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

unmarked—as bruised as the rest of her, with swelling beginning to fade near her right wrist—but the marks were no map of what they’d done.

For the first time, her mind was clear enough to really think of the Rognozis, her kind and caring hosts. They’d been innocent as far as her mission went, though neither of them had been as naive as the word implied. A man didn’t serve as High Lord of Heliodar for decades without awareness of the world, and Branwyn would’ve wagered his wife had shared that quality, in her own fashion.

No, not innocent. Not naive. Only good-hearted, and not prepared for the scope of the forces that moved across the world now—or the depth of their evil.

Whether or not Branwyn had struck the blows that killed them, she might have been at fault for that lack of preparation. She didn’t think the enemy, whoever it was, had targeted them for hosting a Sentinel, or even knew that facet of her identity, but if the Rognozis had known, they might have been more careful, or not made the offer at all.

If she’d come to the city openly as a Sentinel, her enemy might have gone deeper and her contacts refused to talk to her. That had been the Adeptas’ argument. It had been King Olwin’s, it had been Vivian’s, and it had been the one Branwyn had believed. She still thought it was, and she thought that she thought that not only to assuage her guilt.

Thyran would kill far more than two people if he got his way. War exacted a red toll. Branwyn had known that since long before Oakford.

“Dark Lady, take the pain of their deaths from them,” she said, the old litany for those who fell in battle coming easily after years of use. “Lord of the Scales, let them know their own courage. King of the Wild, make a place for their mortal remains in your creation. Queen of the Golden Webs, give them the thanks of the civilization they died upholding.”

“May the Four so grant,” said Zelen, stepping into the room.

* * *

The day, which was barely more than half over, had already been long: long and cold.

Branwyn had still slept deeply when Zelen had left clothing and food. One shoulder had poked out of the blankets, still bruised enough to inspire concern rather than lust. Her gold hair had spilled across the pillow above it, reminiscent of the webs that decorated Sitha’s temples in silk, metal, and stained glass.

A web’s pretty unless you’re a fly. He thought he’d always hear Cosnian’s quote in Branwyn’s drug-slurred voice from then on. The words of the Southern Kingdoms’ greatest cynic sounded both odd and oddly appropriate from one whose entire life was duty.

He’d left before he could let himself think about how much he wanted to stay with her.

Work had been slow at the clinic. That had let Zelen slip out and ask a few questions of people he knew: former patients, men he’d drunk with after the day’s labors, and Tanya, who’d been playing a few streets away and come to investigate. He’d asked all of them if they’d heard about a big fight a few nights before, if they’d seen anyone looking as though they’d been in one, if any of their acquaintances had disappeared lately, or if a gold-hilted sword with an opal in the hilt had turned up.

He hadn’t actually had to ask Tanya. “Haven’t seen anyone hurt as bad as they’d be if they’d tangled with your lady,” she said. “Not nearly, not assuming she gave a little bit as good as she got.”

“She would have,” said Zelen, trying to ignore both your lady and his idiotic impulse to beam at the phrase.

“She all right?”

“She will be. You did well,” said Zelen, and Tanya smiled more at that than at the silver he slipped her.

His other conversations had been less straightforward but revealed as little. Nobody had gotten worse than a black eye and a split lip in a fight, or for most any other reason—except a set of crushed ribs, but that had been an accident loading a barge, in full view of witnesses. Missing people were harder, since many took to the road when love or money turned sour, without informing anyone they left behind. There’d been only one disappearance that really puzzled Zelen’s contacts, though, and he’d been fifteen and bookish, a clerk’s apprentice.

That was worrying itself, on top of the previous missing child, but Zelen doubted that a stripling would’ve been able to land a punch on a maddened Sentinel, much less leave one too badly injured to walk.

Nobody had seen a fancy sword. They certainly would’ve remembered that.

Until he reached the room, carrying the day’s letters, and heard Branwyn’s prayer, he still hadn’t been sure whether or not to tell her. There was still plenty he didn’t know. She could have killed the Rognozis and met with an accident or a fight later. She could even have been in league with the demon, then turned on it.

Then her voice had reached him, hoarse with injury and cracked with grief and regret, in the words of a prayer Zelen had once learned but never had cause to use.

He could have kept his silence as easily as he could have stopped breathing.

When Zelen closed the prayer, Branwyn turned to look at him. Most of the bruising had faded from her face, leaving only a faint shadow around one eye. With her grave expression and his white shirt for clothing, she had an almost holy air about her, and a very solitary one.

“Nobody’s seen anything,” he blurted out. It was all he could offer in the face of her somber regard. “No fights. No injuries. One disappearance, but hardly the sort who’d give you trouble. And you’re not the sort to fall down stairs. I’ve seen you move.”

“That argues for a few possibilities,” Branwyn said, “and only one of them is entirely good, even as