From where I could hear screaming.
I might never have gotten there if someone hadn’t glanced back, recognized me, and murmured to someone else nearby. The murmur rippled through the crowd, and abruptly I found myself the focus of dozens of silent, pent stares. I stumbled to a halt, unnerved, but the way ahead abruptly cleared as they moved aside for me. I hurried forward, then stopped in shock.
On the floor knelt a thin old man, naked, chained in a pool of blood. His white hair, long and lank, hung ’round his face, obscuring it, though I could hear him panting raggedly for breath. His skin was a webwork of lacerations. If it had just been his back, I would have thought him flogged, but it was not just his back. It was his legs, his arms, his cheeks and chin. He was kneeling; I saw cuts on the soles of his feet. He pushed himself upright awkwardly, using the sides of his wrists, and I saw that a round red hole in the back of each showed bone and tendon clearly.
Another heretic? I wondered, confused.
“I wondered how much blood I would have to draw before someone went running for you,” said a savage voice beside me, and as I turned something came at my face. I raised my hands instinctively and felt a thin line of heat cross my palms; something had cut me.
I did not pause long enough to assess the damage, springing back and drawing my knife. My hands still worked, though blood made the hilt slippery. I shifted it to a defensive grip and crouched, ready to fight.
Across from me stood Scimina, gowned in shining green satin. The flecks of blood that had sprayed across her dress looked like tiny ruby jewels. (There were flecks on her face as well, but those just looked like blood.) In her hands was something that I did not at first realize was a weapon—a long, silver wand, ornately decorated, perhaps three feet in length. But at the tip was a short double-edged blade, thin as a surgeon’s scalpel, made of glass. Too short and strangely weighted to be a spear, more like an elaborate fountain pen. Some Amn weapon?
Scimina smirked at my drawn blade, but instead of raising her own weapon, she turned away and resumed pacing around the circle that the crowd had formed, with the old man at its center. “How like a barbarian. You can’t use a knife against me, Cousin; it would shatter. Our blood sigils prevent all life-threatening attacks. Honestly, you’re so ignorant. What are we going to do with you?”
I stayed in my crouch and kept hold of my knife anyway, pivoting to keep her in sight as she walked. As I did so, I saw faces among the crowd that I recognized. Some of the servants who’d been at the Fire Day party. A couple of Dekarta’s courtiers. T’vril, white-lipped and stiff; his eyes fixed on me in something that might have been warning. Viraine, standing forward from the rest of the crowd; he had folded his arms and stood gazing into the middle distance, looking bored.
Zhakkarn and Kurue. Why were they there? They were watching me, too. Zhakkarn’s expression was hard and cold; I had never seen her show anger so clearly before. Kurue was furious, too, her nostrils flared and hands tight at her sides. The look in her eyes would have flayed me if it could. But Scimina was already flaying someone, so I focused on the greater threat for the moment.
“Sit up!” Scimina barked, and the old man jerked upright as if on strings. I could see now that there were fewer cuts on his torso, though as I watched Scimina walked past him and flicked the wand, and another long, deep slice opened on the old man’s abdomen. He cried out again, his voice hoarse, and opened eyes he’d shut in reaction to the pain. That was when I caught my breath, because the old man’s eyes were green and sharpfold and then I realized how the shape of his face would be familiar if he were sixty years younger and dearest gods, dearest Skyfather, it was Sieh.
“Ah,” Scimina said, interpreting my gasp. “That does save time. You were right, T’vril; she is sweet on him. Did you send one of your people to fetch her? Tell the fool to be quicker next time.”
I glared at T’vril, who clearly had not sent for me. His face was paler than usual, but that strange warning was still in his eyes. I almost frowned in confusion, but I could feel Scimina’s gaze like a vulture, hovering over my facial expressions and ready to savage the emotions they revealed.
So I schooled myself to calmness, as my mother had taught me. I rose from my fighting crouch, though I only lowered my knife to my side and did not sheathe it. Scimina probably would not know, but among Darre, this was disrespect—a sign that I did not trust her to behave like a woman.
“I’m here now,” I said to her. “State your purpose.”
Scimina uttered a short, sharp laugh, never ceasing her pacing. “State my purpose. She sounds so martial, doesn’t she?” She looked around the crowd; no one answered her. “So strong. Tiny, ill-bred, pathetic little thing that she is—what do you THINK my purpose is, you fool?” She shouted this last at me, her fists clenched at her sides, the odd wand-weapon quivering. Her hair, up in an elaborate coif that was still lovely, was coming undone. She looked exquisitely demented.