“It could have,” Valyn replied, keeping his voice level, “but it wasn’t. I saw plenty of slarn wounds after the Trial, and I saw the slices on Lin’s body. They were different. I looked at her wrists just before they burned her, both wrists. Maybe it’s just a freak coincidence that Amie had the same marks, but we know one thing for sure: Only cadets went down in the Hole. One of the cadets killed Ha Lin, and I’d wager both my blades against a bucket of piss that whoever killed her killed Amie as well.”
“Holy Hull,” Laith muttered. “One of our own fucking cadets. Who?”
“I don’t know,” Valyn replied, “but there’s more.”
Once he’d told them the truth about Lin’s death, it only made sense to plunge into the whole thing, the Aedolian on the boat, the plot against him, everything. They stared, eyes filled with the lamplight, features fading in and out of the shadows as he spun the tale. It was impossible to believe, even as he told it. He half expected them to laugh when it was through. They didn’t laugh. Even Laith didn’t crack a joke.
“And that’s why you wanted me to look at Manker’s,” Gwenna said, slapping the table with her palm. “You weren’t just playing the paranoid prince. Someone actually was trying to kill you.”
“Manker’s?” Talal asked. Valyn had never seen the leach over on Hook. It was possible he never even heard about the collapse.
“An alehouse,” Annick replied.
“A shithole,” Laith amended, “but one I was fond of.”
“The Aedolian’s warning is what made me wonder about Manker’s,” Valyn agreed. “It was also what made me suspect Annick of trying to drown me during the sinking test, that and the strange knot she tied.”
“A double bowline,” the sniper said. “I told you before.” Her blue eyes bored into him, cold and defiant.
“So let’s get this straight,” Gwenna said, shaking her head. “Some poor bastard on a ship tells you the Kettral are trying to kill you. Then Manker’s collapses. Then it seems like Annick tries to drown you. Then Annick shoots you in the shoulder.”
“Annick shows up a lot in this story,” Laith added. “I’ll bet you were thrilled to have her on your Wing.”
“I didn’t try to kill him,” she said flatly.
“I’m not saying you did,” Laith replied, holding up both hands. “But someone’s doing a ’Kent-kissing good job of making it look that way.”
“Yurl,” Valyn growled. “It’s got to be Yurl. Let’s not forget he’s the reason we’re boxed up in here without a blade or a bow between us.”
“Yurl’s a pox-ridden asshole,” Laith replied, “but this seems a little over that pretty boy head of his.”
Talal frowned. “He is the one who told Shaleel about Annick and Amie. Maybe he wants to take us out of play for a while.”
“We’re out of play, all right,” Valyn agreed. “But it still doesn’t make sense. What do Ha Lin and Amie have to do with everything else, with the Aedolian, with the whole ’Kent-kissing plot?”
“Manker’s,” Annick replied flatly. “That’s the link.”
Valyn blew out a long, frustrated breath. “The place collapsed at the same time Amie was murdered, but that’s not much of a link. You said it already—the garret where we found her was on the other side of the bay.”
“You’ve almost died how many times now?” Gwenna asked irritably.
Valyn considered. “Manker’s. Drowning. Sniper contest.” He shrugged. “Four if you count the Trial itself.”
“All right,” Talal began, picking up the thread. “There’s the connection—two of the times women were attacked and killed. The first time, Amie. The last, Ha Lin.”
“The problem with fifty percent,” Laith observed, “is that it’s fifty percent.”
A shiver run up Valyn’s spine. “Seventy-five,” he said grimly.
Even after revealing everything else, he had planned to keep Lin’s beating a secret. It was foolish, irrational. She was dead and burned; telling the tale wasn’t a betrayal and the revelation couldn’t injure her pride any further. Still, the attack on the bluffs had shamed her, shamed her to the core, and he felt as though sharing the story would somehow violate a trust they had shared, would strip her secrets bare for everyone to stare at. Besides, it hadn’t seemed relevant until they started hashing through the connections.
“Yurl and Balendin attacked Ha Lin during the sniper trial, the one where Annick shot me. They lied to her, tricked her, then held her down, beat her bloody, tried to break her. That’s where she got those wounds before the Trial—not in some training exercise the way she claimed. They said it was payback for her willingness to take them on in the arena.”
Four pairs of eyes swiveled to him. “Those whoreson shit-licking bastards,” Gwenna swore, flexing and unflexing her hand as though itching for a sword.
“Where?” Annick asked, her voice calm, hard.
“The West Bluffs.”
“Overlooking the sniper test,” Talal concluded quietly.
“It’s something,” Valyn said, shaking his head in frustration. He felt like the truth was there, but just out of range, like a familiar tune at the very edge of one’s hearing. “I just don’t know what.”
“But how would beating Lin a mile away get Annick to shoot chisel points?” Laith asked.
“I didn’t shoot chisel points,” the sniper responded. “Those were my arrows, but the heads had been changed.”
Talal started. “Changed?”
“Changed,” Annick said. “This is the fourth time I’ve explained it to Valyn. Those weren’t my points. They weren’t the arrows I fired.”
“Maybe you made a mistake,” Laith suggested.
The sniper fixed him with a frosty stare. “I did not make a mistake.”
“Well, how in Hull’s name did they change midflight?”
“I don’t know.”
The leach took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Maybe I do.” He considered the table in front of him, gathering his thoughts. “Holy Hull, I think I understand.”
“Some kind of kenning?” Valyn asked, trying to catch up.
Talal nodded grimly. “It’s not Yurl. It’s Balendin.”
“You all want to keep chatting in code?” Gwenna demanded. “Or you going to fill the rest of us in? Try using complete sentences.”
“My well is iron,” Talal said, raising his eyes, looking from one to the next. “I told Valyn several days ago, but we’re a Wing, and you all deserve to know. Iron and steel.”
“Iron?” Laith asked, tapping his chin with a finger. “Not very exciting, is it? I thought the wells were all babies’ blood or boiled piss or something suitably vile.”
Talal shrugged. “If you have to be a leach, iron is a mediocre well to have. On the one hand, there’s never that much of it around. On the other, my power almost never runs dry. Especially if you’re a soldier, there’s usually something.” He took a deep breath. “Other leaches have more … complicated wells.”
“I knew it,” Laith said, sitting back in his chair and looking pleased. “Babies’ blood.”
Talal ignored him.
“Like Arim Hua?” Valyn asked. “The Sun Lord in all those stories?”
Talal nodded. “If the legends are true, Arim Hua’s well was sunlight. In the tales, he was fearsome during the day—he could raze cities, destroy armies—but nearly powerless at night. That’s how he was killed.”
“What does this have to do with the arrows?” Gwenna demanded. “With Manker’s?”
“It’s not all about cities and armies,” Talal replied. “For years, I’ve puzzled over Balendin’s well. I’ve seen him do some things … frightening things. Things I could never manage, not without an ocean of iron surrounding me. Other times—” He shook his head. “—nothing.”
“Could he change an arrowhead?” Valyn asked. “An arrow in flight? From a mile away?”
The leach nodded. “He has the skill and, if his well is running deep enough, the power, too.”
“The skill is different from the power?” Gwenna asked, her face puzzled.
“Of course. A leach’s strength is like physical strength, a gift—or a curse—from Bedisa. Having a deep well is like being large and well-muscled. Imagine Gent.”
“I’d rather not,” Gwenna shot back.
“The point is, Gent’s strength is only useful to a certain degree if he doesn’t train, doesn’t study how to use that strength. A smaller man—or a woman—could take him down through superior skill. There are leaches with enormous power who never understand what to do with that power. They’re just as likely to hurt themselves as they are to achieve anything useful.”
“And you don’t have enormous power,” Valyn put in.
Talal nodded. “All the Kettral leaches study and practice, but I’ve had to work harder than most. I’ve certainly had to work harder than Balendin.”
“And when are we going to get to the part,” Laith asked with exaggerated patience, “where you tell us what the ’Shael-spawned asshole’s well is?”