Why, indeed, the Weaver said, looking up at the sky. I must go. I leave it to you.
“We will not fail,” the mountain said, but the Weaver was already gone, vanishing through a white cut in the thin air as though he had never been. The mountain rumbled at the Power’s sudden absence and shifted its focus away from the outside world and the distant feel of the fleeing figures. Instead, it tilted its attention inward, down toward the long hall at the very heart of its roots. There, two humans, the current Guildmaster and the wizard who shared his spirit with a bear, walked the mountain’s deepest path toward the vault where Durain, the Shaper Mountain, kept its greatest hope, the small, white kernel of a desperate plan many, many years in the making.
CHAPTER
11
Josef woke with a gasp. He froze, hands knotted in the sheets, body braced to kick or leap away, whichever was needed. That was when he realized he was in his old bedroom. He collapsed back into bed with a silent curse and took stock of his situation. He was naked, his knives stacked carefully on the bench against the wall beside him. But he had no memory of removing his knives or his clothes. He had no memory of going to bed.
Josef frowned. To wake that violently, he must have been sleeping very soundly. Even now, his head was still groggy, and that made him nervous. He’d shaken the sound-sleeping habit the first year he’d left home. Maybe being back in his old room had brought back old habits, but Josef didn’t think so. He glanced at the bed. The space beside him was rumpled. Someone had slept there, but the sheets were cold when he slid his hand over them. His frown deepened. Whatever bad-sleep habits his old room could have lured him into, he’d never sleep that soundly next to a stranger, married or not. Something was going on, and he meant to find out what.
Josef slid silently out of bed and looked around for his clothes, but they were gone. He cursed under his breath and quietly took a knife from the pile. The door to the sitting room was closed, but he could hear movement on the other side of door that led to his dressing room. He put the knife in his teeth and pressed himself against the wall, easing his bare feet along the carpet until he was directly beside the dressing room door. Then, in one lightning-fast movement, he stepped in, opening the door with one hand while grabbing his knife with the other. He swung forward and grabbed the man on the other side, pressing the blade against his jugular.
The man screamed and began to thrash, nearly slitting his own throat in the process. Josef grabbed his shoulders and whirled him around, lowering the knife before slamming the man face-first against the wall.
“What are you doing here?” Josef growled, pressing the knife into the man’s back.
“Please, my lord,” the man whimpered. “I am here to help you dress.”
Josef glanced down, noticing for the first time that the man was dressed in the well-cut, somber suit of Osera’s high-ranking servants. With a horrible, sinking feeling, Josef released his grip and stepped back. The man fell to the floor, gasping and grabbing his throat.
The servant looked up with horrified eyes, and Josef felt his stomach sink even further. This wasn’t going to help his reputation.
“Sorry,” he muttered, reaching out to help. The man shied away from Josef’s hands, using the shelves to pull himself up instead.
“Forgive me, your highness,” he whispered, averting his eyes from Josef’s nakedness. “I did not mean to startle you.”
“Forget it,” Josef said. “Where are my clothes?”
The man’s eyes bulged like Josef had just asked for a carcass. “I gave them to the laundry, sir. I have fresh clothes for you, straight from the tailors.” He nodded toward the chest against the wall where several starched shirts, jackets, and breeches lay neatly folded. “I can fetch your old clothes back, if you would like,” he added cautiously.
“Those are fine,” Josef said. He grabbed a shirt, jacket, drawers, and pants at random, pulling them on carelessly. He could still see the servant out of the corner of his eye, but the man made no move to help Josef dress. He seemed to be glued to the wall, eyes wide as a fish’s. Josef grit his teeth and dressed faster, ticking the facts over in his head. It had been this man who’d taken his clothes, not Adela. Sleeping through Adela he could maybe understand; she was a fighter and knew how to move, but he would never sleep through this idiot entering his room, collecting his clothes, and leaving. There was simply no way two nights in Osera could have dulled his senses to the point where a servant could sneak past him.
By the time Josef had finished dressing, the man had collected himself enough to fetch Josef’s boots, freshly polished and resoled, from the boot stand. He held them out with a shaking hand, keeping his eyes on the floor as Josef took them.