Tristam hunched his shoulders and threaded through jostling bodies. The noise faded as he left the crowd behind, and he finally gathered his thoughts. He’d been cleared of suspicion. That in itself was a minor miracle. Unfortunately, that almost certainly meant that Malikel was taking most of the blame on himself. Tristam wondered again at the Defense Minister’s reaction upon finding Santon’s body. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that Malikel hadn’t been surprised to learn Kyra’s identity. The Defense Minister had suspected something about Kyra, but for some reason, he hadn’t taken action. Now he would pay the price.
When Tristam got to his chambers, he found that the guards posted there for the past week were already gone. He closed his door, walked into the middle of his room, and surveyed the silent furniture around him. What now?
His breastplate hung on a rack against the wall, polished to Malikel’s exacting standards. He could see his face reflected on its surface, and he leaned closer to examine the bruise on his chin. There was a scab on his lip where it had split from Kyra’s blow. He saw her again in his mind’s eye—confused, horrified, and covered in Santon’s blood. Where had she gone? Was she safe? If only he had some way to contact her.
Everything had happened so fast that night. He’d known Kyra’s bloodlines and what the Makvani were capable of, but Tristam never expected to find Kyra changed in the Palace courtyard, or see her standing above Santon’s corpse. What had driven her to this?
Someone knocked on the door, and Tristam answered to find a servant in the corridor holding a stack of parchments. The servant was an older man whose build suggested a life spent indoors rather than in the fields. “Sir Willem has requested that your armor and equipment be inventoried, in light of the new recruits,” the man said.
Now Tristam recognized him. The man was part of Willem’s personal staff. “Are all the Red Shields having their equipment inventoried, or just me?” he asked, not bothering to hide the suspicion in his voice. After hearing Willem’s speech about Forge and its future, Tristam had thought the Head Councilman was trying to earn Tristam’s trust. This seemed a step in the opposite direction.
“Only those that His Grace has listed,” the man said in a maddeningly neutral voice. “May I come in? I’m instructed not to touch or take anything at this point, just to take note of any equipment that might belong to the Palace.”
Tristam didn’t really have the leeway to be difficult right now. He surreptitiously checked the dagger at his belt as his unwelcome guest came to stand in front of Tristam’s sword and armor.
“The weapons and equipment are my own,” Tristam said, aware that he sounded like a petulant child.
The manservant nodded. “And livery. How many sets do you have?”
“I surrendered anything marking me a knight when they stripped me of my rank.” His frustration was rising with every passing moment. “I have two Red Shield tunics that I wear on duty.”
The manservant nodded and jotted something down on his parchment. “We may have to take one of those.” Finally, he raised his head and looked around. “That will be all. Thank you. My name is Orvin of Forge, if you have further need of me.”
He let himself out the door, and Tristam closed it none too lightly behind him. When he turned back around, he noticed a piece of parchment on the table. Had the servant left it there? Tristam unfolded it to find words inside.
I have a message for Kyra, was all it said.
Tristam read the note two or three times. A message for Kyra from Willem’s household? If this was a trap, then they were woefully misled. Tristam had no idea where Kyra was, whether she’d fled to the forest or other cities, or somehow found a place to hide within the city walls.
Or could the man be sincere? Not all of Willem’s servants were personally loyal to the Councilman. Tristam took two quick steps to his door and pulled it ajar, remembering at the last minute not to throw it open in his eagerness. He peered outside, hoping for another glimpse of Orvin, but the man was long gone.
F I F T E E N