Then why not come in open dialogue? Why sneak in, magicked? But even as the questions formed in his mind, he knew the answers without asking. If there were spies in his house, the arrival of the Machtvolk queen would not go unnoticed. Her strategy was sound . . . if she was indeed being truthful.
He glanced at Jin Li Tam. Still her face retained its calm expression. But when their eyes met again, he saw the rage there. “I appreciate your offer of assistance,” he said. “But we will handle these matters within the Ninefold Forest without Machtvolk assistance. If you truly have my son’s best interests at heart, you will respect our borders and will share your intelligence with my people as you receive it.”
For a moment, she said nothing. Finally, when she did speak, she was near him again. “Think carefully, Rudolfo,” she said, “and you will see that at no time have we raised a finger to harm you or your family. We are allies.”
Rudolfo pondered this. He could still remember the voice on the night Hanric was killed. No, not him. And Rudolfo had been cast aside without even a bruise. Later, when Jin Li Tam had taken the Wandering Army to field, she’d challenged a Blood Scout single-handed, and when the Marsher had known it was his so-called Great Mother, he’d refused to fight. Still, these cultists left a forest of bones on the plains of Windwir and had murdered thousands of others in their faith.
“You have done enough harm to others to merit my suspicion,” he said.
“And I have saved your son’s life,” she reminded him. “What does that merit with you?”
Rudolfo nodded slowly but found no words to accompany it.
Her voice became even more muffled, heavy with emotion. “Your son will be the salvation of our world,” she said. “We have pledged blade and heart to his well-being and to the well-being of his parents.” Her voice was moving across the room. “I will ask you to reconsider my offer of aid. You have many enemies in the Named Lands, and your borders are not secure. Allow me to assist you or, if you can not abide a Machtvolk presence on your soil, send your wife and child to me and I will watch over them until this threat has passed.” Her voice was near the door now. “It will pass, Rudolfo, and when the Crimson Empress arrives, she will make all things right.”
He squinted but could not even make out the ghost of her. She will make all things right. That would be quite a trick. He considered his next words carefully, tasting them like iron shavings in his mouth before he spoke them. “Ria,” he said in a quiet voice, “do not come to me in this way again, and do not broach my borders without announcing yourself.”
The door handle moved beneath a hand he could not see. “I will do what I must to preserve the life of this Child of Promise,” she said, and her next words stung him though he knew she meant them to. “The question remains, Lord Rudolfo, as to whether or not you will do the same.”
Rudolfo heard Jin’s swallowed gasp and looked over to see her face red in wrath she could no longer conceal. Still, Jakob slept on.
As the door swung open slowly, Aedric looked in. “Was there someone—?”
When Ria moved past him, the first captain leaped back and reached for his knives, his lips puckering to whistle third alarm.
“Let her go,” Rudolfo said, hearing the weariness in his own voice. Even as he said it, his fingers were moving. Do you believe her message?
Jin Li Tam sighed. She had not spoken through the entire exchange, and he could see that her lips were a tight, pale line. I believe her, but I do not trust her.
Yes. “I concur,” he said.
Then, he reached for his glass of chilled peach wine but found that his interest in it had passed. Instead, Rudolfo fixed his eyes upon his sleeping son and pondered the darkening paths that lay before them both.
Neb
Neb sat in the shadowed opening of a glass cave and watched the dark bird moving high across the sky. He’d seen more of them in the last day, and unlike the messenger birds, these seemed to fly with purpose and direction in this desolate place.
Renard had called them kin-raven, but he’d also told him that they were supposedly extinct . . . until