Iyedraeka was weeping, and the prince was trying both to comfort her and muffle her cries. Martiveht was pacing around the cave, as if she were checking for traps. I leaned close to Yaendrid and repeated my question, “How do you know about this cave?”

  Her eyes narrowed and a little line appeared above her nose. “You know my story. You know that I wandered here, after I left Libreigia.”

  “I know the *story*,” I said. I was angry, full of battle rage, and my knees hurt from running.

  She stepped close to me. She smelled of flowers, and her big, capable hands stroked the front of my robes, like a mother straightening a disordered child. “Haendil, I promise that I will tell you everything. But not now. We are in danger, and I fear for the princess.”

  Iyedraeka heard that. She lifted her tear-smeared face from Chahsaeda’s shoulder and said, “I don’t understand. Why am I being pursued?”

  I held Yaendrid’s gaze for a moment longer, then turned to her. “You were lured to the shrine. And then the king was enticed into following you. A trap was set for both of you, but it’s gone wrong.”

  “But surely it’s the king they’re after.”

  “It is,” Chahsaeda said, “but there might be a particular reason why our enemy wants you dead.”

  “But who is it? Who is doing this?”

  The prince met my gaze, his eyes asking me not to answer. Yaendrid stepped back and appraised me, as if I were about to go on parade, her eyes running from the hem of my robes to the top of my head. She lifted herself on tiptoe and straightened my helmet. “It doesn’t make sense,” she said softly, as if speaking only to me. “They failed in the assassination attempt. They should have just slunk away.”

  “But we saw Pertrahn,” I told her. “We know that the rangers are involved.”

  “Yes, I suppose. But they can’t hope to succeed. Not now. Think of it. The city is full of people. They might not love King Poritifahr, but they don’t hate him, either. And I don’t think they would accept Dasuekoh, if it were known that he was behind the attacks.”

  Chahsaeda let out a disappointed sigh. Yaendrid kept her gaze on me. Did I see some slight mischief in her eyes?

  “Dasuekoh?” Iyedraeka asked. There was amazement in her voice. It teetered on the edge of despair.

  Yaendrid’s gaze sharpened. She looked at me expectantly. It was as if I had forgotten some important piece of court etiquette, some cue as to how I was supposed to act. I broke from her gaze and looked around for assistance. It was Chahsaeda who spoke. “I…we believe that my brother was behind this.”

  “My husband? But why?”

  “Iyedraeka,” he said softly. His upper lip was quivering. He looked more afraid in that moment than he had at any other time that day.

  She stared around at the hard stone walls of the cave. “Martiveht?” she asked. Her handmaiden emerged from the shadows. She went to the princess and began straightening her gowns, a more brusque and indifferent gesture than Yaendrid had used on me.

  “They cannot hope to hold the city,” Yaendrid persisted. “No matter how clever they were in their plotting. It’s all gone wrong. If the King’s Guard has managed to get the king into the shrine, they can hold out for days. The populace will learn of it. They’ll rise up against the conspirators.”

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  All of her comments were directed at me, and her face had an urgent look, as if she were willing me to understand some coded message. Chahsaeda drew his handsome face into a frown. “Then we should have stayed with my father,” he said.

  “Perhaps,” Yaendrid answered. She turned away from me, and I felt a surge of relief. As if I had just been interrogated, and would now be allowed to rest. “But your strategy was for the best. If you escape, it doesn’t matter what happens at the shrine. The populace will choose you over a usurper.” She glanced at Vaenahma, who hadn’t moved from their position by the cave entrance, and then at Martiveht. “We need to know what’s happening,” she said.

  Martiveht scowled. “I am not carrying any ghosts at present.”

  Yaendrid studied her with the same orderly gaze that she had used on me. “No one from the battle by the shrine?”

  “When was there time?”

  Vaenahma spoke from the cave entrance. “People have died in this cave. And in these woods.”

  “Well, there are no ghosts here,” Martiveht said curtly.

  “Isn’t that strange,” Vaenahma said. An observation, not a question.

  Yaendrid turned her head to look at my lieutenant. A slow, calculating look crossed her big features.

  “’What’s strange about it?” Martiveht asked. “The ghosts were collected.”

  “Here? Some Sasturi came out into the countryside and went from cave to cave collecting the spirits?”

  “We aren’t that far from the shrine.”

  “Yes, yes!” Chahsaeda said, in the tones of a school boy remembering his lessons. He was always a good boy. He could tell that there was some inexplicable current of disagreement in that cave, some unspoken point of tension. He tried to dispel it with his enthusiasm. “They’re attracted to the spirit stone. They’d go to the shrine, wouldn’t they?”

  “They might,” Martiveht said. She was looking at Yaendrid, and her mosaic expression was odd, as if she were entertaining the same suspicions that I was. “What tower do you serve?” she asked the seneschal.

  But Chahsaeda was not to be deterred. “They would. Of course they would.”

  “Why does it matter, Prince?”

  “They’re probably moving through the hills right now. I mean, if there were other battles, north of here. Couldn’t you just go out in the woods and catch one?”

  Martiveht signed and gave him her whole attention. “It is uncertain how far a spirit stone’s attraction extends. Perhaps it is determined by the stone itself, or the shrine that is built around it. The shrine in Raensapal can draw the dead from more than ten miles away. But Rahasabahst Shrine? I do not know.”

  “But shouldn’t we go out there, into the woods? Shouldn’t we go and see? Perhaps you can snag a ghost as it walks by.”

  It fell to me to quell the prince’s enthusiasm. “There are living people in those woods at the moment. Wait until the sun goes down.”

  “The captain is wise,” Yaendrid said, and there was something in her tone I didn’t like. As if she had dressed me up like an actor, and somehow prompted me to say what I said. “When the sun goes down, this sasturi can find a ghost.”

  “Martiveht,” Iyedraeka said, as if to reassure or plead with her servant.

  “It is all right, Princess,” Martiveht told her. “If there is a ghost to find, I will capture it. The seneschal is right. We need a scout.”

  “Martiveht,” Iyedraeka repeated, “what of my husband? Why would he do this?”

  Vaenahma spoke from their position by the cave entrance. “It is the way of princes,” the said, and their voice was strange, strained by a grief they rarely allowed themselves to express. “It is always the way of princes.”

  Chahsaeda raised his head. He looked about, as if expecting someone to contradict my lieutenant. But no one said anything. “We should go to Nhadtereyba,” he said. “My uncle will keep us safe, until we can learn what’s happening in the city.”

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  Copyright KPB Stevens, 2025

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  The Quisling Beguiler of Basokume

  The Hidden Exempla of the Sasturi Sect, condemned by His Grace the Emperor Oments II in the year 343 of the Eretsuma Empire