darkened blade_ A fallen blade novel - Kelly McCullough Page 0,8

on their faces, to their military bearing and the many weapons that hung in use-worn sheathes at hips and shoulders or tucked into boot tops. Long ponytails bound with the ritual knots of their order identified them more exactly for any who knew what to look for. And then there were the Storms.

Each of the six companioned a cloud-winged familiar. The Storms were elemental creatures of air that assumed a myriad of forms, everything from the lucent shapes of huge gemstones, to wheels of golden flame, or abstract swirls of color. Their only commonality, one to another, was that they flew on wings of cloud.

The obvious leader of the troop was partnered by a tight bundle of colors and tentacle-like streamers that reminded me of nothing so much as an octopus trying to conceal itself on a bright coral reef. She had taken a seat at a small table not far from the base of the stairs, where she sat as ramrod straight as if she were occupying a bench in the front row of the master temple at Heaven’s Reach. Her followers had ranged themselves around the room in a loose cordon that allowed them to see every entrance and exit and to cover each other as needed in case of attack. I had to give them points for execution at the same time I deplored their very existence.

Kelos, being Kelos, had taken a stool at the bar with his back to almost everyone, as though he was daring someone to stick a knife in it. Tempting as that idea sounded from time to time, I ignored him in favor of approaching the woman at the table. A second glance refined my first impression. For one, she was absolutely ancient, her hair bone-white rather than the blond I had first thought, and the lines in her face many and deep.

If she were not a sorcerer I might have guessed her age at eighty, but her life was tied to her familiar’s, and the Storms, like the Shades, may live for hundreds of years. For her to have aged so much, she must be at least three hundred, and maybe as old as six.

“I am five hundred and thirty eight,” she said, her voice crisp and more than half-amused. “Also, I don’t read minds, just faces, and I’ve had lots of practice. My name is Toragana, and this is my second time wearing the ring.”

She waved her right hand, where the Signet’s insignia of office circled her thumb. “After a hundred and ninety years of retirement in a peaceful hermitage I have been drafted back into the role of head of my order and I am not at all pleased about it. Now, sit. We have much to talk about and our time is short. The Son would kill us all if he knew I were here talking to you. Besides, I’m ancient and angry. Apoplexy could carry me off at any moment.”

I suppressed a grin and sat. Despite all of the weight of history and blood that lay between our two orders, I found myself instinctively liking this woman. “Angry?” I prompted.

“Extraordinarily so. Mostly at Corik Nofather. First, for failing to succumb decently to the risen curse fifty years ago, thereby sparing me the trouble of doing something about his continued reign as the Son of Heaven. Second, for doing such a horrible job on the throne, necessitating my doing something about it. Third, for being an inhuman monster that makes doing something about it a task that requires me to seek help. And, before you put on that curious tone and say ‘Mostly?’ I’m also mad at myself for hiding away in my hermitage and missing out on the chance to simply kill the little bastard off before he got too powerful for one old woman to handle.”

I like her, Triss sent rather bemusedly.

So do I. This time I couldn’t stop a grin. “So, you know what he is, then—” She cut me off with a chop of her hand.

“Yes, and all of his history, though I haven’t been able to do anything with the information, since he’s converted the bulk of the curia into undead slaves.” She sighed. “I admit it’s an improvement in some cases, but still, it complicates things. The only ones I’ve been able to bring in on this are certain members of my own order and that idiot Devin Nightblade.”

I started at the name of my onetime best friend, now head of the