The Nightborn by Isabel Cooper (howl and other poems TXT) 📗

the time she shook off the last water droplets, the first question was on her tongue.

“Why haven’t the priests sensed it?”

The Four Gods’ servants had powers themselves. Priests of the elder gods Poram and Sitha served in a more peaceful capacity, for the most part, but Tinival’s knights could tell lies from truth when they had the chance to administer an oath. Letar’s Mourners mostly sensed wounds and disease, but the Blades, her extremely militant order, were generally fairly sensitive to Gizath’s power. Given that Yathana had been one before, Branwyn assumed that Gizath was the source of the wrongness.

I don’t know, said Yathana. I’ve been wondering that myself. Death gives us perspective that even the Threadcutter’s priests don’t have while they’re alive. Maybe that’s it. Or maybe having lived in the city so long makes them blind to the wrongness.

“Or,” said Branwyn, sitting back on the bed, “it could be that they’re aware but can’t change matters? Heliodar was the site of the greatest betrayal since Gizath’s. That might echo, without any way to stop it.”

More a missing limb than a bleeding wound? Branwyn could feel the soulsword contemplating the possibility. It could make sense. I’d rather not assume.

“Neither would I.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “If this were any other mission, I’d go and ask. Maybe I should—they certainly wouldn’t willingly give us away.” It probably wouldn’t be the end of the world if they did either. Being a Sentinel wasn’t illegal, nor did it change her mission or her status as Criwath’s military envoy. Marton wasn’t the only one to find the Order off-putting, though. Branwyn’s job would be easier if the people she spoke to didn’t worry that she was one bad day away from cannibalism.

A known Sentinel would also be a target, whether from active corruption within the city, if it did exist, or from people worried that she’d get in the way of more mundane agendas. That might happen regardless, but Branwyn would far rather her enemies underestimated her if so.

Not deliberately, said Yathana, but priests are mortal and temples are human organizations. An acolyte who hasn’t learned discretion or discipline, or someone whose mind isn’t always what it should be, overhears, a patient sees you entering and leaving and puts the pieces together… there are no guarantees. I could tell you stories.

She had, a few times, though not specifically to that end. Branwyn, who’d known priests only from a distance and from the Forging until she was fifteen, had once been shocked by the realization that the temples weren’t smoothly functioning monoliths any more than the Order was.

Not worth the risk, I’d say, or not worth seeking out. If you end up having a private moment to speak with one of the Dark Lady’s servants, do it, but don’t go to the temples without an excuse. Besides, if they’re blind from a life here, there’s not much they can do to help us.

“I’ll be sending out messages tomorrow,” Branwyn said, “setting up meetings, but I doubt I’ll be called on to meet people immediately. I could go out and learn more about the city, especially the parts that I won’t see while I’m drinking wine with the council members.”

That, said Yathana, sounds like an excellent place to start.

Chapter 7

Descending from the hill toward the bay that flanked Heliodar in the east was, in a way, familiar to Branwyn. Most of the fortresses where she’d been quartered had themselves been the center of fortified towns. Concentric circles were common, with farms outside the town walls in places where the countryside was safe or people were bold. Heliodar was constructed along the same basic lines.

Size did make a difference, though, as the dancing girl was rumored to have told the high priest. The scale of Heliodar multiplied the unexpected turns where a straight street ran into a building and changed course, shifted segments so that a district of recent wealth bordered one where formerly grand houses fell into disrepair or desperate battered cleanliness, and generally presented buildings to Branwyn’s stunned vision like marching ranks of an army. She was beginning to make out differences, though, to know the faces above the raised shields and readied pikes, which had seemed impossible on her trip to the Star Palace and almost inconceivable when she’d made her way from the city gates to the Porpoise.

The inn was her first destination on an afternoon radiant with sharp autumn sunlight, a familiar landmark and one that she could excuse returning to. The Rognozis, at dinner the night before, hadn’t acted at all surprised when she’d mentioned going back to explain and settle her accounts, though the round-faced and merry Lady Rognozi had offered the services of a messenger instead.

“Thank you,” Branwyn had replied, while eating roast pigeon with more care than she’d ever given food before, not to mention more utensils, “and I’m certain they’d do a wonderful job, but I’d best attend to it myself. I’m a bit overcautious about inns after my journey, you understand.”

“I do indeed,” Lady Rognozi had said with a click of her tongue. “Why, I remember a spring when I was a girl, journeying from no farther than my family’s estate—three days by coach—and…”

The story that followed had involved larcenous innkeepers, drunken footmen, and a game of chance that Branwyn found impossible to understand. It had made her laugh, though. It had, more importantly, more or less settled the question of her errand the next day without suspicion, and provided some distraction from the subject of her mission.

Neither of the Rognozis were old enough to remember Thyran’s War precisely, nor the start of the Great Winters, but they’d grown up feeling more of the effects than most. Lord Rognozi’s father and three of his siblings had perished then, he’d said. Lady Rognozi had simply gone silent, which Branwyn was already recognizing as odd for her, at the mention of Thyran, and neither of them had eaten very much.

She was inclined to