Queen's Hunt (River of Souls 2)

To Gerek’s relief, she flowed back into the common room to join another pair of courtesans—one woman and one man—who were gathered around an expensive-looking musical instrument. As Nadine rejoined them, the man ran his fingers over a series of levers. A bright, rippling melody echoed through the common room.

He let his breath trickle out. His first encounter with a genuine courtesan. Not a very successful one.

“Come with me,” Kathe said, as if nothing had happened. “We should visit the gardens.”

* * *

HOURS LATER, GEREK Hessler sat alone in his new office, one floor below Lord Kosenmark’s spacious private suite. After he and Kathe returned from the gardens, Lord Kosenmark had summoned Gerek to his office. There, they had talked—rather, Kosenmark had talked, and at length, while Gerek did little more than attempt to retain the tumbling flow of names and titles and historical events from the pre-empire early days, to the destructive civil wars that fractured the empire, severing Veraene from Károví, Morennioù, Hanídos, and the northern kingdoms.

He rested his head in both hands. He had done it. He had inserted himself into Kosenmark’s household.

It was but the first step. In all that excess of talk, Kosenmark had given nothing away. He had not mentioned Armand of Angersee or Markus Khandarr, the king’s chief councillor and mage. Nor, of course, anything about his activities since Armand dismissed him from court. There had been one teasing detail—a brief mention of minor Károvín nobility—but then the subject had veered to trading agreements between the two kingdoms, and Gerek had not dared to turn the conversation back.

He wished—again—that Dedrick had confided more during his final visit to Gerek’s family. It had taken place directly before Dedrick went for the last time to Duenne and court. Gerek was certain his cousin had gone at Kosenmark’s request to spy on the king.

And what shall you do if you can prove it? his brother had asked.

I don’t know. But it’s not right, what happened to Dedrick. And no one else cares.

His brother had argued, but in the end he had agreed, however reluctantly, to help Gerek with his plans.

Gerek poured himself a cup of water and drank. Kosenmark had given him a small task: Make a list of the supplies you need. Give the list to Mistress Denk, and she will see to everything. Tomorrow we shall start in earnest.

He searched the desk first, to see what it contained. Not much. One drawer held miscellaneous social correspondence from a year before. The others were empty, or nearly so. He found a pen in need of mending, a bottle of ink (almost empty), and several sheets of cheap paper, yellowed along the edges. The list would be a terribly long one. What had happened to the supplies for the previous secretary?

Ilse Zhalina. Secretary, then lover. She left. This was her desk; Hax’s before that.

Curious, he rummaged through a few more drawers. Nothing. Then, wedged between the bottom drawer and the desk’s side, he discovered a half-finished letter. He smoothed out the paper and examined it. The letter was addressed to a Mistress Adela Andeliess in Osterling Keep. It was written in a distinctly feminine hand—however neat and contained—and inquired about a possible post at Mistress Andeliess’s pleasure house. It ended in mid-sentence.

Gerek Hessler carefully replaced the letter where he’d found it. He sat back and exhaled, pulse leaping in unaccountable distress. Tricks and traps of memory all over this house. How could he never mention her name when he continued to find traces of this woman wherever he looked? From Mistress Denk’s warnings, to Kosenmark’s oblique references, to the signs she herself had left everywhere.

Once more he wondered what was the true story behind her departure.

CHAPTER THREE

ILSE ZHALINA STOOD by the window of her study in Osterling Keep. Outside, drifting clouds obscured the stars and darkness lay thick upon the city. Between the inn and bell tower opposite, she could see the lower rim of the crescent moon, dipping toward the watery horizon.

Early spring, almost winter still, and yet the season had turned astonishingly warm. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine herself back in Melnek, on a mid-summer’s night in the northeast province of Morauvín. There was the same salt tang, the same thread of pine when the breezes curled around from the north.

No. Not Melnek. Not my father’s house. It’s not the same at all.

She blew out a long breath, wishing she could expel memories as easily as she could the air from her lungs. Any recollection of Melnek always called up more bitter memories—why she had run away from her father’s house, how she had sold her body to every man in the caravan rather than return, and how that terrible journey had led her to Lord Raul Kosenmark’s household, in Tiralien.

Five months since I left my love. I miss him.

An understatement. She missed Raul Kosenmark as she would miss air to breathe, or salt for meat. As the goddess Lir missed her brother Toc when he died, even knowing he would live once more come spring.

Her heart contracted into a painful knot. Ilse cursed silently as she swiped useless tears from her eyes. She hated herself for being so weak. A strong woman would soldier onward, through loneliness and terror and the ache of separation, to that shining selfless goal of peace between all the kingdoms. She would not mind a part of her self ripped away. Lir had survived until spring, waiting for Toc and their reunion.

Except, except …

Except that Ilse knew she was no goddess, just an ordinary woman, and spring would come without any end to her separation from Raul Kosenmark.

It never will, unless we each do our part.

She drew a long breath and willed herself to calm. Stubbornness. That was the key. Raul often told her she was unnaturally stubborn. She could never tell if he meant it as compliment or complaint. No matter. It was a trait inherited from her father, and though she hated any reminder of that man, hated any thought of Melnek and the life that came before, she knew she must use stubbornness to her own advantage.

Because we are bound by blood and flesh, by past lives and memories. Tanja Duhr knew us all, she thought, when she wrote those words.