Traitor's Moon

bruise just visible above his collar. “I’m glad to hear it, talí. You haven’t seemed yourself since we got here.”
    â€œMyself?” Seregil gave a mocking laugh. “Who’s that, I wonder? You go, Alec. I’ll stay here and behave myself like a good little exile.”
    They slipped into Klia’s darkened receiving room just after nightfall. Alec felt a bit guilty, but elated, too. Beneath his cloak, he wore an Aurënfaie tunic, trousers, and loose sandals, filched by Seregil from some servant. His tool roll, rescued at last from the obscurity of the clothes chest, was secreted once more inside his tunic. It was a risk to bring it, which is why he hadn’t bothered to tell Seregil, but he felt better having it along.
    I’m doing this for Klia, whether she wants me to or not
,
he thought, quelling any doubts
.
    They lifted aside the screen covering the window and Alec threw one leg over the sill. A sudden rush of excitement left him a little giddy. Finally, after all these weeks, here was some useful work. A stray thought sobered him for a moment, however. “No sen’gai!” he whispered, raising a hand to his head.
    â€œI didn’t know if I could still wrap one properly,” Seregil admitted. “Besides, going bareheaded will make you all the more anonymous in the dark—just another servant out for an evening stroll.”
    â€œI’m always a servant,” Alec complained jokingly, trying to simultaneously whisper and whine.
    â€œBreeding tells,” Seregil shot back, clasping him by the back of the neck and giving him a playful shake. “Luck in the shadows.”
    â€œI hope so.”
    It was a short drop to the ground, and Alec managed it soundlessly. This side of the house stood perpendicular to the street and overlooked open ground. Following it back would take him to the wall of the stable yard. Either direction meant passing sentries. He could hear Arbelus and Minál talking somewhere out front. Waiting until they’d wandered back toward the door, he quickly crossed the grassy verge and blended into the shadows beyond.
    Following Torsin weeks before had been an impulse, a fluke. This time, he had a mission and it felt as if he were seeing the place through different eyes, overlaid with memories of similar jobs carried out in Rhíminee. Here there were no cutpurses and footpads to avoid, no City Watch to evade. No whores of either sex called to him from the shadows. There were no lunatics, beggars, or drunken soldiers.The makeshift taverns had none of the disreputable reek of the raucous establishments of Skala.
    Instead, the strange quiet that overlay the city tonight pressed in on him, and his imagination conjured ghosts in shadowed doorways. Never before had he been more aware that this was a city of the dead, tenanted only occasionally by the living. It was a relief to meet other people along the streets, though he kept his distance.
    He had an uneasy moment as he passed Haman tupa. Movement in a side street to his left caught his eye. He continued on to the next building, then ducked around the corner and looked back, waiting for any potential stalkers to betray themselves. No one appeared. Nothing but the call of a night bird broke the silence.
    Shrugging off a lingering sense of being watched, he continued on, running now to make up for lost time. It wouldn’t do to arrive late even if he wasn’t invited.
    Ulan í Sathil’s grand house stood on a small rise overlooking the Vhadäsoori. According to Seregil, who’d known the place in his youth, it was laid out around a series of large courtyards, not unlike the clan house at Gedre. As he surveyed its imposingly plain walls from the shelter of a nearby alleyway, he longed again for Rhíminee’s villas, with their tall, well-tended trees and usefully ornate exterior carvings. If the Virésse house ran true to form, however, whatever it lacked in handholds was more than made up for by a scandalous lack of walls, dogs, sentries, and locks. At least this place had a few accessible windows.
    Most were dark. The only visible signs of light were concentrated to the left of the main entrance. Alec kicked off his sandals and poised for a dash, but shrank back at the sound of approaching hooves. Four horsemen reined in and knocked for admittance. In the spill of light from the doorway Alec caught a brief glimpse of the visitors as they entered.