He could hear Kitai’s grin again. “Why, whatever do you mean, Aleran?”

“The attack!” Tavi snapped. “The disguises! That wasn’t something you threw together at the last minute.”

“Naturally not,” Kitai agreed. “The Hunters in Canea have been using suits of Vord chitin since six months into the invasion. There were several available. We just had to fit them.”

He turned to give her an exasperated look. “That’s not what I mean and you know it! Why didn’t you tell me?”

Behind Kitai, Max’s mouth spread into a wide grin. “Couldn’t be helped, Your Highness.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Operational security,” Kitai said smugly.

Tavi blinked. “What?”

“There is no lying to a being who can read your thoughts, Aleran,” Kitai said. “The only way we could be sure that she wouldn’t expect the attack was to make sure that you could not expect an attack.”

“You… You, it… How did… You can’t just-”

“Why else would we have let you approach the hive by yourself without so much as a comment about what a foolish idea it was?”

Tavi stared at her helplessly, and nearly killed himself tripping over an outthrust root.

“Do not look so astonished, Aleran,” Kitai said. “It was not difficult to anticipate what kind of strategy you would favor. You have something of a history of successfully negotiating with your enemies. Even making friends of them.” Her green eyes sparkled. “In some cases, very close friends.”

Tavi shook his head. “You used me.”

“Yes.”

“You used me,” Tavi said.

Her smile widened. “And it worked. You are a marvelous stalking cow.”

“Horse,” Tavi corrected wearily. “Stalking horse.”

Kitai tilted her head. “What idiot would so endanger a perfectly good horse?”

Max and Durias both burst out in laughter.

A Cane-form Vord exploded from a copse of small pines ten feet away, bounding forward to the attack. Varg met the attacker in midleap, the speed and power behind the blow astonishing, and the attacking Vord fell to the croach in two pieces.

“Tavar,” Varg growled, still on guard, his eyes scanning the trees around them. “Now is not the time.”

Tavi stared at the still-twitching Vord for a second, his heart racing with surprise at the sheer speed of the attack. He nodded at Varg and grunted his agreement. “But we’re going to talk about this,” he said, glowering at Kitai.

She smiled, unperturbed, and said nothing as they continued making their way out of the confusion and anarchy that covered the landscape every bit as thoroughly as the croach.

CHAPTER 36

Amara returned to the Slaver Market that night, once dark had settled on the occupied city. Furylamps burned in the streets, but infrequently: The only Aleran lights remaining had been burning since they had last been put in place by Ceres’ former residents. They wouldn’t last more than a day or two more, at most. For the moment, though, they created broad swaths of shadow, which made it simple for Amara to move unseen.

The greenish light of the glowing croach within the city was bright enough, cast up on nearby buildings, that Amara had no trouble avoiding the various bits of wreckage on the ground in the alleyways leading up to the Slave Market. Twice, a Vord keeper prowled by, long legs scything in a rippling motion, the translucent shell of the spiderlike being glowing from within with the dim light of the glob of croach it carried inside whatever passed for its belly. Once she saw one of the creatures begin to vomit up blobs of croach, smoothing it over the sill of a window, where the waxy substance evidently began to take root and grow.

Ceres was still habitable by human beings, technically speaking. But the Vord clearly intended to change that.

Amara hurried her pace.

She came in from a different direction than Rook had shown her. The former chief of Kalarus’s Bloodcrows had obviously worked out a way to strongly influence Brencis’s focus-a young man, alone in an alien world, suddenly granted both physical gratification and emotional reassurance, in the form of someone he was familiar with, hardly had a chance against a manipulator of Rook’s skills. All the same, Amara knew that Rook’s hold on Brencis was made of whispers and cobwebs. If he ever realized they were there, it would be a simple matter to brush them away-and if he had done so in the intervening hours, Rook might already have been forced to betray Amara.

And if not… well, it never hurt to be cautious.

The Slave Market was lit by furylamps and a glowing mound of croach, bulging up like a cyst from the paving stones and covered with spiderlike keepers. A few more Vord were in evidence than had been there during the day. Were the creatures predominantly nocturnal? Or was there some other explanation for their increased presence.

The “recruiting” operation maintained the same pace she had seen before. Half a dozen dazed Alerans, newly collared, lay on the auction platform. A number of sleepy-eyed slaves were draped over them, whispering and… and other things, in the light of the dancing furylamps. Amara shivered and looked away.

Brencis sat at a small table beside the platform, drinking from a dark bottle. He set it carelessly aside and began wolfing down food. Rook sat on the bench beside him, her hair mussed, her clothes in attractive disarray. A fresh bruise decorated one cheek-a testament to Brencis’s attentions, Amara wondered, or evidence of Rook’s discovery and coerced treachery?

Amara saw the glittering eyes of a vordknight, crouched upon the roof she had used earlier that day to spy upon the courtyard. A coincidence? Or had the collared Rook been forced to inform them of what she knew of Amara’s presence and movements.

Amara grimaced. There was no help for it. She’d simply have to press on and hope for the best.

Veiled behind layers of windcrafting, blending with the weirdly lit night in her furycrafted cloak, Amara stalked silently forward.

Murdering a powerful furycrafter like Kalarus Brencis-and surviving the experience-was a dubious proposition at best. His innate gifts at watercrafting meant that only a sudden and massively traumatic injury had a real chance of killing him; a slash that opened anything less than a major artery would be rapidly repaired. She had to be swift. His skills at windcrafting would grant him deadly swift reaction speed to any attack, and the raw strength granted by his earthcrafting meant that if there was any sort of struggle, he would literally tear Amara limb from limb. Worse, if she struck, missed, and, sensibly, tried to flee, he would probably kill her before she had covered more than a few yards. His firecrafting would make that simple.

Most dangerous of all, his metalcrafting would warn him of any steel weapon as it approached him. It would not give him anything but an instant’s warning, true, but that would be more than sufficient. In order to kill Kalarus Brencis Minoris and survive the exchange herself, Amara would have to open up his throat wide with the stone-bladed dagger she held in her hand. Or else sink it to the hilt in one of his eyes or ears. There was absolutely no room for error.

Brencis, on the other hand, could snap her neck with a thrust of his arm, burn her to bones with a flick of his fingers, or sweep her head clean of her neck with a single motion of his excellent-quality sword.

It seemed a trifle unfair.

But then, she’d never really expected a series of equitable situations when she’d joined the Cursors.

Crows take you, Gaius. Even when I walked away from your service, you managed to draw me back into it.

Moving silent and unseen had become second nature to her over the past days. She drifted past the guards standing about the courtyard, walking slowly, calmly, and carefully. She paused several times, to let one of the collared Alerans pass nearby, before she continued. Stealth had a great deal more to do with patience and the ability to remain calm when there was very little reason to do so than with any amount of personal agility.