The two of them looked at me.
I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“If Hreban doesn’t have an obvious reason to kill the Sun Margrave, it must be Silveren,” Everard said.
That made sense.
“We wondered why Silveren decided to back Hreban,” I said. “Perhaps they struck a deal. Hreban kills the Sun Margrave for Silveren, and in return, the Redeemers support Hreban’s climb.”
“But why would Silveren want the Sun Margrave dead?” Solentine asked.
“I don’t know. But after the Sun Margrave was buried, Silveren did go to Jenicor’s family tree.”
Everard leaned forward. “Did he deface the burial plot?”
“No. He just sat there for several hours. Another Redeemer knight came to see him, and Silveren told her that life was a chain that anchored you to the past like a rope that secures you as you scale a wall. One link attached to the other, each coming full circle. If you failed to close the links, the chain would come apart, and you would plummet.”
Solentine frowned again. “This new Silveren, the one who is running around the city in disguise, plotting with Hreban, and contemplating the meaning of life, I don’t know him. I find it troubling when people act unlike themselves.”
“Which Silveren do you know?” Everard asked.
Solentine sighed. “He says little. When he’s forced into small talk, he is dull, save for a rare quip. If you attempt to converse with him, he will inevitably turn the topic to the burdens of war or his old injuries. Silveren broke his legs somehow during his service and they bother him when it rains. He tends to Inhan and hangs behind him like a bitter shadow. Considering his face, he should be far more coveted, but he is so unresponsive that he isn’t pursued by either women or men. The only time Silveren comes to life is when the discussion touches on matters pertaining to the Redeemers. He is a zealous advocate for his order, and he doesn’t back down from either Arvel or Bors, I will give him that.”
“That is not the Silveren I met,” I said.
“I gathered,” Solentine said. “Who did you meet?”
“A dargan in mel’s clothing. Sharp, menacing, clever. Hreban walked into the Garden wrapped in loud luxury, and Silveren referred to him as a rare beauty who couldn’t be kept waiting.”
Solentine raised his eyebrows.
“You said he attached himself to Inhan?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Silveren kills Inhan in the future. Slits his throat and watches him bleed out.”
Solentine swore.
“There must be a connection between the Sun Margrave and Silveren,” Everard said. “His graveside speech at Sonndor suggests it may not be about him. It may concern his parents or his siblings.”
“I’ll take a deeper look,” Solentine said. “However, that will take time, and the start of High Court is a month away. We could always take a direct approach. Eliminating Silveren would be problematic, but we could remove Ulmar Hreban from the picture.”
“No,” Everard and I said in one voice.
“Why?”
“It’s not about eliminating the man himself, but about removing the opportunity he’s taking advantage of,” Everard told him. “If we kill him without changing the circumstances that allow his rise, we risk someone else sliding into his place. Better the dursan we know than the one we don’t.”
“I see,” Solentine said. “A pity.”
Up to now everything I had done was in response to Hreban’s actions. The abduction of Galiene’s daughter, smuggling iron, the string of serial murders, all of those had already been in motion. I had stopped them, but that didn’t address their source.
No, we had to eliminate Hreban not as a man, but as a force. That’s what I had set out to do when Everard was still Reynald and I told him for the first time that I would stop the nightmare that was about to swallow Rellas. But then the salt and the mercenaries became a pressing issue, and I’d defaulted to stopping the disasters as they came.
“We have to take Hreban apart,” I said.
“How would we do that?” Solentine asked.
