inquiring: “What’s this, Molin? Dead snakes? Is your state-cult out of hand
again? I told you Nikodemos was no fit guardian for those children. I-“
The Beysib monarch interjected smoothly: “Let me see these dead snakes, priest.
And mind you, I’m never sure that these troubles aren’t made by the Rankans who
announce them.”
By then Tempus and Jihan were running down the hall, toward secret passages
Tempus knew like the back of his sword-hand or Jihan’s female mysteries, which
led to the lower chambers where, near the dungeons, Niko and the children-whom
some said were more than that-were being kept.
Ischade’s Foalside house was more home than haunt, less forbidding than Roxane’s
to the south, but hardly an inviting place to visit.
Unless, of course, one was Straton, her lover whom she’d guided to de facto
power in Sanctuary’s factionalized streets, or an undead such as Janni or
Stilcho (both of whom had once been Stepsons), or a mageling such as Haught, who
learned what he could from the witches and sought to wake the power in his
Nisibisi blood.
Strat had been with Ischade hardly long enough for a candle to bum low when
Haught, whom Straton hated, came gusting in the door.
The place was softly lit and full of colors; precious gems and silks and metals
strewed the floor.
Straton was, by then, the finest thing she had, though-a human man, with all his
prowess, not an animated corpse or witchling.
She could love him, could Ischade, with a finer passion than the rest. But she
could feel in him a struggle, one that made shoulders sweat and muscles twitch.