Chapter Seven

Calanthe knelt by the woman’s body. It was the fifth that had been found, marked the same way as the others, with the throat torn out in a crushing bite and claw marks raking the body. The wall was scarred by fire, as though the woman had tried to defend herself with sorcerous flame, and missed—except that there was a gap in the scorch-marks, where the firebolt would have hit the assailant instead.

She hadn’t known this woman, who had fought to the last. She wished, briefly, that she had taken the time to change that, as Tamel had urged her.

The man who had discovered the body stood next to her, still staring at it in horror. She had heard his call for help, and come to discover this.

“Find Iril,” she said to him. Iril, level-headed, handled much of the administration as well as the building of the city.

He tore his gaze away. “I will,” he said, voice trembling, “but then I’m leaving.”

She kept her voice calm, so as not to provoke him. “Because you think you’ll be next?”

“Because I don’t know that I won’t be. I can’t do much, but this sorcerer might not know that.”

“You’re sure it’s a rival sorcerer.”

He hesitated. “It can’t be the prince’s hunter. He wouldn’t ambush us like this, would he? His executions are done openly.”

She thought of Ryuan hiding in shadows, silently killing off these people one by one— No. “It can’t be,” she echoed.

“Should I go to the prince? Ask him for his judgment against this sorcerer?”

She hesitated. Ryuan had spoken warmly of his foster-brother, but she still did not know what to think of a man who sentenced another to death for killing an outlaw. Would the prince bother to send his hunter here? What could he do?

What would she do, if she saw Ryuan again?

She was silent too long. “Maybe I’ll leave now,” the man said, inching toward the door. His face shone with sweat.

She hadn’t wanted to leave the body, but it wasn’t as though any more harm could be done. “Go, then. I’ll tell Iril about this.”

Calanthe found her in the empty building whose cellar held the wolf-born. Iril was picking up habits from her lover; she pushed her hands through her hair when she heard Calanthe’s news. “Another? The whole city’s going to have to be locked down to keep people safe. Curse those wretched guards!”

“They’re supposed to keep people out, not in,” Calanthe said.

“People are leaving?”

“The man who found this body didn’t seem to think he was safe here.”

“There are safeguards we can take, even if the wolf-born are resistant to sorcery.”

“Not everyone sleeps in the same bed as a sorcerer who can set wards at night,” Calanthe pointed out.

Iril gave her a quick glance, then conceded the point with a nod. “I just wish we could talk to this sorcerer and try to reason with him.”

“Did you try the captive wolf-born?”

“Yes, but he spoke as though he were the prince’s hunter.”

Calanthe stared at her. “You told me it wasn’t him.”

“I don’t think so. The prince’s hunter never removes his signet, right? But there were some things he said…”

“Iril,” she said, “I must see him.”

“Tamel wouldn’t want that.”

Calanthe had always thought that Iril supported Tamel because she truly believed in what he worked toward, not because she blindly followed her lover. “If you don’t want me to see him, fine. But don’t hide behind Tamel. You know I haven’t let him rule me, but I see you’re different.”

Iril hissed in impatience. “Go see him, then!” She gestured and the floor folded downward into a staircase. Grudgingly: “Actually, you might want to feed him and see to his wounds.”

“He was wounded in the fall?”

“No.” Iril looked away. “Tamel whipped him.”

Calanthe couldn’t understand why he would do such a thing. “What did the wolf-born do?”

“He wouldn’t answer Tamel’s questions.”

Calanthe had witnessed flashes of temper on Tamel’s part, but using a whip on a chained man?

“Give me the key to his chains.”

“Calanthe!”

”He’ll still have the silver manacles on.”

“He could hurt you even as a man with his hands bound.”

“He hasn’t hurt or killed anyone yet, although I can understand it if he wants to now. Give me something to bargain with, since clearly beating the information out of him won’t work.”

Iril thrust the key at her. “If he gets free and joins the rampage of kills, you’ll be to blame.”

“That’s the strange thing,” Calanthe said, puzzled. “The wolf-born don’t massacre indiscriminately like this. They focus on their prey, a single target, and won’t be swayed from it.” She remembered watching Ryuan hunt, always bringing down the same beast he promised for their supper.

“Even if that’s true, how will it help us if this one focuses on you?” Iril shook her head.

Calanthe couldn’t explain the source of her knowledge, so she stalked off in search of bandages, food and water. Tamel couldn’t complain how long she spent at the well if he inflicted wounds she needed to wash. The deaths must feel like a personal affront to him, after he had established the city as a sanctuary for sorcerers. But to whip a man as though he were an animal— That was what he thought, she realized. The wolf-born were not people to him. A cloak too, then, if this one had been locked up naked.

She made her way into the cellar and was relieved to find that it was lit, at least. The wolf-born sat facing the corner, so that she could clearly see the long welt on his back. She wanted to tend it right then, but she knew better than to startle him. She deliberately scuffed her foot on the floor as she walked toward him to alert him to her presence.

His head swiveled toward her. His features were drawn into a feral mask, and there was something so terrible in the way he looked at her, utterly rapt, as though she were not a person but some strange thing to investigate by peeling away the layers of her skin and muscle, that she almost fled what must be the wrong cell. But she recognized him.

“Ryu!” The name was startled out of her, a single, sharp word, and it cut into him. He blinked, and for a moment she saw something vulnerable pass over his face. Then his expression hardened. It was human this time, but even more frightening for it.

“Calanthe,” he said, and there was a gleam in his eyes, that of a long patience rewarded. He nodded toward the key she held.

She hadn’t dared believed it would be him. Words flooded her throat and drowned her voice. She knelt beside him and unlocked his chains, and immediately knew it was a mistake.