darkened blade_ A fallen blade novel - Kelly McCullough Page 0,26

grief and anger pass across Chomarr’s features, but if he wanted to make a sharp reply, he fought the impulse down.

Kelos either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “All right then, tell us what you do know. Start with the border patrols and work in toward the city and the temple precinct.”

Heaven’s Reach the domain was a small temple state in a long valley in the rough hills that separated the Kvanas from Aven. Heaven’s Reach the city was its only significant urban area and that more as a support structure for the temple precinct than anything. The business of city and realm was religion, and the Son of Heaven was its absolute ruler.

Kelos had spent the better part of five years living there in his role as chief of the traitor Blades of Heaven’s Shadow. He was perhaps the greatest assassin who had ever lived and he had gone in with the intent of betraying his new master as thoroughly as he had his old. He knew the city and the temple precinct and how they were defended as well as anyone, and now he grilled Chomarr on every changed detail.

It took long exhausting hours and I listened to every minute. My one trip to the city had been almost two years before, and brief, but I’d gone there to kill, which meant I had paid very close attention to everything. At the time, Kelos had supplied me with a magical skeleton key in the shape of a Signet’s living finger and ring minus the original owner. That had allowed me to bypass a lot of the work I’d normally have done, but the habits of a lifetime meant I’d done extensive reconnaissance anyway.

Without that knowledge I’d have been lost now. With it, I managed to keep up, but only at the cost of a nasty headache. Triss didn’t say anything—all the Shades were lying low with only the thin door between us and the common room, and servers coming and going—but I could tell by the way he kept squeezing my shoulders that he knew I was having a hard time of it.

Five hours on, Kelos finally let up. “I think I’ve about wrung you dry.”

“It certainly feels that way,” croaked Chomarr—his voice had gone from hoarse to worse some time ago. He threw himself down in a corner, going to sleep within moments.

“What do you think?” I asked Kelos.

“It’s going to be really nasty. He didn’t know what goes on in the deeps of the precinct these days, of course, but it sounds like every aspect of the outer cordon has tightened and hardened. Beyond the brute physical layout inside the precinct, it’s safe to say that very little of what I know from the old days is likely to hold true anymore. I suspect it wouldn’t help, but I wish you hadn’t left Signet Eilif’s finger on the Son of Heaven’s chest when you marked him. It’ll be like cracking a fresh nut.”

I nodded. “That’s what I thought, too, though I’ve only been there the once.” I had noticed that in all his questioning Kelos had very carefully avoided saying anything that might even imply the existence of a second ward key in the shape of Signet Nea’s finger, so I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t mention it now. It was a secret that only the two of us and our Shades knew, and I didn’t see any reason to expand that circle just yet. “Siri, do you have any thoughts?”

“I never had call to enter the Reach before this, so that was about one third gibberish to me. I’ve got nothing.” The smoke wreathing through her hair and shadow might supply us with some possibilities on that front, but again, not something I wanted to share with an officer of the Hand of Heaven in the room—not even an ostensibly sleeping one on our side.

I looked at Faran, but she shook her head. “I was offered one or two jobs there when I was spying, but I turned them down. I never went within a hundred miles of the place, not even in transit. I didn’t want anything to do with the Son, or the Hand, ever again.” She looked pointedly at our guest, and made a subtle throat-cutting gesture. I flicked my hand in a sharp “no,” and she shrugged. “Worth asking. Maybe later.”

Just then there came a sharp rap on the door. A moment later, Mole-Face poked his nose through the gap. “It’s an