Lute nodded and leaned to look down the street.
“What are you checking for?”
“The Shears woman. She followed the carriage. I saw her.”
It made sense. The carriage wasn’t traveling fast. The main advantage of it wasn’t speed, it was comfort, and the city streets were crowded. A person in good shape could easily follow us, especially if she was one of the Shears’ agents.
“If she followed us, she won’t let herself be seen. That would be too obvious. Come on. Let’s look for the house. The sooner we find it, the sooner we can get this over with.”
Ten minutes later, I stopped before a wall with a gate crowned by a heavy wooden sign that hung on a massive chain just above it. The sign bore sharp, spiky script.
“Okulan,” Lute said with all the joy of a man spotting a hungry tiger.
“Can you read the sign?”
“No, but I recognize the writing. The old man has a dagger with that writing on it. He got stabbed during the battle of Sanderan and pulled it out of his gut. It nearly killed him.”
Sounded about right.
“What does it say?” Lute asked.
“The House of Morning Sky. The Clan of Harzi.” Apparently, reading Okulan was no problem either.
“Shit.” Lute stared at the sign. “I can see why you didn’t wanthimto know.”
The nation of Okula lay in the northwest and shared a border with Selva. If you put Rellas where the US lay on a map, Selva would be Canada, and Okula would be Alaska, except that its weather was a lot warmer. It was a big chunk of land surrounded on three sides by water, and it was populated by a conglomeration of clans. Each clan was a state unto itself, and they competed and fought with each other.
The Okula were excellent sailors and good horsemen. They raided and traded with both nations, and no one knew which of those two options they would pick in any given year. Every three decades or so, the clans got antsy, elected a war chief, and invaded in force, usually Selva by land or southern Rellas by sea. Twelve years ago, Everard had to repel a massive invasion. His mother lost her life on the battlefield. Clan Harzi had been on the forefront of that war.
After the invasion, Okula and Rellas resumed trade relations, which was how Clan Harzi ended up with this house in Old Town. Rellas might have moved on, but Everard hadn’t. He would never have let me walk into a Harzi clanhouse. And if I had any sort of common sense, I wouldn’t enter one either. Unfortunately, it was our only option.
“Do we have to go in?” Lute asked.
“Yes.”
He stretched his neck and squared his shoulders. “Should I knock?”
“You should.”
Lute knocked on the gate.
The door swung open, revealing a girl in her late teens. She was four inches taller than me, with a sturdy frame and a wide face. Her skin was a deeper shade of beige with a cool undertone. Her long auburn hair was plaited into an intricate braid, the tip of which had been bleached in the Harzi fashion and dyed to announce her clan color—a muted Carolina blue.
Her clothes also identified her clan: high-waisted blue and white pants, a pale cream tunic tucked into those pants, and a thicker, blue overtunic secured by a wide cloth belt. A slender sword in a soft sheath on her hip completed the outfit.
“Calm winds and tranquil sky.”
She stared at me. No response to the traditional greeting. Rude, but fine.
“I seek an audience with theorsi,” I said. “I bring a secret to trade.”
“Theorsiis busy,” she said.
“Then I will wait.”
She pressed her lips together, turning her mouth into a hard, thin line. The Harzi were foreigners in Kair Toren. The city welcomed their merchant ships, the goods they brought, and the money they spent, but their presence in the capital was limited and Kair Toren never let them forget that they were perennial enemies who were closely watched.
Clan Harzi was one of the more powerful Okulan clans. If we had been in Harzi Ar, the seat of their power, the sentry woman would’ve informed me that I wasn’t fit to kiss the footprints of theorsi, let alone ask for an audience, and slammed the door in my face. But we were in Rellas, and I looked like a noblewoman. They couldn’t simply ignore me. It wouldn’t be prudent.
