Page 26 of Secrets of Graves and Gold

“What is it?” Casimir asks softly.

I swallow hard. “There’s magic here. I can’t sense much yet. I don’t know where it’s coming from.”

Maybe that isn’t surprising, given who sent us here. We can probably find out what’s going on soon enough.

Kosmel said I was supposed to announce myself.

The words the trickster godlen gave me reverberate through my mind. I lift my voice to carry, ignoring the hitch of my pulse at forgoing caution. “Kosmel led me here and expects me to receive a riven’s welcome!”

And a better riven’s welcome than the king offered, Julita mutters.

We stand in silence for a few minutes, nothing reaching my ears but the hiss of the water. Alek eases closer to me. “What was supposed to happen now?”

I shake my head. “Kosmel didn’t explain. He just told me that I should ‘listen.’”

The scholar slips his hand around mine and squeezes my fingers. I grip his hand tightly in return, my heart thumping in anticipation.

For all I’m watching and listening, it’s Rheave who notices first, with an urgent sound low in his throat. “There’s a woman up there.”

My gaze jerks to the point he’s looking at just as a form moves into view, made tiny by the distance. The figure vanishes into the brush again, but I keep my head tipped up, so I see her as soon as she re-emerges by the top of the waterfall.

She’s still too far away for me to make out the finer details of her appearance, but she looks to have at least four decades behind her, perhaps five. The streaks of pale gray woven through her black hair remind me of the crossed trees. She moves a little stiffly, not with the full limberness of youth.

Her plain brown dress and matching cloak cover everything but her hands, boots, and face, helping her blend into the forest. As she stares down at us, her posture stiffens even more.

She backs up a step as if she thinks we could threaten her from all the way down here.

“Which of you called me?” she demands in a gravelly voice she projects down the mountainside.

I raise my hand. “I did. But we’ve all come together. These men are with me.”

It’s hard to decipher the woman’s expression, but she sounds incredulous. “And you brought them here?”

“I don’t even know where ‘here’ is. Kosmel gave me the directions, and I followed them. He didn’t say anything about needing to come alone.”

He didn’t say I should have the men with me either, but I don’t see any point in mentioning that. It’s not as if the godlen couldn’t have figured out that if he didn’t specify one way or another, I’d be bringing them along.

The woman hesitates. I’m not sure what she’s waiting for.

“They know what you are?” she says in the same disbelieving tone.

Stavros speaks up in his commanding general’s tone, sounding as if he’s trying to rein in his impatience. “We’re aware of her magic, and we have no interest in extinguishing it. In fact, we’re quite devoted to ensuring she remains alive in spite of other opinions to the contrary. If that’s all you’re concerned about, there’s no need to worry. Maybe you could explain why the trickster godlen would have pointed us here?”

The woman is silent for a long moment. Her lips move, but she must have murmured something to herself, because I can’t make out the words.

A more potent quiver of magic passes by me from just behind, coursing up the mountain. Casimir lifts his head—he must have used his gift, sought out a sense of what he could do to make her happiest right now.

The courtesan offers one of his gentle smiles. “You have nothing to fear from us at all. We simply want to see Ivy safe and well. We’ve taken every care to ensure no one could track us here, so your own security shouldn’t be disturbed. But if there’s been some mistake and we aren’t welcome at all, we can take our leave.”

Something shifts in the woman’s face. Another supernatural quiver tickles through my nerves, one I think came from her.

What gift is she casting over us?

Whatever it is, between our words and her own observations, she makes up her mind. Her posture relaxes incrementally.

“Tie your horses there for now. I’ll come to lead them the long way around after we’ve had a chance to talk properly. You’ll find a sort of staircase of stone between the trees a little to your right.”

I glance over, and the rocky stairs show plainly through the brush—so clearly I don’t know how I could have failed to notice them before.

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