Free Web NovelChapter 28: Chapter 28: Before You Go
Dunwick was still at the table.
He’d been talking for an hour. Names, occasions, anyone who had been around Veylan during those years. Some of it Elian recognized from the files. Most of it didn’t exist in any file.
That was the point.
When the old man finally wound down, Elian looked at him.
"One more thing," he said. "Can you find me a shankha?"
Dunwick blinked. "A — forgive me. A what?"
"A conch shell. Large enough to blow." He paused. "For a ritual. Clears negativity. Resets the spiritual atmosphere of a space."
Dunwick looked at him with the expression he’d been wearing for most of the last hour — the expression of a man who had decided to simply accept that the world was larger than he’d previously understood.
"I’ll try to find one, Your Highness," he said. "I can’t promise anything."
"Don’t promise me anything," Elian said. "I can’t promise you anything either."
Dunwick almost smiled at that.
He rose to leave. Straightened his coat. The particular dignity of an old man who had just had a very unusual afternoon and was processing it with grace.
At the door he paused.
"I don’t remember everyone," he said. "Even if I try. There will be gaps."
"I know," Elian said. "I’m not asking for everyone. Just the ones that feel important when you think back. The ones that stuck, even if you don’t know why."
Dunwick nodded slowly.
"Those are the ones that matter," Elian said. "The ones your gut remembered even when your head moved on."
The old man looked at him for a moment.
Then he bowed his head — not the formal bow of a lord to a consort, something smaller and more genuine — and went.
* * *
Elian went to check on the royal wing.
He did this twice a day now. Corners, thresholds, the salt lines, the symbols he’d drawn at every entrance. He moved through it with the practiced efficiency of someone who had done it enough times that his hands knew the route before his mind did.
The wing felt stable. Not clear — it would take more time and more work before he’d call it clear — but stable. The protections were holding.
He was passing the east corridor when he saw her.
A maid. Young. Moving quickly in the direction of the laundry with a bundle of linens, head down, unremarkable in every way that a person could be unremarkable.
Except for the aura.
He’d almost missed it. It wasn’t aggressive, wasn’t loud, didn’t announce itself the way the spirits did. Just a faint wrongness around the edges of her — a quality to the air immediately around her that was slightly off from everything else. Like a note played almost in tune.
He watched her turn the corner and disappear.
Hm, he thought.
He hadn’t seen her before. Or he had and hadn’t noticed, which was its own kind of problem.
He filed it and kept moving.
* * *
Sable was packing when he found her.
Not much — a travel bag, practical, the kind of packing that said she’d done this before and knew exactly what she needed and what she didn’t.
"You’re going," Elian said.
"I have enough of the spirit’s features now. The clothing, the ritual tradition, the specific structure of the binding." She folded something into the bag with efficient hands. "If I go east and ask the right people in the right way, I can find where this tradition is practiced. That gets us closer to who commissioned it."
"How long."
"I don’t know. Two weeks. Maybe more."
Elian leaned against the doorframe. He didn’t love this — losing Sable while the situation was still unstable felt like bad timing. But she was right. The east was the thread. Someone had to pull it.
"Alright," he said.
She closed the bag.
"Before you go," Elian said. "There’s a maid. East corridor, heading toward the laundry. Young, quick, keeps her head down. Something’s off about her."
Sable looked at him.
"What kind of off," she said.
"I don’t know yet. That’s why I’m asking you."
She picked up her bag. "Show me."
They went together to the east corridor. The maid was gone — laundry and back, fast route — but the feeling she’d left in the air was still faintly there, the way a smell lingered after the source had moved on.
Sable stood in the corridor and was quiet for a moment.
"She’s been near something," she said finally. "Or someone put something on her. I can’t tell which without getting closer." She looked at Elian. "I’ll find her before I leave."
"Don’t alarm her," Elian said.
"I know how to look without being seen," Sable said, with the expression of someone who found the reminder unnecessary.
Fair.
"Travel safe," Elian said.
"Keep him alive," she said.
She went.
Elian stood in the east corridor alone and looked at the space where the maid had been.
Someone put something on her, Sable had said. Or she’s been near something.
He thought about a person watching from inside the palace.
Someone close.
Are you using the staff now, he thought. Or have you always been.
* * *
He stood in the east corridor alone and looked at the space where the maid had been.
Someone put something on her, Sable had said. Or she’s been near something.
He thought about the maid. Young. Fast. Kept her head down. The kind of person who moved through a palace invisibly because their job required it.
If someone wanted eyes inside the royal wing, he thought, a maid who keeps her head down is exactly who you’d use.
He didn’t know if she knew. That was the thing. The maid with the wrong aura around Veylan — Veylan hadn’t known. People could carry things for years without knowing.
He made a note to have Mira find out her name. Her history. How long she’d been at the palace. Who’d hired her.
Quietly. Without it getting back to anyone.
He walked the corridor again.
The east path. The outer wall section. The old garden behind the east wing.
The body is somewhere in the old grounds, Sable had said. Somewhere that wouldn’t be disturbed. freёwebnovel.com
He looked at the garden through the corridor window. Overgrown. Nobody used it. The groundskeepers trimmed the outer edges once a season and left the rest.
When Sable gets back, he thought, we start there.
He went to find Edmund to ask about dinner arrangements.
Edmund appeared before he’d finished the thought, as he always did, with the warm efficiency that had become so familiar Elian had stopped noticing it. frёewebnoѵēl.com
"Your Highness. Dinner will be ready at the usual hour. Shall I inform His Highness?"
"Please," Elian said.
"Of course." The small bow. "Is there anything else?"
"No," Elian said. "Thank you, Edmund."
Edmund went.
Elian stood in the corridor.
Something snagged. Just briefly. Gone before he could place it.
He shook his head and walked on.
* * *
The letter arrived from Sable the next morning.
I have something. Come when you can or I’ll come to you. We need to talk in person.
Elian read it twice.
She’d been in the east. Tracking the ritual tradition, the eastern contacts, everything Veylan had been connected to.
She found something, he thought. She actually found something.
He felt the first real flicker of something that wasn’t anxiety in days.
He wrote back immediately. Come to the palace. I’ll have a room ready.
He sealed it and gave it to Edmund.
Edmund, as always, took it without a word and disappeared to arrange delivery.
Elian watched him go.
The thread snagged again.
He stood in the corridor for a moment, trying to place it. The specific thing that kept catching. Edmund’s timing. Edmund’s presence. Edmund always knowing what was needed before it was asked.
You’ve been here a long time, Elian thought. You knew this palace before I did. You know every person in it.
He turned it over.
Couldn’t find the edges of it.
Not yet, he told himself. You need more before you pull that thread.
He went back to his study.
The maid with the wrong aura had gone about her day. The sending had retreated to its usual corner. Sable was on her way.
One thing at a time.
He picked up his pen.
He stood at the corridor window for a moment.
The east garden. The section nobody used. The outer wall.
The body is somewhere in the old grounds, he thought. I can feel it. The egg confirmed it. We just have to find the right spot.
When Sable arrived, they’d start looking properly.
He turned away from the window.
Went to his desk.
One more day of waiting.
Then they’d start.
He checked the bracelet one more time before bed.
All beads whole. The mala solid.
Hold, he thought at it. Just one more day.
He looked at the corridor one more time.
The sending in its corner. Patient. Watching.
You know something, Elian thought. And tomorrow we start learning what.
He went to bed.
