As he loosened the drawstring of his baldric pouch, he heard a rustle of movement somewhere nearby. Or perhaps it had only been the rain, which was pattering down a little harder than before, slapping gently on the rounded tops of the gravestones. He slipped the pendant into the pouch and stood up, pivoting to make certain the old man hadn't followed him.
No one was there. Only stillness, as it had been in the chapel.
The dagger he held felt cool and heavy in his hand, the sword sheathed at his hip an added measure of security he was fully prepared to use. In his fury over what had befallen his friends, Kenrick almost wished he would encounter Silas de Mortaine on this scorched plot of land.
His palms itched to deliver unholy vengeance...but first, the task at hand.
Kenrick stalked to the lichen-spotted marker at the far end of the cemetery and crouched down before it. With the point of his dagger, he found the hidden cleft in the chiseled design. Off-shape, no bigger than a child's palm, the secret compartment was disguised by the scrollwork and lettering hammered into the granite ages ago. Rand and he were not the first ones to make use of it. One of the early Greycliff brides had employed the marker to receive communiques and gifts from a royal lover.
Now the stone held a secret of a far more dangerous sort.
Kenrick dug the sharp tip of the blade into the seam of the compartment, working the slender edge of steel around until the piece began to loosen. The granite rasped as it gave way, inch by inch. The final corner pried loose, Kenrick eased the wedge of stone out into his palm and gazed at the small compartment it revealed.
“God's blood.” He exhaled the oath, tossing down his dagger and narrowly resisting the urge to drive his fist into the slab of granite before him.#p#分页标题#e#
It wasn't there.
The shallow hiding place carved into the tombstone, which had contained a folded square of parchment when he had sealed it up a year ago, was empty.
He stared into that vacant space, a thousand questions--a thousand dire possibilities--roiling in his head. Who had found the seal? How did they know where to look? How long had it been gone? Would they know how to use it--what to do with it?
And perhaps more crucial, now that it appeared he had lost it, how could he go about finishing his quest without it?
As it stood, he wouldn't have much time. It had taken him several years to realize precisely what he had uncovered, to understand the importance of protecting it from those who would use it for their own gain. Countless days and nights he had spent, toiling with his journals and ledgers, sifting out every fact from the troves of fiction buried within decades of dusty records and reportings of the Order.
“Christ on the Cross, how can this be?”
The final key to his discovery--enveloped within a single sheaf of parchment--now likely resided in the hands of his enemies.
He had not come this far, survived all he had, only to fail here and now. Nor would he permit Rand and his family to have died in vain. Placing the dislodged wafer of chiseled granite back in place on the grave marker, Kenrick pushed to his feet.
From the corner of his eye, he caught an unmistakable flicker of movement. His head snapped up, his gaze cutting sharply over his shoulder.
Damn it, he was being watched.
A fleeting splash of color moved near the wall of the chapel, too late to fully escape his notice this time. Kenrick caught a momentary glimpse of pale white skin and wary, wide green eyes. A mere blink was all the time she paused--just long enough for Kenrick to register the delicacy of the woman's heart-shaped face, which was caught in an expression of startlement as she looked back at him in that frozen instant. A drooping mane of unbound auburn hair framed her striking countenance, the rich russet-red tangles glowing like fire against the persistent gray of the morning. She was plainly garbed, a commoner by her modest attire of cloak and kirtle, but hardly plain of face or form.
As tense as he was, his blood seething over the loss of his friends and the prized item he sought, Kenrick was not immune to the beauty of this unexpected intruder. Indeed, he was tempted to stare, having found such incongruous beauty amid the smoldering ruins. His observer seemed in no mind to afford him the chance. Her eyes lit on the dagger still clutched in his fist, then she lunged, quick as a sprite, dashing behind the front wall of the chapel.
“Stop,” he ordered, knowing he would be ignored and already vaulting to his feet in pursuit.
He ran around to the corner of the small church, his spurs chewing up the soft earth, his weaponry jangling with each heavy boot fall. His quarry was far lighter of foot, simply there one moment and gone the next. Into the chapel, he had to presume, for there were few places to hide, and there was no sign of her in the yard or on the gently rolling field beyond the keep.