceed from there.”
CHAPTER 12
Family
SEREGIL went alone to tell his sister they would be departing soon. He found her in her sitting room.
“Leaving?” She sank into a chair by the window. “But you only just got here!”
Seregil knelt and took her hands in his. “I know, but Tyrus told us things that have decided our path.”
“Where will you go?”
Seregil hesitated. “I’m sorry, sister, but I can’t tell you that.”
She looked down at him with sadness in her eyes. “Even here, you don’t feel safe?”
“It’s not that. We have work to do.”
“About Sebrahn?”
“Yes.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “When will you leave?”
“We have to prepare for the journey, and there are a few things I need to do. The new moon festival is a week away. We’ll leave sometime after that.”
“A few weeks. After all these years?”
“It’s not what I want, either, Adzriel. But we have to go.”
She sighed and wiped her eyes. “I see. Well, I’ll provide anything you need for your journey, but promise me that you’ll hunt with me at least once?”
Seregil smiled as he rose to his feet. “I won’t leave until we do.”
Seregil kept his word. By day he, Micum, and Alec went hunting, dancing, ice fishing, and on sleigh rides—whatever Seregil’s sisters asked. Alec and his newfound friends spent hours at their shooting and his quiver was already heavy with shattas, some made of silver and one of gold he’d won cleaving a birch wand at twenty paces. Kheeta still teased him about using magic, but it was only in jest.
The night found them at Akaien’s forge in the village, where Seregil painstakingly set about making two sets of lock picks and other small instruments they needed for nightrunning.
Stripped to their trousers under leather aprons, Seregil and his uncle heated thin steel rods while Alec or Micum pumped the bellows. The lean muscles in Seregil’s bare arms stood out as he brought the small hammer down on the anvil, sparks spraying off the red-hot steel, shaping it to his needs. Some of the picks were straight; others had angled tips for more complex locks. Some were slender and supple as a branch tip—just the thing for a Rhíminee triple crow lock; a few were half as thick as an arrow shaft for the large locks that secured prisons, the gates of fine villas, the grate locks in the Rhíminee sewers, and other interesting places.
Akaien looked on with interest, taking a break from his own work. “So this is what all my training with you came to? Little hairpins?” But he laughed as he said it, and Alec saw the pride in the man’s eyes.
Alec, meanwhile, tried his hand at carving the special ones out of long goat leg bones. These they used on the tiny locks of jewel cases and locked books. The bone was strong enough to turn the lock, but less likely to leave telltale scratches.
It took four nights to make everything they needed. On the third, Alec found himself alone with Akaien, waiting for the others. Alec liked the man a great deal—there was something of Seregil about him.
Perhaps that was what prompted him to ask a few questions. “From the way Seregil speaks of his father, you two must not have been much alike.”
Akaien was quiet for a moment. “Well, Korit was the elder son, and more serious by nature. That’s probably why he ended up being khirnari. He was a good one, too. He had real vision and a way with people.”
“Except with his son?”
“Perhaps if Korit had lived, and Seregil had grown up with him, they might have come to understand each other.”
“Seregil told me you’re like a father to him.”
Akaien smiled at that. “Things might have gone differently for him if he had been mine. Korit was the serious, responsible one; I took after our father, and liked my fun too well. It was our mother Korit took after. She groomed him for khirnari, and he was elected when he was still a young man. But you were asking about Seregil. His mother, Illia, was the light of my brother’s life. She was a lovely woman, with a laugh that made everyone who heard it join in. Seregil took after her in more than looks. If he hadn’t had the life he has, I think he’d be more like her.”
“It’s sad, losing his mother before he even knew her,” Alec murmured. Another thing we have in common.
“The time for childbearing is short for Aurënfaie women compared with their long lives,” Akaien explained. “She was too old when she carried Seregil, and died giving birth to the son they both wanted so badly, after having four girls already. Korit never forgave himself.”
“But if that’s true, why didn’t he love Seregil for being like her?”
“Seregil thinks his father blamed him for his mother’s death. Korit didn’t, but that didn’t bring her back, and his heart never really healed. Seregil would be no different if he lost you. I could see that the minute I laid eyes on you two.”
Just then they heard Seregil’s voice, and Micum laughing at whatever he’d said.
“Thank you, Uncle,” Alec said, emboldened by the confidences Akaien had shared, “I love Seregil more than I can say. I promise you, I’ll always take care of him.”
Akaien gave him a grin much like Seregil’s. “I know that.”
When the tools were finished, Seregil turned tailor, sewing the canvas rolls with thin pockets to carry the tools in a small, compact bundle.
Alone in their room, Seregil rolled and tied one set and tossed it to Alec. “Now we’re ready for anything.”
The following afternoon Mydri sent word that she wanted to speak with Alec—alone.
She had a small house of her own on the south side of the clan compound. With Sebrahn at his side, Alec knocked softly at her door.
She apparently had no use for servants, for she opened it herself. “Don’t stand there gawking on the mat. Come in,” she ordered brusquely, although she was smiling.