The Banished of Muirwood (Covenant of Muirwood, #1)(24)

Sleep did not come quickly. She worried about all the things she could not control in her life—so much so, her mind felt like bursting. To calm herself, she began to think and remember some of the sayings she had learned from Chancellor Walraven’s tome.

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions. Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination does when awake? As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself. As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.

The last saying brought a chill to her heart, along with a memory from when she and the kishion had landed on the beach of the cursed shores. You will all die in this place. This is the place where death was born.

Why did it feel, in the darkness of the inn, that she had gained an acquaintance with death? That it stalked her, as well as everyone who followed her? They would all die, she suddenly realized. Even the kishion. Because of her.

And then there were the last words from Walraven’s tome. The words that had haunted her since reading them, for they were the last words her friend had written before his death. In her mind’s eye, she could see him sitting in the tower, wearing wooden clogs, his hair disheveled, and his eyes weary and mournful.

While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.




A pebble clacked against the window, waking her.

The room was dark, but the sky was just starting to grow pale. The noise roused the kishion as well.

“The window,” he said warningly. “Lie still.”

He moved from his position in front of the door on cat’s feet and soundlessly slinked to the edge of the window.

Another pebble tapped against the glass.

“Who is it?” Maia whispered. “Can you see?”

The kishion reached out and opened the window, keeping himself in the shadows. The open window brought in a rush of birdsong that whirled and whistled through the morning sky in exuberant noise and variation.

A figure blotted the frame of the window and Feint Collier dismounted the sill and came inside. As soon as he was on his feet, he held both of his hands out and up, showing he was unarmed.

“I know you are behind me, sir,” he said, “with a knife ready to plunge into my back. I swear I climbed that tree not to seduce this woman, but to warn you both that the Dochte Mandar are on their way here and will be barging into the common room before long.” He turned his head slightly, glancing back at the kishion. “Are we friends then? I came to help you, so I would rather not get cut open.”

Maia hurried off the bed. “Thank you for the warning. We will go.”

“I would advise you not to leave from the ground floor. The inn will be surrounded, and while I do not mind tweaking the nose of a man like Corriveaux, he has at least fifty men with him, a solid description of you all, and he seems rather determined. I would advise the window and the roof.”

“Why do you aid us?” the kishion asked curtly.

“Oh, a man has any number of motives.”

The sound of marching steps came from the hallway downstairs.

“What about Jon Tayt?” Maia said. “One of us must warn him.”

“Already done, my lady. I met him as he was leaving the inn to get supplies. I told him where to meet us. Shall we?” He extended his hand to her. There was a mischievous smile on his face, and Maia’s heart hammered in warning. Rather than take his hand, she hurried and stuffed her tattered gown in her pack and quickly grabbed a cluster of grapes from the nearby tray. She felt rested, strengthened, and—once again—panicked.

Once she nodded her readiness, Collier stepped onto the sill and climbed out the window onto the gabled roof. Maia poked her head out into the morning sky. The sun was rising quickly, dispelling the shadows of night. She saw some men holding torches down on the street below. They were spread out across the grounds.

A hand came down from the gables and Collier seized her wrist and helped pull her up to the roof. The kishion followed, moving soundlessly as they scaled the stone shingles of the gables.

“Quietly,” Collier whispered, finger to his mouth. The slope of the roof was steep, but he managed it with grace, then reached down and helped her up the roof as well. His hand was warm in hers, and he gave her a smile.

She did not smile back. She felt like retching. They had been harried from one place to the next. The Dochte Mandar were desperate in their hunt.

“The shingles are made out of stone,” Collier confided in a whisper, “because when part of the mountain crumbles off, it rains stone as well as water. The villagers have made use of what resources they have. Over that way. See how the roof meets the wall of the mountain on that end? We’re going up to the next tier of the town. Then up again to the manor house. That is where Tayt will meet us.”

She stared at him. “The manor house is still empty?”

“Of course, save for us. There are horses in the stables. I saddled three for you already, and they are waiting to go.”

She stared at him in surprise. “You did?”

He grinned, pleased by her expression. “Yes, I did. A trail leads out of Roc-Adamour from the manor house, one that will not be guarded by the Dochte Mandar. They are idiots—they do not know this town very well. It will take some time before they realize where you have gone.”