NAITH
Naith stood in a deserted alleyway of Urian. He spent so much time in alleyways of late.
Disgraceful.
The sun had barely made its presence known, and the city had not yet woken. Except the rivermen on the docks. Naith had paid one of those wretches handsomely for his silence after he ferried Naith to the docks nearest the palace.
Naith would not be able to travel anywhere in Urian without being recognized. What was the Master thinking, sending him back? What could they possibly stand to gain? All was deeply unstable, and it seemed this place where he might face the wrath of some emboldened peasants at any moment was the last place in Tir he should be. If the goal was to keep him alive, at least—and Naith wasn’t sure that was what the Master wanted at all.
He frowned. The back entrance to the palace—the one favored by kitchen servants and deliverymen—was visible just down the lane.
How undignified. Was this what the Master expected of him? To slink around the city like a four-legged critter? To duck into service entrances like a common slave?
After the care he had taken to escape the capital in the first place . . .
“Blast it all.”
Not cursing me, are you, Naith?
Naith stifled a scream. He had been so focused on the palace, he hadn’t noticed the smoky strands swirling nearby. And if he hadn’t been so familiar with those strands in the first place, he would have taken them for morning mist.
“Master,” Naith whispered to the strands. “You startled me.”
You should know I’m always with you.
“Forgive me, Master. I was trying to strategize. But you have not shared your plan with me.” Naith prayed the Master would give him grace in this moment of danger.
No, I did not share my plan with you. In fact, I never told you to return to the palace at all.
Naith froze. He replayed the Master’s instructions over in his mind. Return to Urian. Naith had assumed that meant his former home, the palace.
“Master, I thought—”
You assumed. Nasty habit, that. And you nearly ruined everything with your assumptions and your haste.
“Forgive me, Master. Where shall I go if not to the palace? To the temple?”
Stay, Naith. Watch.
Naith stood in the alleyway as the Master’s smoke strands curled lazily through the air around him. The sun peeked over the tops of the cityscape. The palace now glowed around its edges in the early-morning light.
The city wakes.
And indeed, it had. The sounds of doors closing. Of shutters being opened. Of vendors and merchants calling their morning wares—hotcakes and fishing supplies and fresh milk. Soon the fabric and dress shops would open for business. Milliners and haberdasheries. All seducing Urian’s middle class to try to pass for nobility with a new hat, a few fine buttons on last year’s dress.
But Naith had heard these sounds thousands of times before. Why had the Master brought him all the way back to Urian to listen to the sounds of the citizenry? What did he care for them?
Wait for it.
Yes, there it was. A less pleasant sound. Less familiar to Naith’s ears and his years of experience in the capital city. Shouts of treason. Calls for the queen’s head. Demands to see Gareth’s body. Cries against the monarchy. The sounds of heavy pounding on a heavier door.
Listen to the sounds of unrest, the cries of peasant rage.
“Yes, I hear it, Master.” Naith hesitated. “But surely you know they would see me as one to overthrow. I sat at Gareth’s court. I had a seat on his council. They would well remember my fine robes, the temple taxes.”
Indeed. So you must make them believe you are beyond such things. Remind the peasants of a time when the priestly class served the goddesses more humbly and were not so concerned with lining their pockets.
Preposterous. Unravel two or three centuries of history . . . how? How could he possibly change the well-earned reputation of the Tirian priests? And why would he bother? “Master?”
We need them now, Naith. Make them believe in you.
“They’ll kill me. If I take one step out there, they’ll have my head.”
Then perhaps you ought not act so brashly. Craft a plan, you fool.
“Yes, Master.”
Of course, I have already crafted a plan for you. I know my game pieces well enough to know I cannot trust you with this.
He lowered his head. “Forgive me.”
I shall. Because I need you. Do you know what I’ve just witnessed, Naith?
He didn’t even know where the Master’s body was at this precise moment. “No, I do not.”
I’ve just watched a ship set sail.
“From . . . the river?” A riverboat was hardly a ship, but Naith couldn’t follow the Master’s train of thought. Hadn’t they just been speaking of Urian? Urian had no ships, only river vessels.
No, Naith. Out into the great, wide Menfor Sea. I thought I would be watching this ship set sail, charting its course, then meeting you back in Urian so that we might work together. But things have changed.
“Changed?”
Yes. I cannot meet you in Urian now, for my quarry has departed and now I must wait.
“I don’t understand.”
No, you do not. Not yet. But you will. Listen to the peasants, Naith.
He obeyed. They had grown louder and angrier with each passing moment. “I hear them.”
It is time to leverage their rage. It is time for you to create your weapon while I chase mine.