The person who walked out of the darkness, however, was not Ananshael, not an Aedolian, not a monk, not a Kettral with bared blades. She was a vision, a dream of perfection—some kind of goddess who had lost her way through the heavens to stride into the slender compass of the flickering fire. Her gossamer robe was torn to tatters, but even that served to accentuate her beauty, the rent cloth exposing the hint of a hip, the silken line of her thigh. Valyn stared. He should have been thinking about Balendin, about his Wing, about how to use the slight distraction to engineer an escape, and yet, for a few long breaths all he could do was marvel, caught up in the spell of those violet eyes, that cascading black hair, the scent of jasmine mingled with fresh blood.
She’s been hurt, he realized, the thought stirring a deep, unexpected anger in him. Someone had carved a long, slender slice down her cheek, narrowly missing her eye. The wound would heal up fine—he’d seen worse in standard training—but there was something about this girl that made any injury seem like desecration, a sacrilege, as though someone had chiseled a gouge across a priceless statue.
Ut had his broadblade out of the sheath in a flash while Yurl drew his other sword. Why they needed them, Valyn had no idea. The young woman was a head shorter than the shortest of the Aedolians and slender as a willow. She was unarmed, her hands extended in supplication, and tears poured down her cheeks.
“Please,” she sobbed. “Please. I’m sorry!”
“No closer,” Ut said, scanning the darkness beyond her with wary eyes. She had come from the east, from the vast gulf into which Kaden had presumably disappeared earlier in the day. “On your knees.”
She dropped, heedless of the rough stones. “I’m sorry!” she moaned. “They forced me to follow them. I didn’t want to! I’m sorry!”
“Well,” said a new voice, rich and almost amused. “Triste, Triste, Triste. My lost little girl returns at last.” From behind a leaning boulder, a man with a bloodred blindfold wrapped around his eyes sauntered into the light.
“Adiv,” she gasped. “I did it! I did what you said. I brought him to bed, I was touching him, undressing him, I was going to—” She shook her head helplessly. “—but then it all started, the killing and the fire, and he just dragged me along, he and that other monk.”
The blindfolded man—some sort of Annurian councillor, if Valyn hadn’t forgotten the rank—crossed to her and raised her chin almost tenderly.
“And you followed him for two days,” he said, shaking his head. “You are a lovely creature, my dear. Nothing would delight me more than believing this … tale of yours, but it strains credulity.”
She cringed, as though he had struck her. She looked terrified, but Valyn caught a whiff of something … defiance, he realized, blinking in surprise. He had no idea how he knew—something to do with what had happened to him down in the Hole, he suspected, but he recognized the smell the way he would the scent of terror or lust. The girl was frightened, he smelled that even more clearly, but beneath her fear ran the cold current of resolve.
“I didn’t know what to do,” she sobbed, her words belying her scent. “I saw them kill soldiers, Aedolians. That horrible woman, the merchant, stuck her knives into them, and they died. She told me to run, and I ran. I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” She folded at his feet, grasping with feeble hands at the man’s knees.
“And how is it,” Adiv replied, “that you return to us now?”
“They were going to—” Her chest heaved with terror. “—she was going to kill me!”
“Who?”
“Pyrre! The merchant! She stabbed that poor, sweet fat monk when he couldn’t keep up, and she said she had a plan, but she’d have to kill me, too.” She gestured helplessly to her feet, which were, Valyn realized with shock, ripped and bloodied past belief. It was amazing that Triste could even stand on them, let alone run.
“We did find the body of the monk,” Ut interjected curtly. “Single stab wound.”
Adiv tapped a finger against his chin, pondering, as though oblivious of the supplicant clutching at his knees. “Who is this woman you’re talking about?” he asked after a moment. “Her name is Pyrre?”
“Skullsworn,” Triste gasped. “She said she was a priestess … a priestess of Ananshael.”
Ut grunted. “That explains something.”
“Like the fact that you failed to kill her?” Adiv asked.
“We’ll take care of that tomorrow morning,” Yurl said. He’d sheathed both his weapons now that he saw that Triste was no threat, and stepped into the circle with smug superiority. “We’ll put the bird in the air at first light. Even if they spend the whole night running—this kind of terrain—there’s nowhere to hide.”