Snow came early that year, and it came without any of the usual warnings. Nothing about the wound was fatal, which suggested the intent had been a message.
There were two ways out of the valley, and someone had spent real money closing one of them. He understood, then, that he had been the message and not the messenger.
A merchant with nothing to sell is a merchant with something to hide. Outside, the market went on shouting about fish, entirely unbothered by the end of an era.
“Say the number out loud,” the old man said. “Things you refuse to say out loud tend to get expensive.”
Whatever had walked through the outer array had not bothered to close it behind itself. They had rehearsed the lie so many times that the truth felt like the improvisation.
“It is not a rescue,” he corrected. “A rescue implies someone is going back.”
“Half the sect thinks you are dead,” she said. “The useful half.”
“You are early,” she said, without looking up. “That is either respect or nerves.”
The junior disciples had begun taking bets, which was its own kind of forecast. The blade was old, badly balanced, and the only honest thing in the room.
He counted the guards twice, got two different numbers, and decided the second one was a lie. The technique took eleven breaths. He had, by his own estimate, about seven.
He had been told the family was in decline. Decline, apparently, still ran to four courtyards. What he wanted was simple. What he was willing to trade for it was the interesting part.
“Whatever you are about to do,” the guard said, “please do it somewhere that is not my shift.”
The contract's ninth clause was written in a hand that did not match the other eight. In the capital, a favour is a currency with a floating exchange rate.
It was not a complicated arrangement, which was precisely what made it dangerous. The estate was smaller than the rumours, and better defended than the maps.
The door closed. Somewhere below, a ledger was quietly amended.