Page 9 of Dark Bringer (Lord of Everfell #1)

Cathrynne’s scalp prickled. Felicity’s voice dimmed, replaced by a buzzing in her ears. Not now. By the three gods, not now .

But she couldn’t stop the visions once they began.

All she could do was stay calm and pretend everything was fine.

Her gaze flicked across the images hanging in the air over Felicity’s desk.

Quickly memorizing them and then looking away since it wouldn’t do to sit there gawping at nothing like a freak.

The Dark Rider. Stars. A pair of doves, their beaks touching. The Crossroads.

The vision faded within seconds. Sometimes she knew right away what it meant. Sometimes, like now, she was unsure. The Rider usually foretold a message, and Stars could certainly be Gavriel Morningstar. But the rest . . . Perhaps it would come clear later.

Cathrynne touched her nose. A single drop of violet blood smeared her fingertip. She scrubbed it on her trousers. Thank the Trinity, Felicity wasn’t looking at her.

“When do we leave?” Mercy asked.

“At once,” Felicity replied. “Morningstar doesn’t like to be kept waiting, and whoever did it might try again.” She fixed them with a serious look. “Behave and do as you’re told. This is a golden opportunity to redeem yourselves.”

“So we’re travelling by sea?” Mercy asked.

Cathrynne knew the answer. There were thirty-six pictures in her repertoire of visions. One was The Ship, and it had not appeared.

Felicity gave them a tight smile. “Not quite.”

* * *

The forcing ground lay beyond the training quads at the farthest edge of the compound.

It was contained by a wrought-iron fence covered with caution signs.

Felicity waited at the center of the muddy yard.

At her side stood a small woman with fierce white brows like a bird of prey.

Ninnoc, an old crony of Felicity and one of the few full witches to befriend a cypher.

Ninnoc smiled warmly at Cathrynne and Mercy. “So these are our troublemakers? They look capable enough.”

“Oh, they’re plenty capable,” Felicity said.

“It’s their judgment that concerns me.” She fixed them both with a dour look.

“The witches of Kota will provide you with gems. Get yourselves straight to the Red House. And be respectful to Lord Morningstar. If you win his favor, the Foxes can’t bring you back. The archangel of Kirith outranks them.”

Cathrynne did not want to leave Arioch, and she most definitely didn’t want to be hurled through space with unnatural magic. But she grasped that she’d been offered a way out and resolved to do whatever it took to stay in the Morningstar’s good graces.

Ninnoc reached into her gem pouch and selected two stones. Obsidian in her right hand, moonstone in her left. One imbued with projective ley, the other with receptive ley. Exactly what you were never supposed to blend together.

“Stand close together and don’t move,” Ninnoc instructed. “If you need to sneeze, do it now.”

Cathrynne stared at the patches of scorched earth. Some were fused into a glassy, tubular structure called fulgerite, forged by the union of unspeakable forces. Everyone knew the stories. Witches who lost a limb when the box fractured. Others who never turned up at all.

“A bit closer now,” Ninnoc said encouragingly.

Cathrynne and Mercy squashed themselves together so tightly that Cathrynne could count the beads of sweat on her partner’s eyelashes. Felicity nudged their luggage into the forcing zone. She gave a firm nod, then took six steps back.

“Minerva keep you,” she said.

The stones in Ninnoc’s hands ignited. A low vibration traveled up through the ground. Then a silent thunderclap. The world lurched sideways. For a bad moment, Cathrynne’s body began to stretch as if she were tied to four mules, each running in a different direction?—

Then everything snapped back into place.

She landed hard on her back. A vile oath, muttered quietly, signaled the arrival of Mercy.

The sky was a deeper blue than Arioch, the sun hotter.

Instead of mud, the forcing ground was clay baked hard as stone.

A witch in a loose, ankle-length robe stood at the fence.

His black hair was gathered into a topknot.

“You must be Cyphers Rowan and Blackthorn,” he called, politely ignoring their rough arrival. “The Morag is waiting.”

Cathrynne sat up, heart drumming. The Morag? She was the head of the High Council. The most powerful witch in Sion! How did Felony fail to mention that they would be called to see her?

It could only be because Felony hadn’t known. Which didn’t bode well.

Cathrynne shot Mercy a wary look as they shouldered their bags and followed the witch into a low, thick-walled building of sandstone. Inside, the air was cooler and smelled of dry, peppery spices. He led them to a set of ancient, elaborately carved wooden doors and pushed them open.

“The cyphers from Kirith,” he announced, then stepped aside to let them enter.

The room held little furniture, just a low table and overlapping rugs in a mandala pattern. Isbail Rosach, the Morag of Sion, sat cross-legged on the floor with a few other witches, separating gems into piles. Sunstone and amber, beryl and moonstone, olivine and peridot.

The Morag looked younger than Cathrynne had expected, but witches aged slowly, and the strongest might reach two hundred years or more.

She had long, dark hair worn loose around her shoulders, with only a few threads of silver.

Like all witches, and cyphers, too, her eyes were a metallic pewter.

Scars wound from her left cheek down her neck and into her robe.

Lithomantic spell burns. Cathrynne could tell that much from the stellate pattern.

“Let me be clear.” Her voice was low and gravelly. “You are not wanted here. Were the choice mine, I would assign cyphers from Satu Jos to guard Lord Morningstar, but he has stubbornly refused to accept anyone outside his own province.”

Cathrynne tried not to wither under her stare. Mercy wore the bland, unflappable expression she had perfected from years of breaking up bar fights.

“I assume you are trustworthy or Felicity Birch would not have sent you. You will shadow him wherever he goes and report to me on the investigation. Everything he discovers, everyone he speaks with. You might serve Morningstar, but you are under my command, make no mistake about it. Is that perfectly clear?”

“Yes, mum,” they answered.

“I will have your things brought to Lord Morningstar’s residence.

You will stay there as long as he remains in this city.

” She stared at them hard. “If any harm befalls him, if a single feather of those infamous black wings is ruffled, the fault will be yours and yours alone. We cannot afford any more fiascos. Is that clear?”

“Yes, mum.”

“Good. Morningstar is at the Red House. You may proceed there directly. Do you know the way?”

“I do,” said Mercy.

Isbail tossed them each a bag of gemstones and made a gesture of dismissal. “I expect your first report tomorrow.”

“But how will we slip away?” Cathrynne wondered. “If we’re guarding him night and day?”

“I am certain you will think of something,” the Morag replied grimly.

They backed out of the room. When the doors closed, Cathrynne exhaled a taut breath.

“That went well,” Mercy said, as the male witch escorted them out. “How much worse can Lord Morningstar be?”

* * *

Kota Gelangi was dirtier than Arioch and hot as blazes. The sticky smell of ripe fruit hung in the humid air, and everywhere Cathrynne looked, she saw stone alcoves cluttered with paper monsters. A man in a fine robe approached one, knelt down, and furtively left a handful of figs.

“I see why it’s called the City of a Thousand Shrines,” Cathrynne remarked as they bulled through the midday crowds. “They really do worship the Sinn.”

“Well, most people have relatives scratching out a living as rockhounds,” Mercy said.

“Or they work for the witches who own the big mines. Either way, the Zamir Hills are infested with Sinn and the papers say they’ve been getting bolder.

Attacking in broad daylight. I guess they hope that if they pray hard enough, the Sinn might start listening. ”

“I wish Minerva would listen,” Cathrynne muttered.

Mercy shot her a sharp glance. “You don’t know that she isn’t. Now, we’re almost there. Brace yourself, because Morningstar won’t be easy to please. I’ve heard stories about him.”

“Like what?” Cathrynne knew the archangel of Kirith existed in the same way she knew gravity existed. She believed it was real, but she didn’t think about it much. And she certainly never expected to meet it in person.

“To be blunt,” Mercy said in a low voice, “he’s a bit of a prick. High-handed, arrogant, and critical of every little thing.”

“And he’s an angel,” Cathrynne said. “I’m shocked.”

Mercy didn’t laugh. “We’re serving two masters now. The Morag wants us to spy on the Morningstar, but if he finds out, it’s straight back to Arioch.”

“Then we just have to make them both happy,” Cathrynne said. “How hard can it be?”

Mercy snorted. “The eternal optimist.”

They cut through an open-air fruit market, rounded a traffic circle clogged with various conveyances, and the Red House appeared, occupying one side of a square. Guards in scarlet uniforms flanked its wide entrance. They directed Cathrynne and Mercy to the second floor.

A crowd milled around outside the dead man’s office. A few seraphim, three tense-looking witches in flowing robes, and more uniformed guards. The door opened, and an elderly man emerged. His face was deeply lined, his eyes bloodshot.

“Are you the cyphers from Kirith?” he asked.

Mercy nodded. “I’m Cypher Blackthorn. This is Rowan.”

“Come in, come in.” He turned to the waiting crowd. “The rest of you are to disperse on the orders of Lord Morningstar.”

The angels frowned. One stepped forward. “We need but a moment of his time?—”

“Now!” a deep voice barked from inside the room. “All of you, out!”

The angels looked unhappy, their wings stiffening in affront, but they stalked off. The witches followed, eying Cathrynne and Mercy with resentment before disappearing down the stairs. The secretary led them inside and closed the door.

Lord Gavriel Morningstar sat behind a desk, his right wing bound against his body in a sort of sling. He looked up as Cathrynne entered and their gazes caught. His eyes were a tawny golden-green, the only color against his tanned skin and black magistrate’s robe.

Angels were always comely and Gavriel Morningstar was no exception.

He had clean, masculine features, with a winsome dent at the center of his chin and thick coal-black hair that matched his brows and wings.

But his jaw was unshaven and he had a rough, commanding quality that made her breath turn shallow.

Archangel . There were only seven in the empire. Each wielded immense power. Not magic, or he wouldn’t need cyphers to protect him, but political power. And this one certainly had raw magnetism to spare.

Cathrynne dragged her eyes away before he noticed her reaction. Morningstar had more authority than ten consuls. More even than the Morag. And he’d send her back to Arioch if he didn’t like her.

“Thank you for coming,” he said crisply. “I regret the need for it, but there is nothing to be done about that. What are your names?”

“Mercy Blackthorn, Lord Morningstar.”

She swallowed. “Cathrynne Rowan.”

His eyes settled on her once again . . .and lingered. “I asked for two cyphers,” he said softly.

“I am a cypher,” she replied.

“Then why don’t you bear a grace name?”

At least the hundredth time she’d been asked that question. “I do, in a way,” she hedged. “Cathrynne means pure in the ancient tongue of Bactra.”

He studied her, his expression unreadable. “So you are originally from Bactra?”

“No, I am Kirithi.”

A partial truth. She’d lived in Kirith for twenty years. That the first eleven were spent in Kievad Rus didn’t count.

Morningstar looked as if he might press further, but then weariness crossed his face. “As long as you keep me alive long enough to find Casolaba’s killer.”

“That I swear to do,” she said.

“Good.” He drummed his fingers on the desk, the corners of his finely carved lips turning down in a grimace. “I originally intended to conduct an initial inquiry of three days, but I have decided to remain in Kota Gelangi until the case is solved. I will not be intimidated.”

That didn’t seem to require a response so she said nothing, but Cathrynne was secretly thrilled. It could take weeks to catch the culprit. Let Lump and Crump stew in their own juices.

She looked around the office, assessing it for weaknesses. The large windows overlooking the square were an immediate problem. She turned to the secretary, Edvin Yarl. “Can we have drapes installed? An assassin on any of those rooftops across the way would have a clear line of sight.”

Yarl blinked. “Certainly, Cypher Rowan.”

“And the corridor needs to be kept clear at all times,” Mercy added, “unless someone has an appointment with Lord Morningstar. Tell the guards not to admit anyone unless they’re authorized.”

“Indeed. I shall do so immediately.” He gave them a tired smile. “It is a relief to have you here. I don’t want to insult our hosts, but I trust my own compatriots from Kirith more.”

Cathrynne liked Yarl. You could tell right away how someone felt about cyphers by the way they looked at you. His gaze was direct and unafraid.

There were mounds of paperwork on every surface. She noticed a list of names on a side table and reached for it. Morningstar’s head jerked up.

“Don’t touch that,” he snapped.

She withdrew her hand and met his flinty gaze. “Sorry.”

“Don’t touch anything . You may stand by the door,” he instructed, turning back to his papers. The cyphers from Kirith had ceased to exist.

She and Mercy exchanged a look. A bit of a prick . Yes, that described Gavriel Morningstar perfectly.