Worse than that, he’d taken a wound—nothing major, but an arrow had pierced his right bicep. His sword arm. He’d washed and bandaged it, but the thing throbbed, burned.

And Gaborn had no time to take care of any of these needs. Right now, he needed a disguise.

He’d killed one of Raj Ahten’s outriders, three of his frowth giants. His arrows had taken half a dozen war dogs.

Raj Ahten’s outriders would want vengeance on Gaborn. He was cornered. He didn’t feel certain that he could escape, even if he waited an hour for full darkness. Gaborn had two endowments of scent, but his keen sense of smell was nothing compared to that of some of Raj Ahten’s troops: men with noses more keen than a hound’s. They would track him.

Despite his show of confidence to Iome, Gaborn felt terrified.

Still, he took one thing at a time. He smelled food cooking in the Dedicates’ kitchens, hurried through a broad plank door. Its brass handle felt loose in his hand.

He found himself not in the kitchen, but in the wide entrance to the dining chamber. To the right of the door, he could see past several heavy beams into kitchens where the cooking fires burned like a blast furnace. Several plucked geese hung from the rafters, along with cheeses, strings of garlic, smoked eels, and sausages. He could hear a soup boiling in one of the big kettles next to the fire. The smell of tarragon, basil, and rosemary lay heavy in the air. A worktable lay between him and the kitchens, and a young blind girl was there, stacking boiled eggs, turnips, and onions on a huge metal tray.

Down at her feet, a tawny cat toyed with a chewed and frightened mouse.

Ahead, the room opened wide to the thick plank dining tables, black from age and grime, benches running down each side. Small oil lamps sat burning atop each table.

The bakers and chefs of Castle Sylvarresta were hard at work, piling the tables with loaves of bread, bowls of fruit, filling plates with meat. While the rest of Sylvarresta’s followers had run to the walls to gawk at the battle, the cooks here knew where their duty lay: in caring for the wretches who had given up endowments to House Sylvarresta.

As in most Dedicates’ kitchens, the staff was composed mostly of those who had given up endowments themselves: the ugly people who had given up glamour served the tables and ruled the kitchens. The mutes and the deaf worked the bakery. The blind and those who had no sense of smell or touch swept the plank floors and scoured the burnt kettles.

Gaborn immediately noticed the silence here in the kitchens. Though a dozen people bustled about, no one spoke, aside from a curt order here and there. These people were terrified.