the top of the stairs leading to the central tower. Like the gatekeeper she wore a red and black robe, her grey-streaked hair swept back from handsome, angular features that betrayed a faint but apparently genuine pleasure at the sight of Sho Tsai.
“Brother of the Spear,” she said, bowing. Her tone was one of forced conviviality and shot through with a poorly suppressed quaver. “Twenty years absence and yet you barely look any older.”
“Mother Wehn.” Sho Tsai offered a bow an inch lower than hers. “Some may say your dishonesty shames your robe, but it is welcome nonetheless. This”—he straightened with a strained smile as he gestured to Vaelin—“is Lord Al Sorna from the east. We are here on the Merchant King’s business.”
“Of that I have little doubt.” Mother Wehn exchanged bows with Vaelin, her eyes surveying him with a keen scrutiny. “You are from the healer’s land, are you not? You possess the same colouring.”
“I am.”
“But”—her eyes tracked from his face to the sword on his back—“you are no healer.”
“No, lady, I am not.”
She gave a short, tight smile and stepped aside, opening a hand in welcome. “No doubt you have questions. I will do my best to answer, though what use it may be I know not.”
She led them along a wide, torchlit hallway, which soon opened out into a broad circular chamber with high windows. The shutters were open to allow a stiff mountain breeze to pervade the room, which somehow failed to chill the skin. Vaelin found himself drawn to the nearest window, his gaze captured by the view. He could see beyond the enclosing cotton blanket of cloud to the foothills to the south and the grasslands beyond. A journey that had taken over two weeks was now rendered to minuscule proportions.
“Has anything been touched?” Sho Tsai asked, drawing Vaelin’s attention from the window. The captain stood at the edge of a slightly elevated dais in the centre of the room. It held a richly embroidered carpet upon which sat a small couch. A porcelain teapot rested on a table alongside several cups. Beside the couch a stringed musical instrument of some kind rested in an ebony stand. It vaguely resembled a harp but with an asymmetrical frame and a more elaborate arrangement to the strings.
“Nothing,” Mother Wehn replied. “It is all exactly as she left it.”
Sho Tsai seemed mostly preoccupied with the musical instrument, his eyes lit with fascination as he tentatively extended a hand towards it, the fingers coming within a hair’s breadth of the string before he clenched his fist. “She left it behind,” he said, his fascination now coloured by incredulity.
“She left everything behind,” Mother Wehn told him. “Save for her favourite coat and the shoes she wore when she toured the gardens.” The woman gave a helpless shrug. “I am sorry, Brother Sho, but I fear there is nothing here that will assist you. The healer came. They talked alone for a time until dusk, then retired for the night. In the morning they were gone and no eyes in this temple saw them leave.”
“Perhaps,” Vaelin said, “if we knew what they talked about it could offer some clue as to their destination.”
“I regret I cannot tell you, lord. The Princess insisted on talking to the healer alone. Whatever passed between them is lost.” Mother Wehn’s fingers trembled a little as she played a hand along the couch’s delicately carved armrest. “I simply cannot imagine what words could have compelled her to . . . abandon us in such a manner.”
“The healer was sent for,” Vaelin said. “There must have been a reason.”
He saw the tremble in the woman’s fingers take on an increased agitation before she too, like the captain, clenched her fist. She concealed both hands in the sleeves of her robe and stood with her brow furrowed in indecision until replying in a soft murmur. “She coughed.”
“Coughed?” Sho Tsai’s voice was suddenly loud and he stared at Mother Wehn as if she had spoken some form of blasphemy. “The Jade Princess coughed?”
Mother Wehn nodded and swallowed. “It happened only once, but I heard it, as did the servants who brought her tea at the appointed hour. One of the girls dropped the tray and began to weep. Silly little whelp. The princess, however, seemed unperturbed despite our fussing. In the end she allowed us to send for the Healing Grace, for who else could better tend to the Jade Princess? Now, of course, I wish she had