Traitor's Moon

restored, and that he’d have an Akhendi see to it. I’d forgotten all about it.”
    Seregil scrubbed a hand over his face. “I can just guess which Akhendi! You’ve seen how these are made, and how the Akhendi can change one charm for another.”
    â€œThe morning of the hunt, Amali and Rhaish came to see us off,” Alec said, recalling that morning with jarring clarity. “I thought it was odd, since she’d been too ill to go out just the night before.”
    â€œDid he touch Klia?” Seregil asked. “Think, Alec. Did he get close enough to her to switch the charms somehow?”
    â€œNo,” Alec replied slowly. “But she did.”
    â€œAmali?”
    â€œYes, she clasped hands with Klia. She was smiling.”
    Seregil shook his head. “But she wasn’t at Virésse tupa that night.”
    â€œNo, but Rhaish was.”
    Seregil clapped a hand to his forehead. “The rhui’auros said I already knew who the murderer is. That’s because we saw it happen. You remember when Rhaish stumbled as he greeted Torsin? Torsin was dead a few hours later, and there was no charm on him. Someone had removed it. Rhaish must have seen the charm and known it could give him away. Knots and weaving, Alec. He must have taken the bracelet as soon as he’d poisoned him.”
    â€œAnd Klia helped Rhaish up when he stumbled,” added Alec. “He left soon after, so it must have been then that he poisoned her.” Hepaused. “But wait. Klia had on the same sort of charm. Why take Torsin’s, and not hers?”
    â€œI don’t know. You’re certain it was unchanged that morning?”
    â€œYes. I noticed it on her wrist at breakfast. So why change it for mine?”
    â€œI don’t know, but someone obviously changed it at some point, and they wouldn’t have done so without reason.” He stopped as realization struck.
    â€œIt could have been the husband and the wife together! ‘Smiles conceal knives,’ isn’t that what we were told? Bilairy’s Codpiece, I’ve been blinder than a mole in a midnight shit heap. Rhaish didn’t expect the Iia’sidra to vote his way. He never did. And if he’d learned of Torsin’s secret negotiations, and what that meant for Akhendi—he needs to discredit the Virésse, and what better way than to show Ulan í Sathil to be a guest murderer? I, of all people, should have seen through that one!” He clasped his head in both hands. “If I’m ever,
ever
this stupid again, will you please boot me in the ass?”
    â€œI haven’t been any better,” Alec said. “So Ulan is innocent, and Emiel, too?”
    â€œOf murder, at least.”
    â€œDamn it, Seregil, we’ve got to warn Klia and Thero! After your own family, the Akhendi are the ones they’re most likely to trust!”
    â€œIf we don’t stop Korathan, it won’t make much difference. We have to find him first.”
    Alec stared at him in disbelief. “Beka’s heading right back into it, and we still don’t know whose side Nyal is really on. Anyone who knows she was with us may assume that she knows whatever we know.”
    Seregil stared at the Akhendi charm. “I suspect she’s in less danger now than we are. They found us with this once. They can again. Yet it’s the one real piece of evidence we have against the Akhendi, so we can’t afford to destroy it or throw it away. We’ll just have to go on as fast and as cautiously as we can. Once we’ve dealt with Korathan, we’ll figure out what to do.”
    â€œYou mean we just leave her?” Alec kicked angrily at a loose stone. “This is really what it means to be a Watcher, isn’t it?”
    â€œSometimes.” For the first time in a very long time, Seregil felt the gulf of age and experience that lay between them, deep as the Cirna Canal. He gripped Alec gently by the back of the neck, knowing there was nothing he could say that would ease his friend’s pain or his own. It was only the long years he’d spent with Nysander and Micum that allowed him to fend off visions of Beka dead, captured, lost.
    â€œCome on,” he said at last, helping Alec back to their makeshift shelter. “Thero chose her with good reason. You know that. Now get some sleep if you can. I’ll keep watch.”
    He draped their blankets around Alec, settling