The Silent Shield (Kingfountain #5)(38)

“My lady,” he said with a wheeze. “Come quickly. We found him.”

“Who?” she asked in concern.

“The Wizr who attacked you,” he answered. “He was among the survivors.”

Trynne looked at him in confusion. “He didn’t return to Chandigarl?”

Thierry shook his head. “Apparently not. He was found comatose next to a corpse—a woman in very fine attire who looked to be of his own race. They’re both unnaturally tall and pale, unlike the rest of the Chandigarli we’ve seen wash up on shore.”

“Take me there,” Trynne said. Then, turning to one of her captains, she gave orders for her people to continue clearing debris from the beach before the next tide came in late in the afternoon.

They walked together briskly, Thierry leading the way. “One of the soldiers brought a series of maps to me,” he confided as they went. “They had navigation charts that show the entire coastline of Brythonica, including the secret coves. There were even charts revealing the tides based on the moon phases of the year. They knew exactly when and where to strike. I do not know how they obtained such detailed maps, my lady. They were written in a foreign hand but show an intimacy with our seasons and borders that no foreigner should have been able to access.”

The implications sent a chill down Trynne’s back. “What you are saying is that the maps were copied from ours.”

Thierry nodded. “My lady, it implies there is a traitor among us.”

“The Espion don’t have any maps of Brythonica,” Trynne said. “They’ve never been allowed inside the duchy other than to deliver messages.” Though she hated to suspect him of something so ugly, Fallon had been raised in Ploemeur as a boy. He knew her people and had won their trust. He had also recently visited her. Another possibility was Morwenna. Hadn’t Trynne spied her copying something from the library? What had it been? Her mind struggled with the memory. Would the king’s sister have betrayed them?

Trynne’s mind shot to something Gahalatine had said to her in the oasis while trying to stop her.

I know of you.

That statement had troubled her. What did it mean? Had Gahalatine heard rumors about a Fountain-blessed girl at the court of Kingfountain? As far as Trynne knew, she and Morwenna were the only two. Had he heard of the poisoner or the duke’s daughter? What did it all mean? If Rucrius was captured, there was a possibility he could provide some much-needed answers to her questions.

“I hadn’t considered it being the Espion,” Thierry said. “The Genevese come here often enough. Surely they have created their own maps.”

“That’s true,” Trynne said, walking more briskly. Would that the maps had come from them. “How far is it?”

“See that treasure ship?” he said, pointing. “He was found near it. It’s almost exactly where a whale was trapped on the beach when your mother was a child.”

The massive ship with the shattered hull hulked before them. There were carpenters at work dismantling it, and the commotion of their hammers and saws could be heard against the rush and hiss of the waves. A group of knights wearing the Raven stood in a circle, and it was toward these men that Thierry took her.

As she approached the group, she recognized Marshal Soeur among the gathered men. He had the Wizr’s sword scabbard in one hand and his brass cylinder in the other. He offered them both to Trynne.

“My lady, we took these from him. He’s unconscious, not dead.”

The soldiers parted and Trynne saw the crumpled Wizr resting on the sand, his chest rising and falling. His long hair was bedraggled and his fancy clothes were ruined. One arm was draped across the stomach of the dead woman. A fly came and touched down on the lashes of her open eyes. They didn’t blink. Her skin was pale. She’d been a beauty in life, her hair dark and luxurious.

Trynne approached the Wizr and knelt by his side. He wore a medallion similar to the one Gahalatine did, the circle with the sunrays coming from it. Gahalatine had looked at her through that circle.

“Take off the medallion,” she said, nodding to one of the soldiers. She summoned her magic, what little she had left, and felt it flicker to life. When she reached out to Rucrius, her suspicions were confirmed. His reservoir was completely empty. He must have passed out using the last of it. From the way his arm draped across the woman, even in sleep, she deduced the answer well enough. Rucrius loved this woman and had tried to save her from drowning. After finding her, he’d probably tried to bring her back to life by using the word of power even though it was against the Fountain’s will.

The soldier lifted Rucrius’s head, pulled free the medallion, and handed it to her. Accessing the dregs of her Fountain magic, she held the circle up to her eye. When she looked through the circle, she saw the weblike ley lines that stretched all around them. They were like strands of spider silk crisscrossing in the air. People walked through them, unseeing, as they worked on the rescue effort. The strongest of the ley lines stretched all the way from the island sanctuary of Our Lady at Toussan to the castle on the nearby ridge. It was awe-inspiring to physically see something that she’d only seen written on a map. This device was one of the ways the Wizrs traveled the ley lines. And by taking it from Rucrius, she was depriving him of an easy escape.

“He’s rousing,” Marshal Soeur said blackly.