The Providence of Fire by Brian Staveley Page B

touched the sweeping expanse of granite above.
    â€œHuge house,” the flier added, “and a private garden halfway up the cliff.”
    â€œWhere’s the kenta ?” Valyn asked, turning in a slow circle, uncertain what he was looking for.
    â€œInside,” Tan said.
    Valyn nodded. “Suits me. Let’s get inside.”
    â€œI thought you wanted a view,” the flier grumbled.
    â€œI want to look,” Valyn said, “not get looked at. The palace has windows. The kenta is there. We set up shop in there.”
    Even dilapidated, even crumbling, the inside of the structure lived up to the promise of its setting. Unlike the hoarded warren of low halls and tunnels below, the palace was high-ceilinged, the gracious windows admitting pools of moonlight along with the cool night air. It wasn’t built for fortification, but then, there wasn’t much need for fortification when you were seventy paces up a sheer cliff.
    â€œUp,” Tan said, gesturing to the wide central staircase with its crumbling balustrade.
    â€œI thought we were up,” Laith griped. “There’s such a thing as too much elevation, you know.”
    â€œAnd this from the Wing’s flier,” Gwenna said.
    â€œWhat do you suppose this was?” Kaden asked, running a hand along the stone.
    Valyn shrugged. “King’s palace. Temple, maybe. Guild hall, if merchants ran the city.”
    To his surprise, Triste shook her head. “An orphanage,” she said quietly, so quietly he wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.
    â€œAn orphanage?” Pyrre asked. Ever since landing, the assassin had seemed curious rather than concerned, but her hands didn’t stray far from the pommels of her knives. “I wish the people where I grew up took such good care of their orphans.”
    Tan ignored the assassin, turning instead to Triste, his stare boring into her. “How do you know that?”
    She glanced at Kaden for support, then pointed back the way they had come, to the doorway opening out onto the ledge. “Above the door. It’s carved there. No one else saw?”
    Valyn shook his head. He really didn’t give a shit if the place was a warehouse or a whorehouse as long as it had good sight lines, redundant exits, and enough life left not to collapse abruptly on their heads. Rampuri Tan, however, had fixed the girl with that empty, unreadable stare of his.
    â€œShow me,” he said.
    â€œWe’re going up,” Valyn said. “I want our perimeter established before full dark.”
    Tan turned to him. “Then establish it. The girl is coming with me.”
    Valyn bit off a sharp retort. The monk wasn’t a part of his Wing, not under his command. He could press the issue, but Rampuri Tan didn’t seem the type to respond to pressure, and every minute spent arguing was a minute of further vulnerability. Besides, there was something about the monk, something dangerous in the way he held that strange spear of his, in the flat calm of his stare. Valyn thought he could kill him if it came to blows, but he didn’t see any reason to test the theory.
    â€œAll right,” he snapped. “I’ll cover you. Let’s get this done quickly.”
    They found the inscription just where Triste said, the words pitted and worn, half obscured by lichen. Valyn squinted at it, trying to make out the lettering before realizing the language was unfamiliar. Linguistic training on the Islands was extensive, but even the characters were alien—sharp and angular, no loops or curves, a script designed to be gouged rather than brushed. He glanced over at Triste, eyebrows raised. “You can read that?”
    She was standing in the deep shadow, staring up at the lintel, shivering with the sudden night chill. “I don’t…” She shook her head, then abruptly nodded instead. “I guess.”
    â€œWhat does it say?” Tan demanded.
    She