“Nobleman having nobs from the Codpiece working for them? That hardly seems likely.”

  “I know, and that might be what brings them down. How many pairings like that can there be running around attacking Blades? Someone knows something, we just haven’t found the right people to talk to yet. Also, what are the Primes doing in case these five return to attack more of us? How are they preparing our people?”

  “The handlers and shivs are going out as two pairs instead of just one. In other words, two handlers and two shivs. Newer Blades like Prita and Falin are all being paired with Senior Guardians.”

  “What about off-duty?”

  “Anyone who goes out has to be accompanied by either a Senior Blade, a Senior Guardian, or someone of higher rank. And before you ask, yes, that includes Ailith on her evening runs.”

  When Shirin held open the door to the Healer Hall, Sábria nodded her thanks and walked inside. “And how did Ailith take that? I know her evening runs are sacrosanct, and it’s become something of a routine for her and Ty to run the city’s perimeter every evening.”

  “I gave her a direct order myself and left nothing to the imagination as far as what would happen if she decided to go against my orders. But honestly, Ailith doesn’t ever purposefully rebel against orders. It’s mostly that things just happened to her, and she goes along for the ride.”

  Sábria sighed, “I’m aware of that. But I want to ensure nothing happens that would draw her away from the Temple on her own.”

  The Healer Hall was a large building with several wings built off of a central hallway. At the end of the hall, three large hearths brought welcome warmth, and because of the material used to build the hall, they kept the rooms at an even temperature throughout the turn. The larger hearth took up much of the end wall, with the two smaller ones burning cheerfully on either side.

  Sábria and Shirin walked through the first archway on the right and came into the Acute Care Wing, where three of the twenty beds were occupied. The remainder of the room held three bathing tubs, two surgical tables, and many cabinets holding whatever medical instruments or herbal remedies might be needed at a given time.

  Sábria hoped for a private report on Caitir’s condition, so she motioned for Haria to join her at the other end of the room.

  Haria sat next to Caitir’s bed, lightly probing her stomach. Always attuned to what was happening in the hall, she held up a finger, asking Sábria to wait.

  Knowing that Sábria wanted to talk to Haria without Caitir being present, Shirin strode over to the bed to wait with their Blade while the healer and the Arch Priestess talked.

  The Blade’s one eye was still swollen shut, and when she opened the second, it was startling to see the whites were an angry, blood-red color. Shirin had only seen Caitir for a quick moment before she’d begun organizing the plans for her extraction, so she hadn’t cataloged all of her injuries before now. Over the turns, though, she’d seen plenty of other Blades with bloody eyes and wasn’t repulsed by it. She knelt beside the bed and took Caitir’s hand.

  Caitir stared at her and then looked down at the hand holding her own. “Your wing doesn’t feel like feathers.”

  Haria spoke quietly as she continued her examination. “That’s because she’s not a bird, Caitir. I know that’s how your brain is interpreting what you’re seeing, and that might be too complicated for you to understand right now, but this is Commander Shirin. Do you remember Commander Shirin?”

  Seeing that Haria wouldn’t stop what she was doing and come over immediately, Sábria walked to the bed instead. Since both sides were occupied, she rested a hand on the blanket covering Caitir’s toes.

  Caitir focused on Sábria, who felt a stab of relief to see a tiny bit of recognition cross her features. As the Blade stared into her eyes, Sábria patiently waited to see how far that recognition went.

  After staring for quite a while, Caitir raised a single finger. That was the most she could do with both arms in splints and secured in slings across her stomach and chest. “I know those purple eyes. You’re the dove with the purple eyes.” Her own eyes narrowed. “Well, sometimes they’re purple, and then they’re blue.”

  Haria believed that emphasizing what was real versus what was happening in Caitir’s addled mind would help her injured brain begin to sort out what was real and what was not. “Sábria’s eyes are blue. There’s a red haze of blood over your eyes, and red and blue make purple. That’s why you’re sometimes seeing blue and sometimes purple.”

  “I remember seeing the blue ones before. Before the stupid thing happened. Before we did something stupid.” Her eye tracked back and forth as bits of her memory returned. “I said we. Who’s the other one? There should be a Blade. I don’t know what that is, but there should be a Blade.” Once again, her gaze locked on Sábria’s eyes. “Am I a Blade?”

  Haria’s hand froze and her gaze locked on to Caitir’s good eye. “What does that mean to you, Caitir? What does that mean to be a Blade?”

  Caitir’s brow came down low. “I don’t know. I just…think…that maybe I’m a Blade, and there should be another one somewhere around. I said we, and that means there was someone else, right?” She looked at Sábria for the answer.

  Still not wanting to tell her about Mita, Sábria skirted the issue. “Yes, you’re my Blade, Caitir. I’m your Arch Priestess, Sábria.” She rested a hand on Shirin’s shoulder. “This is Commander Shirin. She was your handler, and you were her shiv. You live in the Temple of the Daughters of Elyon. Do you remember that?”

  Caitir studied Shirin’s face. “Sometimes I see a bird, and then waves happen, and I see someone I should know. Like when the dove was dancing around my legs, I saw a dove, and then I saw a clump of brown curly hair on top of the child’s head. No, not a child. It was a skelli, and then the skelli turned back into the dove. Just like right now.” She was still staring at Shirin. “You’re a bird, and then you turn into a person, and then you go back to being a bird again.”

  Haria put her fingers on Caitir’s chin and turned her face so they were looking at one another. “Let me look into your eye, Caitir. I’m going to cover it with my hand, and then I’m going to take my hand away. When I do that, you’ll see me up close, looking into your eyes. Is that all right with you?”

  When Caitir nodded, Haria covered the eye, waited for several moments, and then pulled her hand away. She moved in close and was gratified to see the pupil still reacting as it should. She stood and motioned for Sábria to join her out in the hall. Both women stepped out, and Haria gave her report as they walked down the hallway towards the hearths. “I’m pleased to say there’s some definite improvement regarding her head injury. I still can’t tell if the orbital bone around her eye is broken. We’ll have to wait for the swelling to go down to know one way or another. She still sees us as birds, but her brain is trying to sort things out.”

  She stopped and placed her hand on the back of one of several chairs arranged in front of the fires before continuing. “She has some broken ribs and the two wounds you triaged and treated in the alley—the slice across her stomach and the stab wound in the back. That one is very close to her spinal cord, and while it doesn’t appear to have severed it, we won’t know until she heals enough for us to get her on her feet and walking.”

  That was news Sábria hadn’t yet heard, and it was just one more worry to add to her list of concerns. “Is there a chance that she won’t walk again?”

  “There’s always a chance. However, she does have feeling in her feet and legs, so I’m hopeful she’ll retain full use of them.”

  Sábria glanced back the way they’d come. “Who are the other two in the beds in there? I don’t remember getting any reports of anyone else injured badly enough to warrant a bed in the unit.”

  Haria started back to the alcove. “Oh, they’re not patients. One is Kara. I asked her to remain on duty while she caught up on some sleep, and the other is Caitir’s lover, Arane.”

  The sharp edges of worry plaguing her since she’d seen what she thought were two more injured Blades softened, and Sábria moved up beside Haria. “That’s a relief, at least. I thought maybe someone else had gotten injured, and I hadn’t heard about it yet.”

  Shirin met them at the front door. Haria returned to Caitir’s side, and Sábria walked with Shirin to the sanctum to change out of their ceremonial uniforms into their everyday clothes.

  CHAPTER 8

  After two sevendays, the Blades were no closer to finding the men who’d killed one of their own. Much to Shirin’s consternation, a frustrated Sábria had been participating in the search, hoping someone would volunteer information to her that they might not give to an ordinary Blade. It had caused some stress in their daily routine since every time the Arch Priestess left the Temple, especially when five murderers were on the loose, Shirin and ten Blades always stayed close by her side.

  Today, they’d returned to the Temple right before the last meal of the day. Shirin immediately grabbed the day’s reports from a basket on her desk and sat down to read. On the days she accompanied Sábria into the city, she pulled Subcommander Calit in to do a preliminary perusal, asking her to separate the reports into three piles: must-reads, can wait a day, and don’t bother. Calit had taken it upon herself to further divide the must-reads into those that pertained to the search, disciplinary reports that required Shirin’s attention, and injury reports.

  Once Shirin read them, she took them in and left them in Sábria’s inbox. She’d just finished reading a report Geller had written about a fight Killian and her shiv, Emlyn, had gotten into on deadnight shift when she heard Sábria in her office.

  “Oh, Goddess Bless. No.”

  Shirin hurried in to see Sábria standing at her tall, thin window overlooking the courtyard. “What’s wrong?”

  “A Hunter bringing in a body.”

  “What?” Shirin hurried to stand next to Sábria so she could see what was happening down in the yard. Hunters were Blades who were specially trained to track down other Blades who’d gone missing and return them to whatever Temple they’d gone missing from. “We haven’t had any reports of people missing from any Temples, have we? Did I miss something?”

  Sábria watched as the Hunter, dressed in midnight black, pulled her horse up in front of the healer hall. Kara hurried outside, and the Hunter pulled an oilskin packet from the inside pocket of her coat and handed it down to her. The healer took the folded oilskin and stepped to the pack mule. She lifted the tarp covering the body and out of habit, felt for a pulse. Not finding any, she began untying the ropes securing the body.

  Several Blades from the outdoor dining tables hurried over to help lift the body off the mule. The Hunter remained in her saddle, staring straight ahead, waiting. Once all the ropes were free, Kara absently gave them to Sela, who wrapped them and stored them in one of the mule’s saddlebags.

  The grim look Sábria gave Shirin said it all. Losing a Blade at any time was devastating, but losing one now was the last thing they needed. She turned and left their offices, striding down the stairs and out into the Citadel’s inner garden. A six-foot high wall separated the garden from the inner bailey, and as Sábria walked beneath the arch into the central courtyard, the Hunter was riding her horse toward the gate.

  Sábria stepped out, fully expecting the rider to salute, dismount, and give her report. The woman wore a thick cloak wrapped around her, and from what Sábria could see, she didn’t recognize the face that was mostly covered in shadow beneath the coat’s hood. It wasn’t unusual for her not to know every one of her over eight thousand Blades scattered among the various Temples of Elyon. In fact, she knew very few of those living in the ones furthest from Sarlogne.

  Like most Hunters, everything about the woman was dark and foreboding. Known for their taciturn ways, no one expected a Hunter to offer a friendly greeting. In fact, not many people ever had much to do with them. They were an insular subset of the Blades, people who hunted down their sisters and dragged them back to face the consequences of running away from their respective Temples.

  When the Hunter passed her without a word, or any type of acknowledgment, for that matter, Sábria’s eyes narrowed. She barked an order using a warning tone meant to give the Hunter pause. “Report.”

  Without turning, the Hunter merely brought her horse to a stop and halfway turned her head to speak over her shoulder. “I left my written report with the healer.”

  When Shirin started forward to rebuke the woman, Sábria held up a finger to stop her. She wanted to give the Blade a chance to redeem herself if she was so inclined. The three stood in a silent tableau, the Hunter on her horse with the mule trailing behind on a lead rope, Sábria waiting with her arms at her sides, and Shirin stewing with her arms crossed over her chest.

  Sábria was the first to speak. “Is that how you were trained to report to your Arch Priestess?”

  Moving with the deliberate slowness of someone being made to do something they resented, the Hunter sighed loudly, swung her leg over the horse’s rear, and dismounted. With an insulting nod to military discipline, she turned and indifferently tapped her fist to her chest before letting her hand drop to her side. “I already told you. I left my written report with your healer. The report is thorough, and I have nothing more to add.” Even though her words weren’t loud, her voice was robust and intense, as though it could fill the entire courtyard with its power and presence.

  With her temper rising, Sábria’s response was soft and low, a definite warning to those who knew her they were risking her ire, which was also something those same people tried to avoid. She drew out the one word. “Name?”

  “Also in the report.”

  Drawing her sword, Sábria approached the Hunter. She rarely experienced out-and-out disrespect and never tolerated it when she did. Warning sparked in her eyes as she said, “Care to try again?”

  This time, an aggravated growl accompanied the Hunter’s sigh.

  Sábria finally got a good look at the face beneath the hood when the woman rolled her eyes and tilted her head to the sky. The face was gaunt and black half-circles colored the skin beneath those grey, brooding eyes. Although she wasn’t dark-skinned like Haria, Sela, or even Mhina, her complexion was somewhere between olive and brown, and her full lips said some Olarnian blood might be running through her veins.

  “Xydarano.”

  Definitely Olarnian blood, then. Sábria mentally ran through the Olarnians pledged to the Temple. Whenever she needed to place a Blade, she had a system where she started from Sarlogne and worked her way outwards, mentally picturing the rosters of the Blades in the nearest Temples and moving further away as needed. It wasn’t until she came to one of the furthest that she finally registered the name.

  The woman had used the traditional Olarnian pronunciation, Cethéreno, and it wasn’t until Sábria gave it the Cibían inflection that she realized who the woman was. “Xyda.” Behind her, she heard Shirin whisper just loud enough for Sábria to hear.

  “You’re kidding me.” Hunter Xyda was something of a legend among her fellow Hunters and someone whose reputation preceded her. Blades feared her tracking abilities, and it was her name that was whispered whenever handlers were teaching their shivs about the laws of the Temple. Don’t run or Xyda will find you and bring you home. She was a leader among the Hunters, always willing to teach, and was the best tracker in the Cibían Empire.

  Xyda settled her grey eyes on Shirin. Anger and disdain were evident in her glare, and she seemed to find the second-in-command of the Daughters of Elyon lacking.

  Legend or not, the woman answered to Sábria, who wasn’t half pleased with her responses. “As you well know, when giving a report, you use your full title, Blade Xydarano.”

  Xyda’s eyes narrowed as she focused on Sábria. Disdain was evident in her short bow. “Hunter Xydarano, My Lady.”

  “Blade Xydarano.”

  “I’m a Hunter, not a Blade.”

  “All Hunters are Blades.” The fire that sparked in Xyda’s eyes at her pronouncement shocked Sábria and had Shirin stepping forward as though she might need to defend her Arch Priestess. Sábria, who still had her sword in her hand, stepped forward to place herself in front of Shirin. When Shirin moved to follow, Sábria stopped her by holding the sword out in front of Shirin’s body. Obviously, it wasn’t an aggressive move, but it got her message across. Sábria didn’t need to be protected from one of her Blades.

  Xyda repeated herself, more adamantly this time. “I’m a Hunter, My lady. I’m Hunter Xydarano.”

  Her instincts had Sábria letting the argument go for the time being. “Report.”

  Closing her eyes to reign in her irritation, Xyda prepared to give the report she should have given in the first place. When the eyes reopened, they flashed with what? Anger? Irritation? Hard to tell without knowing her better. “High Priestess Medelé summoned me to White Cliff Temple. One of her shivs had run, and she was afraid the girl would do herself harm.”

  Sábria’s heart sank when she heard it was one of her shivs. The life of the Blades was difficult, and all High Priestesses knew they had to keep a close watch on them the first few turns in the Temple. “What shiv? Why did she run, and why was Medelé worried she’d harm herself? You know how to give a report, Xyda.” This time, it was Sábria’s eyes that flashed. “This is your one warning. Do it right, or Senior Hunter or not, you’ll feel the flat of my blade across your back.”

  Not looking cowed in the least, Xyda continued, “Shiv Girta fell in love,” she waved away the word, “or infatuation, hard to know at that age, with a senior Blade who didn’t return her regard. The shiv was nothing more than a child, and that blasted High Priestess should have seen the signs.”

  “Personal opinions have no place in a report.” Sábria watched her closely. Something was wrong and she needed all her Goddess-given abilities to suss out why this Hunter was acting the way she was. Luckily, she hadn’t needed a Hunter in Sarlogne for turns, but even though she hadn’t needed their services, it also meant they never visited her Temple. She wondered if not keeping a closer eye on the specialized sect of Blades had been a mistake.