King of Assassins: The Elven Ways: Book Three Read Free

returned, but I had no sense of the timing of all of it. I was hardly there, Nutmeg, and there was something tugging at me, but I never got to it, never touched the awe of it before I was back.”
    “Was it . . . dark?”
    Her sister held her gaze, although Rivergrace wanted very much to look away. Slowly, she said, “Dying is not something I want to remember. It was cold and hurtful and frightfully lonely. But Death itself is entirely different.”
    “There is something beyond.”
    “I think so.”
    “Does Sevryn think so?”
    She tilted her head. “We don’t really talk about it. There’s too much to do here.” Rivergrace looked at Nutmeg’s hand, thinking of Lariel’s maimed hand and the sacrifice of flesh. “I’m sorry I can’t give you the comfort you want about Jeredon.”
    “If you don’t fear death, what do you fear?”
    Rivergrace could feel the color leaving her face, the warmth draining away, and her head jerked imperceptibly. “Quendius,” she said, her voice barely loud enough to be heard. “And Tressandre ild Fallyn.”
    Taken aback for a moment at the name of the weaponmaker outlaw as well as the rival Vaelinar, Nutmeg found the breath to make a rude noise. “Two blights on th’ face of the earth! Rotten apples they are, trying to spoil the barrel. At least they never allied.”
    “No. Not yet. Even Tressandre knows better than to partner with the venom that one is.” She shook herself. “At least we have that for luck. How much gloomier can you be, Meg?”
    “Just thoughtful. Some days the babe is so heavy, it seems all I can do is sit and think.”
    “Then think about life and baby names!”
    “It’s no matter—it’s—” Nutmeg’s hand on her belly moved, almost imperceptibly. She beamed and her expression showed the change of her thoughts.
    “Oh, there he kicks again. Want to feel it? You’re never here, and soon it’ll be too late.”
    “Too late?”
    “He’ll be born before you get back here again.”
    “You don’t know that.”
    “I know it’s been forever since I’ve seen you.” Nutmeg’s face twisted wryly. “I think if Master Trader Bregan hadn’t had a caravan comin’ this way, you would never have visited.”
    “The caravan made for good cover. As much as I want to see you, I can’t. It could be taken as a sign that the queen has made a decision about the child, and that could be dangerous for the two of you. Lariel has not declared an heir yet, because of that. If Bregan hadn’t been coming this way, I might not have been able to come.” Machinations. Motives within motives, webs within webs. She knew that Nutmeg knew, even if both of them did not embrace the politics they’d fallen into.
    “But he kicks so strongly. Just feel it.”
    “No,” refused Grace gently, as she had every time the offer had been made on this visit. The thought of some being living inside her sister and kicking as though in protest made her faintly queasy. “And you don’t know it’s a he. You kicked a lot, according to Mother.” She pushed her hair back from her forehead, trying to hide her unease. That shadow amongst shadows had moved again, like a river of dark water across the side of the herbalist’s house. Or had it?
    “She does say that.” Nutmeg rubbed the end of her nose. She circled back to Rivergrace’s question. “What did I think beyond Jeredon?” She waved her hand to indicate the guards. “Not of that, to be certain. Not that Lariel would have guards set upon me and others there,” she twitched her thumb to indicate an even more shadowy corner a little down the street, not far from a small but raucous tavern. “Diort has three Galdarkans who come and go, but mostly stay.” She made a huff. “Did I ever think I would attract th’ attention of the Galdarkans and the east? Never.”
    Rivergrace tried not to show her surprise that Meg was aware of the Galdarkans, for she’d been in Calcort three days on this visit and Sevryn had only