The man wore his hair shorter than did most Qirsi and the yellow of his eyes was so bright that they almost seemed to glow. He had on ministerial robes and his riding cloak bore the blazon of House Bistari. The first minister.
Cadel was so confident of this that he stepped out from behind the tree trunk. The man’s horse snorted and the minister’s eyes fell upon him. The Qirsi reined the mount to a halt and stared at Cadel for several moments. Then he glanced toward the duke’s body, faced the assassin again, and nodded.
Offering a nod of his own, Cadel turned and started walking eastward once more, resuming his song as he strode swiftly among the silver trees. He had three days to reach Solkara, and though the distance wasn’t great, he could ill afford to be late.
Chapter Two
Solkara, Aneira
Yoli crossed her arms over her chest and stepped as close to the hearth as she dared. She was wearing the heaviest of her black robes and soft woolen undergarments beneath it. But they weren’t enough to keep the frigid air from chilling her frail bones, nor, she soon realized, was the fine fire built for her by the clerics.
She would have given nearly anything to be able to close the doors to the sanctuary. But this was Pitch Night in the turn of Bian, god of the Underrealm, and she presided in the Deceiver’s temple. She could no more close the doors than she could extinguish the candles that burned on the god’s altar.
It was early yet-the sun had been down for but an hour or two-and already she longed for this night to end. The cold, the constant stream of worshipers, the repeated offerings; it was too much. Yoli had never been a proud woman, and she wasn’t above admitting that she had grown too old for this. It was time to pass the robe to one of her clerics. Several of them had been with her for the requisite twelve years, and of those, at least two or three seemed ready to lead the sanctuary. Perhaps when the snows ended and the warm winds returned, she would step aside.
But that did her little good tonight. She had barely managed to warm her hands before she heard the next group of suppliants approaching the shrine, their footsteps and hushed voices echoing off the domed ceiling.
Visitors came to the sanctuary every Pitch Night of the year, for in Bian’s shrine, no matter which turn, one could always meet his or her beloved dead when both moons were dark. In the same way, on the Night of Two Moons in Bian’s Turn, one could encounter lost loved ones anywhere in the land. Pitch Night in the Deceiver’s turn, however, was unique. On this one night, the wronged dead roamed the land. This was not a time when young widows came to cry for their dead husbands, or bereft parents offered blood and shed tears for children taken from them too soon. This was a night of fear, rather than grief, a night when the dead sought vengeance rather than solace. Tonight, the sanctuary opened its doors to mercenaries, executioners, and brigands, healers whose errors had cost lives, and lovers whose passion inflamed their tempers to deadly violence. As prioress of the god’s sanctuary Yoli could turn none of them away, no matter how justified the wrath of their dead. On this one night she thanked the gods for her failing eyesight. For though she could sense the darkness in their hearts, she had no desire to see their faces.
She met them at the altar, raised her knife to spill their blood into the stone bowl, and gave them leave to pass the night within the walls of the shrine. Their dead could still reach them here, but many of them found comfort in the offerings and the presence of Bian’s prioress and the shared company of others who had killed.
The newest to arrive were mercenaries, broad-shouldered men with Caerissan or Sanbiri accents-Yoli had never learned to distinguish the two. They had white hair and their arms, once thick with muscle, had grown flaccid with the years. Still, they endured the edge of her blade stoically before moving off to a distant corner of the shrine to cry like babes at the sight of those they had cut down in some long-forgotten battle.
Yoli watched them walk away from the altar, dark, blurred shapes in the candlelight that vanished into the shadows beyond the flickering flames. She swirled each bowl so that the blood covered the entire surface, then left the altar once more for the warmth of her hearth. She hadn’t gotten very far when she heard another footfall in the shrine.
“Mother Prioress,” a man called to her gently, his voice accented as well.
She turned wearily and forced a smile as she watched him approach. He was tall and lean, with long dark hair. Her eyes were too weak to see more than that. He stopped a few paces from where she stood and bowed to her.
“You wish to offer blood?” she asked.
“I do.”
Something about him-the accent, the gentle voice…
“You’ve been here before.”
He hesitated then nodded. “Yes, several times.”
“Come,” she said, returning to the altar. The bowls were already empty; the god had a mighty thirst tonight.
The man pulled up his sleeve and turned his arm up to her blade.
“Is it my skill with the knife that brings you back?”
“You have a deft touch, Mother Prioress. But it’s your beauty that draws me here.”
Yoli laughed out loud. “Serves me right for asking.”
She thought she saw him smile.
“Is there anyone in particular for whom you would like to make this offering?” she asked.
Once more he faltered, and in that moment she understood the true reason why he returned to her shrine. She shivered again, though not from the cold.
“No, Mother Prioress.”
She nodded, but would not look at him again. Instead she raised the stone knife.
“Hear me, Bian!” she said, closing her eyes. “A man comes to you offering his life’s blood. Deem him worthy and accept his gift.”
She dragged the blade across his arm, catching his blood in one of the bowls. When the bleeding slowed, she placed the bowl on the altar and bound his arm in a clean cloth.
“Thank you,” he said, flexing his arm and examining the bandage.
“You’re free to remain here through the night,” Yoli told him, her eyes fixed on the bowl of blood. “Whatever comfort there is to be found within these walls is yours.”
“Again, my thanks.” He started to turn away, then stopped. “Have I given offense, Mother Prioress?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He stood there another moment, before giving a small shrug and turning again to leave her.
“I know why you come here,” she said, surprising herself.
He halted, appearing to stiffen, but he kept his back to her.
“Shall I leave then?”
The prioress wasn’t afraid, though perhaps she should have been. She was too old and had served the Deceiver for too long to fear death. Besides, this man came to her sanctuary precisely because he didn’t have to harm her.
“I accepted your offering.” She glanced down at the bowl and saw that his blood had vanished. “And so has Bian. You’re free to remain or leave as you choose.”
“Do I have reason to fear you?” he asked.
“You know you don’t.”
After a brief pause, he nodded once. “Then I’ll stay.”
“As you wish.”
Still, he didn’t move. “Mother Prioress,” he said at last, facing her once again. “There is someone for whom I’d like to give blood. Will the god accept two offerings from one man?”
“Of course. Come forward, the knife and bowl await.”
The man returned to the altar, pushing up his sleeve again.
Yoli began to repeat the invocation, then paused. “What is this person’s name?”
“Is that necessary?”
“It’s customary, when offering blood for someone.”
He lowered his arm. “Isn’t there any other way?”
“I suppose if you have this person foremost in your heart and your mind, Bian will know.”
“Thank you, Mother Prioress. That would be… easier.”
She finished the invocation and cut him a second time. Afterward, when she had wrapped the wound, and swirled the blood in the bowl, she looked the man in the eye as best she could.
“You’ve been kind to me,” he said. “Perhaps kinder than I deserve. I won’t forget it.”
“I’ve done no more or less than the god would expect of those who serve him.”
He dropped his gaze. “Of course.”
“If you return here next year, you’ll probably find someone else wearing the robe.”
He looked up again. “Are you ill, Mother Prioress?”
“No, just old.”
“I see. And why are you telling me this?”
She shrugged. “I just thought you should know that there will be a new prior or prioress. I don’t know yet who I’ll choose, but whoever it is will be far younger than I.”
He grinned, and after a moment nodded as well.
“You’re an extraordinary woman,” he said. “I wish I could have met you when you were younger.”
The prioress couldn’t remember the last time a man had made her blush, but she knew that she had missed feeling this way.
“When I was younger,” she told him, “I wasn’t nearly this wise.”
“I’m not sure I believe that.” He paused, his smile slowly fading. “I’m grateful for the warning, Mother Prioress. I’ll keep it in mind next year at this time.”
“Good. In the meantime, I hope that you find some comfort in the shrine.”
“As do I.”
He bowed to her a second time, then left the altar.
Yoli watched him walk off, and despite what she knew of him, she truly wished him peace on this night. She felt certain, however, that there was nowhere he could go to escape the wrath of his dead. She sensed that he realized this as well, that the most he could hope for was the comfort of knowing that the prioress who took his blood was too old and too blind to see his face.
Walking to the farthest corner of the shrine, Cadel couldn’t keep himself from shaking his head. For the second time in recent days, he had revealed far more of himself than he had intended, to a virtual stranger. The duke was dead, of course, and he didn’t believe that the prioress posed any threat, but he had been far too careless. He might have expected Jedrek to act this way, but he demanded more of himself.
He stopped in midstride.
Jedrek. Could that be the problem? For the first time in nearly two decades he was alone, wandering the land and killing without a partner. Could it be that he was lonely? He nearly laughed aloud at the very idea of it. It didn’t help that he now found himself trapped in a dangerous alliance with the Qirsi, but had Jed still been with him, the white-hairs wouldn’t have mattered, at least not as much.
“I need a new partner,” he said, his words echoing off the stone walls.
He glanced around to see if anyone had heard him, then remembered that it didn’t matter. Everywhere he looked, men and women spoke as if to themselves, confronting their dead, sobbing like children, cowering like beaten curs. Even if they had taken notice of him, they wouldn’t have thought it odd to see him speaking to himself.
He hurried on. It wouldn’t be long before his own dead found him and began their torment.
As if prompted by the thought, a wraith appeared before him, indistinct at first, but white and luminous as if it were made of starlight. Slowly the figure took form, like the lead soldier of some great army emerging from a mist. It was a man, tall and lean with white hair and dark eyes. Cadel would have recognized him immediately even without the odd tilt of his head and the dark thin bruise encircling his neck. It had only been three days.
“You know me,” the duke of Bistari said, his voice as bleak and hard as the moors during the snows.
Cadel nodded.
“Do you fear me?”
“No,” he said evenly.
The duke gave a terrible grin. “Of course not. An assassin learns to live with his wraiths. Isn’t that right?”
Cadel shrugged. “What choice do we have?”
Another figure emerged from the shadows, a knife wound in his chest. The marquess of Tantreve. Cadel had killed him a bit more than a year ago, near his castle in northern Aneira.
“What about him?” the duke asked.
“No, not him either.”
Others stepped forward: Fihb of Thorald, his throat slit and his ring finger cut off; Hanan of Jetaya, unmarked save for the contorted expression the poison left on his features; Cyro of Yserne, the angle of his head and the mark on his neck so similar to those of the duke of Bistari that they might have been the twin sons of some cruel demon from the Underrealm. Soon there were dozens of them. Cadel couldn’t even recall all of their names, though he remembered each kill as clearly as he did the garroting of Chago.
Yet, he felt no dread. He could hear worshipers wailing all around him, begging for forgiveness, or at least mercy. He had heard stories of mercenaries clawing out their eyes on the Night of the Dead, so desperate were they to rid themselves of their wraiths. Several years ago he had been in the Sanctuary of Bian in Macharzo when a man used the prior’s blade to take his own life. Maybe the others knew something he didn’t. Maybe he should have been scared. But he had been paid to kill these men, and while they might not have deserved death, they would have been more than happy to pay him to do the same to their enemies had they thought of it in time.
He spent the Night of the Dead in Bian’s Sanctuary each year not out of fear of his wraiths, but rather out of respect for the god who sent them to him. If the Deceiver could bend the rules of life and death in this way, didn’t he deserve such homage? That was why Cadel came.
At least until this year. Because unlike all the years before, there now was one whom he did not wish to meet, one whose face he couldn’t bear to see again. He had known it would be like this almost from the moment he saw her. It had been the middle of the planting season, a warm clear night in Kentigern, but even then he had been prescient enough to know how difficult this night would be because of her. If only he had been hired to kill her father, the fat, foul-tempered duke, or, better still, the spoiled boy to whom she had been betrothed. But Filib of Thorald had already been killed, and Cadel’s Qirsi employers worried that the death of another heir to the Eibitharian throne would raise suspicions. They insisted that it be the girl.