Page 21 of A Trade of Blood

We dismounted and did so, and came to the edge of the forest. Unlike nearly every forest I’d ever passed through, this one was silent and utterly still, bereft of any bird call or a flicker of a moth’s wing. Even if it hadn’t put some pheromone in me to set my blood dancing, I’d have found it eerie. Still I looked, engraving the experience carefully, gazing into the great, velvety wall rising before me, endless and unfathomable.

I asked Seriv what he knew of the forest, and he shrugged. “What most do, sir. Rumor. Myth. It’s an old thing, and those who made it weren’t interested in sharing why they put it here. If the reason was ever known, it was forgotten long ago, along with a great deal else.”

“But it was made to ward people away from the last tomb of the Daljen—true?”

“Maybe! Of the Daljen themselves, we’ve little more than stories. They were here once. They farmed these lands and grew wonders. Now they’re gone. That’s the run of it.”

“And they’re worshipped here, true?” I asked. “I heard Trikao Armenta mention the Daljen.”

“Yes, sir. The Armentas revere them as ancestors, as many wealthy Tala folk do. Although, well…the Daljen died out and disappeared, yes? First out of all the old imperial tribes. And no other ancient imperial lands are guarded by such a forest.” He glanced at me. “So. Perhaps they were doomed, some say.”

I realized what he meant. “Or cursed?”

“You have the read of it, sir. More gossip, more rumor. Were the Daljen cursed? Has that curse nowmoved on,and ensnared the Armentas? Is that why their line is nearly ended, just like that of theDaljen?” Then, sounding slightly embarrassed, he added, “And then, of course, there’s the lights.”

“What lights?”

“Well—I’ve never seen them myself, sir. But there are rumors of folk sighting a flickering in the trees. A light, flashing and quaking, in the deepest stretches of the wood, where none can approach.”

“When did this happen?”

“Oh, on and off for a while now, sir. First spotting I know of was three years ago. I’ve watched the forest myself, sir, and never seen a thing. And many watch the trees these days. They’ve seen no one enter or leave. But every so often, another drover comes flying down a road in the night, crying out that he’s seen the lights again.” He shrugged. “I manage drunken drovers and feuding farmers. I shall let the works of the unseen be.” He nodded ahead. “That’s where we found Castus.”

We walked to a spot not more than twenty span down the tree line, where many branches were broken and bruised. From the look of it, Castus had only penetrated about ten span into the trees—yet I couldn’t imagine how he’d managed even this, given how densely the boughs were grown, and how the airs of the forest put a thread of fear in one’s thoughts.

“He said he’d been followed,” I said. “Felt someone growing near to him in the dark.”

“He said the same to us, sir, when we found him,” sighed Seriv. “But we all descended on him in a rush, and in deep night. If there was sign of some other soul out here, we’ve marred it, I’m afraid. And we saw no one else out here, of course.”

I gazed at the patch of broken branches for a long while, thinking. “He also said he came out here to pray—is that so?”

“There are a few old shrines within the wood. They burned back the trees and treated the soil to make paths for the pilgrims. One lies near here, true, the shrine of Master Gaddar. But to my reading of it, sir, the boy was simply out of his head. Which hangs, I feel—for he had to be mad to attack the girl to begin with, true?”

I gazed out at the pale, leaning branches. My skin began to crawl. I turned my eyes away and asked to leave this place.

Chapter 6

When I returned tothe Cat’s Eye Inn, little had changed: Zansay still lay upon the floor in a lake of blood, and Ana still crouched within the closet like a creature from a spirit’s tale. It felt faintly wrong to leave Zansay lying there in such a manner, as if she were a part of the room’s décor, but I was familiar with Ana’s response when I had raised such concerns before:If the dead mind how we treat them, they can goddamned feel free to speakup.

“Well?” purred Ana as I opened the closet door. “How was your discussion with the young Master Armenta, Din? Or was he capable of speaking at all?”

I recited all I had experienced, sniffing at my vial, the words tumbling from my lips as if I was emptying my soul of some pestilence. Ana listened with her head bowed, rocking back and forth in the closet. When I finished, she sat very still, her blindfolded head bent at an angle. She pursed her lips, then lifted her face to the fretvine ceiling and let out a slow, leaking sigh.

“The forest of the Daljen,” she said softly. “I am slightly envious that you saw it, Din! It haunts these lands, yes? This memory of a forgotten age persisting at the periphery of this quiet farmland…”

I reluctantly conceded that this was one way of puttingit.

“Listen, child—when we first came in here, you told the carriage driver to wait for us in the stables, true?”

“That’s so, ma’am. He is likely still there.”

“He damned well better be—along with all my possessions! Ineed you to go there, quickly now, and go through my trunk and bring me something.”

“What, ma’am?”

“My pipes,” she said. “Allof them. All my flutes, and pipes, and other woodwinds. My clartulya, the bocal shawm, the Uluyrian pipe set, the syrinixia, and so on. I believe there should be a dozen or so.”

I grimaced. Ana was an oft-distracted musical dilettante, picking up obscure instruments to master one or two tunes, then forgetting the thing entirely. As such, she had quite the collection of abandoned instruments. Traveling with the harps, especially, had become a burden forme.