Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(139)

Kaden looked at him. That grin suggested Akiil had devised a plan that would get them both beaten half to death if Nin or Tan found out. Which was all the more reason to make sure they didn’t find out. “Go on.”

Akiil leaned forward conspiratorially, rubbing his hands together, fully engaged for the first time since he entered. “I’ve been watching that woman, Pyrre.” He pursed his lips appraisingly. “She’s not much, compared to the whores I grew up around, but, up here in the mountains, I figure you have to take what you can get.”

“You’ve been spying on her.”

“Let’s call it ‘supervising.’ At any rate, she’s slipped away from the monastery a few times, usually at dusk, when Jakin’s haggling with Nin.”

“Maybe she’s just taking a look around,” Kaden responded. He wanted Akiil to have an idea, but this seemed pretty thin.

“She goes east. Away from the sunset. Away from all the pretty views. Besides, Nin told her the first night about whatever’s been killing the goats. You know many women who enjoy taking midnight strolls around a strange mountain monastery perched on the edge of a cliff when they’ve just learned that an unknown predator is ripping the heads off goats and men alike and then eating the brains?”

Kaden nodded, warming to the idea. “That’s strange. So where does she go?”

“No idea,” Akiil replied. “I haven’t had a chance to follow her—I’ve been shoveling out a new channel for a branch of the White River the past three days. Tonight, however…” He grinned. “I thought maybe we might put some of our Shin tracking skills to work.”

Beshra’an, the “Thrown Mind,” had originated as a way to trail lost livestock or to hunt down predators; it was, in fact, the way Kaden had tracked down the slaughtered goat two months earlier. Following prints in the earth was all well and good, but most of the land around Ashk’lan was rock, not earth. When the prints disappeared, as they inevitably did in the granite peaks, the monks needed another method.

The goal of beshra’an was to slip outside one’s own head, to throw one’s mind into another creature, to think, not like a man following a goat, but like the goat itself. The monks who were good at it could follow animals over blank stone with uncanny success, abandoning their own humanity to sniff out the scent of fresh grass, to tread the fine gravel that the goats favored, to move into the lee of a massive boulder when the storms came. Kaden had had some luck with it, even a few times where he felt as though he really had “thrown” his mind into the head of his quarry. Unfortunately, he’d never tried following a human.

“All right,” he whispered to Akiil once they’d slipped from the monastery proper and out toward the broken land to the east. A gibbous moon hung low in the sky, and once his eyes adjusted, there was enough light to see by. Rock slabs and boulders leaned against one another, casting dark shadows beneath the argent glow of the moon. Crooked branches of the junipers, twisted by the wind, reached toward them, threatening to snatch a robe or scratch an eye. The evening sounds of the monastery were barely audible above the light breeze.

“This seemed like a better idea when we were inside,” Akiil said. His voice was sarcastic, but his eyes flitted from rock to rock, quick and alert. Kaden didn’t have to remind him that whatever killed Serkhan was still out there, still waiting. They had to hope that the staves they’d taken from the goats pens along with the knives at their belts would be enough to discourage it. After all, Kaden reasoned with himself, Pyrre is sneaking around out here every night, and she hasn’t been killed yet.

“We’ll be quick,” he said, trying to reassure himself as much as his friend.

“That’s what I told myself right before I cut that purse. The one that earned me this,” Akiil replied, gesturing to his brand. “I don’t suppose there’s any way you can dim those eyes of yours. It’s nice that a goddess f*cked your great-great-grandad, but they’re a little obvious.”

“Maybe they’ll scare away whatever needs scaring.”

Akiil snorted.

“All right,” Kaden said, shivering beneath his robe. “You’re Pyrre, a merchant woman from the empire. You leave your perfectly nice monastic cell to skulk off into the rocks. Why?”

Akiil grinned. “I’m hoping to tickle one of these strapping young monks up under that robe of his.”

Kaden considered this. Women never visited the monastery, and there probably were a couple of monks who wouldn’t mind spending a few minutes alone with Pyrre, Akiil chief among them.