‘What are you driving at?’Colm asked.
‘Did you see any extra limbs among the gentry, Colm?’she said.‘Only among their courtiers, and then few and far between.’
‘You think the wraiths have a grudge against the nobility.I’m suddenly feeling sympathetic.’
‘As Queen Medrith said herself, what king has ever ruled without occasional brutality?’
Colm frowned.‘Makes you wonder what the point of kings is, doesn’t it?’
Fola laughed.‘You’d fit right in where I come from, you know.’
His broad smile split his face.He crossed three of his arms—the wounded one on top, supported by the others—and scratched his chin with the fourth.‘What do we know, then, all told?’
With each point, Fola put up a finger.‘First, the girl Siwan possesses an unusual and powerful soul, mingling fae, fiend and undead.
‘Second, that soul was created by a ritual, likely fae in origin, considering her medallion.Llewyn is like her, fae and undead, though without the medallion, and without the bound fiend.They travel in the company of a sorceress, who may well be the one responsible for her creation.’
That the sorceress knew of and sympathised with the City was a variable Fola had yet to account for.
‘Third, the fiend is able, likely by drawing from the undead aspect of Siwan’s soul, to call down a host of powerful wraiths, but cannot control them.
‘Fourth, those wraiths are deliberate in their violence, avoiding folk with uncommon morphologies.There are few, if any, folk with uncommon morphologies among the nobility.It stands to reason, then, that the wraiths are motivated by some tyranny, perhaps in the kingdom’s distant past.If the play these troupers put on has any foothold in reality, Parwys was forged in war and bloodshed.Now, strengthened and stirred awake by the fiend, the wraiths have come for their due.’
Her thumb sprang up to join her fingers.‘Finally, the first known instance of the haunting—the first appearance of the wraiths—was in Glascoed, and led to the death of the count.After which, young Ifan went mad, raving about dreams sent by the wraiths and a curse on his family.’
Colm furrowed his brow.‘Do the dead speak in dreams?’
‘Not often, but when they’re as powerful as this, they can indeed,’ Fola said.‘And I saw little sign of madness in Ifan at court.Did you?’She made a fist and let it fall to her lap.‘More, legends tell that the Greenwood of Glascoed is home to powerful fae.I would like to know more about them, particularly about how Llewyn and Siwan came to possess a nature mingling fae and undead.Such knowledge may be key to disentangling the fiend and the wraiths.Queen Medrith mentioned those stories when we met.I wonder if she suspects more about this haunting than she let on.’
Colm nodded sagely, then heaved himself to his feet with a grunt.‘And what do we do about the templars?I doubt they’ll give up.If anything, stabbing their spy will provoke them.’
Fola grimaced.‘Nothing yet.From my talk with Queen Medrith, I don’t think the Mortal Church holds much sway at court,’ she said, standing with him.‘They won’t make an open move against us, I think.We’re both guests of the prince, and if either of us attacks the other we risk being thrown out of the kingdom, or worse.Depending on what their spy saw, and what he manages to report, these troupers may be in more danger than we are.I need a few more words with our new friends here.And then I must see about securing an audience.’
‘With the queen?’Colm asked.‘Again?Or the prince?’
‘With the Count of Glascoed.’Fola turned to the backstage tent.‘I’d like to know more about these dreams from the dead that drove him temporarily insane, and about the fae that plague his domain.Meanwhile, keep your head down, but keep alert.That knight you stabbed may not die, which means the whole of the Mortal Church in Parwys will know that you stabbed him, soon enough.Which will make things quite a bit more complicated.’
Colm watched her go, heaved a dramatic sigh, and muttered something about a drink.‘Fine, then,’ he shouted after her.‘Meet you back at the inn.’
She waved him off, then idly scratched the back of Frog’s head as she turned her mind to the problem at hand.No rebel necromancer prowling the woods, sending ghosts to disrupt the governance of the kingdom.Only an ancient crime, a mingling of strange magics, and a girl who carried a power beyond her capacity to control.
If Fola could convince the girl to cooperate—and, perhaps more importantly, convince Llewyn, her protector—she might save the kingdom, foil the Mortal Church, and secure the most important object of thaumaturgical research in history, all at once.
She doubted anyone in the City could brag of a greater accomplishment.Who then could refuse her, or doubt her worth?
A Meeting of the Minds
YC 1189
In my prior letter I might have sounded ungrateful, which might have reinforced a misunderstanding of the City held by many in your position, Your Excellence.
The City is not a cage.It is a paradise.
But, in the minds of some, the limits and depths of all things, even paradise, must be tested.
Letter from Archivist Tan Semn to Hierophant Adhamha III of Goll,YC1162
All through the night, while Damon, Harwick, Spil and the others had lent aid to the wounded, Llewyn lingered and watched, kept away from Siwan by guilt.The night’s horrors had been his fault.But he was bound in place, unable to leave her—though he feared how she would react to his presence.There had been hatred in her eyes while she screamed and cursed him, while the raven fiend tore free of its bonds.Would that same hatred still be there when she woke, restored to herself?
