Tasfalen’s gate and then his steps and her thoughts turned to Haught and Roxane
and what lay ahead, as she dealt with locks of natural and other kinds, and
doors likewise doubled, and, as the last portal opened to her will, a raindrop
struck her cheek, and then another, and thunder rolled.
The storm would ground the dust and douse the fires and she knew it was too
great a luck for Sanctuary, the most luckless town she’d ever seen. She knew
also that, inside the flaming pillar back at the Peres’s, evil was held at bay
by one whose name could not be spoken but could be approximated: Stonn-bringer,
the Weather-Gods’ father-Stormbringer, whose daughter Jihan was close at hand.
And then there was no time to put it all together: there was a ring on the
finger of Haught which she could see with her inner eye.
This she stroked and called home to her. Its spell, still strong, would bring
the scheming apprentice-if he was not already here.
In the ground hall full of shadows she paused. The door behind her closed at a
gust’s whim. The slam it made was daunting.
Her hackles rose-she hadn’t thought of the ring Haught had until she’d entered.
Was it her will, or only her perception, that saw him here?
Why had she come here? Suddenly, she wasn’t sure. She shook her head, on the
ground floor landing, and touched her brow with her palm. She owed Tempus none
of this-not so much. Tasfalen was dead, a minion to be summoned to the river
house. Why, then, had she risked the streets and come up here?
Why? She couldn’t fathom it.