Page 27 of Shadows of Winter

“That is what I’m prepared to do.”

Kaylina struck one of the bulbous matches and lit her small lantern, wishing the tiny flame provided warmth as well as light. Weariness and the pervasive chill made her long for her cozy bed back home. The thought crept into her that she had possibly acted rashly and that leaving had been a mistake.

She quashed it. “We need to make a fire so we don’t freeze, but I’m going to look around first.”

“Me too.” Frayvar stuck close as they passed through the great hall and library, the latter filled with tables and booths instead of books, and headed toward the kitchen. It would have a large hearth and doors that closed to keep in warmth, so it would be a logical place to bed down for the night.

Remembering the noise she’d heard back there earlier, Kaylina hesitated to enter. But she had to be brave. She wouldn’t let the smug and haughty Vlerion be right.

Frayvar must have been eager to see the room that would be most important to him, because he eased past her to lead the way.

A cast-iron pan lay on the floor. When Kaylina picked it up, it had the heft of a weapon, not an omelet maker. She had to set the lantern down and use both hands to turn it over. That lord had been killed by a blunt object, but she didn’t see any hair or blood on the pan.

“Doesn’t mean that much,” she murmured, setting it down on a chipped travertine countertop. The clank echoed in the cavernous space, and something small skittered across a huge wrought-iron pot rack attached to a thick ceiling beam. “Mouse,” she murmured, hoping that was all it was. She hung the pan from the holder, where other large pots dangled.

A moan came from the floor above. A human moan?

No, it had to be the wind. Maybe.

Kaylina grimaced. As brave as she wanted to be, this place was creepy.

“Did that moan come from the same tower as the red light?” Frayvar asked.

“I don’t know. It’s probably the wind blowing over the roof again.”

He looked skeptically at her. “I’ll make a fire if you want to explore.”

He waved to a box by the hearth, logs filling it, the quartered wood so dry and dusty it might have been there for decades. Or centuries? From halfway across the kitchen, Kaylina could see thick cobwebs between the logs, one with a large spider hunkered in it.

“Sure. I’m not afraid to look around by myself.” Kaylina said that more to convince herself it was the truth than out of a desire to display bravado for her brother.

“I would be,” he muttered.

Before leaving, she lit a few stout candles so he would have light. The tops were as dusty as everything else, and it took several tries to get the wicks to burn.

She sniffed at an odd milky scent that wafted from them. “These aren’t beeswax.”

“A lot of things up here are made from whale oil. Those are probably spermaceti candles. That’s a waxy substance you can scrape out of the head cavities of sperm whales.”

“How come you know things like that but not how to escape from jail cells?”

“My education isn’t as complete as I’d believed.”

“Clearly.”

Between the kitchen and the original dining hall, Kaylina found wooden stairs leading upward. There were no windows to let in moonlight, only the gray rectangular stones that made up the walls, the chill of winter radiating off them.

She held the lantern ahead of her as she climbed, each step making the ancient oak treads creak. A ping, ping, ping came from somewhere above. She couldn’t blame the wind for that.

Before reaching the top, Kaylina tucked a lead round into her sling and carried it in her free hand. To deal with criminals who might be hiding out, she told herself, not a curse.

Two hallways, one wide and one narrow, met at a landing at the top of the stairs. Both were lined with doors, most closed. Windows at the ends of the hallways made the darkness less absolute, but the panes were filmed or broken. A cold breeze drifted through, tempting her to dismiss the moans she’d heard as being caused by the broken window. But the movement of air didn’t make any sounds while she stood there. It merely brushed her cheeks with its chill.

Kaylina chose the wide hallway, but she didn’t see stairs in any direction. Was there no way to access the towers from this level?

After a few steps, light came from an open doorway, and a man in black stumbled backward into the hallway.

Startled, Kaylina jerked her sling up, almost losing the round with the erratic motion. The man’s back struck the wall opposite the doorway as he gripped something at his throat. A snake? A vine? Whatever it was had wrapped around his neck. The rest of it trailed down his body and back through the doorway of the room he’d exited.

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