Page 21 of Horn of Winter

“Borrhás’s Horn is your first target. Borrhás was a god of the cold north wind and the bringer of winter. In times past, he was also known as the North Wind or the Devouring One.”

The latter no doubt being the reason he’d leapt ahead in the finding order. “There were no relics starting withA?”

“There are indeed a couple,” a shifter to my left replied.

I waited for a second, but when nothing else was forthcoming, I glanced at Mathi. He was lounging back in his chair with an amused sort of expression, and simply raised an eyebrow. Which, in this case, was Mathi shorthand for “keep on questioning them.”

I flicked my gaze back to the elder elf. “So why has the horn hit the top of the find list? Was there an incident or something that prompted it?”

“There was indeed,” the rat shifter said. His nose was twitching slightly, though whether it was in distaste at mypresence or something else, I couldn’t say. “We were notified of an unusual occurrence a few weeks ago, and a subsequent investigation led us to believe the horn might be the cause.”

“Meaning we have someone running around armed with a dangerous relic, but if I had not asked the question, you would not have informed me—have I got that right?”

“You will be told exactly what you need to be told,” another elf said, in a condescending manner. “Besides, there are few relics that are not dangerous in the hands of the wrong person.”

“Though we do hope,” my pixie counterpart added, “that finding one to two might indeed lead us to the hoard itself.”

“It’s been over six months since the hoard disappeared,” the youngest-looking elf said, glancing her way. “It’s unlikely the hoard remains intact, even if, as far as we can ascertain, no items have as yet hit the market.”

The urge to say it most certainly hadn’t been dismantled as yet rose, but I resisted. It was unlikely Carla Wilson was physically in this room—surely the spells that prevented the various animal shifters from taking their alternate form would also prevent a face shifter from doing it—but even so, I couldn’t risk mentioning my visions of her tete-a-tete with her boss. She might not be here personally, but she most certainly had her claws in at least one of the councilors, and I had to presume that person or persons were in this room. One mention would give them warning, and I couldn’t risk the man in charge extending his shield to prevent me even hearing their conversations.

“With the hold the Myrkálfar have on the black market, anyone with any sort of sense wouldn’t risk selling or even moving any item from the hoard this soon.” The speaker this time was a woman with a sharp face and wiry red hair—a fox shifter, obviously, though not the same one I’d seen previously.

“Six months is hardly what most would consider soon,” the rat shifter commented. “But I do agree that, for whatever reason, it is likely the hoard remains intact.”

And the main reason it remained that way wasn’t so much the Myrkálfar, but rather the fact Carla and her boss wanted to find Ninkil’s Harpe—a relic that was both a sword and sickle, and the only means by which Ninkil could be called back into the world—first. Why they’d stolen the hoardbeforethey’d found it, I couldn’t say; maybe the perfect opportunity had presented itself and they’d simply taken the risk. Or maybe they hadn’t expected the Harpe to be so hard to find.

And maybe if they’d used Mom’s finding skills rather than murdering her, they might have had it in their hands by now.

Although, given Mom had, according to Beira, been having worrying visions about Ninkil’s rise and wouldn’t have willingly gone along with such a search, the latter was unlikely.

The elderly elf banged the gavel, drawing attention back to him. “Conjecture over what is and isn’t happening with the hoard is pointless. Our objective is to find it, and if we have to do that one item at a time, then we shall.”

“Just how many items were in the hoard to start with?” I said. “Because you only have my services for two years, remember. After that, it’ll cost you.”

“There are twenty-three items in the main hoard,” the blue-haired pixie said. “But several other chests were taken. We suspect the thieves were uncertain as to what, exactly, they were meant to take.”

I frowned. “They had the help of the bibliothecary, be it willingly or not, so that really isn’t likely.”

“That may well be true, but given the bibliothecary is dead, it is also a statement that can never be confirmed.”

And that was the precise reason Carla and her boss killed off their employees once they’d outlived their usefulness. The dead could wag no tongues. “What else do we know of the horn?”

“Not a lot, aside from the fact we believe it was cleaved in two at some point. It is made from the horn of an auroch—a breed of cattle that no longer exists—and has an intricate sleeve of carved gold around the rim and a similarly intricate stopper,” the old elf said. “We’re unsure whether it comes with fitted rings through which legs could be attached to allow it to stand, or if indeed it could be strung with rope and slung around the shoulder and be carried.”

“That’s not much to go on.”

“It is all the information the recent archives have.”

“And the older archives? Or even the council records?”

“You forget that the council was not responsible for guarding the hoard, nor did we know where it was located,” the rat shifter replied. “It is also fair to say the Ljósálfar would never share such information willingly.”

“But surely you must have records somewhere—maybe some old scrolls listing all items when the hoard first came into Ljósálfar hands for safekeeping?”

“While it is true we were the guards and did undertake the necessary inventory,” the older elf said, “we were not responsible for the safety of those records. That has always been the council’s purview. At least, it has been since the great war and Liadon was installed as keeper and recorder.”

In other words, no one was about to claim responsibility for any records that were missing. Nothing worked quite like officialdom.

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