Page 84 of Silvercloak

The control.

There was a curious sense of tension in all the places their bodies ran parallel but did not touch, and for several beats, it seemed he might reach out to her, close the gap through sheer impatience, through a deep, penetrating desperation for the contents of her mind. Some primal part of her wondered what it would be like if he did. She wondered how she might respond, how she might run a palm over his chest in search of an old, pitted brand scar. How she might seek power another way.

But she couldn’t—orwouldn’t.

This assignment was her life’s purpose. She would not set fire to it just to heed a base impulse.

Besides, he was not hungry for her. He was hungry for what she knew.

She took a deep breath, a little afraid of what she might be handing him on a platter.

“I know where you can find Nalezen Zares.”

THE NEXT MORNING, THEY TRAVELED TO PORT OURAN BY WATER.

The Bloodmoon riverboat was a handsome scarlet vessel with two tiered decks, dozens of cabins, and a paddlewheel of solid ascenite. It was almost twice as large as the trader boats that meandered up and down the Corven, and a row of three Bloodmoon banderoles—pale gold with a crimson crescent moon—snapped in the breeze.

A small crew of Wielders powered the riverboat, and once the Bloodmoons and the fallowwolf had embarked, they set sail. Segal grunted his goodbyes and disappeared into a back cabin to sleep off a hangover—he hadn’t taken his good friend Vogolan’s departure very well—while Levan, Saffron, and an unfamiliar mage took to the uppermost deck, far away from the listening ears in the wheelhouse.

The sky over Atherin was a moody smudged gray, but the city still looked beautiful as it passed: cherryblossom and market stalls, purple domes and towering pillars, marble columns and gold obelisks and wooden shutters of ocean blue and emerald green. The two banks of the river—Sun Bank and Moon Bank—were lined with pavement cafés and art galleries and street orchestras, and the famous Seven Bridges of Atherin arched over the water.

Saffron savored the wind in her hair, the crystalline scent of the water, the clarion bells of passing vessels. She felt freer than she had in weeks.Months.She hadn’t spent much time on the water—hell, she’d never even seen the ocean—but the feel of it soothed her almost immediately, like a beloved blanket, a mother’s embrace. Perhaps she’d been a pirate in a past life.

Levan stood at the bow of the riverboat, elbows leaning on a white railing, the corded muscles of his broad back rippling through his cloak. Rasso snoozed beneath a crimson awning. Saffron sat near the fallowwolf on a cushioned bench, and the unfamiliar mage took a seat beside her. He had wrinkled brown skin, a long gray beard down to his waist, and half-moon spectacles rimmed with gold—more like a Royal Scholar than a Bloodmoon.

“You must be Saffron Silvercloak.” His words were lightly accented with the lyrical lull of the Eqoran desert.

“Q’taem,” she affirmed, drawing on what little Eqoran she’d picked up from Nissa. She gave him a wry smile. “But Silvercloak isn’t my family name, believe it or not.”

He laughed more raucously than the situation demanded. “Taqin.” True. He extended a weathered hand, and Saffron shook it. The skin on his palm was dry and wrinkled. “Miret Tomazin. A pleasure.”

There was a kindly energy to Miret, but Saffron knew from her endless study of case files that it was often the quietest, most unassuming people who were the deadliest.

“I haven’t seen you around before,” she said casually, kicking her boots up on the bench opposite. “Not even at Lyrian’s little conclave. After Vogolan’s disappearance.” She was careful not to saydeath.

Miret removed his glasses and polished the lenses on the hem of his cloak. “Alas, no. I keep to myself in the library, reading every tome cover to cover. So that if anyone comes in search of knowledge, I know exactly where to direct them.” A playful smile. “When one is blessed with such flawless intelligence, one must put it to good use, but it’s a time-consuming endeavor. And I daresay I’m not getting any younger. Lyrian knows I’d hardly have the superfluous energy to immolate poor Vogolan.”

Saffron frowned. “So why are you on a riverboat in search of a necromancer?”

Miret replaced his glasses on his crooked nose, a twinkle in his brown eyes. “Curiosity, my dear child.”

But from the way he glanced at Levan’s back—with something oddly paternal in his eyes—Saffron sensed there was something more. She thought of the countless books in Levan’s room, his panoramic memory of everything he’d read, and suspected he’d probably spent a good amount of time in the library with Miret Tomazin. With a father like Lyrian, it would be little wonder if the two had developed a bond.

They sailed down a narrow stretch of river, the water flanked on either side by tall, towering trees that kissed in the center. Havendoves nested in the branches, cooing wistfully, and it reminded Saffron of Lunes; her home village was packed to the rafters with the melancholic birds.

“Do you knowwhyLevan’s so intent on finding a necromancer?” she asked Miret, not truly expecting an answer.

He smiled wryly. “That is not for me to divulge.”

So he did know. “Are the two of you close?”

“Ever since his mother passed. The death had a profound effect on his sensibilities, and he developed … compulsions, of sorts. A rigorously ordered way of doing things, every action packed with rituals and mutterings. At one time he was obsessed with writing down every sentence ever spoken to him, as though recording the words would make them real, somehow. The only thing to break through it all was theLost Dragonbornseries.”

Saffron had the acutely shameful feeling that Miret should not be telling her this. It was too private, too personal, and yet he recited the information with an academic distance. It was exactly the kind of intel she was here to collect, the kind of intel that would bring the Silvercloaks’ case file on the Bloodmoons to life, and yet it felt oddly uncomfortable to stare right into the traumatized heart of Levan Celadon.

Still, the revelation struck Saffron deeply, resonantly. The thought of young Levan, riddled with grief-fueled compulsions, caused a curious clenching sensation in her chest. Her young mind had also splintered from the loss of her parents—leaving her mute for the better part of six years—and the same book had brought them back from the edge.

Levan’s pain was her pain. The same texture, the same shape.

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