The Skull Throne

Leesha shook her head. “Of course not.”

“Would you undo the life within you?”

Leesha put a hand to her belly, meeting his eyes with a hard glare. “Never.”

“That.” Jona pointed. “That is faith. You cannot measure it with weights and doses like your herbs. You cannot classify it in your books, or test it with chemics. But it is there, more powerful than any bit of old world science. Only the Creator can see the path ahead. He makes of us what he wants—what the world needs—us to be. But we can have a glimpse, looking back.”

“Thamos has been sent to Lakton,” Leesha said, her voice shaking.

“Why?” Jona asked.

“To avoid a war,” Leesha sniffed, “or perhaps to start one. Creator only knows.”

Jona laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I only met him for a moment, when he and the Inquisitor sent me here. But I know you, Leesh. You don’t give your heart easily. He must be a good man.”

Leesha wanted to vomit. Jona was perhaps her oldest and closest friend, but she had kept secrets from him.

“I’ve given my heart a bit freely, of late,” she said. “Arlen spun me around and Ahmann swept me away, but Thamos …” She hugged herself. “Thamos is the only man I’ve ever loved. And I betrayed him. He’s gone off, perhaps to his death, with my scalpel in his heart. How can that too be the Creator’s plan?”

Jona folded his arms around her and she leaned in to him, weeping.

“I don’t know,” he said, stroking her hair. “But when this is all behind, you’ll see it. Sure as the sun rises.”

The carriage path and great steps of the palace were crowded at the height of the day, abuzz with conversation and business. But as Leesha stepped down from the carriage, courtier and servant alike fell silent, turning their eyes her way.

“Tell me I’m imagining this,” Leesha said.

“Ent,” Wonda said, her eyes roving the crowd for signs of a threat. “Spent time asking questions in the yard while you were touring Tender’s towers. Gossip spread like fire last night. Didn’t help that half the ripping city was in the palace.”

Wonda whisked her hand, and four Cutter women moved to flank them, eyes all around. They climbed the steps unmolested, passing through the doors and into the great hall.

It was little better. The palace servants were more professional, but even they watched Leesha and her entourage out of the corner of their eyes.

“What are people saying?” Leesha asked.

Wonda shrugged. “Tampweed tales, mostly, but they all got the important part right—fiddle wizard from the Hollow killed the duke’s herald. Difference is mostly in the spin.”

“Spin?” Leesha asked.

“City’s split, just like the Hollow and everywhere else,” Wonda said. “Common folk think Mr. Bales is the Deliverer, powerful ones think he’s trouble.”

“What’s that have to do with Rojer?” Leesha asked, though she could easily guess. They passed into the residence wing, leaving many of the prying eyes behind, but Wonda did not dismiss the guards. Leesha did not think she would ever be alone again, if her young bodyguard had anything to say about it.

“You and Rojer helped him save the Hollow,” Wonda said. “The ward witch and the fiddle wizard. Folk think you speak for the Deliverer when he’s not around. Even in the cathedral, some are sayin’ that if Rojer killed Jasin, Creator decided Jasin needed killin’.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Leesha said.

“Ay, maybe,” Wonda said, though she sounded less sure. “But true or not, anythin’ happens to Rojer, folk ent gonna take it well. Liable to get some bodies hurt.”

“If something happens to Rojer,” Leesha said, “I’m apt to be in a bit of a temper myself.”

“Honest word,” Wonda agreed as they turned a corner, seeing the knot of men in front of the door to the chambers Rojer and his women had shared. Four palace guards craned their necks up, trying to stare down the four giant Cutters Gared had stationed on the opposite wall.

The crowd parted at Leesha’s approach, and Wonda stepped forward to knock.

A moment later, Kendall answered the door. “Thank the Creator!” She stepped aside to let Wonda and Leesha in, their guards joining the throng in the hall.

Kendall was quick to shut the door and drop the bar. “Did you see Rojer?”

“I did,” Leesha said.

“And is our husband well?” Amanvah asked, appearing at the doorway to her private chamber. The young dama’ting seemed relaxed and serene as ever, though Leesha thought she must be anything but.

Leesha nodded. “No doubt he has already told you so himself.”

“Of course,” Amanvah agreed, “though men often omit their pain, when they do not wish their wives to worry.”

Leesha smiled. “I’ve never known Rojer to be that type.”

Amanvah didn’t blink.

“He had been badly beaten,” Leesha said, “but your hora saw to that. He’s as strong as ever now, minus a pair of teeth.”

Amanvah gave a fraction of a nod. “And Sikvah?”

Leesha sighed. “There’s been no word. If someone means to ransom her, they’re making sure she’s well hidden first.”

“This is intolerable,” Amanvah said. “They will not even let us leave the chambers to look for her.”

“You’re witnesses to murder in the duke’s palace,” Leesha said. “You can’t expect them to let you just walk away. There’s nowhere you can look that Araine’s spies cannot.”

“I do not trust her chin spies,” Amanvah said. “Likely they had a hand in her taking.”

Leesha’s eyes flicked to the hora pouch at Amanvah’s waist. “May we speak in private?”

“Ay … !” Kendall started to protest, but Amanvah silenced her with a hiss, gesturing to her chamber.

Leesha followed, seeing all the windows covered. Even the door was draped with heavy cloth, and when Amanvah closed the door, they were enveloped in darkness. Reflexively she dropped a hand to her own hora pouch as she took out her spectacles with the other.

But Amanvah offered no threat. The warded coins on her headdress glowed in wardsight, blending with her aura. Neither of them could read with the facility that Arlen did, but it would be difficult to lie to each other with their auras bare.

“Would you like some tea?” Amanvah asked.

Leesha realized she was holding her breath. She blew it out with a nod. “Creator, yes.”

There was a slight glow to the teapot, warded to keep the inside hot and the outside cool. The use of powerful magics for something so frivolous said a great deal about the dama’ting, who had been using hora magic for centuries. Leesha, for all the power she had at her fingertips, understood little of the subtleties of their warding.

“What have your dice told you?” Leesha sipped her tea, and felt her whole body relax. Perhaps it was not so frivolous, after all.

“The alagai hora do not lie, mistress,” Amanvah said, sipping her own tea, “but neither do they tell us all we would wish. I cast three times today. They have told me nothing of Sikvah’s fate, and my husband’s future remains … clouded.” There was no lie in her aura.