City of Whispers Page 6

  "What do you want?"

  "You know what I want. Or should I say, what my mistress wants."

  Whispers went both ways. Feiyan must have heard I'd been inquiring after her. She was the hawk watching for ripples on a pond, only she had a hundred eyes watching for her.

  I had been careless. And carelessness could deliver Xaron straight into the Shepherds' hands.

  "We had an agreement," Kako said, his tone pleasant, his eyes anything but. "You were not to investigate anything related to my mistress. In return, we would leave be your… secret."

  Fear chilled me. I knew the secret he referred to. As a result of the incident three years when I'd narrowly avoided dying, Feiyan had gathered that either Xaron or Nomusa was a warden. Though she didn't know which of them was, I knew it would do little to protect any of us if Shepherds came knocking at Canopy's door.

  Though I needed to appease him, I could give no more than a perfunctory bow. "I apologize. It was not your mistress I've been looking into. It's the woman she's been seen with."

  The honor shook his head with a knowing smile. "No, no, Airene of Port. Do not attempt to deceive me with such thin lies. You knew precisely what you sniffed after. Yet like a hungry mongrel, you could not help yourself. I understand this. We all have desires burning inside us, waiting for the opportune moment to sate them."

  His gaze had gained an uncomfortable edge. I looked aside. "I will avoid her. You have my word."

  The honor took a step closer. "And you will avoid whispers of Asileia Wreath as well," he said in a low voice. "Understood?"

  "Yes."

  He leaned back, his smile renewed. "Good. Now may you have a pleasant, uneventful day. Can't have too much normalcy in times like these."

  He gave a mock bow as he spun off into the crowd. I watched the strange honor as he disappeared out of sight.

  I turned and walked quickly toward Canopy. No doubt Feiyan would keep eyes on me still. I would be able to learn nothing more today. But no matter what I'd told Kako, I would not stop. That Feiyan protected Asileia was further confirmation that something was amiss here. I would have to step more carefully and speak more softly and continue on. Despite the risks.

  Though I wondered what this hunt would cost.

  4

  Finch in the Rain

  Though the Wreaths were reinstated as the monarchs of Oedija, true power was reserved for the members of the People's Conclave. Yet one hundred and twenty-one Servants were far too many to act quickly in emergent situations. Thus the Demos Council was formed, eleven Low Consuls each elected through the support of ten fellow Servants. These Low Consuls have, in dire times, wielded supreme power. However, oftentimes the eleventh seat has lain undecided, indecision remaining between the Servants who would determine it. Thus the Archon, representative of the Wreath in the Conclave, has acted as the deciding vote in tied decisions, and has brought back some measure of power to the Laurel Palace.

  - Oedija: A History; by Acadian Helene, Master Historian; 1167 SLP

  Nomusa and Xaron were surprised to see me return shortly after them, but sensing my mood, neither commented on it. As the afternoon wound on and evening settled in, our usual routines found us.

  Despite the coming famine, neither of my companions seemed avid to pursue another job. Nomusa eventually went out again, purportedly to stir up some leads, but I knew it was as likely she'd wind up in a tavern on the arm of a handsome man. Xaron, meanwhile, reclined on the divan and practiced his channeling.

  Stuck inside for the day, I pretended to read the book open before me, Myths of the Desolate. A book of Bali tales pressed upon me by Nomusa when the Manifest cult started to rise in Oedija, it recounted legends surrounding the Zakale people, who, following twin warden brothers named Yama and Lophe, nearly conquered the whole of the Bali highlands. When they failed, the rest of the Bali ishakas exacted vengeance on them, expunging every man, woman, and child from existence, even to the name, for the Zakale became known as the Unnamed afterward. What Nomusa found fascinating was just as a Serpent God had been at the center of the Zakale cult, so was a wyvern for the Manifest, though if it was for the Manifest a god or a mere symbol, neither of us knew.

  But my attention wandered from the pages. What to do about Feiyan was beyond me. I couldn't continue to ply my contacts without her knowing. I didn't know who was reporting on me, or where she had eyes posted. Until I had a solution, I couldn't continue to investigate.

  All the more infuriating because now I was surer than ever that there actually was something to investigate.

  The door to Canopy roused me from my brooding thoughts. Corin, the last of our loftmates, entered and wearily bent to unstrap her sandals, no mean feat with her legs caked in mud. As a cartwoman, she ran back and forth along Oedija's streets, transporting those who could afford not to walk. She was one of the few women to take on such a laborious profession, but was built well for it. Outlanders, as the natives of the islands to the far northwest were called, were known for their strength and tall stature; Corin, however, was a force unto herself, both in body and in mind. Working day and night, she sought to raise enough money to bring her sister, Kari, over to Oedija. Corin was a woman of few words, but as far as I understood, Kari was persecuted for some reason, and might be safer in Oedija. But in the two years she'd been living in Canopy, she had not raised enough money to bring her over.

  We greeted each other, but she quickly retired to her room. I tried to return to my reading, yet I found myself distracted by Xaron's channeling. Channeling ice, I'd learned from him, was no mean feat. It involved manipulating one of the elements, radiance, in an inverse manner. But it from whom he'd learned it that irked me.

  Nearly three years ago, a feral warden named Iela, who'd had a propensity for channeling ice, had come into our awareness after killing a patrician. After we'd pursued her, she'd singled me out, and with a threat to my family, lured me from Canopy. Just before she was going to kill me, she'd boasted of her master experimenting on and killing my older brother, Thero, years before. Talan had saved me, but it was I who had killed her.

  I shivered at the memory of plunging the knife into her neck, and my stomach turned.

  "Airene?"

  I met Xaron's gaze, but my eyes flickered to his icicle. "I'm fine."

  His eyes followed mine, then widened. In a moment, the icicle dissipated into shimmering mist. "'Thae below, Airene. I didn't even think about it."

  "You shouldn't have to." I tried for a smile.

  From his expression I knew I'd failed. Xaron studied me as he leaned back into the divan, but he remained silent.

  As much to escape the memories as to fill the silence, I found myself speaking. "Sometimes, I'm jealous of you."

  He laughed. "I'm sure you are."

  "No, really. When I was little, I wanted nothing more than to be a warden."

  "Truly?"

  I nodded. "For years, I pestered my mother and father, begging them to tell me why I wasn't attuned, and how people received the blessing of a god to become so. I wanted to know all about the Pyrthae and how wardens channeled its energy, and what it felt like to work magic. Of course, they didn't have answers for me. I asked about it at our local temple, but the oracle knew little, and the few paltry books in its library held more myth than fact."

  He smiled smugly. "They're writing about it secondhand. Of course they wouldn't know." His grin faltered. "It's funny. I was just the opposite of you, when I was young. I hated that I was a warden."

  That was hard to imagine. I couldn't imagine Xaron not being a warden. It was too integral to who he was. "Really? Why?"

  "My mother. And the extent of my… gift." He paused for a long moment. "My parents fled the Wumofu because of the Matriarchs' restrictions on channeling. My mother wished to utilize an energetic element not sanctioned for use within the jaitin, one based on formulae, and the Matriarchs refused her request to pursue them. But Mother's not one to take no for an answer. There's no hiding someth
ing like that among the Qao Fu caves, so we came to Oedija. For a while, she practiced in secret, despite the risk of death hanging over her and Father. She even became famous in some circles for her powerful distillations, though obviously no one knew she channeled to create them."

  "How did that work? I thought wardens utilized energy, not formulas."

  Xaron shrugged. "From what she said, distillations do have energy, just like fire and force. And because of this, she was able to use them as mediums for channeling great effects."

  I shook my head. "I'll take your word for it. Still, that doesn't seem so bad a home to grow up in."

  "Everything was different for me. Before I was born, Mother had an accident. An experiment had gone poorly, and she'd burned herself up both arms and across her torso. It changed her, my father says. From then on, she's been in pain. She gave up her concoctions and stopped using her powers. And she didn't want the same thing to happen to me. She decided playing with the elements was bound to burn you sooner or later."

  "So no channeling."

  "No channeling around her," he said with a slight smile. "She tried not to let me start, but that didn't sit well with a curious child like me, especially not when my attunement was so strong."

  My gaze wandered to his hands. Xaron had ten shifts, seen in the ever-moving patterns of his fingertips. It meant he was as powerful a warden as they came. Such a strong attunement only emerged once a generation, even in a city the size of Oedija, at least according to what Xaron had told me. Not that he had much opportunity to use it.

  "What does it feel like?" I asked, staring at his hands. "When you're channeling?"

  He didn't answer, but shuffled a hand in his tunic and produced two copper cullets and three nickel magnes on the tips of his fingers. His brow creasing, he stared at them like a taskmaster at a tested pupil. After a moment, the coins began to float, lifting a cubit away before settling to hover a few inches above his fingertips.

  It looked like little more than parlor trick, but I knew it was far more. It was access to a world beyond our own, a plane beyond my understanding. The Pyrthae was said to be composed of the energetic elements, and home to pyr and the gods. I didn't know that I believed in spirits and divine beings, but it was hard to deny the existence of the Pyrthae when Xaron could access its power.

  "It's like undamming a stream," he said softly, eyes watching the coins. "You always feel it there, pushing, almost pleading to be woven and formed."

  "Where does it push?"

  "Everywhere. But it starts here." He used his free hand to indicate his torso.

  "The locus." The point through which wardens drew the Pyrthae's power. The drawings I'd seen in the temple library showed a man with his limbs splayed and a circle drawn around him, with the locus indicated at the middle point. The exact center of a human being.

  Xaron nodded. "You have to dam it consciously at first, but it becomes second-nature."

  "It sounds exhausting. I never knew you had to maintain it. Is that why you're constantly itching to channel?"

  "Not exactly. If you could feel it, you'd know why. It's invigorating, feeling the power rush through you. Intoxicating."

  "No wonder you can't control yourself," I teased.

  He grinned sheepishly. "Exactly."

  "Is there one element that is more invigorating than the others?"

  "Yes and no. Each element has a unique feel. Radiance makes you feel warm and light-headed. Kinesis is the opposite — you become grounded in the physical and feel like you can do anything. Magnesis is subtler. There is a humming that flows through you, soothing and stirring at the same time." He smiled — from the humming of magnesis, I imagined. "The effect is greater if you channel more, or if you don't know how to direct the energy. When I was young and first channeled, the energy didn't know where to go, and it filled all of me so I thought I would burst. Now, the flow knows: straight to the fingers and toes."

  I shook my head. Strange that the most delicate parts of the human body could control so much power. "So you let it stream in and then… what?"

  "You form it." He tapped his head with his free hand. "With your focus. What we call your mental energy."

  "And that's it?"

  He flashed me a wry grin. "In a sense. But it takes years of practice to channel reliably. I failed to control even kinesis for years, which usually comes easiest to people. The things I managed were by accident, like when my father woke me and I sent him flying across the room like he were a doll. But it's like music. You can hear how a song is supposed to go long before you can play it. And even people who have no training can feel the music, and know when it's right and when it's wrong."

  I stared at the gaps above his fingers, straining to see what held the coins up. But it was like the weight of the Pyrthae, ever pushing down on the air and us — a force you could feel, but couldn't see. I sat back, disappointed.

  He saw and laughed. "Trying to see what causes magnesis is like trying to see how a singer sings. You can't see the mechanism. And what's more, you lack the faculties to emulate the effect."

  I arched an eyebrow at him. "Someone's sounding scholarly today."

  He blanched more than I'd expected. "You asked, didn't you?" he muttered.

  I studied him as he looked aside. It was a strange reaction to an innocent statement. I shifted the course of the discussion. "So you just felt the energy pushing on your dam one day?"

  He seemed to recover. "Well," he said, laughing so that the coins wobbled, "there wasn't a dam at first. To be honest, it's like wetting the bed when you're young — your body has to learn to prevent it. You build that self-control, that limit." He patted his navel. "And eventually, with the right training, it's only there when you need it."

  I fished a coin from my purse and threw it, trying to take down one of his hovering coins. But even though it connected, the coin drifted back into place. Xaron had such a look of satisfaction I couldn't help but stand up and swat them away.

  "Hey!" He laughed and rose to retrieve the coins.

  Smiling, my eyes wandered by habit to the finch cage on the balcony. A drizzle had started outside, and the cage was indistinct, but I could just detect a finch pecking from the welcome seed basket. On its leg, a bedraggled message flapped in the wind.

  Xaron followed my gaze. "A finch?"

  I was already rising. "I'll go see what it says."

  Excitement bubbled up in me as I exited into the chill night and took the new arrival in my hand. He shivered, and I cooed softly to him as I untied the message, then put him in the cage with the others until it was time to send him back.

  Retreating inside, I squinted to make out the smudged lettering:

  The Wolf is watching.

  It was unsigned. I stared at the script, trying to pry out more from those four words and understand what they meant, and who had sent them. The script looked vaguely familiar, but wasn't immediately recognizable.

  Xaron approached to look at it over my shoulder. "What's it say? I can't make it out."

  "'The Wolf is watching.'"

  "From who?"

  "I don't know."

  He stepped back, brow creased in thought. "Who have you sent messages to lately? Who might need to respond with a cryptic message, sending a bird out on the worst night for it? Who is in danger?"

  His questions sieved my contacts until I recognized the floral script. "Nikias."

  "The new Archon's steward?"

  "The same."

  "I suppose he might know what's going on. But strange that he feels in danger."

  A smile had found my lips. "Not so strange if you assume one thing."

  Xaron groaned. "Let me guess. That the Despot was murdered."

  "It makes the most sense. This afternoon—" I cut off mid-sentence, having been on the verge of telling about my encounter with Kako earlier. But with the inquiry gaining momentum and Xaron showing interest, I didn't want to undermine it now. "This afternoon I learned that Feiyan has been mee
ting with Asileia a lot recently."

  He raised an eyebrow. "I thought you'd already told us that."

  "I heard it again, which is significant enough. And what do you think Vusumuzi wants with us? Why seek us out now, when he must have heard we were Finches from Zipho a long time ago?"

  "What are you getting at?"

  I held up the message. "This isn't an ordinary message. It's short, unsigned, and in a code we don't have the cipher for. And it came in the rain — not a good time for finches to fly, but the best time for a bird to pass unseen. And the words — 'The Wolf is watching.' If this came from Nikias, that means someone is watching from inside the Laurel Palace — our Wolf, whoever that is."

  "Not necessarily from within. They could be watching outside."

  I shook my head. "He wouldn't be worried about interception if they were outside. It'd be simple enough to sneak out a bird, and not nearly so suspicious."

  Xaron shrugged. "Fair enough. So who is the Wolf?"

  I thought for a moment. "If we've narrowed it down to people within the Laurel Palace, that makes it easier. Asileia is the most obvious choice, but I wouldn't describe her as a wolf."

  "Maybe that's the point. I wouldn't necessarily describe the person I was accusing if I were sneaking out a message."

  "But it wouldn't make for much of a code then, would it? I think it has to cue someone specific."

  "What about one of her oracles? Or maybe Feiyan, since she's there so often now? She has some wolfishness to her."

  "It could be any of them. Or it could be Jaxas, or First Laurel Lykos, or a hundred other people we don't know about. But I know one thing. If someone doesn't want word getting out from the palace, it tells us there's something more going on." I cocked a smile at Xaron. "You don't cover up an accident."

  Finally, I saw it in his eyes. He believed. And he was curious, too, if Myron was murdered.

  "Fine." Xaron exhaled noisily and looked out the bay window. "So how do we start narrowing down who it could be?"