Paedrin stared at them, watching his master walk slowly down the hall, fading into the blackness until an iron-lidded door slammed shut, plunging him back into night. He knelt by the bars, unmoving, scraping his fingernail along the smooth bars. His breath came in short, heavy gasps. Why had Master Shivu said what he said? He had not asked him any questions about his betrayal. He had shown little sympathy. Why? There was none of their usual banter. Instead, there was connection through fingers and eyes. Two of the senses acting in unison. A third, the voice, was not.
A wave of fear and loathing came over him. His mind felt like a bowl of mush. He could not think clearly. He could not understand properly. He rubbed his eyes with his hand and, when he finished, spots danced in the blackness for a few moments and then vanished. Except for one. A small blue spot was moving along the roof of the hallway outside in the corridor. It approached slowly, coming forward like a serpent in a sinuous movement.
Paedrin stared at it, wondering if his imagination were totally rattled now. It was on the ceiling, drawing nearer to his cell. He waited, staring in awe as it approached, and then suddenly there was a rush of air and the light thump of two boots landing just outside his cell.
The blue light grew brighter until it revealed a face.
Kiranrao.
“Our conscience is our worst accuser. I once heard a great man from the Theater in Kenatos expound on this subject. I rarely visit such popular entertainments, but his words are worth writing down. Upon common theaters, he said, the applause of the audience is of more importance to the actor than his own approbation. But upon the stage of life, while conscience claps, let the world hiss.”
– Possidius Adeodat, Archivist of Kenatos
Hettie waited in the dense brush against the wall of the Arch-Rike’s palace on the top of the island of Kenatos. She had crouched for hours by a stream, waiting to kill a deer with a single shot, but never had she waited more nervously or anxiously than at this moment. The hair on the back of her neck was prickling with gooseflesh, and every sound made her start and examine for its source.
She was dressed head to foot in dark leathers, every article bound tightly to prevent even the tiniest noise. Blades were strapped to her boots, her thighs, her belt. She gripped a short-bow in her hand, and a brace of arrows was fixed to the small of her back, each shaft fitted snugly in a compartment to prevent them from shifting.
The dawn brought the warbling of birds, which made it difficult to hear anything else. She waited, as still as she could be, slowly rubbing her hands together. In her mind, she rehearsed the story that Kiranrao had explained to her. She had summoned him to Kenatos to help free her friend when she learned he was in the Arch-Rike’s custody and not in the temple. She was worried about him and his injuries, especially since he had sustained them as a result of trying to save her life in Drosta’s trap. If he had not been wounded already, the fight with the Kishion may not have been so one-sided.
That was right. Those were the words. She struggled to put some feeling to them, to make them seem genuine. To make her eyes not betray her. But the truth was that she was worried about him. The waiting was torture.
Suddenly there were bells tolling. Great enormous bells shuddered from the spires of the Arch-Rike’s palace. Hettie froze. That was the signal Kiranrao had warned her about. They were the alarms of the city, and they meant that all traffic into and out of Kenatos would halt until the bells sounded again. There was no explanation given, only the sound of the bells. Every boat in the slip would need to stay at anchor. Boats that had not docked yet would be stranded and forced to return to the outer network of piers.
The clanging noise frightened a group of starlings into flight, and Hettie watched them flee, oblivious to the Arch-Rike’s orders to the contrary.
The bells meant that Kiranrao had been discovered. That did not necessarily mean that his plan had failed. She rubbed her palms together briskly, staring up at the wall and then down the sharp slope into the grounds. They were not sculpted gardens, for the terrain was too craggy for that. The parks were on the other side of the palace, facing the majority of the citizens of Kenatos. In the rear of the palace were thick brush and dwarf pines and other rugged plants that could survive with little water and no attention.
Sounds came to her, and she quickly ducked lower into the brush and tried to identify them. Lower down from the wall approached a retinue of guards with several black hounds on leashes. They were still a way off, but they were sniffing and looking for a scent or a trail. She frowned, knowing that the beasts would eventually find her scent. Her stomach began flip-flopping violently. How many men? A dozen? She counted them quickly. They were all soldiers except one. The one with the biggest hound was a Rike of Seithrall.
Two men landed right behind her and Hettie nearly screamed.
In that instant, she swung around with her bow; Kiranrao caught the stock before she could follow the movement with an arrow. As Kiranrao and Paedrin had struck the ground, they had dropped to a low crouch to allow the brush to hide them.