Academ's Fury (37 page)

Isana was quiet for a moment. "That's quite an offer," she said.

Serai nodded, silent.

Isana folded her hands in her lap. "Why didn't you take it?"

"Her price was too high."

Isana frowned. "Price? What price?"

"Isn't it obvious, darling? She knew that I was your guardian. She offered me power in exchange for you. And made it known that the results might be unpleasant if I denied her."

Isana swallowed. "Do you think she wants me dead?"

"Perhaps," Serai said, nodding. "Or perhaps only within her control. Which might be worse, depending on the next several years. From what she said, it seems obvious that her husband is very nearly ready to move against the Crown."

They rode in silence for a moment, then Isana said, "Or it might not have been a threat."

Serai arched a brow. "How so?"

"Well," Isana said slowly, "if word of your true allegiance has gotten out, and you didn't know about it… could what she said have been a warning? To point it out to you?"

Serai's eyebrows lifted delicately. "Yes. Yes, I suppose it could have been, at that."

"But why would she warn you?"

Serai shook her head. "Difficult to say. Assuming it was a warning, and assuming that Kalare and Aquitaine are not working together to bring Gaius down, it would be most likely that she warned me in an effort to deny Kalare the chance to kill me. Or capture me to learn what secrets I keep."

"We're both in the same oven, then. Whoever is killing Cursors would not mind seeing the pair of us dead."

"Indeed," Serai said. She glanced at her hands. Isana did as well. They were trembling harder. Serai folded them and held them tight against her lap. "In any case, given how little we know about the current climate, it seemed best to me that we leave before something unpleasant happened."

She paused, then said, "I'm sorry we didn't manage to gain the First Lord's ear."

"But we must," Isana said quietly.

"Yes. But remember, Steadholder, that my first duty is to protect youùnot to try to manage affairs in the Calderon Valley."

"But there's no
time
."

"You can't gain the support of the First Lord from the grave, Steadholder," Serai said, her tone frank, serious. "You're of no use to your family dead. And just between you and me, if I die before I get a chance to wear a gown of those new silks from Aquitaine, I will never forgive you."

Isana tried to smile at her attempt at levity, but it was too strongly underscored by an emotional undertow of anxiety. "I suppose. But what is our next step?"

"Get back to the house all in a piece," Serai said. "And from there, I think a nice glass of wine might soothe my nerves. And a hot bath."

Isana regarded her evenly. "And after that?"

"After wine and a steaming bath? I should be surprised if I didn't sleep."

Isana pressed her lips into a line. "I don't need you to try to amuse me with clever evasions. I need to know how we're going to get to Gaius."

"Oh," Serai said. She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Going out of Nedus's house is a risk, Steadholder. For both of us, now. What do you think our next move should be?"

"My nephew," Isana said firmly. "In the morning, we'll go to the Academy and find him so that he can carry the message to the First Lord."

Serai frowned. "The streets aren't safe enough for you to—"

"Crows take the streets," Isana said, the barest trace of an angry snarl in her voice.

Serai sighed. "It's a risk."

"One we have to take," Isana said. "We don't have time for anything else."

Serai frowned and looked away.

"And besides," Isana said, "I'm worried about Tavi. The message must have reached him by now—it was left in his own room, after all. But he hasn't come to see me."

"Unless he has," Serai pointed out. "He might well be waiting at Nedus's manor for us to return."

"Either way, I want to find him and make sure he's all right."

Serai sighed, and said, "Of course you do." She lifted a hand to press her fingers lightly against her reddened cheek, her eyes closed. "I hope you'll excuse me, Steadholder. I'm… somewhat shaken. Not thinking as clearly as I should." She looked up at Isana, and said, simply, "I'm afraid."

Isana met her eyes and said, in her gentlest voice, "That's all right. There's nothing wrong with being afraid."

Serai waved her hands in a frustrated little gesture. "I'm not used to it. What if I start chewing my nails? Can you imagine how horrid that would be? A nightmare."

Isana almost laughed. The courtesan might be afraid, but for all that she was playing in an unfamiliar field against lethally violent opponents, a mouse among hungry cats, she had the kind of spirit that refused to be kept down. The feigned vapid mannerisms and dialogue was her way of laughing at her fears. "I suppose we could always tie mittens onto your hands," Isana murmured. "If it is all that important to the security of the Realm to preserve your nails."

Serai nodded gravely. "Absolutely, darling. By any means necessary."

A moment later the coach came to a halt, and Isana heard the footman coming around to open the door. Nedus muttered something to the driver. The door opened, and Serai stepped out onto the folding stair. "It's a shame, really—all the politics. I hate it when I am forced to leave a party early."

The assassins came without sound or warning.

Isana heard a sudden, harsh exhalation from the driver of the coach. Serai froze in place on the stair, and a frozen gale of sudden fear swept over Isana's senses. Nedus shouted, and she heard the steely rasp of a sword being drawn. There were shuffling footsteps, and the ring of steel on steel.

"Stay back!" Serai cried. Isana saw a dark figure, a man with a sword, step up close to the coach. His blade thrust at Serai. The courtesan batted the blade aside with her left hand, and the flesh of her forearm parted, sending blood sprinkling down. The courtesan's other hand flew to her hair, to what Isana had taken as the handle of a jeweled comb. Instead, Serai drew forth a slender, needle-sharp blade and thrust it into the assassin's eye. The man screamed and fell away.

Serai leaned out to catch the handle of the coach's door and began to close it.

There was a hissing sound, a thump of impact, and the bloodied, barbed steel head of an arrow burst from Serai's back. Blood flooded over the ripped silk of her amber gown.

"Oh," Serai said, her voice breathless, startled.

"Serai!" Isana screamed.

The courtesan toppled slowly forward and out of the coach.

Isana rushed out of the coach to go to the woman's aid. She seized Serai's arm and hauled on it, trying to draw the Cursor back into the coach. Isana slipped in Serai's blood and stumbled. A second arrow sped past her shoulder as she did, driving itself to the feathers in the heavy oak wall of the coach.

She heard another scream to her right, and saw Nedus standing with his back to the wall of the coach, facing a pair of armed assassins, hard-looking men in drab clothing. A third attacker lay bleeding on the cobblestones, and even as Isana looked, the old metalcrafter's sword whipped up into a high parry and dealt back a slash that split open the throat of his attacker.

But the blow had left the old Knight open, and the other assassin lunged forward, his short, heavy blade thrusting sharply into Nedus's vitals.

Nedus whirled on the third man, showing no sign of pain, and seized his sword-arm wrist in one hand. Instead of pushing the man away, though, Nedus simply clamped down an iron grip, and with grim determination, rammed his sword into the assassin's mouth.

Assassin and Knight both collapsed to the ground, their blood pouring out like water from a broken cup.

Terrified, Isana pulled at Serai, struggling to get the Cursor back into the coach, before—

Something bumped into her, and there was a nauseating flash of sensation in her belly. Isana looked down to see another heavy arrow. This one had struck her, in the curl of her waist above her hipbone. Isana stared at it in shock for a moment, and then looked to see six inches of bloodied shaft emerging from her lower back.

Pain came next. Horrible pain. Her vision went red for a second, and her heart beat like thunder. She blinked down at Serai and reached for her again, unsure of what to do but doggedly determined to draw the fallen woman from beneath the hidden archer's shafts.

Serai rolled limply to one side, her eyes open and staring. The arrow had taken her through the heart.

Isana heard footsteps coming toward her. She looked up, agony making her vision almost seem to throb, and saw a man emerge from the darkness with a bow in his hand.

She recognized him. Shorter than average, grizzled with age, balding, stocky, and confident. His features were regular, unremarkable, neither ugly nor appealing. She had seen him once before—on the walls during the horrible battle at Garrison. She had seen him slaughter men with arrows, throw Fade from the walls with a noose tight around his neck, and attempt to murder her nephew.

Fidelias, a former Cursor Callidus, now a traitor to the Crown.

The man's eyes flicked around him as he walked, careful, wary and alert. He drew another arrow from his quiver and slipped its nock over the bowstring. He regarded the corpses dispassionately. Then his unreadable, merciless eyes fell upon Isana.

Pain took her.

Chapter 23

"Slow down," Max complained. "Furies, Calderon, what's all the crows-eaten rush?"

Tavi glanced back over his shoulder as he paced swiftly down the street from the Citadel. Colorful Wintersend furylamps lit the way in soft hues of pink, yellow, and sky-blue, and despite the late hour the streets were busy. "I'm not sure. But I know something is very wrong."

Max sighed and broke into a lazy lope until he caught up with Tavi. "How do you know? What does that letter say?"

Tavi shook his head. "Oh, the usual. How are you doing, little things that happened at home, that she's staying at the manor of someone named Nedus on Garden Lane."

"Oh," Max said. "No wonder you panicked. That's one horrifying letter. It certainly merits sneaking out on Killian and possibly endangering the security of the Crown."