No one answered. So she pushed the door all the way open and stepped inside.
It was a small, dim room that smelled like candle smoke and parchment. Rough-hewn shelves were built into the walls and each cubby was crammed with scrolls.
“Is anyone here?”
Silence answered her. Essie flew off to investigate while Roa stepped closer to the shelves. Most of the scrolls were yellowed and crinkled with age. But some, in a cubby at the end, were crisp and new.
Roa was reaching for one of these when a bright, startled feeling raced through her.
Roa.Essie’s voice rang through her mind.Look.
She turned to find her sister’s hawk form perched on the edge of a desk beneath the window, staring down at crisp white parchment, folded and stamped with a red wax seal. Roa stepped toward it. Impressed into the wax was the shape of an elegant, seven-petaled flower—a namsara. Roa had given this same flower to Dax’s sister, Asha, the night before she escaped the city.
Roa looked to Essie.
It isn’t addressed to anyone,said her sister.
So Roa broke the seal, unfolded it, and read:
Three days ago, a shipment from Darmoor was due to arrive at Baron Silva’s stronghold. Despite the price on our heads, Torwin insisted on going, determined to intercept it. There’s a weapon in the shipment which, in the wrong hands, could unleash a monster.
We quarreled about it. He took Kozu and left in the night while I slept. I was furious at first, but he should have returned by now, and I’m worried they expected him. I’m afraid of what they’ll do if they’ve caught him.
I can’t wait here any longer.
I’m going after him.
There was no signature, but when Roa turned it over, touching the namsara flower on the seal, she knew who it was from.
“Asha.”
After the revolt, when the law demanded Dax’s sister pay the killing price of a king, Roa had helped her and Torwin escape. They’d been on the run for over a month now, with an abundance of prices on their heads. Not everyone was pleased with the new king’s reign, and Dax’s enemies had only to gain by using his sister against him—ifthey could catch her.
Asha was here?said Essie. Her silver eyes scanned the shadows and corners of the study, searching for traces of her.
Roa skimmed the black handwriting once more. “Who’s the intended recipient?”
Isn’t it obvious?Essie took the letter in her beak, then set it down on the desk where she could examine it more closely.
It wasn’t obvious to Roa.
Dax is the only one who comes here. When he does, he brings only a select few with him. They’ve probably been passing messages this way since Asha and Torwin escaped the city.Taking the letter in her beak once more, she lifted it up to Roa.If they’re in danger, Dax needs to know.
Dax wasn’t in the dining room where Roa and Essie had left him and the others. So they checked the terrace, then the gardens, but he wasn’t there either. Finally, the cook led Roa to his room and told her to wait. She’d find the king and send him to her.
There were no guards standing outside. So Roa walked right in and shut the door behind her.
The evening sunlight pooled on the dirt floor, spilled across the bed, and illuminated the tapestries hanging on the plain white walls.
With no one here to see her, Roa moved toward the first tapestry. It was of a scrublander woman with dark curls and clear black eyes. She wore a gold circlet on her head and was smiling in a way that said she knew something Roa didn’t. Her two children were with her: a very young and unscarred Asha, held aloft in her mother’s arms, and a slightly older Dax, standing next to them. The artist had captured the exact color of his eyes—a warm brown, wide and curious—as well as those jug-handle ears.
Beside this tapestry hung two others. By the brighter quality of the colors, she could tell both were more recently made.
The first one was of Asha, rendered in gold and red threads, with a burn scar running down her face. She held a hunting axe in one hand and a scroll in the other. Beside her was a freckle-faced young man playing a lute.
Torwin,thought Roa, touching the threads with her right hand while her left tightened around the letter.
She hoped he was safe. She hoped they both were.
