Casket of Souls

sighs.
    “Myrhichia is dead,” she managed at last. “She just closed her eyes and …”
    Seregil stroked her wet hair. “I’m so sorry, my love. So very sorry.”
    She looked up at the wizard and drysian. “Why couldn’t you help her?”
    Thero knelt and took her cold hand between his. “We tried, Eirual, but we haven’t found the cause yet. I’m sorry.”
    “My poor, darling girl.” Tears overflowed those sad violet eyes again and she sank against Seregil in a swoon.
    With Alec’s help he got her downstairs to Thero’s guest chamber and into bed in the dry nightgown. He rested a hand on her forehead. “She’s feverish.”
    “That’s not unusual after such a shock,” Valerius explained when they’d carried the news upstairs. “I’ll see to it personally that she’s properly cared for.”
    “She can remain here, or I’ll have her taken home in a carriage, if she’d rather,” Thero told them.
    “Maybe we should stay tonight, too,” Alec suggested.
    “We might as well. Do you still have those spare clothes I left here, Thero?”
    “Yes, of course. They’re in the chest in the apprentice chamber.”
    Seregil and Alec stayed with Eirual, but though they slept entwined in each other’s arms again, there was still a cold space where Myrhichia should have been.

 
    T HE following morning Alec helped Seregil escort Eirual home in a hired carriage. Leaning silently on Seregil’s shoulder, holding both their hands, she seemed to have no more tears left, but her cheeks were pale, her eyes dull with grief.
    Alec couldn’t think of any words of comfort to offer; his own sorrow was too raw, and he suspected Seregil felt the same, though he was concentrating on soothing Eirual.
    The house was closed in mourning. Word had been given out that Myrhichia had died of fever.
    Seregil gave Eirual his arm and helped her up to her bed. As he pulled the coverlet over her, she caught his hand. “Who would want to kill poor Myrhichia? She never harmed a soul!”
    “I don’t know. But they’ll pay, I swear to you.”
    Her dark eyes met his. “The Cat. Will you speak to him? I’ll give anything!”
    He kissed her brow. “I will. And he won’t take a penny of yours for avenging her, I promise you.”
    She gave a tremulous sigh. “I wish I could thank him myself.”
    He gave her a fond smile as he stroked the hair back from her cheek. “You know it doesn’t work that way.”
    “Not even after all this time?”
    “No. He won’t change.”
    Hyli and a few other girls came in to sit with her. Alec and Seregil took their leave and went to Myrhichia’s room.
    The velvet drapes were drawn and candles had been lit. Coils of sweet smoke rose from an incense burner hanging from the ceiling to cover the smell of death.
    Myrhichia had been laid out on her own bed. The women of the house had bathed her and dressed her in a white silk gown. Her hands were folded on her breast; the gold sesters on her eyes glittered like tears in the flickering light. Devoid of cosmetics, her pinched, waxen features lacked any semblance of life, and when Alec touched her hand he found it stiff and cold. The young woman who’d so sweetly ushered him into the soft give and take of real lovemaking was gone. A sob caught in his throat at the memory.
    Seregil put his arm around Alec’s shoulders and pulled him close. “We did all we could, talí.”
    Alec shook his head angrily. “Not enough! If we’d caught that old man—”
    “I’m sorry. I swear to you, we’ll find out what happened and avenge her. But we have a duty to keep Elani and Klia safe. We can’t do anything more for Myrhichia now.”
    He held Alec and let him cry for a while, then handed him his handkerchief. “Come on, talí. Work’s the best thing for us now.”
    Alec wiped his face and nodded. Taking his dead friend’s hand for the last time, he whispered, “By Illior, Myrhichia, I swear I will kill the one who killed you!”
    Seregil was grim as they headed back to the Orëska for their horses.
    “How often has the Cat helped Eirual?” Alec asked.
    “Oh, three or four times, over the years. Small jobs, except for one. I hunted down a man who murdered one of the girls. Strangled her in her own bed. It was early in Eirual’s career and she didn’t have the influence she does now, so the bluecoats didn’t waste much time trying to find him.”
    “Sort of like how no one seems to care about the poor with the sleeping death.”
    “Yes, very much