Free Academ's Fury by Jim Butcher Page A

"Poor 'Sana. Is there anything more we can do for her?"

    Isana took a deep breath and made an effort to speak, though it came out at hardly more than a whisper. "Begin with washing your hands, little brother. They smell."

    Bernard let out a glad cry, and she was immediately half-crushed in one of his bear hugs.

    "I may need my spine unbroken, Bernard," she rasped, but she felt herself smiling as she did.

    He laid her back down on the bed immediately, carefully restraining his strength. "Sorry, Isana."

    She laid her hand on his arm and smiled up at him. "Honestly. It's all right."

    "Well," said Bitte, her tone crisp. She was a tiny old woman, white-haired and hunched but with more wits than most, and she had been an institution in the Valley for years before the First Battle of Calderon had ever taken place, much less the more recent events. She stood up and made shooing motions. "Out, everyone, out. You all need to eat, and I daresay Isana could use a few moments of privacy."

    Isana smiled gratefully at Bitte, then told Bernard, "I'll come down in a few moments."

    "Are you sure you should—" he began.

    She lifted a hand, and said, more steadily, "I'll be fine. I'm starving."

    All right," Bernard relented, and retreated before Bitte like an indulgent bull from a herding dog. "But let's eat in the study," he said. "We have some things to discuss."

    Isana frowned. "Of course, then. I'll be right there."

    They left, and Isana took a few moments to pull her thoughts together while she freshened up. Her stomach twisted in revulsion as she saw the blood on her skirts and tunic, and she got out of the clothes as quickly as she possibly could, throwing them into the room's fire. It was wasteful, but she knew she couldn't have put them on again. Not after seeing the darkness close in on the young man's eyes.

    She tore her thoughts away from that moment and stripped her underclothing off as well, changing into clean garments. She took her long, dark hair down from its braid, idly noting still more strands of grey. There was a small dressing mirror upon a chest of drawers, and she regarded herself in it thoughtfully as she brushed out her hair. More grey, but to look at her one would not know her age, of course. She was slim (far too much so, by fashionable standards), and her features were still those of a girl only a bit more than twenty years of age—less than half of the years she had actually lived. If she lived to be Bitte's age, she might look as old as a woman in her midthirties, but for the grey hairs, which she refused to dye into darkness. Perhaps that was because between her too-thin body, and the apparent youth gifted to watercrafters, the grey hairs were the only things that marked her as a woman rather than a girl. They were a dubious badge of honor for what she had suffered and lost in her years, but they were all she had.

    She left her hair down, rather than braiding it again, and frowned at herself in the mirror. Taking dinner in the study instead of the hall? It must mean that Bernard—or more likely Amara—was concerned about what might be overheard. Which meant that she had come with some kind of word from the Crown.

    Isana's stomach twisted again, this time in anxiety. The killer in the barn had arrived with quite improbable timing. What were the odds that such a thing would happen only hours before the Crown's messenger arrived in the Valley? It seemed that the two could hardly be unrelated.

    Which begged the question—who had sent the killer after her? The enemies of the Crown?

    Or Gaius himself.

    The thought was not as ridiculous as others might think, given what she knew. Isana had met Gaius and felt his presence. She knew that he was a man of steel and stone, with the will to rule, to deceive and, when necessary, to kill to protect his position and his people. He would not hesitate to order her slain should she become a threat to him. And for all that he knew, she might be one .

    She