The thought gives me pause. Maybe that’s why my sworn vengeance feels unfulfilled even after Bolin the outsider, who murdered Alvar and his friends so he could sell their corpses to the necromancers, was killed. Maybe I have to kill the humans who ordered the divination. If that’s true, I ought to just kill myself right now. There’s no way I can find and kill that many humans. Unless I burn down the entire city. Which, believe me, I’d like to do. But how? How could that ever be achieved?
“There are yew trees in the painting, too,” Enturi announces. “Interesting. Their branches almost seem to be reaching out to each other.” He turns to Lynae. “What is the significance of the yew tree? Why is it sacred?”
“It’s because that’s where we get the wood for our bows,” I tell him, interjecting.
“We?” The pretty boy looks confused. Damn it. I sigh, and go on.
“An elven master bowyer can get the wood to make a bow from a living yew without hurting the tree. The wood remains living through some enchantment, as though still connected to its tree, and yet attuned to the elf for whom it is made. It’s why our archers are so deadly that the humans have forbidden us to make or carry bows here. Of course, without the living wood of the yew tree, we would only be moderately better archers than they, but they don’t know that.”
Enturi looks at me curiously.
“How do you know this, Arq?”
“I heard it from a crazy old lady once,” I mutter.
“Now,” I say, irritated. “Can we please be quiet so we can get some rest and not wake up everyone in the building above us?” I lay my head back against the foundation wall and close my eyes. I don’t want to talk anymore. I just want to sleep. I hope Enturi doesn’t mind a bit more guard duty.
“Enturi?” I hear Lynae ask after a few moments. “Tell me about the House of Law. I’ve heard that no one goes near it because there are restless dead within, hungry for revenge, who will kill everyone who comes close, or put such fear into them that they are driven to irrevocable madness.”
“We didn’t see any restless dead,” Enturi explains. “We did see lots of dead elves, but it was just their bones, mostly, crumbling into dust. But they weren’t guarding the place. Someone had placed wards – fear wards – and those were what has kept everyone out. Every time an elf gets close, he would feel crippling fear and want to get away as soon as possible.”
“How is it that you and Arq got in, then?” she asks.
“It was Arq’s idea, actually,” Enturi admits, for the first time ever. I was starting to drift off, but this wakes me up a bit. Is my work rival turning over a new leaf? Or just recognizing that there’s no purpose to lying anymore, since it won’t get him anywhere?
“As you may have noticed with that half-ogre, I know a little bit about fear – about how to make others afraid. And it was kind of instinctive, but I was able through concentration to lower the force of the wards or increase my and Arq’s willpower just enough that we could move through the area of the fear and make it to the building.”
“That’s very impressive,” Lynae says appreciatively. “You are interesting and talented. No wonder Jet valued you.” There is a pause, during which I am sure Enturi is blushing like a patrician virgin at a bawdy show. “Do you think you can do that for all three of us?”
“I won’t have to. We shifted the facing of one of the wards. There is a small gap in the ring of wards now, just against the wall. We can come and go as we please, but it is unlikely anyone else would stumble upon it.”
“Why did you go there? Was that Arq’s idea, too?”
“Yes. He was looking for something. He thought it might be in the Hall of Law.”
“What was he looking for? Did he find it?”
“Yes.” Enturi sounds reticent. A bit uncomfortable. “You’d have to ask him about that, though. It’s his business, not mine. I just helped him get in.”
Lynae laughs lightly. “I might,” she says. “But I expect that if he wants me to know, he’ll tell me in his own time."
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