Mage stepped near the stain sprawled against the far wall. “Have your men wrap this in wet blankets and bury it under stones.”
“Who was it?” Tsyrke asked. “The knight?”
“I can only guess. There is no spark of Life magic left here to read. The victims of Deathbane are nameless. It could as easily have been the Shae.”
Tsyrke squeezed the pendant, feeling the metal bite into his palm. She had cast the pendant away. It was his only link to her, allowing him to find her no matter where she was. It had surprised and worried him that she had stayed so long in the cell. When his soldiers pounded on the door, warning that the dungeons had been breached and that men were dying swiftly to some unknown plague, he had feared the worst. He still feared it. Fury boiled and raged inside him. There were too many players, too many risks. The walls of his life were tottering, ready to collapse. By the Druids, if he went down, he would bring as many as he could down in ashes with him.
He stood slowly, feeling his bones ache and his heart bleed. “Who knows about the Deathbane,” he asked Mage with a thick voice, aware that they both already knew the answer to that question. Their eyes met in the stillness of the cell. “I’ve had enough of her meddling.”
*
Dujahn of the Gray Legion walked down the tunnel corridor, keeping wary of the Bandits who saw him pass. He doubted any of them would recognize him or even be able to describe him if pressed. The city had fallen so quickly, it was almost a shame. Not even a skirmish. The garrison cells were teeming with prisoners, mostly soldiers who hadn’t sworn allegiance to Ballinaire yet. But the palace dungeon held the most dangerous enemies, and they would probably spend the entire war in the cramped cells, hungry for even a whisper of sunlight. These were men not even Ballinaire dared trust.
Passing under a ring of light from a flickering torch, he paused to study the cells. Where was it? Each cell was shielded by a huge iron door with thick rivets and hinges. Miestri had told him what to look for. A rat hissed at him from the rafters as he passed by. Scowling at it, he kept walking.
The orb in his pocket suddenly glowed with warmth, burning against his leg. He reached in and retrieved it. It glowed like firelight, casting hazy shadows on the floor around him. He stopped and looked above the cell door. There was a marking there in the stone – he’d missed it completely walking by.
Reaching to his belt, he unfastened a key ring and searched for the right one. It fit into the lock with a loud click. Twisting it, the lock gave way. He grabbed the handle and pulled the door open.
The hazy light from the orb revealed a Shae huddled in the corner. His eyes glowed in the dark.
“Ah, there you are,” Dujahn said, unnerved at the look the Shae gave him. “The Lady of Vale is ready for your report. She sent me to bring you to her pavilion.” Dujahn hesitated. The Shae looked at him coldly and spat something in Silvan.
“That’s right, you only speak the tongue of the Shae,” Dujahn went on in stumbling Silvan. He really wasn’t very good at it yet, but it was something to work on. “Are you ready? The Lady of Vale wishes to speak to you.”
“And who is that?” the Shae asked softly, angrily.
“She said you would remember her when you remembered your name.”
The Shae shifted and rose slowly, long thin arms folded imperiously. “And how does she know my name?”
Dujahn smirked. “Because she was the one who took it from you. Don’t you remember it, Ravin Silversheir?”
The orb flashed a wicked glow and the Shae sank to his knees, clutching his head in agony. He screamed, full of pain and loathing. Dujahn watched him, mesmerized. But when the onslaught of pain had finally passed, the blue-robed Shae recovered and stared up at him, a submissive look on his face. His eyes were glowing the same color as the orb.
“I will serve my Lady,” he whispered, his eyes filling with tears.