Iano’s rapier is out and pointed at the woman with the scarred eyelid, but instantly several other burly guards in palace insignia materialize behind her. A fight against just the one strong, well-trained guard would have been chancy. A fight against four others would be laughable.
But the woman doesn’t reach for her weapon. She spreads her hands and her cloak, showing the short sword sheathed underneath.
“You can stand down, my prince. I’m not going to harm you. I’m going to reach into my pocket and show you something, all right?”
We watch dumbly as she does this, producing a small leather bag. She tips the contents into her palm. An elegantly cut ruby flashes in the late-afternoon light.
Iano stares at it, his rapier still raised. “That’s from my mother’s si-oque.”
“Yes. I’m abroad on her orders. There’s been some suspicion that someone forged her seal.”
“Forged her seal?” Iano repeats faintly.
“Uah. A few weeks ago, a rumor went out that two rookie soldiers had been dispatched on a mission, but nobody seemed to know where the orders had come from. Any secret mission should have borne the queen’s seal, but she’d never made such an order. So a moratorium has been put on all documents bearing it. For the moment we’re back to the old-fashioned way of validating her orders.”
The three of us stare at her, and then at each other. Iano is pale, no doubt reliving the deaths of the two soldiers that first night after we fled Pasul. My mind, however, is wheeling on what this means. A small thread of relief creeps through my stomach.
It wasn’t your mother, I say to Iano.
He draws a sharp breath, and looks back to the woman. “Who are you?”
“My name is Enna. The queen placed me on this detail after you disappeared—I’ve been looking for you for weeks. Shall we talk?”
He shifts, looking at me again. “We . . . have urgent business in Tolukum. We can’t delay.”
“So I heard—at least, partially,” Enna says. “And I believe I can answer some of your questions. We can talk and ride. But I regret to inform you that now that I have found you—you’ll pardon my language, my prince—I’ll be absolutely damned if I’m going to let you ride away without us.”
I squeeze Iano’s arm. He lowers his rapier, but otherwise he doesn’t move.
“You saw us in Giantess Township,” he says. “Why didn’t you arrest us there?”
“I’m not arresting you, my prince. I am ensuring your continued safety. Granted—I wasn’t sure that I did see you in Giantess. Forgive me, but you look . . . rather not like your usual self. And I didn’t know your companions.” She inclines her head to Soe. “I had to do some more asking around town before I was sure it was you.”
She gestures apologetically to the horses. “I’m afraid I cannot give you the option to refuse. I will be happy to escort you through the city and into Tolukum, but I’m not unwilling to do it with you tied over the back of my horse. The queen will see me and the rest of my cadre hang if she knows I had you and let you go, and that is the plain truth. Shall we?”
The other guards have already brought their horses around. With reluctant glances at each other, we head to ours and clamber into the saddles. The guards take up position around us, circling us in a tight wall of horseflesh. Making a break for it would probably just look foolish.
Besides, this is what we want—I think.
Enna doesn’t hesitate in providing answers to our questions. After only a few cursory questions about our whereabouts and activities the past several weeks, she launches into an explanation.
“I work as a coach guard for the Royal Stage Line,” she explains. “I was a colleague of Poia Turkona.”
“Poia!” I exclaim, remembering the surly, one-eyed guard who’d held me captive in the Ferinno with batty old Beskin.
Enna nods. “When she vanished from her duties around the time you were attacked, I was suspicious. When the prince disappeared, too, I decided I couldn’t afford to give her the benefit of the doubt. I went to the queen and told her what I suspected.”
“Why would you suspect Poia?” Iano asks. “I mean—you were right, but couldn’t she have just gotten sick?”
“I checked the log books, and there was no indication that she was on ordinary leave,” Enna says, narrowing her eyes at a passing potato cart as if the driver might leap and attack. “The head of staff usually keeps immaculate records about any illnesses or personal time, and there was nothing mentioned. I talked to a few others, and they hadn’t heard anything, either. But the main reason I suspected her was—Poia was a Hire.”
I nod. “Uah.”
Enna glances at me. “You knew?”
I gesture at Iano, who fills in for me. “She found out, eventually—she saw Poia’s tattoo.”
“I’m not surprised she had one—but we knew how she leaned even without seeing it. I think a big reason we didn’t report her missing right away was because we weren’t sorry to see her go, always grumbling about how much she resented sharing the mess hall or wash duty with bond laborers. But when you, my prince, and the Eastern prince vanished, I figured I couldn’t keep my concerns to myself. I requested an audience with the queen and told her that Poia had unexpectedly disappeared around the same time Tamsin did. At that point, it was our only lead, and she ordered me to take a small party and make a search.”
I wave at Soe and twist to let her see my hands.
“But Poia wasn’t the one to attack Tamsin,” Soe interprets. “She was one of her prison guards, but not an attacker.”
“I didn’t say I’d have all the answers,” Enna says. “But if it’s true that Poia really was involved, my guess is you could start by checking with other palace staff to see if anyone else disappeared.”
Did you know Beskin? I ask. She was the other prison guard.
Enna shakes her head at Soe. “Sorry, no.”
I exchange glances with Iano.
Fala, I spell, and he nods. The head of staff is our best hope now.
Iano’s face is still etched with anxiety. “I worry that once we get back to the palace, we’ll be sucked back in court—healers will want to look at us, questions will have to be answered. It might be difficult to get hold of Fala right away, and our success—and helping Lark and Veran—could depend on mere minutes.”
“I’m not letting you go anywhere else, my prince,” Enna says firmly. “I told you, your mother will send me to the scaffold . . .”
“Hey,” I say abruptly. Can you get us into the palace a different way? Through a guard entrance?
Soe passes the question to Enna. She frowns.
“I don’t like the idea . . . it seems devious, and the queen . . .”
“I’ll make sure no trouble comes to you for it,” Iano says. “I promise. It could mean the difference between true danger and safety in the court, along with saving at least one life.”
Enna purses her lips, but finally she nods. “We’ll bring you in through a service entrance. But I’m still not letting you out of my sight until you’re in the company of the queen.”
“Very well.” Iano looks at me and shrugs. I nod. We have a way in. We have a way to Fala.
I turn in my saddle to face the rising swell of the city. The clouds overhead are gathering with the promise of rain tonight, but the sun is slipping into that magic opening just above the horizon. The city is cast into vivid golds and purples. At the top shines Tolukum, the glass dome too bright to look at, a beacon of opulence for all who gaze on it.
Opulence and treachery.
I nudge the horse, hoping we’re not too late.