Through Stone and Sea by Barb Hendee

Author:Barb Hendee
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 2010-03-30T06:13:22.969000+00:00

Time crawled as Chane stood behind a weaver’s booth, a quarter of the way around the market from the tunnel to the Stonewalkers’ hidden passage. Half of the vendors had closed or packed up their stalls. Once the rest were finished, how long before a constabulary passed by on rounds and spotted him lurking about?

Chane tensed as a flash of white caught his eye.

Around the cavern’s back, Duchess Reine and her elf and guards came out of the tunnel. They headed directly across the nearly empty market for the passage to Breach Mainway.

Chane bent down and rounded the market’s back wall, keeping out of sight behind scant booths and the tall, painted columns. Once he had obtained a position behind the duchess’s group, he pulled up his hood and quietly closed in.

The elf spoke in hushed tones as the group neared the exit, and the duchess paused and turned.

Chane ducked behind a column and peered carefully along its side.

She looked up at her elven companion, her features stiff and unreadable. Some lingering shock or long fatigue had left her numb. But her arms were empty, the breeches and shirt gone, and no one else carried them. Barely a stone’s toss behind them, Chane fully widened his senses.

A thin scent began to fill his nose.

The duchess’s hair was a bit out of place. One loose tendril hung against her left temple and cheek. The sea-wave comb on that side was askew, as if removed and replaced without a mirror’s aid. And her boots and cloak’s hem were dark, perhaps soaked.

Chane sniffed cautiously. The scent of seawater lingered from the duchess’s passing.

She never replied to the elf, and Chane never caught what the advisor said. The duchess turned and resumed her journey without any change in her withdrawn expression.

Chane crept onward, keeping Reine in his sight.

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