She felt the moment that Ashin died.
She kept singing for a span after that, reflexively, as if it would do any good now. Finally her voice trailed off, and in the silence that followed, she realized that Kekkai had stopped screaming, and Mirei was on the floor next to her, white and shaking with exhaustion.
Satomi’s eyes met hers, and she saw the shock and horror in Mirei’s face.
“Not fast enough,” Mirei whispered, voice ragged and faint. “They couldn’t see us, so they sent blades—if I’d been just a beat faster—”
What little color was left in her drained out suddenly, and Satomi caught her just as she collapsed.
Nenikune came out of the bedroom and closed the door quietly behind her, giving a quick glance to the phalanx of Cousins and witches that were standing guard in the outer room.
“Come with me,” Satomi said.
They retired to a next-door chamber, and Satomi sang into place a spell that would keep anyone from eavesdropping. When they were safe, she faced the healer, trying not to show the worry she felt.
“Tell me.”
Nenikune was concise and clear, as always. Her businesslike tone belied her haggard face, still marked by the horror of Anness’s death. “They both have a number of cuts. One, in Mirei’s shoulder, looks older, and it’s well on its way to being healed. We’ve put spells on the rest; they shouldn’t pose a problem. Nothing too vital was struck.”
Ashin had been the unlucky one. Two of the blades Mirei had referred to must have hit her squarely in the body.
“I’ve given Kekkai a sedative for the time being,” Nenikune added. “It seemed the simplest answer.”
Satomi appreciated the discretion. “What of Mirei?”
Now the healer looked less certain. “I’ve also given her a sedative, and something to abate the nausea and headache.”
“But what
caused
them? Was she poisoned?”
“I don’t think so.” Nenikune hesitated. “With your permission, Aken, I’d like to question Hyoka-akara.”
Satomi blinked in surprise. “Hyoka? Why?”
“I’ve heard that Mirei has been suffering headaches rather chronically of late.”
“Overwork,” Satomi said, grimacing. “She’s been driving herself very hard.” But there was still a hesitancy in the healer’s expression. “Do you think it’s more than that?”
Nenikune smoothed the front of her plain skirt, as if getting her clothing into order as a substitute for order in her thoughts. She was a relentlessly tidy woman; uncertainty and confusion were the bane of her existence. “This is purely unfounded speculation, Aken, which is why I’d like to talk to Hyoka-akara.”
“Then give me unfounded speculation.”
Crone knows we have little enough else to go on
.
The healer-witch nodded. “I fear that this may be a side effect of Mirei’s… different magic.”
After having ordered Nenikune to share her thoughts, Satomi couldn’t justifiably fault her for having made such an appalling suggestion. She swallowed down her first several reactions and said, more or less evenly, “What do you mean?”
“I mean that the use of Void power—or something in that vein, at any rate—is taking a very hard toll on Mirei’s body. One that’s been growing the more she does it.”
If that is true
… Satomi jerked her head in a curt nod. “I’ll send Hyoka to you tomorrow. Will that be soon enough?”
“Yes, Aken.”
Leaving the room, Satomi sent a message to Koika. The loyalty of one witch, at least, they would establish before the night was out.
They used unsubtle methods, and when they were done, they were sure that Hyoka was not a traitor. And when she found out why they were asking, Hyoka forgave them their choice of approach.
She was dispatched to work with Nenikune, under strict orders not to share even the slightest whisper of the healer’s concerns with anyone else. Koika had not yet turned her attentions to the rest of the group to flush out the spy, and until she did so they could take no chances. Mirei was still in the infirmary, under guard, recovering from her weakness.
In the meantime, Satomi and Koika had a meeting with Kekkai.
They brought her into the council room, put her in a chair, and sat facing her like a pair of judges. “Talk,” Satomi said.
Kekkai was pale and still had bandages on the more severe cuts, but she spoke without reluctance. “I’m sorry, Aken, Chashi. I—I knew there might be danger to Mirei, if they found out I was leaving. I didn’t expect anything on that scale.”
No one had yet said a word to her about the traitor, and Satomi was going to keep it that way, at least for the time being. “Why did you decide to leave? And so abruptly?”
The captive looked down at the table. “It wasn’t as abrupt as it seems. I… when I spoke to you a few nights ago, Aken, I’d already been questioning many things. The information you gave me was simply one more factor. And then the next day I met with Arinei-nayo and Shimi-kane, and I learned something they intend to do.”
“Which was?” Koika prompted her when she paused. The Earth Prime had her hands tightly laced together on the table’s surface, and the rigidity of her posture showed just how suspicious she still was of the Key.
Kekkai’s eyes wavered for a moment, but then she lifted her pointed jaw and met Koika’s gaze. The unease in her was clear. “They’re planning to open the witch-child they captured to power. They intend for her to die, and to take her doppelganger with her.”
“They’ve already done it,” Satomi said flatly. “Chanka and Anness are dead.” She let that sink in, then leaned forward. “And your response to this hideous plan was to
leave
?”
The Key’s hands were trembling. “I didn’t know what else to do. I thought, if I warned you—”
“You could have done that immediately. You could have sent a message to me.” And then perhaps they would have found some way to save the children.
Kekkai nodded. A tear slipped down her cheek. “I should have. But I was afraid—I tried to argue against it, and Shimi grew angry—I had to get out of there. I didn’t know they would do it so soon. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Her head bent low over her clasped hands.
When the Key’s quiet sobs abated, Satomi spoke again. “You will tell us everything you know about their plans.”
Wiping at her cheeks, Kekkai said, “Yes, Aken.”
“Start with Chaha,” Satomi said. “Is Arinei funding her military ambitions?”
“Not exactly,” Kekkai replied. Her voice steadied as she went on. “Chaha is paying for the drilling of her current soldiers out of her own pocket. But once this conflict is settled, Arinei has promised to fund more recruitment in the spring, and to help her press the claim on the disputed territory in Trine. With magic, if necessary.”
Koika made a sound of disgust. Witches served rulers and common people all over the land; it was a shocking violation of Arinei’s position as Fire Prime to directly support one Lady against a neighboring domain. She was selling Starfall out, putting it in the debt of an outsider. No wonder Kekkai looked upset.
“What else?” Koika demanded. She smiled at Kekkai, but it was a baring of teeth, not a gesture of warmth, as if the Earth Prime were one of the animals her Ray dealt with. “Keep talking, Kekkai—or we’ll question just why getting you out of there was worth the death of a
loyal
Key.”
The other witch’s eyes flared at her unforgiving tone. “I wasn’t finished, Chashi. The Kalistyin troops have been drilling because Arinei seems to think she’ll find a way to use them against you.”
“How?” Satomi asked. One of the great mercies of Shimi going to ground in Kalistyi was that it was one of the most inaccessible domains relative to Starfall. Quite a bit of land, plus a range of mountains, stood between the two, and the Lords of intervening domains would not be likely to let an outside army through. Not to mention that soldiers would be of limited use against witches.
And even if it came to witches fighting each other, spell against spell, Hyoka was trying to develop a ward that would protect Starfall against that.
“I don’t know,” Kekkai said. “You know as well as I do the unlikelihood of soldiers being useful. But a great many of them were sent off recently; the rest have been especially active to disguise the lack.”
That wasn’t good news. Could they be mounting operations against Trine already, despite the late season? Or might the tactical concerns about the
They might have a chance to preempt any such actions, though, if they could get at the ones behind it. “Leave that for the moment. Tell us where they are in Kalistyi, and what kinds of defenses they have set up.”
The already pale Key went even whiter, though Satomi would not have thought it possible. “I—I’m sorry, Aken.”
Her expression turned desperate, pleading. “I can’t tell you that.”
Any charity that she’d built up with Koika vanished in an eyeblink. The Earth Prime glared at her. “You don’t have a
choice
. Either you’ll tell us, or—”
But she cut off short, the threat unfinished, because Kekkai had yanked up the sleeve of her dress and laid her forearm on the table, palm upward.
A silver-white scar shimmered on the inside of her wrist.
“A
blood-oath
?” Koika said disbelievingly. “But you’re not a Hunter.”
Lines had formed around the edges of Kekkai’s eyes, her mouth; she looked ten years older, and still dead white. “It was Shimi’s idea. She thought of it after sending some Hunter off on an oath to kill Mirei. She changed the spell. Used it on anybody who has access to their stronghold.”
“Binding you not to say anything,” Satomi said quietly. Like they had done to Eclipse. Perverting the original purpose of the spell, the contract between a Hunter and the Warrior to carry out a mission. Using it to seal people’s lips, on pain of death.
Kekkai swallowed convulsively, as if trying not to cry. “Shimi wanted to make it so that we couldn’t tell
anything
about what they’re doing. Arinei talked her out of it. Said that it would cause more trouble than it’s worth, that we needed to be able to say things or we’d be of no use at all. So they limited it. I can say most things. But I can’t tell you where they are.”
Staring at the scar, Koika growled, “Damn their souls to the Void.”
The Key’s gaze was jittering back and forth, from one Prime to the other to the scar on her wrist. It was easy to guess that she was afraid of what would happen to her now. Whether, as Koika had questioned, they would consider her presence here worth Ashin’s death, now that she could not be as much use as they’d hoped.
Satomi had no real idea how Koika felt on that matter, but she knew her own opinion. This, undoubtedly, was part of what had started Kekkai questioning her decision to follow Arinei, and rightly so. The woman had risked her own life by leaving Kalistyi. And they had lost too many people to throw another one away.
She stood and came to where Kekkai sat, and raised the woman to her feet. “The guards will take you back to your room,” she said. “We’ll have food brought to you there. Koika and I will meet with you again later today to hear anything you’re able to tell us about what Arinei and Shimi have done, and plan to do. We won’t push you to say anything that would risk your life.”
Relief flooded Kekkai’s face; she sank into a deep bow, then seized Satomi’s hand and kissed it. “Thank you, Aken. And you, Chashi. I swear before the Goddess’s five faces—I’ll tell you everything I can.”
“I’m going to go question the rest of them,” Koika said when they left the council room.
“Do you want help?” Satomi asked. The thought of forcing the traitor out into the open was attractive.
Koika shrugged. “Can you spare the time?”
“I—” Satomi began, but stopped as Hyoka came around the corner, nearly running.
The Key jerked to a halt by them and dropped into the very briefest of bows. “Aken. Chashi. Rigai is dead.”
“
What
?” Satomi demanded.
Rigai
—
one of Hyoka’s theorists
—
Misetsu and Menukyo, if the traitor has killed another one
—
“She took poison in her room,” Hyoka said. The edges of her lips were white, as if she were hanging on to her composure by her fingernails. “There are burned papers in her fireplace. A few of them weren’t entirely destroyed. She’s been receiving messages from Kalistyi.”
Koika grabbed her by the shoulders, fingers digging in. “Are you
certain
?”
Hyoka looked sick. “There’s no doubt about them. Chashi, I’m sorry. I would never have suspected her. She—” The Key stopped and took a wavering breath, trying to steady herself. “She was
helping
Mirei. Researching the blood-oath for her. I can’t believe—”
“Let me see this for myself,” Satomi said, but she knew before she went that Hyoka would not have made that kind of error. The papers, when she saw them, were undoubtedly from the dissidents in Kalistyi.
Rigai’s body had been covered with a blanket, but the smell was still sickening. Satomi clenched her jaw and looked at the shrouded shape on the bed.