The command was spoken again, and this time the words touched something inside Arling that she found she could not turn away from or ignore. Still riddled with pain and fear, she did as she was asked, whispering to herself as she did so, No, no, no.
She felt the tree stirring, sensed a gathering of its limbs. She had closed her eyes, and she kept them closed against what she knew was coming. She held her hands cupped before her, trying to hold them steady, trying to keep herself strong. It was surreal and terrifying, a contradiction of what she knew she must not allow and what she also knew she must accept.
She felt a weight settle into her hands—smooth and round and warm. She knew without looking what it was, and when a moment later she opened her eyes, she found a small, silvery egg-shaped sphere resting in her hands.
The tree’s branches drew back, and the Ellcrys went motionless and silent in the darkness and did not speak or move again.
16
In that same darkness, in Arishaig, the assassin Stoon slipped down mostly empty streets and alleyways, avoiding the drunks and homeless that huddled in the shadows and staying clear of the voices that whispered now and then from doorways and alcoves where men like himself carried on their business. He was wrapped in his cloak and hooded against the possibility of being recognized, and his tall, lean frame gave him a sinister appearance to the one or two who caught sight of him on his way to his meeting with Edinja, causing them to move quickly away.
Why she had decided on a meeting at this time of night was troubling. Why she had asked that it be conducted at her home rather than in the quarters of the Prime Minister was equally so. She had invited him there only once before, when Drust Chazhul was newly dead and she was still in hiding. But since then, all of their meetings had taken place in the bedchamber of her official living quarters, and he had come and gone through the secret passageways he had used when in service to the unfortunate Drust.
A less confident man, a less skilled professional, might have thought twice about the change in meeting places, might have read into it that it signaled a shift in the direction of the wind, one that might sweep him away. But Stoon was not such a man, and to refuse to meet with her as she asked or to seek a change of venue would only demonstrate weakness. So here he was, creeping along through the city well after midnight to the spectral, forbidding tower whose black stone fa?ade and gargoyles was recognizable—and religiously avoided—by everyone who resided in Arishaig.
The grounds lacked walls and gardens to distance the tower from the streets that bordered it on two sides, leaving it close up against the corner crossing, casting its shadow like a giant predator. There were stories about Edinja’s residence: of screams and shrieks emanating from within, of foul smells and strange rumblings, of moving shadows glimpsed behind the curtained windows—things that were clearly not entirely human.
He had seen none of this in his single visit. Nor heard the sounds or smelled the scents. Stories whispered by superstitious people, he had decided after he had departed. Rumors that perhaps she herself had created to warn off the curious.
He skirted the tower’s rough edges when it came into view, avoiding the front entry because he knew he was never to go there, moving instead to a tiny door just off the street that was sheltered by shrubbery. He moved quickly and without hesitation, resisting the urge to stop or give further thought to what he was doing. There was no point. If her intentions were bad, he would not be able to tell from out here.