The Ambassador's Mission полностью

Had Lorkin killed the slave? Surely not. But it certainly looked like it. Was it self-defence? I should check for evidence either way before the king’s men turn up. Moving into the room, he stared at the body. Aside from the wound, there was a line of red beaded blood along a shallow cut on her arm. Interesting. That looks like evidence of black magic. He forced himself to touch the skin of the woman’s thigh and search with his senses. Sure enough, the body had been drained of energy. Black magic had been used. The relief he felt was overwhelming. It can’t have been Lorkin.

Then why had Lorkin left? Was he a prisoner of a Sachakan black magician? Suddenly Dannyl felt ill.

When Sonea finds out … But would she have to yet? If he managed to track down Lorkin quickly there’d be no bad news to deliver, just a story with a happy ending. He hoped.

He had to find Lorkin, and fast. Sounds from the corridor told him the slaves had arrived for questioning. He sighed. It was going to be a long night. But not for the reasons he would have preferred.

PART TWO

CHAPTER 16

HUNTER

Holding the soiled bandages in the air with magic, Sonea sent a flash of heat toward them. They burst into flame and quickly shrivelled into ash. The smell of burnt cloth, mixed with a sickly cooked meat scent, tainted the air. She let the ashes fall into a bucket kept in the room for the purpose, then heated a little scented oil in a dish with magic until the tangy smell covered the less pleasant ones. The clean-up from the last patient finished, she willed the door to the examination room open.

The man who stepped inside was middle-aged, short, and familiar. She felt her heart skip a beat as she recognised him.

“Cery!” she hissed. She cast a quick look around the room, even though she knew nobody was there but her. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugged and sat down in one of the chairs for patients and their families. “I tried your rooms in the Guild, but you weren’t there.”

“You could have come back tomorrow night,” she said. If he was recognised, and someone reported his visit back to the Guild, everyone would know she’d been associating with a Thief. Though that’s not against any rules now. But it would be seen as suspicious, so soon after she’d pushed to have the rule changed. If it looked as if she was using the hospice as a place to meet Thieves it could endanger all she had achieved here.

Ironically, he was in greater danger of being recognised at the hospice than at the Guild. Sonea doubted that any magicians other than Rothen would remember Cery after all these years, but some of the patients in the hospice might have had dealings with Cery, and they might tell one of the helpers or Healers who she was meeting.

“It’s too important to wait,” Cery told her.

He met her gaze levelly. His serious expression made him look so different to the young street urchin she had hung out with as a child. He looked haggard and sad, and she felt a fresh pang of sympathy. He was still grieving for his family. She drew in a deep breath and let it out again slowly and quietly.

“How are you getting on?”

His shoulders rose again. “Well enough. Keeping myself occupied finding a rogue magician in the city.”

She blinked, then couldn’t help smiling. “A rogue, eh?”

“Yes.”

Yes, that is too important to wait. She leaned back in her chair. “Go on then. Start from the beginning.”

He nodded. “Well, it all began when my lockmaker claimed the locks to my hideout were opened with magic.”

As he continued, she watched him closely. At any mention of his family he winced as if in pain, and his eyes grew haunted. But each time he spoke of the Thief Hunter his eyes gleamed and his jaw hardened. This search is as much a way to distract himself from the loss as it is a hunt for revenge.

Finally he told her, triumphantly, of watching the foreign woman using magic to open the safebox.

“A woman,” he repeated. “With dark skin like a Lonmar, and straight black hair. From her voice I’d say she was old, but she didn’t move like an elderly person. And her accent was foreign, but not one I’ve heard before. I’d wager she’s not from any of the Allied Lands.”

“Sachakan?”

“No. I’d have known that one.”