Reckoner by Andy Peloquin

Author:Andy Peloquin [Peloquin, Andy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Jaia seemed to interpret the Hunter’s contemplation as suspicion or disbelief. Whether out of a need to convince him or merely so rattled that holding her peace only gave the fear time to take deeper root in her mind, she broke the silence.

“Last evening, as I was making notes of what I learned from our visit to the Vault of Ancients and the Tomb of Hallar yesterday, I had occasion to consider what the Pharus said about the Serenii stones that served as the key. And that got me thinking of what I knew of the resonator stones used similarly for the Serenii-built structures around Einan. Including the Gaerradh Dorjeon and the Monolith of Malandria.” Her face darkened. “That’s when the idea struck me. And, searching among our belongings, my suspicion proved true.”

She wiggled her hand to set the stone dancing in her open palm. “I found this bloody thing tucked in my vest.” With her other hand, she tapped the pocket over her left breast. “There’s no way it was mine, so I knew it could be nothing else.”

The Hunter’s mind raced to catch up. “You think the Secret Keepers planted that stone on you?”

Jaia nodded without hesitation. “I can see no other way it might have come to be on my person.”

“When?” the Hunter asked.

“On the road to Obrathe seems most likely,” put in Alessard, his voice a rumbling growl to match the scowl marring his features. “Had they planted it sooner, they would have found us long before that day.”

“I agree.” Jaia’s jaw muscles clenched, and she closed her fist around the stone. “Until that day our paths first crossed, we had managed to largely avoid the Secret Keepers. I do not know how they found us—how they knew we would be on that road—but they did.”

“Perhaps the same way you suspected I’d be on that road.” The Hunter kept his voice toneless, level. “If they found whatever member of the Hidden Circle led you to me…” He left the rest unsaid.

Jaia’s eyes widened a fraction. She hadn’t forgotten Liak’s death, clearly. The man had chosen to take his own life rather than let himself—or his husband and daughter—fall into Insularii Varsav and Ghakkim’s hands. Her fingers uncurled of their own accord and the color drained from her face as she stared down at the stone nestled in her palm. She flinched, as if recoiling from the ugly realization that she had led the Expiators right to the alchemist.

Her words, spoken one night days earlier on the road south, resonated in the Hunter’s mind. “Wherever we go, I would see no more Lunas and Elyns lose everything.” For all the haughty indifference she might pretend, beneath the façade, she carried the weight of what had happened to the daughters of both the alchemist and bargeman to this day.

And in that moment, the urgency with which she’d insisted—then pleaded—that Kiara, Evren, and Briana leave the Hunter to this matter alone made sense. She’d acted the way she had to keep them out of harm’s way.

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