Authors: Barbara Ann Wright
“You’re right.”
She clapped him on the shoulder, glad to turn her passion to planning. “Whoever he is, I know he won’t measure up against you in the end. If you weren’t the most powerful, my father never would have chosen you as his pyradisté.”
“Thank you. That’s good to hear now and again.”
“No sarcasm, Crowe. We’re on the right track. Don’t burn out now.”
“I’ll get what I can.” He opened one of the drawers and lifted a pyramid necklace. “Here, I stayed up making this last night.”
“What about the one I’m wearing?”
“Supposed to be temporary. I’d like to see you break through that!”
Katya traded one necklace for the other. “I was happy to break it, you know.”
“Yes. She’s a beautiful girl.”
The thought of Starbride almost drove Katya’s anger away, but she set her jaw, needing to hold on to the feeling for the time being. “I’ll keep her safe.” Certain they’d carry out the tasks she’d given them, Katya stepped back into the secret passageway and headed for her parents’ rooms, determined to keep them informed.
But what to tell Starbride? She had the sinking suspicion that Starbride wouldn’t forget the promise of information. The next time they met, she’d want answers, and Katya was quickly learning that all the romantic gestures in the world couldn’t stand between her and a secret. Once the Order had figured out the puzzle, Katya could pick and choose what would steer Starbride away from the Order itself. It was a perilous dance, and all she could hope for was that she wouldn’t have to lie
too
much.
“Enter!” her father called when she knocked. He bustled around the sitting room with a leather folio. “Ah, Katya, you haven’t seen the wheat crop report, have you?”
“It’s not my day to watch it.”
Da simply blinked at her. “Why would it be?”
“It’s a joke, Da. Where did you last see your report?” She glanced at the various papers lying about the room.
“How the deuce should I know? My new clerk’s a menace. ‘Where’s the wheat crop report?’ I ask him, and do you know what he says?”
Katya shook her head, but Da didn’t seem to expect her to keep up an end of the conversation.
“‘In your office, Majesty?’ Just like that, with a question mark at the end, as if
unsure
. Can you believe the man? As if I would keep such an important document that I
must
read in my office, for spirits’ sake!”
“No, of course not. Anyone who knows you should know that you hate to sit and read.”
“What are clerks for if not to keep up with these mountains of paper always flocking around me? If I set a piece of paper down, they’re supposed to pick the damn thing up and keep it until I need it again!” He tossed a pillow aside.
Katya watched the pillow bounce across the floor. “Where is he now?”
“I sent him to the kitchens, told him to count all the spoons, and report back. That’ll teach him a lesson!”
“And now you don’t have a clerk.”
“Bloody useless.” Da stomped over to a small serving table and glared at it. A moment later, he glanced up at Katya with a confused look on his face. “Something you wanted to say to me, was there, my girl?”
“We caught a crooked groom who doesn’t even know he’s a traitor.”
Da sank into a chair as Katya told him all about it. At the end, he jumped up to pace again. “How the deuce do you hang a man who doesn’t know what he’s done?”
“You don’t.”
“Sounds damned odd, pretending to blank a man’s mind. From everything my brother used to say, blanking it wholesale would be easier. Of course, he was always a little too heavy-handed with the mind blanking.”
Katya wished they had Uncle Roland to help them. She didn’t know how his skills had stood up to Crowe’s, but two pyradistés would be more useful than one. “I don’t know if the traitors wanted us to find this groom, but if they did, maybe they wanted to keep our focus on him.”
“A scapegoat, eh? But where else can you focus?”
“The Pyradisté Academy. I’m tired of following these people. I want to get ahead of them.”
“Crowe’s your access there.”
Katya thought of Crowe’s haggard face. “He may be doing too much, Da. His skill is the same as always, but he doesn’t have as much energy as he used to.”
“He is getting on in years, my girl. Time will soon come when you’ll have to choose another, and Crowe can stay on as my advisor and pyradisté.”
“That would kill him, Da.” Katya squirmed at the thought of Crowe’s betrayed expression.
“Then get him some help.”
“He would mercilessly bully any sort of help from within a jealous funk.”
“Ha! Once this current investigation passes, start looking into the Academy yourself, and find someone younger for the Order.”
Katya nodded, still reluctant, but she couldn’t argue with her father once he’d made up his mind. She joined his search and found what he was looking for under a flower arrangement on a side table.
“Right where I left it!” Da winked as he took the report. “Well, I’ll read this on my way to a meeting with the artists and artisans guild. They want funding for a statue or some such.”
“How do you keep all this stuff straight in your head? Crop reports before statues?”
“Simple. I don’t pay attention to most of it and let those involved argue it out; I step in if there’s a stalemate. Otherwise, it would be too oppressive. Plus, by keeping my mouth shut and looking wise, everyone feels they have a say in how things are run
and
thinks I knew the outcome from the beginning.”
Katya frowned. “But if you don’t speak up,
don’t
they have a say?”
“Of course, but they’ve still got to convince everyone else that their way is the right way. And most of them are satisfied with small decisions, and they leave the big ones to me.” Katya continued to frown, and Da clapped her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it unless you have to, my girl, and right now, you don’t have to.”
“That’s so. Where’s Ma?”
“The deuce if I know. Probably hip-deep in plans for Reinholt’s arrival.”
Katya suppressed a scowl. The days were ticking away until her brother’s visit, before which she hoped to have this newest business sorted. She prayed that Crowe got some new information soon.
As if summoned by her prayers, Crowe burst through the door. “Not Longside!”
Katya and her father stared at Crowe as he glanced between their two faces. “Majesty,” he said to her father and bowed.
“Crowe, what are you babbling about, man?”
“Not Longside?” Katya asked.
Crowe beamed and rubbed his hands together as if he couldn’t contain his excitement. “Not
in
Longside,
near
Longside, on the way to it. With two minds to plunder, I could put it in order. The Shadow gave me Longside, but the groom’s memories of the man posing as the shopkeeper were in an old manor house.”
Katya still stared. “I’m not quite—”
“The old manor house is on the way to Longside, don’t you see? The images I got from the Shadow featured the journey to Longside and the tavern in Longside, which he frequented, but he concealed the manor house from me. One bit of forest looks like another, you see, but the groom could hide nothing because he didn’t even know he was hiding it! It was buried behind the other memory blocks. The people who erased bits of his memories might have missed this!”
Da glanced at Katya. “So,” he said, “the traitors are meeting at a manor house on the road to Longside? Is that what you’re trying to say by way of long, unneeded explanation?”
Crowe seemed as if he might bristle. Instead, he bowed.
“Well, my girl,” Da said, “you’re on your way to a manor house near Longside.”
“The other traitors might not even know we’ve found the groom yet,” Katya said, her mind racing.
“We kept that quiet,” Crowe added. He bounced on the balls of his feet.
Da clapped once, a loud, cracking sound. “Aha! Catch them with their trousers down! How I wish I could come with you.”
Katya bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from asking her father how often he wished to catch people with their trousers down. “If we start now, we won’t be there until after dark.”
“We can’t ride into the unknown in the dark,” Crowe said.
“Right. We set out in the morning, but we won’t go rushing in. We’ll get close and then scout. We’ll do this right and won’t get caught with
our
trousers down.”
Crowe’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. “That would be unfortunate.”
“You’re damned right,” Da said. “Go, make ready. The excitement is killing me! Damned if I know how I’ll be able to focus on crop reports and statues now.”
Katya hugged her father good-bye and hustled from the room with Crowe. “Good work,” she said once they were out in the hallway. “Excellent work.”
“After so long, it’s nice to catch a break!” He spoke in a loud whisper, and she knew what he was feeling, swallowing the urge to make a triumphant yell herself.
“I’ll tell Averie. Will you inform the others?”
“Absolutely. We’re one step ahead at last.”
They parted at the next hallway, and Katya continued to her rooms. If the traitors didn’t expect their hideout to be revealed, who knew what the Order might find? On the other hand, if the traitors wanted Katya to find the manor house, they would set a trap. Well, she’d be careful not to fall into it. The Order would walk with caution, scout, and scan the area with Crowe’s pyramid magic, and the traitors would find any trap turned back on them. They’d tell no one, and she’d saddle their horses herself if she had to.
In Katya’s personal sitting room, Averie’s eyes lit up as Katya told her of the plan. “Excellent, at last.”
“I want you to come with us all the way to the manor house, Averie. No hunting this time. We’ll need your tracking skills.”
“Well, the court can’t expect you to make a kill every time you go out.”
“Oh, we’ll make one. It just won’t be animals.” She tried to sit, but she had to get up and pace.
“Is Starbride invited to dinner?” Averie asked.
Katya stopped in the middle of the rug. It would be nice, very much so, to see Starbride again so soon, but she didn’t think she could contain her excitement about the next morning’s journey. Starbride would want to know the reason. Katya could almost hear the conversation in her head. “Why must you go and not the king’s Guard?” Starbride would ask.
And Katya couldn’t tell her about the Order. She could make up an excuse that she was the best one to go because the Umbriels tried to keep the Aspect a secret, and the fewer who knew the better, but Starbride would still want to know why Katya had to go
personally
. Spirits knew she’d want to tag along, saying that if it was safe enough for Katya, it was safe enough for anyone.
Katya would have to stare into those warm eyes and say no, offering no explanation, and she couldn’t stand the thought of those eyes turning hard and resentful. “No, I won’t invite her. I don’t want to have to explain my mood.”
“You could tell her it’s the excitement of seeing her again.”
“I, um, sort of promised that I’d keep her informed of the investigation into what happened at the shop.”
“I know you’re in charge, but is that wise?”
“Wise or not, it’s what happened.”
“Are you going to tell her about the Order of Vestra?”
Katya paused again. If their relationship continued, if Katya eventually took Starbride to be her consort, she’d find out about the Order sooner or later, but now wasn’t the time, not with the future so uncertain; she couldn’t drop another secret on Starbride so soon. “Not right now. I’ll find a way to dance around it.”
“A difficult dance, to say the least.”
“But necessary.”
Averie nodded. “I’ll lay our hunting leather out for tomorrow. Will you roam the halls for the rest of today?”
“No, I don’t want to chance giving anything away to the court, and I don’t want to risk running into Starbride again.”
“Again?”
Katya sank into one of the plush chairs. “We had an…encounter, on the Retreat.”
“Aha! Double the reason for a good mood.”
Katya draped her leg over one of the chair’s arms as she thought back to the kiss. For a moment, it drove thoughts of the next day from her mind, but when she coupled the thoughts together, it added up to an excitement she couldn’t quench, and she had to stand and pace again.
Starbride made an early start. Lurking young lords or not, she would spend the new day in study. Dawnmother stopped her at the door. “I can come with you again.”
“I have to get used to going out alone. I can’t live in fear. If there’s any trouble, I’ll seek out another room full of people.” Dawnmother frowned, her eyes worried. Starbride faked all the confidence she didn’t feel. “Check on me as often as you’d like.”
Near the stables, she spotted Katya striding through an intersection, her friends behind her, all except the masked man and Crowe. Starbride prepared to call out, but then she paused. Katya couldn’t be going hunting, not with traitors hiding around every corner. But if not hunting, what? A break from court that left Starbride behind?