“A squire, actually. He’s been with us for over a year, so he should have known well enough to stay away from the trees. I don’t think this has ever happened before. Lord Ronin will want to know as soon as possible.”

So my attacker was a castle servant, and an old one at that. Curious. If staff members or soldiers have wound up in the trees in the past, Ronin wouldn’t very well spread the knowledge. It would set a deadly precedent—that Spinner’s End isn’t safe even with Ronin here.

“I regret that you had to experience that,” Phaut continues. “Those taken by the trees become … well, I needn’t explain it to you. The trees devour the bodies over time, and it’s only because he was newly taken that he wasn’t yet … fully absorbed. Their souls remain trapped as well. The older the soul, the more a part of the Dead Wood they become until they are no more than wood, rot, and rage.”

I shudder. The shadowblessed, Kamryne, is beyond any help save what my craft could provide, and instead of standing my ground and calling my magic, I let fear consume me. “I shouldn’t have run.”

“I admit I was prepared to dislike you when you first arrived. In my experience, lightwenders can’t always be trusted to handle something as sacred as the source of another shaman’s life and magic. But you’re much braver and tougher than I expected. And you fight as fiercely as any Nuvali sun warrior.”

I angle her a curious look. “Thanks?”

“Come on.” Saengo holds out her hand. “You can help me stab things with sharp objects. That always makes me feel better.”

The sun has set by the time Theyen’s healer arrives. To my annoyance, the healer insists on working with Saengo alone.

Phaut sits with me in the waiting room. She drapes her long, lean body over the sofa and pokes at the pile of books resting on the end table.

Since Saengo has been through enough today, I didn’t tell her my suspicions about who might have sent that assassin after me. It makes me uneasy having to trust Theyen’s own healer to care for her, but the woman had seemed genuinely concerned with Saengo’s condition. It’s the only reason I’d relented and left them alone, Ronin’s orders or not.

If that shadowblessed assassin was working for Theyen, it begs the question of how my death would benefit him specifically. Saengo said that a soulguide would be significant for the shamans. Maybe Theyen thinks that if I’m killed by a shadowblessed, it would infuriate the Empire enough to nullify his engagement.

But it could also lead to war. Would Theyen really go that far?