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“I didn’t fancy prying a poisoned heart hunter arrow out of you.”
“What?”
Mak motioned them over to the headless corpse. He was right. The man had been a heart hunter, judging by his all-white gear of wool and fur—and the anti-Hesperine charms strapped to his chest. But he was armed with a Tenebran soldier’s bow.
“That’s why we couldn’t smell him,” Mak said. “The anti-haimatic Lustra magic covered up the necromancy and made it possible for him to ambush us.”
Kella cursed. “That could explain why Knight was able to track it better than Tilili.”
Lyros’s gaze fell, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “And why his arrow went through our wards. I’m so sorry.”
“I will not accept apologies from any of you.” Cassia embraced Lyros, then Mak. “Why would you cast your wards with heart hunters in mind, this far from the border?”
“Now we will,” Mak said.
Solia nudged the bloodless with her boot. “If the Collector wants to give us a challenge, he’ll have to send something much more dangerous than a single undead.”
“He knows that,” Lio said.
“Yes.” Cassia slid her arm around him. “We know he wants to take me alive, not kill me. So why the arrow?”
He gave into his need to hold her close. “I think this is another message. All of it is personal.”
Lyros pointed at the anti-Hesperine charms. “You think using a heart hunter against us is a reference to our battle with him in Martyr’s Pass?”
“But this one isn’t wielding a crossbow,” Lio said.
The color drained from Cassia’s face. “The arrow is just like the one that almost killed me the night Nike saved my life.”
Mak’s gaze fell to the arrow in his hand. “It’s as if he knew I would catch it.”
“This goes back even farther than that,” Lio said. “A necromancer’s undead concealed with Lustra magic is exactly what the Blood Errant faced when they battled that lynx changer eight hundred years ago.”
“That’s right,” Mak said. “When they were telling us stories in the arena, they explained that the changer had a necromancer ally.”
“How would the Collector know all this about your past?” Kella asked.
“He was there at Martyr’s Pass,” Lyros pointed out.
“And in the past,” Mak said slowly. “When the Blood Errant defeated the lynx changer and the necromancer, there was a Gift Collector roaming the area. Perhaps he heard some tales at the local inn.”
Lio nodded. “Anything the Gift Collectors see or hear most likely becomes their master’s knowledge. And he has a very long memory.”
“But how did he know about the arrow?” Cassia’s voice was rigidly matter-of-fact, but she could not hide how deeply this unnerved her, not from him. “I thought there was no one there except Nike, Alkaios, Nephalea, and me.”
“Are you certain the arrow is a message?” Kella asked. “It doesn’t seem specific enough to me. All of this could merely be a strategic choice. He wasn’t sure how close his bloodless could get to you, so he armed him with a weapon that has greater range.”
“I agree with Kella,” Solia said. “We should not read too much into the Collector’s taunts.”
Lio hated to admit it, but Solia had a point. And if it would make Cassia less frightened, he would swallow his pride. “We know he likes to play with our thoughts. We won’t give him that power.”
Mak drove the arrow in the bloodless’s chest to help keep it pinned to the ground. “One thing’s for certain. The Collector showed us another of the tricks up his sleeve. It won’t work a second time.”
“That’s what worries me,” Lyros said. “He’s parading all his tactics in front of us.”
“Yes,” Cassia replied. “He would never do that unless he had even more tactics in reserve.”
“Or all of this is merely a distraction,” Lyros went on, “and we have yet to understand what his main strategy could be.”
