He leaned forward—slowly—and kissed her. Karrell didn’t resist. Instead, at first hesitantly, she kissed him back.
Arvin broke off the kiss. “How do you say it?” he asked. “‘Kiss’—in your language.”
“Tsu.”
Arvin smiled. The word puckered Karrell’s lips beautifully as she spoke it. “And “beautiful’? How do you say that?”
“Kiichpan.”
“‘Woman?’”
She gave a slight frown, obviously wondering what he was up to. “Chu al.”
Arvin returned it with a frank stare. “Keech-pan choo-hal,” he said haltingly. “May I be your yctakun?”
She tossed her hair, mischief dancing in her dark eyes. Then she slapped him—lightly—across the cheek. “You charmed me,” she said in an accusing voice.
Arvin chuckled. “And you charmed me.” He rubbed his cheek, pretending the slap had stung the cut on his face, and saw her eyes soften in apology. “But I’m not under your spell anymore. Not that one, anyway.”
“Your spell, also, has ended,” Karrell said. Then she smiled. “Yet somehow, I still find you… intriguing.” She hesitated then began unlacing the front of her dress.
As Arvin unlaced his breeches, removing them, his eyes were drawn to her breasts. Her scales, he saw, were small and fine, and a delicate shade of reddish-brown that nearly matched her skin, giving it a flushed appearance. He was, he realized, about to find out if the stories about yuan-ti women were true.
When she let her dress fall to the bed and moved toward him, encircling him in one graceful motion, he decided they might be, after all.
“Where have you been?” the baron growled. “My daughter is ill—she may be dying—and instead of finding her, you—”
Arvin bowed. “I apologize, Baron Foesmasher. I was poisoned.”
The baron blinked. “Poisoned?”
“The ambassador kept me waiting all day. I decided to confront him in his basking chamber. I didn’t realize it was filled with poisonous smoke. I only recovered from its effects a short time ago.”
That wasn’t strictly true, of course. His interlude with Karrell had followed. It had been brief—both of them felt the urgency of what was now a shared goal. But time had been lost; it was now nearly the middle of the night.
The room in which they stood—a chapel with one of the enormous, silver gauntlets of Helm standing on a dais near one wall—was lit by a single lantern. The baron had been standing in prayer, his left hand raised and head bowed, when Arvin was ushered in. Karrell had been detained outside the room by the soldiers who served as palace guards. She stood at the end of the hallway, waiting.
Baron Foesmasher glanced at her. “Who is the woman?”
“Another tracker,” Arvin said. “She’s going to help in the search for your daughter.”
The baron’s eyes narrowed. “You have told her Glisena is missing?”
“Yes,” Arvin acknowledged.
“What else have you told her?”
Arvin met the baron’s eye. “Only that Glisena has run away,” he said. “And that she is most likely hiding in the Chondalwood, among the satyrs. And that her flight from the palace was aided by minions of Sibyl, who hope to exploit your daughter for their own, ill purposes.”
“By the sound of her accent, she’s from Chult,” Foesmasher said. “Is she yuan-ti?”
Arvin met the baron’s eye. “Yes.”
The baron grunted and turned back to Arvin. “You promised to be discreet. And now I find you’ve told a complete stranger. Another serpent.”
“If you want me to find your daughter, Lord Foesmasher, you’ll have to trust my judgment,” Arvin told him. “I trust Karrell. It was a stroke of Tymora’s fortune that she turned up here, in Sespech. Karrell knows a great deal about Sibyl; the abomination has had her people under her thrall for some time. Karrell was already investigating what Sibyl’s minions are up to in Sespech. She would have learned, eventually, of your daughter’s disappearance. By including her now, we gain some valuable assistance.”
The baron glowered. “You assured me your mind magic would locate Glisena.”
“It’s already narrowed the search,” Arvin countered. “We’ve learned she’s in the Chondalwood.”
“That tells us very little,” the baron said. “The Chondalwood is enormous. It’s nearly as wide as Sespech is long. Were I to send an entire garrison into it to search for Glisena, they could wander for a tenday and never meet a soul, let alone find a band of reclusive satyrs. And ordering in a garrison is something I can’t do. Lord Wianar has laid claim to the Chondalwood; he hopes to cut off the supply of wood I need to build my navy. Sending troops into it would only give him the excuse he needs to invade.” His eyes bored into Arvin’s. “One man, however, would slip into the Chondalwood unnoticed. But that brings us back to the central problem—we don’t know where to look.”
Arvin thought a moment. “How close is the nearest edge of the Chondalwood to Ormpetarr?”
“Nearly two days’ ride to the north, just across the river from Fort Arran.”
“The satyrs seemed quite worried about Glisena’s health,” Arvin said. “They wouldn’t have come to Ormpetarr to fetch Naneth unless their camp was a reasonable distance from the city.”
