One other person stood in the small courtyard, shaken more with wonder than with fear, an oddly joyful expression infusing her exotic features. The Silver girl had not feared the demon! She had a handsome, if serious and somewhat square face, full red trembling lips, and eyes like a brushstroke, dark and mysterious and bold as her gaze slid to meet his.

She stared at him until he could not breathe, and found his knees giving way beneath him.

Then she smiled, grabbed a fold of cloth off a pillow and, shaking it open, threw it over her head to conceal her face from all those forbidden to see her.

34

Joss had never seen the Qin captain lose his temper, and it made him cursed uncomfortable the way the man did not shout or gesticulate but rather grew still and cold.

“Mai could have been killed.”

“Here, now,” said Joss, with hand raised, as he might try to calm an angry eagle with the gestures used as signals to train the birds. Hoods worked best, but not on humans. “It was a shock to me, as well, when I first heard. I came myself to find you. I wouldn’t let anyone else deliver the news.”

Joss had tracked Anji well north of Olossi, to the village of Storos-on-the-water, where lay a temple of Kotaru. Anji was attended by his usual pair of guards, Sengel and Toughid, and by Chief Deze. The rest of his company—about forty soldiers—waited in the outer training yard with several hundred locals. Three Olossi men had accompanied Anji on this expedition, a militia captain named Lison and a pair of merchants, one an older Silver man wearing a full set of bracelets and the other a robust woman representing the council, whose names Joss had missed. These three had invited themselves into the sanctuary courtyard to hear the news Joss brought. Two local officials—the censor of the temple and the village council mistress—waited also, looking torn between uneasiness and confusion.

“You did not witness the attack yourself,” said Anji finally.

“I did not. Chief Tuvi alerted the reeve stationed in Olossi, who flew to Argent Hall at dawn and brought the matter to my attention. I returned to Olossi immediately and interviewed a number of people who were in the compound at the time as well as townsfolk who reported seeing a light and a winged horse above the city. Then I came to find you.”

The temple of Kotaru stood on high ground between road and river; the creak of wheels as wagons rumbled along the Rice Walk melded with the flowing song of the River Olo. With towers raised at each corner of the square temple, it was a good place to oversee both river and road traffic. A good place to station a significant contingent of armed men.

“It’s bad enough,” said Anji, “to suspect Red Hounds from the empire are hunting me. To imagine that even after my mother cut my ties to the palace when I was twelve and sent me for safekeeping to her kinfolk among the Qin, my brother—and cousins, I suppose—still wish to kill me. Yet they are human, and might be reasoned with or outwitted. Nowhere is safe from demons.”