“I’ll give you all the evidence you need,” Shamaïra continued, and her voice settled, turning deep. “Ideclare myself a traitor to the Crown, and a rebel against the Kolst Imperatorya.Don’ttouch me,” she snarled, so viciously that the Whitecloak approaching her hesitated. “I’ll go myself.” She swept a glance around, and for a moment, Ramson swore she looked directly at him. “But if anybody still wishes to search my property, they are welcome to do so. You’llcertainlyfind overwhelming evidence in what an old lady paints before bedtime!”
Two Whitecloaks signaled at each other, then stepped forward and disappeared into Shamaïra’s dacha.
Ramson was frozen in place, his mind playing out all scenarios, possibilities, and strategies to get ahead of the impossible scene before him. Trying to findsomeway out of all this.
Help her,a voice urged. Ana’s voice. She would never have hesitated.
But he was one man to the Whitecloaks’ seven, including an Affinite Inquisitor. If there was one thing he was good at, it was calculating the odds. Ramson Quicktongue could recognize when not to enter a losing battle.
He watched Shamaïra walk to the wagon, head held high and shoulders thrown back as though she held command. He watched them lock the doors, mount their sleek, pale valkryfs. Watched as the unit set off at a brisk trot, their powerful steeds moving at almost twice the speed of any ordinary horse.
He could go after her. Follow them, find a time when their security was loose and rescue Shamaïra.
But Ramson remained where he was, his senses wound tighter than a spring, his eyes scanning the periphery. Waiting.
As though on cue, an orange flicker appeared at one of the windows, and voices wound through the night. One of the Whitecloaks who had gone in to search Shamaïra’s dacha appeared. He seemed to be speaking to someone behind him. “Mad old fortune-teller.” His voice was faint, but just audible from where Ramson crouched. “Why does the Kolst Imperatorya want her? She doesn’tactuallybelieve the old woman can see the future, does she?”
A chill went down Ramson’s spine. Morganya was looking for Shamaïra?
A deeper voice answered. “Mind your own business. We were given orders; it is our job to execute them.” From inside the dacha, the Inquisitor emerged. Flames licked up the skin of his bare hands, and for a moment, they washed over the twisted look on his face. “Stand back.”
The night lit up in a brief flash of light. Fire shot from the Affinite’s hands, swirling over the wooden walls and the thatched roof of Shamaïra’s house. It caught ablaze easily, flames snaking up the sides in rivulets, spreading faster than ink on parchment.
Ramson hid in the shadows of the trees, watching as the two Whitecloaks mounted their steeds and galloped after their unit, the fire throwing long, crooked shadows behind them.
Coward,a voice whispered.
But Ramson knew, with certainty, that had he been given the choice again, he would have chosen to save himself, over and over and over. Just as he had at another time, another place, almost a lifetime ago, with the sleek shine of the arrow in torchlight, the soft black of Jonah’s hair as he lay on the floor, eyes as still as the surface of a glass lake.
Ramson fisted his hands against his face. Shamaïra—in the last moments, she’d been brave. He thought of her piercing blue gaze, sweeping the periphery of her dacha, almost as if…
…she’d been looking directly at him.
Ramson shot to his feet. Before he knew it, he was running, sprinting as fast as he could toward the burning dacha.
But if anybody still wishes to search my property, they are welcome to do so.
It hadn’t been an accident. Shamaïrahadbeen talking to him.
You’llcertainlyfind overwhelming evidence in what an old lady paints before bedtime!
Heat gusted in his face as he drew closer, the light of the fire searing his eyes. The entire front wall was ablaze.
Ramson drew his scarf over his face, sucked in a deep breath, and barreled through the open front door. Immediately, his eyes watered; smoke filled his lungs.
It took him a few moments to reach the parlor; he could see the glow of flames working through the wood of the roof.
Ramson made a desperate scan of the room. Books had been pulled from their shelves on the wall, precious texts from Nandji strewn carelessly across the floor. They’d slit blades through Shamaïra’s divans; the insides spilled out like guts, red in the firelight. Her table was upturned, the center of her beautiful Nandjian rug slashed through, revealing rough wooden floorboards beneath.
Through all the wreckage, a painting easel lay knocked askance at the corner of the room. Paint had spilled from shattered pots, but when Ramson retrieved the canvas, he knew in his gut that this was what he sought.
Shamaïra had painted a blue swath of an ocean, and then swirls and swirls of white atop. And, at the very edge, the canvas had been burned through, the dull sheen of molten metal clinging to the edges.
Ramson would recognize gold anywhere.
Gold. Ocean. White. And in the midst of it all, a streak of red that blazed across the page like fire, like blood, like…a scarlet cloak.
He might have grinned at Shamaïra’s brilliance. She’d depicted Goldwater Port and the Whitewaves, both in the painting and symbolically. And right in the middle, she’d paintedAna.
