“Have you ever seen a symbol like this before?” Carver asked.
Morelli frowned. “No. It doesn’t look new, though, so it might not have anything to do with Trevill’s death.”
“True.” But the tattoo had obviously meant something to Trevill. Carver leaned closer, memorizing the simple design and the placement of the mark. When he drew back, he caught sight of Morelli’s furrowed brow.
“What?” he asked the older man.
Morelli shook his head. “I don’t know. It could have been an ally that killed him, but it’s just as possible an enemy wanted him dead.”
It seemed a lot less likely, though. “He was in prison for treason. Why bother killing him when he was already headed for execution?”
Morelli shrugged. “I don’t know. I just think it’s important to consider all the possibilities before getting stuck on one theory.”
Carver knew Morelli was right. “Trevill kept insisting he was being framed. He cast some suspicion on the clerics, but he named some political rivals as well.”
Sudden understanding dawned in Morelli’s eyes. “Chancellor Kulver too, I take it?”
Carver nodded grimly. “And Chancellor Janson.”
Morelli made a sound low in his throat, his eyes skating over Trevill’s body. “What a bloody mess,” he muttered.
He wasn’t wrong.
Carver knew that Trevill’s killer wasn’t necessarily the same person trying to assassinate Jayveh, but it was a possibility. And that was a lead he couldn’t ignore—especially since he didn’t have a lot of others. At the very least, by finding Trevill’s murderer, he would expose a dangerous killer. And if Trevillhadbeen killed by an ally who’d plotted alongside him, that made the murderer just as responsible for Trevill’s crimes in Esperance. Cora, Darren, the real Marriset—they’d all been killed by an assassin Trevill had hired to destroy the Craethen Council.
A sudden chill raced down his spine. Now that the emperor was rebuilding the Council, would the Chosen be targets once more? Then again, if the ambush on the road was any indication, they’d never stopped being targets.
Frustration grated as Carver pushed to his feet. He needed answers, and he wasn’t going to get them sitting here.
Morelli stood with him, grasping the lantern and following him out into the narrow prison hallway.
The two guards Morelli had already questioned stood at the end of the corridor. They spoke in hissing whispers to each other, their hands slicing through the air. They straightened to strict attention when they spotted the two generals.
“Don’t stop on our account,” Carver said, hardening his voice just enough to carry some authority.
The shorter guard paled, the ring of keys jangling in his hand. “General, we weren’t—I mean, it might be nothing, but—what I mean to say, is—”
“Do you have something to add to your report?” Carver asked, cutting into the man’s flustered speech.
“No, sir,” the taller guard said, shooting a quelling look at the other. “Terrent here just has an active imagination.”
“How so?” Morelli asked.
When the short guard—Terrent—hesitated, the tall one threw out his hands. “Well, go on and tell them. Before you become a suspect yourself, you idiot.”
Terrent’s gaze darted between Morelli and Carver. “I was just saying, this attack—if itwasan attack, and not just a prisoner hanging himself—then, well, it could have been the Wraith.”
As if on cue, a torch guttered on the wall, making Terrent flinch. The keys in his hand jangled, the sound echoing down the darkened corridor.
“The Wraith?” Morelli repeated dryly.
Terrent flushed. “We’ve all heard the stories,” he said, almost defensively.
“Yes,” Morelli said. “But they’restories.”
The Wraith was an assassin that had been whispered about long before Carver’s birth. The stories were many and varied, and the Wraith’s victims ranged from clerics and noblemen to soldiers and merchants. It was said he could make multiple kills in a single night, on opposite sides of the empire. Each story was always filled with horror and gore. The sorts of tales young boys—and young soldiers—were inclined to share with each other on a dark night. Some of the tales even had a supernatural bent, claiming the Wraith could walk through walls, or that he was an empath who could appear in your dreams and kill you there. In other words, utter fictions. Though, after hearing what empaths like Tiras and those Acolytes were capableof . . .
“The Wraith isn’t real,” the taller guard snapped.
