Ghrasia was standing by the fire, still knotting her hair back. Ahkio put his hands on his hips. “What is it?” he said. His heart hammered. For fear of being found out or fear of what they had to say, or both.

Caisa glanced quickly from one of them to the other.

“We have one of those foreign assassins downstairs,” Ohanni said.

“Alive,” Caisa said.

Chapter 46

46

“You mean Casa Maigan,” Maralah said. They were still mopping up the halls from the coup four days earlier; the Patron’s former dining room now served as her strategy room while they took out the three remaining groups of rogue sanisi holed up in the keep. The hold still shook occasionally, caused by dueling parajistas. Dust trickled from cracks in the ceiling.

Maralah stood with Kadaan and his little Dhai ward, Roh, in the dining room. Her brother was asleep in the next room with his mouthy second, and Wraisau and a squad of Rajavaa’s own men guarded them. Kadaan had brought Roh to her after discovering he knew something about a book the other Dhai were hiding. It turned out that slaughtering his companions had shaken something loose in him. As much as Maralah abhorred what the Patron had done – it was very unlike him – she had to admit it was effective.

“I thought it was a name you might know,” Kadaan said. “It sounded like someone from the north, one of Alaar’s women.”

“I’m familiar with her, yes,” Maralah said. “She was part of Alaar’s harem in Isjahilde, inherited from the prior Patron. She was one of those we had to leave behind. And you heard this from one of your Dhai friends?”

“From Aramey,” Roh said. The boy stood straight, with his hands clasped behind his back just like Kadaan. Kadaan had dressed the boy in a dark tunic cut in the Saiduan style, and shaved his head. Maralah thought it better fit his new status. Kadaan had undertaken his scrubbing up with an eye for utility. She appreciated that. It would make things easier on the boy, too, though Maralah was uncertain how much he knew of that yet.

“Keeper Takanaa had your friends’ rooms cleaned,” she said, “and the contents returned to the scholars.”

“There was a book there,” Roh said, “written in Talamynii. Ora Dasai said it was very important. I thought maybe the woman’s name had to do with the book. Maybe they meant to give it to her? To translate?”

“Indeed,” Maralah said. “It was the first book our scholars brought to my attention after the rooms were cleared. I’ve never seen two men so excited. There was no record of it in the archives. Do you know where Ora Dasai found it?”