Traitor's Moon

still swollen and red, it appeared to be healing clean. The hand itself, once strong and slender, now looked like a splayed bird’s claw.
    â€œThose white patches spread and turned to dry gangrene, just as Nyal said they would,” Mydri explained, applying a pungent unguent to the incision. “It would have killed her in time. We werelucky, only having to do it once. I’m afraid she won’t draw a bow again, though.”
    Seregil looked up to find Klia watching him with mute resignation.
    â€œYou only need one hand to wield a sword,” Seregil told her. She gave him a wink.
    â€œI’ve explained something of what you two did for her and for Skala,” said Korathan. “I’ll leave the rest of it to you.”
    He exchanged a look with Mydri and she withdrew.
    â€œThank you, my lord.” With Alec’s help, Seregil explained what had happened once they’d parted from Beka, showing Klia the Akhendi sen’gai and the sealed bottle. Tears glittered in her eyes as they outlined their suspicions against the khirnari and his wife.
    Betrayed again
, Seregil thought sadly.
    â€œI can’t open the bottle just yet, as I don’t want to give Rhaish any warning. Before I go to the Iia’sidra, I need you to think, Klia. Did the charm Amali gave you have any marks or cracks in the wood?”
    Klia slowly shook her head.
    â€œAll right. Now then, did the Haman, Emiel, attack you during the hunt?”
    She looked at him blankly.
    â€œShe remembers little of that day,” Thero told him. “She was quite sick by then.”
    â€œThat night at the Virésse banquet, do you recall feeling anything prick your hand?” Seregil asked her. “No? Any other time? Do you know when you might have been poisoned?”
    Again no.
    â€œNyal said the snake’s bite is painless,” Alec reminded him. “The poison must deaden feeling. And the barb on the ring is tiny.”
    â€œThe ring! Thero, were you able to learn anything more from it?”
    â€œNo. Whoever used it masked it well,” the wizard replied.
    â€œJust like the charm,” Seregil mused, “And yet they were able to preserve the memory of Emiel in it, and turn it white again somehow without disturbing that memory.”
    â€œWe were just discussing that,” said Thero, who’d evidently warmed a bit toward the older wizard. “According to Wydonis, who is much more adept than I at this sort of thing, it’s possible to mask the essence of a person, as has evidently been done with the ring. But it’s virtually impossible, short of necromancy, to falsely imbue that essence.”
    Wydonis nodded. “Whoever had Alec’s charm, they were careful only to mask its appearance, leaving Emiel’s essence to be found when it changed again,” Wydonis explained. “I grant you, it’s difficult.”
    â€œBut what made it turn black again, if Emiel didn’t attack her?” asked Alec.
    â€œPerhaps merely his proximity,” the older wizard said. “As Thero has speculated, these are the doings of someone with greater than normal ability.”
    Thero passed the ring to the elder wizard. “Perhaps you could divine more than I have from this. We can’t afford to miss anything.”
    Wydonis took the steel ring on his palm, breathed on it, then closed his fist around it. After a moment’s concentration, he nodded slowly. “As you say, it reveals nothing of the murderer. However, I can tell you something—it was made in Plenimar, as you rightly suspected. At Riga, I think, by a one-legged smith who slakes his work in goat’s urine. The ring was used for a time by a woman named—” He paused, brow furrowed. “She is of the house of Ashnazai, I believe. She used it to murder six people: four men, a woman, and an infant girl—all of them kin to the current Overlord—and then herself. More recently, it was used to kill several calves. It has something of Princess Klia’s essence in it, too—blood perhaps—and Torsin’s.” He tried one last time, then raised an eyebrow at Seregil. “I also sense a fish of some sort, but whoever used the ring to poison the princess has left no trace.”
    â€œCould a Virésse or Haman do that?” Thero asked Seregil.
    â€œThe Virésse, perhaps, but probably not a Haman. Their gifts don’t usually run in that vein. I think