White Road

replied, eyes widening with fear.
    “You shall be perfectly safe, keeping watch from there.” Acurtained alcove at the back of the room between two bookcases was the best he could do for a hiding place for Ilar.
    Several large volumes lay on the table at the back of the room, books the same size and color as the ones they’d taken from Yhakobin’s house. “There is our bait. When our mice come into our trap, you’re to wait until they’ve gone, then come to me. I shall raise an outcry and we’ll have them as escaped slaves and common thieves.”
    “As you wish, Khirnari.” Ilar was pale now, and trembling.
    Ulan nearly changed his mind; one of his escort could just as well be stationed here under some pretext, but his secret was too valuable to risk. It would not do for his people to learn that their khirnari had played the thief himself, or the nature of what he was trying to protect. The making of a rhekaro stank of necromancy, no matter what Yhakobin had said about his so-called art. There was no question of taking Alec and the books to Virésse city, of course; he already had made preparations at a mountain hunting lodge far from there. He would keep Alec there. The boy would not be mistreated, either. Perhaps in time, he could even be made to understand his own importance.
    This is for the good of the clan
, he reminded himself, steeling his resolve. It was the duty of the khirnari to sacrifice for his people, even his life.
    But my honor?
    That was even more precious, but he had no choice but to press on with his plan. He was too close to success to lose his nerve now.
    That night Ulan waited until the household servants had gone to bed, then had Ilar blow out the lamps in the library, leaving only the fire on the hearth for light.
    “At last,” he murmured, smoothing his hand over the cover of the topmost book. The real ones were safely hidden away. He held out his own silver-handled dagger. “Take this, dear boy, just in case.”
    Ilar looked at the knife as if it were a serpent. “I could never win against them!”
    “So long as you keep quiet, there’ll be no need. I shall feel better if you’re armed. You must be careful and silent, Ilar.”
    “Like they are,” the younger man whispered, taking the knife with shaking hands.
    Ulan gathered the trembling man in a fatherly embrace. “How many times have you wished to repay my kindness? Do this for me, Ilar, for the love you bear me. Just be quiet, and things should go as planned.”
    Ilar nodded, though he still looked terrified. “I won’t fail you.”

CHAPTER 29
Paths Cross
    S EREGIL and the others spent that day and the next exploring the seaside district, taking note of potential hiding places in abandoned buildings and accessible cellars, and the layout of the streets. The new inn where Micum had taken a room was just two streets way from Ulan’s villa, and had a spacious slave pen in the back, the door held by nothing but a stout bar; Micum was no hand at picking locks. For the time being, Seregil, Alec, and Rieser were the only ones there. There was no heat, but the straw was deep and clean and Micum saw to it that they had blankets and passable food.
    Leaving his slaves behind, Micum went out to taverns each night, seeking information about Ulan’s habits. He’d done this sort of nightrunning innumerable times over the years. He enjoyed the challenge of finding the right tosspot to coax information from. Most folks he talked to here didn’t pay the Virésse any mind, though some allowed that Ulan was a fine man to trade with, except for being Aurënfaie. There was one well-dressed fellow, a cloth merchant, who confirmed what Micum had learned at Virésse: that Ulan í Sathil bought back slaves taken from the Virésse and the Goliníl fai’thasts, and that he had bought the majority of them from Charis Yhakobin before the alchemist’s murder. A few more men gathered around them when they overheard the name.
    “That was the first slave killing in years,” one of the old ones told him. “It’s made a lot of masters take sternermeasures with their own slaves, especially the males. And in the markets there’s more call now for little ones that you can train up right. The slavers can hardly keep up with the demand.”
    Micum also learned that the Virésse ’faie kept carefully to themselves here in Riga, never ventured out unless in an armed group, and even then seldom at night and never to anywhere like a tavern. Not