NINETEEN

THERE WAS NO more time. Curl as deeply into the couch as I might, the truth was inescapable. As a political trophy, I’d served out much of my usefulness in the binding. My connection to the Skythes meant little now that Dieter had secured their alliance.

The vision had changed things – I’d proven myself his personal soothsayer. He would never let me go. Worse, with the power of my foretelling at his service, he could prove invincible. Unless I lied – convincingly. But then he seemed to know intuitively when I was dissembling.

Desperation threatened to engulf me. If I fled, what use would I be, free of Dieter’s watchful eye but outside the sphere of power? An outcast gathered no armies to support her. The risks of lying were higher still. Dieter had a vial of my blood, and his promise to finish what he’d started at Aestival filled me with panic.

Be calm. One thing at a time, and all will fall into place, said Grandmother, her voice catching me before the panic could overwhelm me. Breath by breath I fought it back, calming my mind, gradually dulling the fears, and eventually regaining my ability to think clearly.

First, I had to find Roshi. Uncertain as her loyalty might be, it was all I had to depend on. She had relative freedom, and opportunities I lacked. I needed her to help work out a way for us to escape.

I rose and dressed properly, in a clean gown that covered me from throat to wrist to ankle, as if linen and wool were a kind of armour. Then I ventured into the corridor. Outside, Mathis and Gunther jumped to attention. They pressed so tightly about me as I walked that I couldn’t hear my steps over theirs. Clearly, Dieter had left strict instructions.

After stalking through the corridors, steadfastly ignoring anyone we passed, I found Roshi in the upper courtyard, dicing with a handful of soldiers and thralls from the stables and fields. As I hesitated on the portico, uncertain how to proceed, Roshi glanced up from the game. For an agonising moment she stayed where she sat, cross-legged and propped up on one arm on the bare stones. She seemed relaxed among these people, while my company made her stern and ill-at-ease.

Dropping the dice onto the stones with a flick of her wrist, she stood. Then, dusting the seat of her narrow leather dress, she approached with her customary blank expression.

‘I need your help,’ I started, but my escorts were still too close, still able to overhear the softest word. I took her arm and drew her to a seat nearby.

Distracted by the game, and reassured by the still-slight distance between us, my guards didn’t follow.

‘What do you know about cooking?’ I said brightly.

‘Less than you, I fear,’ she said. Then, in a lower tone, she added, ‘What is it you want?’

‘Freedom. I must escape the Turholm.’

We interspersed talk about cooking with the real topic of our conversation. ‘Leave?’ she whispered. ‘Why?’

‘I’ve dallied too long. There’s a boy, my cousin. Dieter has him captive. I must get him, and myself, out of the Turholm.’

‘But a very few days –’

‘Will it take so long?’ I interrupted. ‘I’d be gone sooner, if you can arrange it. Roshi, the plan doesn’t need to be elaborate. The boy and I, you and your kinsmen. We can seek support and succour from … one of the drightens.’

I bit back on telling her precisely which drightens might support me, in case she played me false and reported to Dieter.

‘What has happened, that you cannot withstand a handful of days longer?’ she said, fixing me with a searching look.

I hesitated. I couldn’t tell her – not after denying any skills with the shadows. And then the opportunity to speak passed as Mathis, drawn by our whispers, stepped sharply nearer.

Roshi leant close, as if to share a last confidence, but she caught the soldier’s eye and spoke in a mocking drawl deliberately loud enough for him to catch. ‘There’s an uncommon large number of crows around the stronghold for this time of year, don’t you think? Carrion eaters,’ she added with false sorrow. ‘Even after they’ve feasted they’ll linger, scavenging for more deaths.’

I laughed, surprised and cheered by her gall.

Mathis curled one hand into a fist, glaring at Roshi; she met his gaze without fear, as if the prospect of his retribution gave her no concern. Perhaps it didn’t. He wouldn’t kill her, not if it risked my displeasure and, through me, Dieter’s – but men of the sword had other ways of disciplining impertinent thralls. From the amount of time she spent among the soldiers, she must be aware of the danger she courted, and yet her eyes gleamed as she waited.

Even as I was summoning an answer that would defuse his temper, his eyes flicked over my shoulder and he stilled. A light step behind me solved the mystery of what had quelled him.

‘And some who should be dead continue to linger in life,’ said Amalia. ‘And constantly seek to escape their assigned companions.’

I didn’t turn. ‘Sitting in a courtyard in full view of dozens of soldiers hardly constitutes escape.’

There was a sudden clatter of noise near the gates, but Amalia stepped in front of me, blocking my view. ‘I should have known you’d seek the open to sulk,’ she said. ‘Turasi aren’t comfortable with acres of sky – except you, with your Skythe blood. The barbarian Duethin. The puppet Duethin.’

My hand lifted to my brow, touching the brand through the veil.

Her triumph complete, Amalia turned away. ‘Come. I don’t want to sit outside,’ she said, as if she were the Duethin and I the companion.

More noise from the gates spared me the need to retort – or worse, to obey. I stood and craned for a better view.

‘Visitors?’ asked Roshi

‘One or more of the drightens.’ My voice was calm, though my heart was hammering. If the first of the drightens had arrived, the rest wouldn’t be far behind. The gadderen was beginning, and would see Dieter ratified in my place, with me powerless to stop it.

‘You’ll want to fetch your brother to greet them,’ I said to Amalia.

She dithered, furious at being ordered around, hesitant to disobey. Eventually, political acumen won out over personal spite, and she turned away. The victory was trivial. I had, I judged, as long as it took her to find a thrall, deliver the message and return.

Crowds of people were streaming through the gates now, some on horseback, more on foot. I leaned close to Roshi. ‘Tonight,’ I whispered. ‘If you can. Tomorrow at the latest.’

‘When –?’

‘Make an opportunity,’ I hissed. ‘There’s no time left!’

Amalia returned with a hurried step, the flush of exertion colouring her cheeks. She didn’t waste her time on jibes, however, not now.

‘You need to come down and welcome them properly,’ she said. ‘Don’t you dare make him look too weak to control his own wife.’ Her gaze held the promise of that knife of hers.

‘You may find this difficult, Amalia, but I don’t actually take orders from you. In fact, I think you’ll find it’s the other way around.’

‘That’s not what you said last night.’

The flush of my cheeks was enough to put a speculative frown on Roshi’s face and earn a guffaw from Gunther. Amalia was unperturbed.

‘Last night you drank yourself into your usual stupor and spent the night dribbling on the couch,’ I rejoined, silencing her.

I turned back to the visitors, who were close enough now to recognise. The drightens of the three Houses Somner. Black beard bristling over his armoured chest, Rudiger rode in the fore, with the beady-eyed Evard on his left and their cousin Helma on his right. Grandmother had always warned me about them, Helma in particular, who had a reputation for being as coldly beautiful as winter’s touch. The three must have met at the Aedhold, Evard’s stronghold, before travelling down together.

Relations between my House and the three Somner Houses had never been cordial, but shortly after my father’s marriage they had descended into outright enmity when the Somners eradicated House Wilan, scattering the tribe’s few survivors and swallowing up their lands.

The approach of the Somner drightens now started Grandmother muttering again: Watch the eyes, child. See how bold her gaze is? A killer’s confidence. And the hands – smooth and clean. That’s a woman who has her underlings do her killing.