19th of Thira, Continued

An hour later, we were motoring north along a rutted country road, looking for the farm Braeton thought could be the site of the veildfaste. It became obvious we had found the right one when we turned down a sweeping, tree-canopied gravel drive and hadn't gone more than a few hundred meters around the first bend before we came to a temporary security barricade.

Two big, rough-looking men flagged us down, and as Henmyrre brought the horseless to a stop, one of the guards stepped forward, indicating that he wanted us to lower the luxfenestre.

Braeton did as ordered, then calmly handed our papers and Delmyrre's seal-stamped invitation card through the open window.

The guard took his time examining them, periodically frowning at us, then at the silvographs, then at the invitation. My heart stopped when he walked away to confer with the other guard. Then, finally, he came back, returned the papers, and waved us on through the stanchions.

Braeton let out his breath on a long, silent whistle and gave me a sidelong look. "That was close."

I nodded and went back to staring out the luxfenestre as Henmyrre continued on down the drive. The fact that this party was guarded, and Delmyrre's invitation had gotten us in, could only mean one thing: Braeton's hunch that this was a Shadow Road event was probably correct.

A big white-washed stone barn came into view, gilded by the rose-gold light of an early-summer sunset, surrounded by neat paddocks in a green field lined with trees. The farmhouse was similar, but instead of paddocks it had a wide porch and a roof of heavy thatch.

Whoever the farm belonged to, they weren't there, and they had taken all their animals with them. The farmhouse was dark, the barns empty. The only sign of life was a corridor of colorful lanterns that had been strung from the end of the parking yard through the picket gate of a pretty little kitchen garden. They continued through an orchard of apple trees in bloom, then through a barely tamed rambling, with pathways mown through tall grass, scrub-willow and wild gorse. At the far corner of the rambling, the lights led through a gap in a tree-choked fence and into a broad hayfield.

As we walked, the sound of music and conversation began growing louder, clearer. Then we stepped through the gap in the fence and found the veildfaste. Brightly lit awnings and tents of every color and shape stood in a loose circle around a courtyard of newly cut grass, with a bonfire roaring away in the heart of it all, warding off the gathering dusk.

There were several hundred people there, lounging on lawn cushions, drinking and carousing, dancing to the music coming from a sonularri stage. All of them were dressed like peasants - or, rather, a rich person's idea of how a peasant would dress. Silk and linen, denim and lace, leather and gauze, necklaces of hempen string, glass beads and tassels, amulets of wood, crystal and feathers. There wasn't a dirty work shirt to be seen, or any sweat-stains, or patched over pants. None of the girls wore their hair cut short or knotted up into scarves.

Arramy didn't say a word, hanging back at the edge of the courtyard as Braeton pulled me straight into the dancing, jumping into the middle of a country brevida as easily if he had been born doing it, lining up with the other men, shaking his shoulders and snapping his fingers, flying through the steps without missing a beat.

I slipped into my Pretty Pendar act, smiling and giggling as I took up a position across from him with the other women, waiting our turn to answer the men's challenge with our reply.

The men all gave a shout as they came to a stop, and then it was the women's turn. We went through the motions, flicking pretend lint off our shoulders, acting saucy and stand-offish before forming ranks and twirling away, then back, then away again, with the men whistling and crooning encouragements at us. It might have been fun if we were on Aethscaul. Here, it took on another, more predatory note that sent a hot jolt of anxiety rushing through me.

I might have looked like a Shadow Girl to Arramy, but that didn't make me one. Braeton was using me, but not for that. I wasn't going to wind up on the slave blocks, or in a cargo bin bound for the colonies. The difference rubbed my conscience ragged as the brevida ended. I kept my eyes on Braeton, avoiding real interaction with any of the other girls as we paired up as couples again.

But the next dance started without us. Laughing, Braeton took my arm and led me away from the dance toward the amuletiary booth, his arm around my shoulders. Halfway there, he bent to whisper in my ear, his voice low and intense, "Desmodian Pha Mun-Ghour is here."

I pasted on a smile, like he had just said something funny.

"He's over in the Mystica tent, having his fortune read," Braeton went on, pulling me under the amuletiary awning, ducking us both behind the bunches of talismans and amulets hanging from the roofing poles. "I'm going to try to corner him. I need you to mingle. Keep your eyes and ears open."

I gave a shaky nod.

Braeton brought me around to face him and stood looking down at me. "Be careful."

"You too," I mouthed.

That got a quicksilver pirate grin. He reached up above our heads and undid an amulet, then looped the string of silver beads around my neck and fastened it carefully. For a moment he hesitated, his gaze still meeting mine. Some nameless emotion flickered behind that diamond-cut Braeton mask, barely there before it disappeared, as if he had caught it and snuffed it out. Then he was gone, parting the half-curtain of amulets and sauntering off toward the Mystica tent, whistling a jaunty tune, his hands in his pockets, nonchalant as you please.

I glanced down. A large pink crystal winked at my throat, bound with silver wire and worked with Farengan runes. "May you be prosperous and well-liked," I translated aloud. "Well... At least it goes with the dress."

With a sigh, I pushed the amulets and talismans aside and stepped back out into the courtyard. Mingle, he had said. Mingle with young, desperate girls, pretend to be one of them, and do nothing to help them get out of their immediate situation in the name of saving some nebulous, faceless 'all of them.' Even if we brought the Coventry and the Shadow Road down tomorrow, these girls wouldn't suddenly be free. If anything, they would be in more danger, not less, a risk to be gotten rid of rather than an expensive doll to play with.

That all-too-familiar surge of nausea clawed at the back of my tongue; the light of the bonfire blurred, the noise of the party becoming a dull, indistinct rumble.

Numb. I had to be numb, or I was going to come apart. Unbidden, my eyes picked out a tall, lean, pale-haired figure lurking in the shadows on the far side of the courtyard.

He wasn't watching Braeton. He was watching me, his face stern and unforgiving.

The weight of that icy stare brought a sort of awful, haunting clarity, as if the moment had been frozen and only the two of us existed. We were very different weapons wielded by the same man. Oddly, just knowing he was there gave me the grit I needed to keep going. I firmed my spine, looked away, and dragged in a hollow breath. The armor that I had built so carefully was fraying at the edges, barely holding together, but I pulled it on anyway, mentally refusing to let myself feel anything. Arramy wasn't the only monster at this party.

"What is a beautiful creature like you doing over here by yourself?"

I turned to look up at the dark-haired man standing a few paces away, leering at me. His thumbs were hooked in his front belt loops, his shirt gaping open to his navel, several strands of beads and talismans glittering against his oiled chest. Lord Kallovedes. Son of the late Duke of Aeronos. Very dangerous, Rule Number Six, but a definite target, may have knowledge of Coventry plans and identities.

A smile played over my face. "Waiting," I said, rolling the word with a Tettian lilt.

Kallovedes raised sleek, slender, inked-in eyebrows. "Is that so?"

"Mmmm-hmmm. Lord Braeton is talking to a friend, so I do not have anyone to dance with. And I do love to dance."

"Ah, well then you're in luck," Kallovedes sidled up next to me, whispering as if we shared some sort of secret. "It just so happens... Braeton sent me over here to make sure you're having fun, and I, also... love to dance."

I managed a bubbly little giggle when he offered his arm with a courtly flourish, then I slid my hand into the crook of his elbow and let him pull me toward the bonfire.

The easy part was the dance. The hard part was grinning like a rattlebrain when Kallovedes held me too close. Making any sort of conversation was impossible. The dance was too fast, the footwork demanding, and by the time the music stopped, Kallovedes was looking at me like I was a sweet he wanted to sample, which made my flesh crawl. The need to run broke in a cold wave over my skin when his hands didn't move from my waist after the next song began. I flashed a breathless smile, curtsied and tried to step away, to put some sort of distance between us, but he just smirked and shook his head.

"Not so fast. I'm not done with you."

The musicians struck up the opening strains of a much slower, much more personal reparre, and Kallovedes yanked me close again, his eyes dark, his grip a demand rather than a caress.

Revulsion skittered up my back. Information. I needed information. Kallovedes was on Braeton's list of targets for possibly hosting the Functions a few of the Rikkafilla girls had described. As such, it was highly likely he knew some of the other attendees, which would give Braeton more names to toss around, so I stifled the urge to swat his hands off my behind, and consciously relaxed against him, tipping my head back to look up at him. "I hope this is not being too forward... but I have daydreamed about you. Ever since I first saw you."

Kallovedes quirked one eyebrow, his lips curling into a self-indulgent grin. "Have you, now?"

"Yes... But... You didn't look at me." I widened my eyes a little, my expression wistful. Lost kitten. Let him see a lost, helpless kitten.

Kallovedes missed a step.

My heart was pounding so hard my ribs ached. "Braeton is rich," I whispered. "And... soft. Not like you."

"Where did you meet me?" He asked, brows lowering into a slight frown.

"At a party. Like this one," I smiled again. "At a house. A very big house."

He studied me for a moment, his frown deepening just a little. "And you were there with Braeton?"

Careful... "No. He won me later in a card game. Delmyrre brought me."

With a quick glance around, Kallovedes began dancing again, but there was something new in his face, a hard, dangerous gleam to his eyes.

Panic slid through my middle, reaching up to wrap around my throat as he maneuvered us swiftly toward the edge of the courtyard, away from the bonfire.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Arramy start moving, his eyes searching the spot I had just been in, but it was too late. He wasn't looking in the right place when Kallovedes grabbed my arm and hauled me between two of the veildfaste stands, heading for the lantern-lit gap in the rambling fence.

"Where are you taking me?" I choked, trying to balk.

"Delmyrre has never been to any of my training parties," Kallovedes said, yanking me along with him, his other hand landing heavy on my shoulder. "How do you know about them, hmmm?" He propelled me past the fence posts and into the rambling.

"I...I overheard Delmyrre talking about them!" I gasped, craning to get a glimpse behind us as he kept shoving me down the pathway. The bright glow of the bonfire was suddenly very, very far away, and the pools of light beneath the lanterns seemed too few and too far between. The darkness yawned like an open maw, ready to swallow me up. "He wishes he could be like you! He is obsessed with your popularity -"

Kallovedes slammed his hand over my mouth, his face set in an ugly sneer. Then he whipped me around and began muscling me backwards into the ink-dark shadows beneath a stand of pines, pushing until my back was against prickly bark.

Frantic, I ran my fingers along the hem of my bodice, searching for a small oblong lump. There. The infuser fell out into my palm.

Metal glinted sharp for a moment, catching the lantern light, and then the point of a blade pressed cool and deadly to the hollow of my throat. Kallovedes bent to look me in the eye. "Now. You're going to tell me what you know," he hissed, nostrils flaring. "You've never been to one of my training nights. I'd remember. Sweet girls like you don't last long. I would have had to get rid of your body. So who told you?"

I stared up at him, fighting a wave of panic. Keep him talking. "Reixham," I panted. Button. Find the button. "Lord Reixham."

Kallovedes went still, the whites of his eyes nearly perfectly round, pale in the gloom. "Is that right?"

"Yes," I said, reading the flicker of fear in his eyes.

"What exactly did Reixham say?" Kallovedes growled, his eyes narrowing to slits. The edge of the knife dug a little deeper.

"He said you don't deserve to be part of the Coventry," I got out, seizing on a hunch. "He said you're a weak link."

Kallovedes stared at me. Then he started shaking his head. "It wasn't my fault Warring and his daughter got away. He can't blame me for that... I had bad information." He wavered slightly, still shaking his head, and for a split second I thought maybe he would just let me go. But then he bared his teeth in a savage snarl and pressed the blade into my skin. "But Reixham wouldn't have discussed any of this with a woman. Who are you?"

I was out of time. I raised my hand and pressed the side of my fist tight against his belly. Kallovedes winced and glanced down at his middle. He swayed and his head came up, his mouth gaping as his horrified gaze found my face.

"Reixham told me to tell you that your time has come," I whispered. "You have been purged."

With a victorious grin, I gave him a nudge, letting out an absurd giggle when he toppled over backwards, crashing to the ground like a falling log, his limbs already useless.

I returned the infuser to its little pocket. Then I stepped around him, ducked out from under the pine branches, and started back toward the bonfire. If he survived the night, he would wake up in that exact position in the morning with no memory of how he got there.

Which was immensely satisfying. I was still grinning when Arramy came jogging through the gap in the fence a moment later.

He skidded to a halt in the pathway.

With a lift of my chin I kept walking, coasting right on past him, heading for the veildfaste.

Arramy's hoarse, "Wait," had me stopping short, my heart instantly skipping a beat as he came closer. For several seconds he didn't say anything. Then, "You've got pine needles in your hair," he said, his voice a deep, rough rumble above my head.

Time stopped. My breath snagged in my chest at the slow, hesitant touch of his fingers, first sifting gently through my mane of curls, then brushing carefully down my back. All I did was stand there, stunned, dizzy and weak-kneed.

"There," he murmured, breaking the spell. "That should do."

After a moment I swallowed, then glanced over my shoulder. "Thank you." Grinding my teeth tight, I stepped forward again, leaving him behind. But no matter what I told myself, I couldn't change how it felt to know he had come after me.

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