Page 7 of The Witch who Trades with Death

Chapter Seven

Yamueto

“Tell me exactly what happened,” Yamueto ordered. “Leave nothing out.

The four guards who had seen Khana go over the cliff all shifted their feet. They were supposed to look imposing with their metal helmets and thick leather armor, dyed a jungle green, but the action was childlike. Yamueto bit back a huff of impatience. He was immortal. He had all the time in the world. It wouldn’t do to be impatient.

The five of them were the only souls in the courtyard, the palace still locked down. The order made the vast courtyard and elegant wooden castle a barren land of ghosts. Yamueto would keep it that way until he knew Khana didn’t have an accomplice.

“She came out of the Temple of Vigerion, Your Excellency,” the team captain reported, uselessly pointing across the courtyard. “Then ran straight for the gardens and jumped off the cliff.”

Yamueto sighed, unable to suppress a flicker of annoyance. She must have been hiding while he tried to revive Kokaatl. They would have passed just a few feet apart from each other. How irritating.

“I’ve sent a team of guards to fetch her body,” the captain continued. “It seemed to be intact, though we couldn’t tell from our distance. She landed several feet from the water, so there’s low risk of her getting swept downstream.”

Excellent. Death may have denied him Kokaatl on account of her not having a head, but they would not deny him his justice.

Honestly, what was that girl thinking? He’d been doing this for centuries and had disciplined and achieved total control over hundreds of wives, to say nothing of the countries he’d conquered and subdued. He was master over death itself – what chance did any mere mortal have? Some people just didn’t learn.

Ah, well. Perhaps she’d make a better night creature than concubine.

“Is that all?” Yamueto asked.

“Ah…” A lieutenant raised his hand. “I don’t know if this is important or not, Your Excellency, but she was… glowing.”

Yamueto’s entire world shrieked to a halt. He stared at the lieutenant. “What?”

He swallowed. “Part of the reason we all saw her so soon was because she glowed. The cloak hid most of it, but I got a good look at her face and hands. They were all sorts of colors.”

“The other men say the same,” the captain added.

Yamueto looked over the guards’ shoulders to the garden and the cliff. “Is she still there?”

“Sir?”

“Is she still at the base of the cliff?”

One of the guards ran to check. It took long moments for him to return, time Yamueto spent calculating if draining Kokaatl’s life would have given Khana enough saviza to survive the fall. Or perhaps she had drained more bodies that hadn’t yet been discovered?

The guard sprinted back, breathing hard. “She’s gone!”

“Did the water get her?” the captain asked.

“No, it’s been too slow for that.”

Not just survived, but fully mobile then. Kokaatl’s death had happened in the dungeons; Khana would’ve been spotted long before reaching the temple if that had been what she’d used.

There was only one answer. She had learned to contact Death.

For the first time in a long time, true worry, the very start of fear, unfurled in Yamueto’s belly. He couldn’t have anyone uncovering his secrets. As soon as they did, there would be dozens, hundreds of immortals. More architects of night creatures. His entire empire could collapse under the weight of so many powerful witches coming after his throne.

“Send a team down there to follow her trail,” he ordered. “Dispatch more into the city. Put checkpoints at every exit. For every day she is at large, I’m executing a guard.” He pointed to his captain. “Starting with you.”