Page 6 of Monster of the Dagger Mountains (Killers of the Towers)

Chapter 6

Reznyk

GHOSTS

A full day later, long and nasty doesn’t begin to cover it.

My boots are full of water, my shirt sticks to my spine, and rain traces a path down the back of my neck despite the hood covering my face. I’ve slipped and fallen more times than I’d like to count, leaving my recently patched-up cloak muddy and utterly beaten to all nine of the hells. Good gods above, what I wouldn’t give for a decent tailor right now.

Beside me, the river grumbles in similar discontent. The water is brown and swollen, filled with sticks and branches torn loose from their homes and sent swirling down the Daggers. The few animals I’ve sensed on my trek through today’s storm have the common sense to stay hidden. I’m the only idiot trying to travel in this.

And I could swear the Golden Peaks Lodge is further away than it used to be. This lodge bills itself as the last outpost in the wilderness, a place of luxury for serious sportsmen who also happen to be richer than the gods. I’ve never set foot in it, but I should have enough shills squirreled away to spend a night there. If I can pull off my rich asshole act, just pretend to be Syrus Maganti for the night, at least before he joined the Towers?—

Magic screams through my body.

I flinch, pulling back like I’ve been burned. The river grumbles beside me. Rain beats down on the muddy road. I hold my breath as my heart trembles like a frightened animal in my chest.

That felt like a warning. It was the same spike of pain that yanked me from sleep when the Towers’s ravens tripped my wards. I step off the road, pull my cloak tight, and close my eyes. Magic trembles out of my body, feeling carefully around the forest. I touch the low, icy hum of the river, the slow boredom of small, hidden creatures huddled in logs and under stones, waiting for the storm to pass.

And there’s a prickle of magic down the road. Fear pulls my throat tight.

I know that magic.

It’s the Towers. They’re here.

My jaw clenches so tight it aches. I should be flattered, really. They’ve come for me so quickly? Fyrris must be more desperate than I’d imagined.

And I won’t learn anything more standing here in the rain. I force myself to leave the safety of the shadows, to put one foot in front of the other, to breathe as I walk down the last stretch of muddy road to where it meets the more civilized stone of the main pass to Cairncliff.

The Golden Peaks Hunting Lodge shines like a beacon in the storm. Light pours from its crystal windows, carrying laughter and the scent of roasting meat, like a last hurrah before winter sets in. They can only operate for another month, I think, before snow closes down the pass and the lodge with it.

Laughter and light mean the hunting party is here, which means I can mingle with them. I’ll see if my illusions worked, and I’ll do what I can to spread the tale of the fearsome monsters of the Daggers.

But the air drifting out of the lodge also carries the faint metallic sting of magic trapped in silver. The Towers’s magic. Try as I might, I can’t imagine anyone from the Towers laughing like that. Is Fyrris here with the hunting party? Maybe tossing back a few pints and taking up a hand of cards?

Gods, that mental image is almost enough to make me smile. I stand in the rain for a moment longer, feeling that thread of magic in the air. It hasn’t changed since I first sensed it. It’s stable, whatever it is. Whoever is carrying it.

I take one step closer to the lodge, then another. The magic doesn’t waver, not even when I’m standing on the front steps. If it’s a ward, I’m not tripping it. The magic inside my body relaxes somewhat as I climb the stone steps.

The Golden Peaks’s massive front doors are carved with woodland animals of all shapes and sizes, gorgeous depictions of all the beautiful things you can kill when you stay here. When they swing open, warm air washes over me, followed by a burst of laughter. I step into the lodge, my cloak dripping all over the polished stone floor, and scan the room.

There’s a huge table near the window filled with older men who look like they’ve been drinking all day. They’re roaring with laughter and smacking cards on the table. I think I recognize two of them from last night, although they sure as hells don’t notice me. I probably could have walked in here stark naked, and they wouldn’t have noticed.

No, I take that back. There is one man at the table watching me. He’s much younger than the rest of them, wearing black clothes and an affable smile on his strangely delicate features. A guide, perhaps? But he’s also holding a hand of cards, and he has a decent stack of shills before him. Guides would know better than to gamble with their clients. Or at least, they’d know better than to win.

He’s from the Towers, then. Why else would he be here? I shiver under my cloak.

But he doesn’t feel like magic. A hired mercenary, perhaps? The Towers contract with the Mercenary Guild when needed.

I turn away, toward the table’s twin, which is set slightly further back in the room. This one looks like it belongs to the hunting guides, a younger and smaller crowd who’ve just started their serious drinking. There’s no rush of magic there either, and nothing from the bar in the back.

Two men stand at that bar, both of them leaning in and talking. At first I imagine they’re trying to order drinks, but then one of them shifts.

My heart drops like a stone. Every part of my body goes cold. The woman sitting at the bar turns toward me with wide, pale eyes. I almost stagger backward out of the doors that are swinging shut behind me.

Lenore.

It can’t be. Lady Lenore Castinac would never?—

Magic buzzes inside my skull and flickers beneath my skin, and it’s only the dull sense of rising panic that allows me to pull myself together. I can’t lose it here. If my magic explodes, then whoever is in here carrying silver chains from the Towers will know in an instant. And if they have the silver chains, I’d be willing to bet all the money in the nine hells they’ve got nightmare steel too.

The woman slides off her stool, smiles, and presses past the drunk men around her. She’s short and curvaceous with long hair the color of fading embers.

And gods, no, she’s not Lenore. Lenore would never wear something that plain. Hells, Lenore would never wear pants. Besides, this woman’s face is too round, and she’s a good head shorter than Lenore.

But, my gods. The resemblance is enough to make me feel like I’m about to be sick.

It can’t be a coincidence she’s here. The only woman in the Golden Peaks Hunting Lodge just happens to look almost identical to the only woman I’ve ever loved, the air around me thrums with the angry hiss of the Towers’s trapped magical energy, and none of this happened by accident.

I clench my jaw and try to breathe. Gods help me, if I’m going to have any chance at all of protecting what I’ve found in the Daggers, I need to figure out what in the hells is going on.

And the woman who looks so much like Lady Lenore Castinac walks directly toward me.