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“You want the agent above him.”
“I want the purpose behind the coercion.”
Joran gives a clipped nod. “The scout will understand.”
“He must keep Nessa in sight after every meeting,” I add. “If she carries a parcel or written order, he records where it goes. He touches nothing and warns no one.”
“Even if the parcel enters the stronghold?”
“Especially then. I need the full path from Varrus to his intended target.”
Joran secures the travel papers inside the cloak. “The scout will report through the shrine post.”
“Use a different karasu each time. Repetition creates a pattern.”
He leaves through the private passage.
Within the hour, a single rider departs the lower gate wearing no Morwen’thir colors. He carries no written order connecting him to my house. At the shrine road, he will stable the equus and enter Lowtown on foot.
He will take the abandoned wool stall before the market closes. From there, he can watch the K’sheng merchant’s public counter and the rear entrance without approaching Nessa.
The surveillance begins before she receives her instructions.
The relevant market exchange has not yet occurred.
I secure the transcribed threat inside my desk. Its frost-stained edge proves only that my control slipped, not why.
Varrus is acting through Lowtown.
I know neither his precise demand nor his target.
21
FIONA
Lowtown market looks smaller after nearly two months inside Morwen’thir Stronghold.
The stalls still crowd the narrow lane beneath patched awnings. Smoke rises from cookfires and flattens beneath the winter sky. Vendors call out the prices of roots, cloth, lamp oil, and dried meat while buyers count dalers through worn gloves.
Nothing has changed enough to justify the feeling.
I have.
Two Morwen’thir guards wait near the public well rather than follow me between the stalls. Rhysandir insisted upon an escort. I insisted that armored dark elves standing at Nessa’s counter would frighten every human in the market.
The compromise leaves them within sight but beyond ordinary conversation.
I carry an empty herb basket and a folded copy of the new household decree. Sarveth sent notices to every work area yesterday. The human servants asked Briar to read the terms twice before they believed them.
Ten-hour shifts. Full labor rations. Recorded meal periods.
I want Nessa to hear what her nervous warning helped begin.
Her stall stands beneath a faded green awning near the western spice row. Imported nimond and nabella fill shallow bowls along the front shelf. Their colors remain bright, but the quantities have fallen since my last visit.
Nessa straightens the same bowl three times before noticing me.
She is pale.
