DAVID COE: Seeds of Betrayal

The light in her eyes danced like fire demons and she grinned, as did the other luminous figures standing with her. Some of them even laughed.

“You already have,” she said. “And I intend to tell my father, and Tavis, and every other living person who can hear me.”

He shook his head. “It won’t matter.”

She stared at him a moment. “The way you say it, one might think that this saddens you, that you’d like me to stop them.”

“I take their gold. That’s all. It doesn’t mean that I share their cause.”

“But you protect them. Why?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“You don’t know that,” the wraith said gently. “Explain it to me.”

“No,” he said again, his voice resounding through the shrine much as hers had a few moments before. He shook his head. “No,” he repeated, more quietly this time. “They live in this world, my world. They know how to find me. I’m not going to risk my life telling you anything.”

“So you’re afraid of them.”

“Yes.”

“More than you are of me.”

Cadel hadn’t thought of it that way before, but there was little use arguing the point. He feared the Qirsi more than he did anything or anyone in the Forelands. It wasn’t just that they knew so much about him and his past, it was also that they possessed powers he could scarcely comprehend. His Eandi enemies, even those he respected, didn’t frighten him. He knew how to wield a blade, how to shatter a man’s larynx with a single blow, and, when necessary, how to blend into his surroundings, be they the crowded marketplace of a city or the dense, silent shadows of a wood. But for all his dreams of striking back at the Qirsi who now so thoroughly controlled his life, he knew that he could never bring himself to risk their wrath.

“More than I am of you, my lady,” he finally said. “You may be of the Deceiver’s realm, but I only have to see you once in a year.”

She nodded, gazing at him silently for several moments. Then she raised a hand and gestured for him to step closer.

“Come to me,” she said. A sound like a soft wind rose from the other wraiths, as though they had all sighed as one.

Cadel stood motionless, drawing a grin from Brienne.

“Surely you’re not afraid. You wouldn’t hesitate to stand beside one of the Qirsi who pays you so handsomely.”

He swallowed, and took a step toward her.

“Closer,” she said, her grin broadening.

He took another step so that he stood only a few hands’ widths from her, close enough to take her hands, close enough to lean forward and taste her lips.

“Now touch me,” she whispered. The other wraiths murmured their approval, but Cadel hardly noticed.

A part of him longed to do as she said. He could almost smell the soft, sweet scent she wore the night he killed her. It would have been so easy to caress her cheek with his hand or kiss her smooth brow. Except that it would have meant his death. She could not touch him-as he understood such matters, Bian forbade the wraiths from doing so. No doubt had he not, those who died by Cadel’s hand would have taken him long ago. But when the living reached out to touch their dead, they crossed over to the god’s realm and were forever lost to the living world.

Brienne’s image wavered briefly, as when a tranquil lake is swept by a gust of wind and then again is still. An instant later she stood before him whole and unbloodied, her dress fastened and the dagger gone.

“Touch me,” she said again. “Take me in your arms.”

“You know that I can’t.”

“I know that you’ll die, if that’s what you mean. But wouldn’t that be easier than the dark death that awaits you when you leave this shrine? Already Lord Tavis hunts the land for you. I’ve told him that he should restore his good name and be done with it, but he’ll never leave it at that. He’s vowed to avenge me, and I’ve no doubt that he will.”

Cadel should have expected this. Perhaps he would have, had it not been for Jedrek’s death and his own quest for vengeance against the Qirsi gleaner who killed his friend. He had heard rumors of Tavis’s escape from the dungeons of Kentigern and he knew that somehow, so far, the Eibitharians had managed to avoid the civil war that Brienne’s murder was supposed to spark. But it had never occurred to him that the boy would come after him. Here was one more reason to find a new partner, and soon.

“He’ll die in the attempt, my lady,” Cadel said, knowing how his words would hurt her, and regretting even this. He gestured at the wraiths standing with her. “As you can see, I’ve killed men who were far more formidable than your lord. You’d be wise to warn him off his pursuit before it’s too late.”

She gave a wan smile. “If you were in my lord’s position, would you heed such advice?”

Cadel stared at her, wondering if she asked the question in innocence, or had divined his thoughts. For he was in Tavis’s position.

Grinsa jal Arriet. The name repeated itself in his head like the litany of some overzealous cleric, clouding his thoughts by day and keeping him from sleep at night. Cadel knew almost nothing about him except that he was a Revel gleaner who somehow had managed to kill Jedrek.

He might have been more.

The Qirsi woman, another gleaner, had told him as much in Noltierre several turns before, just moments after telling him of Jed’s death. Looking back on their conversation now, Cadel wished that he had stayed with her long enough to learn more. She had paid him for Brienne’s murder, and had admitted that she sent Jed after Grinsa when the gleaner left the Revel to go to Kentigern. He felt certain that she knew the man far better than she had let on. Still, even the little she did tell him should have been enough to keep Cadel from going after the gleaner.

It’s possible that he had other powers. Mists and winds, perhaps others . There were seven Qirsi standing among his dead. Three he had killed in their sleep, the others he had taken in the back. None of them had seen him coming. And in all these cases he knew what powers they possessed before he approached them. How was he supposed to fight Grinsa when he wasn’t certain what magic the man wielded? It was suicide. But Brienne was right. Like Lord Tavis of Curgh, who was already hunting the land for the lady’s killer, Cadel couldn’t keep himself from trying.

“You see?” the wraith said. “You’re more like my lord than you care to admit.”

“Perhaps,” Cadel said. “But if he finds me, I’ll still have to kill him.”

“Have you ever fought a man who was intent on vengeance?” she asked.

He considered this for some time. “No,” he said at last. “I don’t suppose I have.”

She nodded sagely, as if death had given her wisdom beyond her years. “I see.”

A number of the other wraiths laughed appreciatively.

Cadel heard the city bells ringing in the distance. It was too early yet for the midnight tolling. This had to be the gate closing. The night was just starting, and already he was weary.

“Perhaps you wish to sleep?” Brienne asked, sounding as innocent as a babe.

He merely shook his head, as the wraiths leered at him hungrily. Few of the living ever slept on Pitch Night in Bian’s Turn. The dead could not touch a man to kill him, but there was nothing to keep them from huddling so close to his sleeping form that the slightest movement on his part-a mere gesture in the throes of some horrible dream-might send him to the god’s realm.

“Well,” Bnenne said, “you won’t touch me, and you won’t sleep.” She flickered like a candle once again so that she stood before him as she had when she first appeared, scarred and half naked. “How do you propose we pass the rest of the night?”