Like a cat, Dhulyn walked quickly, softly across the room’s thick carpets to the interior door, keeping her footsteps timed to the breathing she felt more than heard, and slipped behind the heavy quilted curtain that marked the archway into the main bedchamber. She moved immediately to the right of the doorway and slowed her breathing, hoping her heart would follow suit and stop its hammering.

The Tenebroso’s room was so large that the small oil lamps placed one to each side of the doorway did very little more than create deeper shadows. It had been a long time, evidently, since anyone other than Kor-iRok and her women had needed to navigate this room in the dark. Dhulyn heard sounds and murmuring voices from the anteroom and froze. After an eternity her heart resumed beating. Would they come into the Tenebroso’s room, or would they take it for granted that no one had been able to pass the lady pages?

More importantly, was this a routine check, or were the guards looking for her? Had someone found her cell empty?

Like her sitting room twenty paces farther down the hall, Kor-iRok’s bedroom was crowded with furniture. Little tables, stools, cabinets as tall as Dhulyn herself, some with open shelves and some with closed doors. Dhulyn edged over farther and squatted, adding herself to the shadow of a round table with thick carved legs. From here, she had a clear view of the large bed at the far end of the room. A small bedside table held a bowl of fruit and a light horn cup with a hinged silver lid to keep insects out of the drink. The Tenebroso Kor-iRok did not stir. The woman was warmly dressed and covered. At her age she would feel the cold more than would her ladies asleep in the outer room. Without cosmetics to give it color, the skin of her face was papery and pale. On a stand near the bed rested the elaborate golden-haired wig the old woman had been wearing when Dhulyn had first seen her, a gold, Dhulyn realized with a jolt, the exact shade of Parno’s hair.

More light entered the room as the curtain was noiselessly pushed aside. The rings must have been bound with cord to prevent them rattling against the curtain rod. Wish I’d known that before, Dhulyn thought. One of the lady pages from the anteroom took a step into the bedroom.

“What is it, Jhes-iJhes?” came a whisper from the bed. Only years of discipline, and her teeth in her lower lip, prevented Dhulyn from making any sound.

“One of the guards in the west wing thought he saw something, my House,” the woman said.

Not me, then, Dhulyn thought.

“Well, there is nothing in here,” the papery whisper sounded once more from the bed. “Pray shut the door until the alert is over.”

“Yes, my House, sleep well.” The woman stepped out of the room, drawing the curtain closed as she went. Dhulyn heard the “snick” of the latch as the door she hadn’t noticed in the anteroom was closed. She squeezed her eyes shut. This was all going to take much longer than she’d thought. She’d hoped to find Parno and go tonight, not take the chance of another day in One-eye’s interrogation room.

“Come sit by me, Mercenary,” came the whisper again. “They will take a few minutes to sleep again, and you will be more comfortable here.”

Dhulyn squeezed her eyes shut. Why didn’t her Sight ever show her something like this? Suppressing a sigh, she straightened out of the shadow of the round table.

“When did you know?” she asked, as she sat down on the edge of the bed.

“When you moved the curtain,” the old woman said. “The air changed.”

Dhulyn eyed the distance to the door, and turned to watch the old woman’s thin chest rise and fall. If she took a breath deep enough to call out, Dhulyn could stop her before any sound got farther than the edge of the bed. Though it was bad luck to kill someone so old.

“I did not want to be Tenebroso, you know,” Kor-iRok said as though she was continuing a conversation. “But my brother died, and then my sister. I had a daughter who died also, an elder daughter. Two months before her presentation day, dead of a fever. Young. I believed it to be natural; eventually, I learned differently. Now my time comes, though I am the only one who knows it.” She looked directly at Dhulyn, the force of her stare belying her words. “You may help me. Your coming is most advantageous. I fear I have less time than I had hoped.”

Dhulyn pressed her lips together. There was no doubt, not even any real sense of request in the Tenebroso’s voice. She was used to being obeyed, and she expected to be obeyed now. What help would the old woman need? And what would she do if Dhulyn did not provide it?

“I do not see how I may be of aid,” she said. “We do not kill people in their beds.”

“The only killing needed here will be done by me.” The old woman indicated the bedside table with a glance from her still bright amber eyes. Following that glance Dhulyn saw what she’d missed before in all the shadows of the place, a glass vial no longer than her smallest finger, and stopped with a waxed plug. Dhulyn pursed her lips in a soundless whistle.

“Grandmother,” Dhulyn said, finding herself instinctively reverting to the courtesy of her Clan. “I do not understand.”

“I will ask three-no-four things of you. First, unstopper the vial and hand it to me.” She waited. “I am ready my child,” the papery voice whispered when Dhulyn hesitated. “More than ready.”

Dhulyn looked at the vial, at the old woman, saw the determination and certainty in the Tenebroso’s face. She picked up the vial. She wondered what kind of poison the old woman had decided on. She ran her thumbnail around the edge of wax and worked out the cork before placing it into the Tenebroso’s waiting hand. The old woman smiled, and tipped the contents of the little glass tube into her mouth. A small grimace of distaste, as when one takes a mouthful of sour wine, and then she held out the vial once more.

“I wish you to take this with you when you go.” The Tenebroso suddenly gasped and shut her eyes tight before blinking them open again. “I will not give him the satisfaction… I would not have him think I have killed myself because of him.”

No need for Dhulyn to ask who the man in question might be.

“That is only two things, Grandmother.”

“I would have you listen to my curse,” the old woman said. “Another’s ears will give it weight and power. And I wish it to fall upon him as heavily as might be.”

“You would curse your own Kir?” Towns folk. Who could understand them?

The old woman’s eyes must have been very accustomed to the darkness in her room for her to catch Dhulyn shaking her head.

“It is not what you think, Mercenary. I would curse him for killing my daughter, all those years ago. For killing his sister.”

“But your House…” She’d condemn her House to the chaos and turmoil that would follow the cursing of its Kir? Not that Dhulyn would stand in the old woman’s way. As far as she was concerned, a curse was just what the One-eye needed.

“The House will continue. I was afraid,” the old woman said in the voice of one confiding in a friend. “I thought I might have waited too long. Dal is not what I had hoped. He watches, but he does not lead. He hates Lok, but he cannot make up his mind to kill him.”

Dhulyn smiled at this insight.

“But now Par-iPar has come, as I arranged, and you will bear my message to him. He is strong. A true Heir. Now I may die content, cursing my son who robbed me of my daughter, and my House of its true Kir.”

Par-iPar? Dhulyn stared again at the golden wig, this time really seeing how exactly it matched Parno’s hair. Lok-iKol thought he was bringing her here for her Mark, and all along his mother was bringing the One-eye’s replacement. Parno. Parno was the heir. Not just a younger son of some Household of the extended House Tenebro, noble but unimportant. When this woman dies, my Partner will be heir.