Target Of The Orders (Book 3) Read Free Page A

said.
    Darien nodded.

    On the other side of the mountain, a rose plant covered itself against the nighttime chill.

Chapter 3

    A fortnight later, Garrick and Darien came again to the rolling hills at the outskirts of Caledena.
    The journey had remained strangely quiet. They discussed this often as they made camps, and Darien had finally talked himself into the position that the orders’ appearance at Arderveer had been an action against Takril for some issue both unknown and unknowable to those outside the orders. In other words, he had convinced himself that their arrival in Arderveer just as the orders had convened there had to have been the most strange of coincidences.
    “No one can be sure of anything that happens behind closed doors,” Darien explained. “But as long as everything else is quiet, I guess no one should care.”
    Garrick didn’t argue, but Darien had not seen the damage the orders had done to Alistair’s manor, Darien had not seen the inhuman glow in the eyes of his superior after Garrick had so unwisely given the thing its new life, and Darien most definitely did not understand exactly how unusual it was for the Koradictine and Lectodinian sects to have actually banded together. To Darien’s mind, histories were full of enemies in one battle merging to face a common foe, then splitting again.
    So, no, Darien did not understand that the orders of sorcery had schisms that were sharper than a honed blade and that ran deeper than blood. They would not work together for something as frivolous as the destruction of a single Torean mage—powerful though that Torean might be.
    Neither Darien nor Garrick, however, were going to be upset about it now that they had made their way back to the city.
    The passage of spring into summer had turned the surrounding trees bold with green. The breeze blowing through knee-high grasses smelled of ragweed and wild strawberry, and the fields outside the city were now tilled and planted. But, as Garrick and Darien entered the city, it became clear that Caledena was still the same dog’s breath of a town it had always been. Ale houses and gambling rooms still ringed the outskirts of its limits, and its open marketplaces were still chaotic mills of people trading their goods, services, and sometimes their bodies. The streets were as dirty and unkempt as before, tainted by the smells of smithy fires and human refuse.
    The people of the city stared at Garrick, whispering and pointing, diverting their glances as he turned to them.
    “Your legend precedes you,” Darien said.
    Garrick sat straighter.
    Let them whisper, he thought. It was best they fear him.
    He let the essence of his magic flow over the city, and found an edgy cacophony of energies, a mix of emotions that were equal parts hate, hope, pain, and joy. It made him anxious. Caledena was a working town full of people who were just trying to hold on as each day trickled by, but Caledena was also a city of dangerous people who were not above taking advantage of situations that might open to them. He struggled to separate one from another.
    As they made their way through the city, the leather bag with the viceroy’s egg in it weighed against his thigh.
    He looked at Darien.
    His partner had been pensive the past few days, more quiet than normal. When he did speak, it was mostly about the politics of Dorfort, the orders, and even about Sunathri and the independent Freeborn House she had created.
    Darien liked the idea behind that order.
    “It’s unlike you to be so quiet,” Garrick said as they neared the end of their trip.
    Darien ran a hand over his horse’s neck.
    “What are you going to do now?” he replied.
    “Return this box to Hersha Padiglio, collect my payment, and buy this horse.”
    “I mean after that?”
    “You want to know if I intend to join the Freeborn?”
    “It seems a practical thing for a Torean to do.”
    “It's nice to see you’re worried about me.”
    Darien smiled. “After seeing