The Nightborn Isabel Cooper (free ebooks romance novels TXT) 📖

well as what she knew of magic. “This one might need to have a censer in the middle, though you’d have to ask an actual wizard what to put in it, or maybe a priest.”

“It’s true. We’re not overstocked with spiders, and our cousins”—he flared his tentacles indicatively—“spin no webs, so the metaphor’s less apt. And the sword is Talleita, not Alcerion, as it is for you. Neither flames nor tears have much meaning for us, you understand.”

“Underwater? Makes sense to me.” The next item was a wooden statue, with a hollow cup in front and the back curving up into a series of patterns. All were abstract, and none suggested any god to Branwyn. She suspected this one was meant to channel magical power directly. It probably needed a wizard to work, but it was hard to know for certain. That cup in front, for instance… With wine or blood, depending on the spell, a decently skilled amateur might manage some protection.

She picked it up, meaning to check if there was any residue of one substance or the other. An unevenness near the back caught at her fingers. “This could have been better maintained,” she said.

“It was thrown in a trunk with a number of others,” Altien confirmed. “I suppose the family wanted a good number of such things out of their way. Is it badly broken?”

“No,” she said slowly. Branwyn realized she wasn’t feeling splintered wood but a straight line, slightly raised. “I don’t think it’s broken at all. Pass me the fruit knife, please.”

An old catch was unlikely to be trapped, but one never knew, especially in this city, and Branwyn didn’t have Darya’s gift for ignoring poison. It was more frustrating springing it with the knife but less potentially deadly, so she was willing to take the time and bite her tongue when she wanted to swear. Altien closed his notes and watched.

The catch popped open at last. In the compartment beyond was a wad of old paper: a tightly wound scroll that had been folded in half before being jammed into the hidden niche.

“Old love letters?” Altien suggested. “It would seem an incongruous place, but any port in a storm, as the saying goes.”

“There’s a poetic sentiment about love chasing away demons,” Branwyn said. She smoothed out the paper. It wasn’t as old as she’d believed at first—this ward had been put away considerably after the storms had ended, likely in her own lifetime—but there were ragged places already, and the ink had blurred in spots. “But no, I don’t think so.”

Third month, second week, fifth day. Unusual appetites continue as expected. R. can no longer enter the ceremonial chamber, as her presence—or more likely the babe’s—disrupts the established magic there, and it takes hours to repair. Inconvenient, but the best evidence that she truly bears the Vessel of the Sundered Soul.

Health otherwise robust. No emotional upset: she is radiant, rather, in the knowledge of her Great Purpose.

“I don’t know what they were doing,” said Altiensarn, bending over to read the cramped script, “but I suspect that I wouldn’t like it.”

“No,” said Branwyn. “Anybody who uses capitals like that has nothing good in mind.”

* * *

Dinner was a bad dream.

The food was plain as always, and there was no wine, but for once that didn’t matter to Zelen. He didn’t taste a thing, though he ate as heartily as he could make himself.

Father sat at the head of the table, a gaunter, taller version of Gedomir except for his eyes, which were very pale blue, a color he’d only passed on to Alize. He spoke very little, but Zelen knew that he heard all that the others said and was noting it down for future use. Mother, at the other end, was his dark counterpart, shadow to his ice, and she did speak.

“Zelen, what have you been doing with yourself?”

“Oh, this and that,” he said, weighing his options. Mentioning the festivities in town would have gotten him a rebuke for frivolity when the Rognozis hadn’t been dead a week. “Keeping fairly busy with the clinic, you know.”

“Charitable,” she said, and the approval still pleased him. “I hope they have a proper sense of gratitude for what you do. Alize, how are the harvests this year? More rice than last?”

So it went on, a tutor’s quiz about their own lives, with sparse smiles as the reward. Zelen and his siblings didn’t talk to one another at the table; they ate and waited for questions until the meal was finally over.

“I will retire now,” his father finally said. “Zelen, on your return to the city tomorrow, ensure that all is ready for our visit. It will be a painful enough occasion without chaos.”

“Yes, Father.”

He’d be going back the next day, then. That was just as well—it meant less time in which to give himself away, not to mention less time he had to spend in the house itself. Zelen would have liked to have been asked, but had long since given up expecting it.

After another interminable hour in the parlor, while Alize played well but somberly on the harp, bedtime arrived, and Zelen went thankfully to that as well.

He didn’t sleep, of course.

He did take his boots off. That would help. Then he lay on his bed for an hour, alternately reading a scandalous novel and wondering what Branwyn was doing in his house, until he was fairly certain that the rest of the household had sought their own beds.

Sneaking had served him well as a youth. Through learning to move quietly and blend decently with the darkness, he’d often been able to get food after hours and books he wasn’t supposed to read, not to mention pursuing a liaison or two with local girls when he’d gotten a bit older. He hadn’t thought to use the skill as a grown man, but it came back fairly quickly. He reached the scullery without waking the half-grown boys sleeping on the hearth.

A spare broom handle served his purpose