Shadowsinger Read Free Page B

moment, they stood together, enjoying the moment, before Secca turned in Alcaren’s arms, hugged him, and kissed his cheek. Then she slipped from his loose grasp and stepped back toward the conference table, looking down at the papers and scrolls. “With the new recruits, the SouthWomen will be nearly as strong as my lancers.”
    Alcaren shook his head. “You still have nearly three companies’ worth.”
    â€œAnd a very cautious overcaptain.”
    â€œWilten does not care that much for me,” Alcaren observed.
    â€œWe have talked about that before. He does not dislike you. He dislikes anything that is unknown or offers a risk. You are both.” Secca tilted her head, thinking, realizing that, even after all the years of seeing Wilten, she would be hard-pressed to describe the overcaptain, except in a general way. He affected neither beard nor mustache, and he was neither tall nor short, neither ample nor excessively slender. His eyes seemed to take on whatever color surrounded him, and his face was not oval or square or round or thin.
    â€œHe is like too many in Encora these days, then.” Alcaren snorted. “They would have someone else bear the risk, essay the song-sorcery, and then complain that the way in which their liberty was preserved was not to their liking.”
    â€œThat is true in all lands, perhaps in all worlds.” Secca pulled out a sheet of parchment, then shook her head and took one of the crude sheets of brown paper. “We still need to send a request to the Matriarch.”
    â€œWe?”
    â€œIt takes a man and a woman to be consorted. We both should sign the request.”
    Alcaren laughed. “That way, neither those in Defalk nor those in Ranuak will be pleased.”
    â€œAre they ever?” Secca raised her eyebrows.
    They both laughed.

3
    Wei, Nordwei
    Outside the window of the study, the light from the late-winter sun reflects in all directions from the glaze ice coating the two-yard-deep snow that covers the city and the ice on both the River Nord and Vereisen Bay. Because of the glare, the dark window shutters are almost entirely closed, except for a slit where they meet.
    The woman who sits at the desk of polished ebon wood, her back to the window and the thin line of bright light, has fine silver hair and dark black eyes. Once her hair was as dark as her eyes, but those eyes, set as they are in a finely wrinkled skin, still are clear and miss little.
    â€œLeader Ashtaar, the Lady of the Shadows.” The voice comes from outside the closed study door.
    Before answering the announcement, Ashtaar covers her mouth with a dark green cloth and coughs—once, twice—then sets the cloth aside.
    â€œEnter.” Her voice is firm and clear.
    The woman who enters is cloaked in black, with a black hood and a gauzelike black veil.
    The Council Leader of Wei nods to the polished wooden armchairs across the ebony desk from her and waits for the woman in the dark hood to seat herself. The Lady of the Shadows takes the seat farthest to Ashtaar’s left, well away from the thin line of glaring light.
    â€œYou wished to see me?”
    â€œLeader Ashtaar, you know well our concerns about sorcery.”
    As Ashtaar nods, her fingers find the polished black agate oval on the desk.
    â€œDefalk’s Sorceress Protector of the East has stretched the harmonies until all Erde vibrated, and then the illegitimate sorcerer of Ranuak used Darksong to save her from her folly.”
    â€œThat is what the seers reported,” Ashtaar replies mildly.
    â€œIs that all you have to say?”
    â€œShe destroyed all the Sturinnese warships in the ocean along the south coast of Liedwahr. That was in our interest. Do you wish me to condemn that?” asks the Council Leader.
    â€œThis time …this time it benefited us. Do you not think that the Mynyan lords thought the same when they first unleashed song-sorcery?”
    â€œThat may be,