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“What of Lark?” Draven’s voice, even broken, held a strange note. He studied his drink, took several generous gulps, and looked up.
“What of him?” I asked carefully.
“I assume he survived, and he’s among the Court of Pain?”
Thinking of him there, in their towering buildings, like great swords thrust into storm clouds, it hurt my heart. I’d never been to their court, but like the rest, I’d heard talk. A huge city sat at its center, consuming commerce and people, like a black hole in the land. I couldn’t imagine anyone laughed there, or danced or sung or did all the things Lark loved. “Where he belongs.”
“Hm,” Draven said, and with his voice in tatters, it sounded like a growl. He knew what Lark had been through. He’d toldmethe details. We hadn’t gotten so far as to discuss what any of it meant. Now Lark was back where he belonged, it didn’t matter.
“The traitor’s son,”he wondered aloud.“One of his parents must have insulted the court, I assume.”
“The Court of Pain is careful with knowledge.” I set my wine aside on the washstand and rummaged underneath for a fresh bandage. “How is it you know even this much?”
“A letter.”
That seemed unlikely. “Someone wrote you and told you Lark was the traitor’s son from the Court of Pain?” I found a cotton bandage and tape and straightened, finding Draven next to me.
“The letter revealed the Court of Love’s favored entertainer was a spy known as the traitor’s son, and the rest I told you.”
“Anything else?”
“It said that when I attended your ball, I should seek the traitor’s son out, and that I’d know by his… missing finger.”
Whoever had sent Draven that letter knew Lark well. “I don’t suppose this letter was signed?” I asked, picking up a separate cloth. I rinsed it and began to dab at my side, but the blood welled again, and the stifling heat closed in. Perhaps the wine, combined with the desert air, had not been a good idea.
“You don’t like the sight of blood?” he asked sympathetically.
“Who does?”
“Allow me to help? Then, I won’t have to watch you almost pass out.”
“All right.” I braced against the washstand and let him do whatever needed to be done. Cool cotton dabbed my side. I steered my thoughts from how the wounds had gotten there and the feel of the knife punching in. Had Razak stabbed me in the chest, or any higher, I wouldn’t have survived.
“No, it wasn’t signed,” Draven said, wiping blood away. “I thought little of it, honestly. Almost forgot it. Then I saw the jester in your court, and well, he’s… unmissable.”
I stared into the washbasin’s pinkish water. “He was quite the distraction. Do you still have this letter?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Was there a wax seal?”
“Ah, yes…” He sighed, something only now occurring to him. “There was, and now you mention it, the answer is obvious.”
I turned my head. “The seal was purple.” The color of Pain.
“Yes. I was certainly played. They wanted me to blunder in, I suppose.” He taped the fresh bandage to my side with surprisingly gentle hands. He looked up, catching me watching, and stepped back. “There. Now rest, or this will not heal.”
“Thank you,” I muttered. I retrieved a fresh shirt and shrugged it on, thoughts swirling with Razak’s plotting. “Someone pointed you in the direction of my court and let you stumble into trouble. Were you not suspicious?”
“I thought it a joke.” He laughed. “A letter about a traitor’s son…” Returning to his glass, he refilled it from the bottle and held it aloft, then hesitated, his gaze on the wall but focused elsewhere. “I thought it nonsense. Until…”
“Until what?”
“Until I saw his face, in the gardens, when I told him I knew he was the traitor’s son.” Draven downed the entire glass of wine in a single substantial gulp, then winced at its burn on his sensitive throat.
“What did you see on Lark’s face, Draven?”
“Fear.”
