"Leave?" Moria said.
"Yes, I know, you just got here," Barthol said. "I'm sure you'd love to stay, but we need you to take a message to the emperor."
A moment of silence. Moria broke it. "What message?"
Barthol took an envelope from under his jacket. "A sealed missive for the emperor's eyes only. If the seal is broken or tampered with in any way, we'll find out. We have eyes in court."
"Then get them to deliver your message."
Gavril shifted as if he knew why they wouldn't. Ashyn did, too. She had read enough stories about the court to realize that Barthol was referring to spies, who would never reveal themselves by handing notes to the emperor.
"Would you rather stay here?" Barthol asked Moria.
"I'd rather know what the blazes is going on."
Barthol laughed. "Quick with your blade and quick with your tongue. I'd be inclined to make you an offer of employment, Keeper, if I thought you'd entertain it. The message is for the emperor only. However, because it might speed your steps, I will share part of it with you: the stakes. Fail to deliver this note--or tamper with it--and every child from your village dies."
Silence. Even Moria didn't speak.
Barthol continued. "What you saw in Edgewood was only a demonstration. If the emperor does not agree to our demands, this lovely town--and all its people--will suffer the same fate."
It was Ashyn who found her voice first. "You mean the . . ."
"Shadow stalkers. Yes, that's what they were. They wait just beyond the town walls, as the good governor can attest."
The governor looked as if he might be sick. Fyren walked over and kicked his leg. "Come now, old man, tell the children what happened."
"It was . . ." The governor swallowed. "A traveling party. A few warriors and their families. The shadow stalkers set upon them at dusk. Our people were . . ." He paused now. "Taken from us."
"Now, governor, be truthful," Fyren said. "We didn't take them. We brought them back. Right here to Fairview. The next night."
The governor grabbed the sides of his chair, as if he might launch himself at Fyren. Two armed men stepped forward. The governor lowered himself and turned to the captives.
"They brought them, as shadow stalkers, to show us what they had become. To show me what my son and his family . . ." He could go no further.
"But you have other sons," Barthol said. "With other families. And you will continue to have them if these children do as they are told."
Ashyn watched her sister's hand grip her dagger hilt, so tightly her knuckles whitened. Gavril tensed, as if ready to stop her. Ashyn knew he wouldn't need to. Her sister's blue eyes blazed hate, but she was not foolish enough to attack.
Ashyn looked at the governor and tried to imagine--
Her knees quivered just watching the grief on his face, the remembered horror. To see your child returned to you, not dead and not alive, but something far worse. It was beyond--
Ashyn's breath caught. She slowly turned to her sister, but Moria was facing resolutely forward, her chin up, her whole body stiff.
To see your child that way was terrible. And to see your father that way? To run home, certain he was dead, then to watch him rise, to feel the joy of relief, and then . . .
There was something more horrifying than what the governor had suffered. Seeing Moria standing so rigid, holding in her grief and her pain and her rage--now Ashyn understood, and when tears filled her eyes, they weren't for the governor, however sad his plight.
"What say you, Keeper?" Barthol's voice rang through the hall. "Will you take the message? Or would you like to tell the good governor here to bid farewell to the rest of his family? We can take you to tell the children they'll die, too. They'd be delighted to see you. They hold you in such high regard. The Keeper will save us. That's what they said when we told them you were coming."
A round of chortles from the other mercenaries.
Barthol stepped forward. "So, Keeper, will you save them? Or will you tell them to prepare to meet their ancestors--"
"Enough."
It was Gavril, his voice low. Barthol only snorted a laugh.