Blood of the Fold (Sword of Truth 3)

Warren laid a gentle hand to her arm. “Verna, would you ever allow a Sister of the Dark to become Prelate?”

“Of course not.”

“Do you think Ann would?”

“No, but I don’t see—”

“Verna, you said you can trust none but me. Think of Ann. She was trapped, too. She couldn’t allow the chance of one of them becoming Prelate. She was dying. She did the only thing she could. She could trust no one but you.”

Verna stared into his eyes as his words echoed in her mind, and then she slumped down on a smooth, dark rock beside the water. Her face sank into her hands. “Dear Creator,” she whispered, “am I this selfish?”

Warren sat down beside her. “Selfish? Stubborn, at times, but never selfish.”

“Oh Warren, she must have been so lonely. At least she had Nathan there with her… at the end.”

Warren nodded. After a moment, he glanced over at her. “We’re in a lot of trouble, aren’t we, Verna.”

“A whole palace full of it, Warren, all wrapped up nice and neat with a gold ring.”

7

Richard covered his mouth as he yawned. He was so tired from not getting any sleep the night before, or much, for that matter, in the last two weeks, to say nothing of the fight with the mriswith, that it was a struggle to put one foot in front of the other. The smells ran from foul to fragrant and back again seemingly every few paces as he progressed through the convoluted maze of streets, staying close to the buildings and out of the thickest of the commotion while trying his best to follow the directions Mistress Sanderholt had given him. He hoped he wasn’t lost.

Always knowing where he was, and how he was going to get to where he was going, was a matter of honor for a guide, but since Richard had been a woods guide, he guessed it could be pardoned if he did became lost in a great city. Besides, he was no longer a woods guide, nor did he expect he would ever be one again.

He knew where the sun was, though, and no matter what the streets and buildings did in their efforts to confuse him with their teeming thoroughfares, dark alleys, and warrens of narrow, twisting side streets among ancient, windowless buildings laid out to no design, southeast was still southeast. He simply used taller buildings as landmarks, instead of monarch trees or prominent terrain, and tried not to worry about the exact streets he was supposed to follow.

Richard was weaving his way through the throngs of people, past shabbily dressed hawkers with pots of dried roots, baskets of pigeons, fish, and eels, charcoal makers pushing carts and calling out the price in song, past cheesemongers outfitted in crisp red-and-yellow livery, butcher shops with pig, sheep, and stag carcasses hung on spike racks, salt sellers offering different grades and textures, shopkeepers selling breads, pies and pastries, poultry, spices, sacks of grain, barrels of wines and ale, and a hundred other items displayed in windows or on tables outside shops, and past people inspecting the wares, chatting, and complaining about the prices, when he realized the flutter in his gut was a warning—he was being followed.

Suddenly wide awake, he turned and saw a crush of faces, but none he recognized. He held his black cape over his sword so as not to draw attention to himself. At least the ever-present soldiers didn’t seem particularly interested in him, although some of the D’Harans looked up when he passed near, as if they could sense something, but couldn’t place its source. Richard hurried his steps.

The flutter was so faint that he thought maybe those who followed weren’t close enough for him to see them. But then, how was he to know who it was? It could be any of the faces he saw. He glanced at the rooftops, but didn’t see the one he knew was following him, and instead checked the direction of the sunlight to help keep his bearings.

He paused near a corner building to watch the people flowing up and down the street, looking for anyone watching him, anyone who looked out of place, or unusual, but saw nothing alarming.

“Honey cake, m’lord?”

Richard turned to a small girl in a too-big coat standing behind a rickety little table. He guessed her to be ten or twelve, but he wasn’t good at guessing young girls’ ages. “What was that?”

She swept a hand over the wares on her table. “Honey cake? My grandmamma makes them. They’re right good, I can tell you, and only a penny. Would you buy one, please, m’lord? You won’t be sorry.”

On the ground behind the girl, a stocky old woman in a tattered wrap of brown blanket sat on a board placed over the snow. She grinned up at him. Richard only half smiled back as he probed his inner flutter, trying to determine what he was sensing, trying to determine the nature of the foreboding. The girl and old woman smiled hopefully, and waited.

Richard glanced up the street again and then, letting a long cloud of his breath stream away in the light breeze, fished around in his pocket. He had had precious little to eat in his two-week run to Aydindril, and was still weak. All he had was silver and gold from the Palace of the Prophets. He doubted his pack, back at the Confessors’ Palace, had any pennies in it, either.

“I’m not a lord,” he said as he put all but a silver back into his pocket.

The girl pointed at his sword. “Anyone with a fine sword the likes of that must be a lord, surely.”

The old woman had stopped smiling. With her eyes fixed on his sword, she rose to her feet.

Richard hastily pulled his cape across the hilt and the silver- and gold-worked scabbard, and handed the girl the coin. She stared at it in her palm.

“I’ve not enough small money to make change for this much, m’lord. Bless me, I don’t even know how much small money it would take. I’ve never held a silver coin before.”

“I told you, I’m not a lord.” He smiled when she looked up. “My name’s Richard. Tell you what, why don’t you just keep the coin and consider the extra as payment in advance, then whenever I pass this way again, well, you can give me another of your honey cakes for the bargain, until the silver is used up.”

“Oh, m’lord… I mean Richard, thank you.”

Beaming, the girl handed the coin to her grandmamma. The old woman inspected the silver coin with a critical eye as she turned it in her fingers. “I’ve not seen marks like these before. You must have traveled a long way.”

The woman would have no way of knowing where the coin was from; the Old and New Worlds had been separated for the last three thousand years. “I have. The silver is real enough, though.”

She gazed up with blue eyes that looked as if the years had washed out nearly all the color. “Taken or given, m’lord?” When Richard’s brow creased, she gestured. “That sword of yours, m’lord. Did you take it, or was it given to you.”

Richard held her gaze, at last understanding. The Seeker was meant to be appointed by a wizard, but since Zedd had fled the Midlands many years past, the sword had become a prize among those who could afford it, or those who could steal it. Pretend Seekers had given the Sword of Truth a nefarious reputation, and were not to be trusted; they used the sword’s magic for selfish reasons, and not as it had been intended by those who had invested their magic in the blade. Richard was the first in decades to have been named Seeker of Truth by a wizard. Richard understood the magic, its terrible power and responsibility. He was the true Seeker.

“It was given by one of the First Order. I was named,” he said cryptically.

She clutched the blanket to her buxom chest. “A Seeker,” she breathed through the gaps where teeth belonged. “The spirits be praised. A real Seeker.”

The little girl, not understanding the conversation, peered at the coin in her grandmamma’s hand, and then handed Richard the biggest honey cake on the table. He accepted it with a smile.

The old woman leaned over the table a bit and lowered her voice. “You’ve come to rid us of the vermin?”

“Something like that.” He took a bite of the honey cake. He smiled down at the girl again. “It’s as good as you promised.”

She grinned. “Told you so. Grandmamma makes the best ho

ney cakes on Stentor Street.”