Can you tell how long ago this happened?”
“A week perhaps. Bodies decompose quickly in this heat.” Dak pinned Yanko with his gaze. “How many other people know what Prince Zirabo told you in that letter?”
Yanko leaned back on his heels, resisting the urge to touch the letter nestled under his clothing and against his chest. “Are you implying that these people were tortured and killed by someone else looking for the lodestone?”
Dak spread a hand. “What else could villagers out here know? Besides, when I was picking out texts to borrow from the Polytechnic library, I noticed that a number of articles from the time period I was researching had already been removed. I had to go down to the basement to find other copies.”
Yanko’s stomach clenched. “Removed? Not checked out?”
“Stolen, yes.” Dak shrugged his big shoulders. “They could have been taken years ago, but I doubt it.”
Yanko rubbed his face. “I’m not sure how many people know. My brother was followed when he left the Great City with Prince Zirabo’s note, and he was attacked twice before he made it home to deliver it to me. The prince wrote that there were spies in the capital and that enemies might have found out about his research. Sun Dragon, the warrior mage who’s after me, implied he worked for the rebels, one of the factions that would like to see the Great Chief replaced.”
Yanko hadn’t even known that there were multiple factions among the rebels until Dak had told him as much when they had started traveling together. He’d been utterly unprepared when rebels had shown up to claim the salt mine. If someone had warned him earlier, maybe Yanko could have been ready, could have shored up the mine’s defenses and found mages to help fight. Instead, Uncle Mishnal and countless miners were dead. Yanko blinked his eyes, fighting back tears that wanted to form. He had gone eighteen years without seeing much death only to be inundated with it these last few weeks. Why had Prince Zirabo thought he was the person to handle all of this?
“I didn’t know the mage had spoken to you.” Dak frowned in censure, as if Yanko had chosen to chat with his enemy without telling his bodyguard.
“Sun Dragon likes to pop into my head and make threats.”
Dak glanced toward Arayevo and Minark, who were arguing while Lakeo looked on. The crew members Minark had brought were skipping stones in the cove, apparently unmoved by all the death in the village behind them.
“Our captain is superstitious,” Dak said, watching Minark fiddle with his charms.
“A village full of death could make anyone superstitious,” Yanko said, eyeing the trees in the distance.
Kei hadn’t returned yet. Yanko hoped it was because he had found a particularly fruitful nut tree, not because he had run into trouble.
“I’m going to check on something.” Dak turned toward the trees behind the village.
“Wait,” Yanko said. “What was on that paper? The one you put in your pocket?”
“A map. It was crumpled and in a waste bin.” Dak removed the paper from his pocket and unfolded it.
Yanko leaned close, noticing the light was fading, that shadows had grown long across the beach. He could understand why Minark wouldn’t want to spend the night here, among the spirits of the dead.
“Is that Kyattese?” Yanko asked, touching a name or a title in the center.
“Yes, it says Oracle Hill.”
“Were these people Kyattese?” Yanko thought of the woman, trying to gauge what her skin color had been before death and scavengers had marred it.
“I believe this was a colony that broke away a couple hundred years ago. I didn’t see a library. You’d expect one in a modern-day Kyattese settlement.” Dak waved the paper. “What you wouldn’t expect them to have is a religion that spoke of oracles. The Kyattese believe in a single god, and their belief doesn’t allow for others in the heavens.”
“Only one god? That’s so strange.”
Dak grunted, and Yanko recalled that Turgonians were atheists. Even stranger. Who answered their songs of prayer?
“There wasn’t a body in this house, but judging by a portrait on the wall, the owner was quite old. Perhaps old enough to remember when Tomokosis came through.” Dak folded the paper and returned it to his pocket. “I’m going to follow the map, see if he might have been visiting their oracle when this happened.”
Yanko started to follow him, but he paused when a parrot flew into view.
Kei? He tried to get a sense of what the