Covenant's End (15 page)

Digging her nails into her palms until she swore she was about to hit bone, Widdershins explained her gruesome discovery upon returning to her bolthole—and what she'd later discovered upon visiting the other graves, as well.

Robin wept openly by the time she was through, over this last indignity done to Genevieve, whom she'd loved as much as Shins had. Faustine held her, whispering, gently rocking her back and forth. Renard and Igraine had both paled, then adapted some new hues; he came over vaguely greenish-gray, as though struggling not be sick, while the priestess had flushed red with righteous indignation. And Evrard…

Well, one look at the twisted fury in his expression and the sheen of ice in his eyes, and Shins remembered why, even without a god or the fae at his side, he'd been a genuine threat when that wrath had been aimed
her
way.

And he was the only one, up to that moment, who
hadn't
already had a personal reason to despise Lisette Suvagne.

“I walked right into it,” Shins admitted. “It was
so
frog-hopping clearly
exactly
what she wanted, and I just strolled on in. I was so angry, so sure she was nothing.

“And then she…” Widdershins only then realized she was clutching her stomach, one arm held protectively over her wound.

Robin had gently disengaged herself from Faustine's arms, limped to her friend's side, and taken her hand, before the thief even realized she was there.

“Only when you're ready, Shins.”

Shins squeezed her fingers, forced a wan smile, and—still bolstered
and protected by Olgun's own blanket-like embrace—recited the rest of what had occurred in Renard's former office.

“Embruchel,” Robin breathed from beside her.

“What?”

“The one who did…who hurt you. There aren't as many tales about him as about Iruoch, but I recognize the description. Embruchel.”

“I don't think I've heard of him.” Shins looked to the others, but Faustine and the two men appeared just as puzzled.

Igraine, however, was slowly nodding. “He's referred to by title more often than name. You would probably remember him as the Prince of Orphan's Tears.”

Widdershins shuddered. That name, she
did
remember from her childhood. She'd first heard the story from other children, not long after she had, herself, become an orphan.

“Does knowing that help us at all?” Evrard asked, his own fingers digging deep into the cushioned arms of the chair.

“We'd have to read up, see if any of the legends agree on much about him,” Igraine said. “But it certainly can't hurt.”

“And remember,” Widdershins pointed out, “he's not the only one. I figure Lisette sought them out after she heard about Iruoch, though I don't even want to
guess
how she went about it. They had,” she added bitterly, “an enemy in common.”

“I'm not as familiar with fairytales as, apparently, I ought to be,” Renard said. Although he spoke no differently than ever, Shins swore she heard something of the Shrouded Lord in his voice now. “But even I know that the fae are tricky and fickle. Would they do this
just
to seek revenge for Iruoch?”

“It's possible,” Robin answered, taking Widdershins's goblet and refilling it without being asked. “They
are
pretty vindictive, in the stories.”

Igraine started to gesture at Robin, then—perhaps remembering
her limp—stood and fetched herself a drink as well. “At the same time,” she said as she crossed the room, “they might very well want something more out of it. Widdershins, you said something about them not
really
being here?”

“Those wounds looked real enough,” Renard growled.

“No, she's right,” Shins told him. “They've granted Lisette some of their power, and that seems to let them manifest here for short periods of time, but…they come and go. Lisette said something about the Church…?”

Again the priestess nodded. “You remember how Iruoch reacted to prayer and blessed objects. Normally, the faith of a community as large as Davillon is enough to keep them out entirely. He only came because of the…accidental invitation.

“If Lisette convinced them that she could offer them free reign here,” she added thoughtfully, “that would surely be enough to buy their cooperation, revenge or no.”

“What's she planning to do, murder the entire clergy?” Evrard asked—darkly enough that he very clearly was
not
being entirely sarcastic.

“I think I told you,” Igraine sighed, “that I've been in pretty regular contact with His Eminence Sicard? Part of that is because of the panic and rumors. Stories are spreading, just like they did with Iruoch.”

“And of course, if the Church can't do anything and people start to lose faith again…” Shins mused.

“It's more than that, though. The priests of some of the minor Houses have claimed to have found a way to protect their people from this ‘unholy scourge.' And nobody from those houses has been hurt.”

“It's not proof of anything, yet. There are still few enough attacks overall that those houses could have been spared by coincidence. But people are starting to listen.”

Evrard, again, utterly incredulous. “The Church is letting them just splinter off like that?”

“The priesthood is completely overwhelmed,” Igraine protested. “These ‘hauntings,' all the political upheaval in Davillon…. And Davillon's not even a priority for the Church as a whole right now! The Archbishops are all still dealing with the fallout over Faranda's anointing! Lourveaux's dealing with open riots!”

Shins had learned the basics of that months ago, when she herself had been in the city of Lourveaux, heart of the Church of the Hallowed Pact. Nicolina Faranda, successor to the lamented Archbishop William de Laurent, was from Rannanti, not Galice. By the laws of the Church, there was nothing wrong with that; faith in the Pact wasn't limited to a single nation. After so many generations of rivalry and border skirmishes between the two states, however, quite a few Galicians had taken offense at the decision. The Church was swept up in controversy, the Galicien throne had dispatched much of the standing army to the border, to prevent the situation from escalating…

No. No, she couldn't…. This
can't
be her doing, too! She can't have that much influence outside of Davillon?

“Can she?” she asked, nearly begged, under her breath.

Except, as Olgun reluctantly pointed out, she could. She hadn't the pull to create the situation, no, but it would take only a few planted agitators, loud voices to stir up the simmering anger, to keep it all burning longer than it otherwise might.

And it would mean far, far fewer official eyes on Davillon.

“Gods…”

“…tried to get word to Lourveaux of what's happening here,” Igraine was saying, “but so far, they've been too busy to even send back more than an occasional perfunctory answer.”

“Your messages may not even be reaching them,” Shins said, jumping back in. She proceeded to explain to them the banditry and monster situation. “It's pretty obvious,” she concluded, “that the two-in-one creature I fought on the way home was a fae trick, yes? I mean, now that we know they're involved.”

“Just how powerful has the bitch
gotten
?” Renard demanded, rising from his own chair to pace the length of the far wall.

“You know,” Igraine mused, “we've been wondering why she's been having the Guild behave more brutally. It hadn't occurred to me, since I didn't know she had plans beyond the Finders, until recently, but…it's everything the local priesthood can do to keep the Guard and the Guild from each other's throats. Open warfare between two institutions with patron gods of the Pact is forbidden, but the public outcry is close to forcing the Guards' hand. Dealing with the Finders' Guild is basically all they're doing, other than their increased presence at the walls of the city. What little energy and attention Sicard has remaining is tied up largely in keeping
that
situation from boiling over.”

“Madame, um, Igraine?” Everyone stared at Faustine, apparently having forgotten she was there, so little had she spoken. “Which Houses are the ones whose priests are claiming to be able to protect people?”

“Um, I'm not sure I know the complete list, but…” The priestess pondered a moment, then rattled off some names, finally wrapping up with, “Why?”

“Which Houses,” the other woman asked softly, “are the ones who have fielded private armsmen to keep the peace while the Guard is so busy?”

Renard halted in mid-pace, lost in thought. “There's…close to
zero
overlap,” he marveled. “I mean, literally almost none.”

Dead silence, as everyone struggled to absorb the implications.

“There's something else,” the d'Arras scion said grimly.

“Oh, good,” Shins crowed. “This was all starting to seem too simple.”

“A number of the smaller Houses Igraine just named? Have had a change in leadership recently. Several House patrons have passed on in the last few months, leaving their heirs to take over. It would have been bigger news, I think, but with everything else going on, it's rather been pushed aside in favor of more pressing issues.

“The
major
Houses…they've closed up some of their businesses, the ones that are particularly vulnerable. There's a
lot
of calling in of old favors happening behind the scenes, as well as the establishment of some new ones. I've been approached a time or two myself. And
they're
the Houses with soldiers in the streets, ostensibly to help keep the peace, but…I think they're all jockeying for position to ride out the growing political upheaval. Maybe even to strike out at rivals in the process.”

“Sicard
did
tell me,” Igraine added, “that a lot of the major Houses are starting to take sides over the ‘Should the Guard go to war with the Finders' Guild, despite the doctrinal prohibition' issue. And the various house leaders are all attending sermons far more often; he thinks they're just trying to shore up existing alliances with the Church, and to look good to the people around them.”

“I'm actually starting to get a headache in
your
head from trying to follow all this,” Widdershins complained.

Evrard shifted in his seat. “I'm finding it difficult to believe,” he said, “that one person could manage all this. A lot of it could be her, sure, but
all
of it? Even with her powers and connections, and even assuming there's some half-sane plan behind it all—which I am
not
assuming, by the way—I'm having trouble swallowing it.”

“It does seem rather labyrinthine,” Renard added, “compared to the straightforward methods by which she used to operate. But of course, she's been gone a long time, and it's certainly
brutal
enough for her.”

Shins paused, taking another sip as she gathered her thoughts, and only then stopped to wonder how much of the brandy she'd actually had, and why she wasn't feeling it.

Oh. Of course.

“You,” she whispered, uncertain if she was grateful for his interference, irritated by it, or both.

Olgun smugly beamed at her, leaving no doubt at all as to how
he
felt about it.

“All right,” she said to the others, “it's going to be a few days
yet before I'm anywhere near my best.” That “a few days” was still months sooner than any of
them
would have been okay was something every last person in the room knew, but nobody bothered to speak aloud. “Why don't we spend that time gathering what information we can? Between the lot of us, we have people in the aristocracy, the Guard, the underworld, the Church…. If we can't learn anything new, we can at least shore up suspicions and try to figure out what the
point
of this whole mess is, yes?”

When most of the others seemed to agree—or at least nobody
dis
agreed—she continued. “We'll meet back here at set times. Robin, Faustine, you'll stay—”

Three shouted protests at once severed the end of that sentence like an executioner's axe. Shins let them go on for a moment. But
only
a moment.

“Oh, for pastry's sake,
shut up!

“You!” she began, two fingers pointing directly at the startled scowl on Evrard's face. “If you're in this, you're in it. This is someplace safe we can gather, where Lisette doesn't know to look for us. I think the rest of us really appreciate having somewhere like that, so if you object, feel free to leave.

“Besides, what do you care what happens here? You're just renting.”

One hand dropped back to her side, the other rose in counterbalance, now aimed at the sofa. “The horse-plucking witch already came after you once! She
can't
…!” It was a gentle divine prod that made her realize she was starting to shout. “I need to be sure you're safe, Robin. And don't even start with the guilty ‘I'm a burden' nonsense. I'd have said the same thing
before
your injury, and you hopping well know it.”

Her friend frowned, turned her face away, but nodded.

“Faustine—”

“I'm a courier, Shins. I know all sorts of people, in the noble Houses, in merchant circles!”

“I know, but—”

“But you don't know me.” Somehow bitter and understanding, both at once. “You don't trust me.”

“Gods!” It was neither skill nor divine interference but sheer, dumb luck that Shins's goblet didn't go flying from her fingers to shatter against wall or ceiling as she dramatically threw her hands up in exasperation. “You're as stubborn as she is!” The thief stalked across the room—it was only a few steps, but she still managed to stalk them—to loom over the pair on the couch.

“Robin loves you. That's enough for me to trust you, until and unless you give me reason otherwise. Faustine, I need you to stay here because Robin's staying here.” She went on, quickly, stampeding over the protest she could
see
rising in Robin's throat. “
I
need someone with her. Whether or not
she
thinks she does.