“Can’t believe they’re finally leaving,” Wurhi the Rat muttered, blowing misting breath on her hands. Pain and numbness had seeped in from half a day standing in the cold.

The last of the funeral procession trudged through House Ameldan’s gates, their black-clad figures contrasting the snow-crusted street. Wailing a dirge, a grey-haired woman led them, her steps in time with a deep drum. Her dark veil blew in the wind and Haldrych Ameldan followed with head bowed and body wilted.

Not a single jewel glittered upon him - to Wurhi’s delight. She had discretely asked after Laexondael’s funerary practices: it was taboo to wear elaborate decoration during the rites of sepulture.

As the line of mourners - framing an ebony palanquin borne by hulking Garumnan slaves - disappeared into the rising snow, Wurhi melted into the crowd of onlookers. Standing a full head shorter than nearly every other woman in the throng, she disappeared as a fish within murky waters.

Slipping through the narrow pass-ways between the walled manor houses, she made for the rear of the Ameldan estate. With hood pulled high and a woolen face wrap riding above her nose, she bent her back and assumed the unsure gait of an old beggar picking their way through the snow.

Her beady green eyes studied the back-facing wall, noting how its stones came together. She spied a tree close to the rampart, with branches reaching toward it. After a furtive glance left and right, she sprang toward the stones and shot up like a squirrel bolting up a trunk.

A leap from the top of the wall carried her to the closest branch.

Creak.

She froze, the limb swaying from her weight.

Slowly, it steadied.

She let out a breath, glaring at the tree. “You’re lucky,” she whispered. “Drop me and I’ll be back with an axe.”

Hand over hand, the small Zabyallan made her way to the trunk and slid softly into the snow below.

As her feet sank into the cold, she held her breath for several heartbeats.

No cry of alarm went up.

‘Good.’

She leaned around the tree and sought a way to cross to the manor.

The Zabyallan palaces she had burgled had gardens providing lush cover for a thief. Yet here in the north, winter burned the scent from the air and the leaves from the flora, save for iron-tough needles that covered strange, lean trees.

Thankfully, hedges of those same needled trees rose between her and the manor, woven together in a labyrinth. It was as though they were asking to be robbed.

She would oblige.

Wurhi the Rat plunged into the maze.

Crnch. Crnch.

Her cracked lips thinned in irritation. Trudging through snow was similar to deep sand but - while sand muffled her footfalls - snow made an infernal crunch she was sure half the north could hear. She rose onto her tiptoes, stepping lightly and with glacial pace.

Through the hedges, the manor’s towers rose against iron grey clouds.

Wurhi strained to hear over the rustle of needles in the wind.

A woman’s giggle froze her in place.

Silently cursing, the Zabyallan pressed herself to the base of a stone statue. A granite centurion raised a short sword over the crest of its helm, with icicles jutting from a stony arm. The icicles partially reflected movement from the adjacent path.

“This is wrong, Halgo…the mistress is not even entombed,” a woman whispered.

“But we are alive, my dearest,” a man whispered back “And life can be sadly quick.”

“But…we need to guard-”

“We’re close enough to hear…come, let me taste your lips.”

The voices grew muffled.

Wurhi nearly snorted as she slipped away.

The tiny Zabyallan crept through the maze - her body low and flush to the hedge wall - until she spied an exit close to the manor.

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Peering through the green needles, her eyes scanned the building: the shutters were fastened on all windows. No doubt they had been barred from within. She looked for another-

She froze and had to fight laughter. A double doorway rose a mere ten paces before her. One of the great oaken doors lay slightly ajar. No doubt the lovers had left it open in their haste.

“Ox-witted lechers,” she whispered. “But thank the gods for fools, eh, Kyembe?”

She glanced over her shoulder.

Her smile faded.

Only the empty path lay in her wake.

Wurhi’s face soured and she shook herself. “Get your head right.”

Darting across the snow, she slipped into the manor.

Alone.

----------------------------------------

“I don’t like this,” Haldrych muttered. “They could be at the manor even now.”

“Not this again,” Adelmar whispered, glancing back and forth along the line of black-clad mourners. None looked at them. “I told you, it will be taken care of.”

“By then it could be too late,” the poet hissed. “I should’ve left more guards.”

“Do you want to raise suspicion?” Adelmar nearly tore off his veil. “It’s tradition. You left behind a couple: anymore and you’d look like you cared more for your house than her soul.”

“And?”

The merchant’s son groaned. “By the gods, Haldrych, even now the priests of Morloi spread the incense in your halls. Your home is defended.”

“Defended?” Haldrych scoffed. “By priests? Priests and a pair of guards?”

“Haldrych-”

“I’m done with this,” the young poet broke the line, pushing through his mother’s mourners to their shocked looks and gasps. He came to a dual line of warriors marching dutifully behind his mother’s death-palanquin. “Fangolf.”

A tall, steel-limbed man clapped his hand over his heart. Bronze chain rattled beneath his black mourner’s robe. “Master Ameldan?” the guard captain asked.

“I want you to take ten guards and go back to the manor.”

The older man’s face paled. “Master…the mistress must have her guard stand with her on her final journey.”

“I am here. That is all she needs. No one loved my mother as I did. Ensure that my…” he caught himself. “…that her wealth and home are not left open to vile opportunists.”

Fangolf cleared his throat, his breath puffing beneath a heavy moustache. “I…all of us would see to bidding the mistress a safe journey.”

“Then bid it now,” Haldrych snapped. “And go defend her home.”

The grizzled warrior gave the young man a look that could have boiled ice. “…very well.”

Haldrych put his hand on Fangolf’s shoulder. “Ensure that none despoil my mother’s legacy.”

He failed to notice the man stiffen at his touch.

----------------------------------------

Wurhi peered from behind a door cracked ajar.

With breath held, she watched a black-clad priest shuffle through the hall, his head bowed and voice lifted in tremulous death-song. A copper censer, bleeding fragrant smoke, swung beneath his wrinkled hand. The hood of his cowl was pushed back revealing brown splotches and liver spots mapping his bare scalp, while a black cloth masked his face from nose to neck.

Clink.

The censer’s chains jingled as he shuffled past.

Wurhi’s nose - sensitive even in human form - tickled at the smoke. She pinched her nostrils shut until the priest disappeared down the next hall.

Slipping from the room, she eased the door closed behind her and crossed the hall to another doorway. The manor was all but deserted save for a few priests anointing the halls with their song and smoke.

No matter how many rich fools the Zabyallan thief had burgled, she had always found their greatest prizes in one of three places. Vaults barred by locks crafted by the trove guardians of Laexondael, grand halls where they would lord their prizes over their guests, or close to the heart: master bedchambers, where they might gloat over them at all hours.

They all had wealth in common and all seemed to share a lack of imagination. Wurhi promised herself that as her fortune grew, she would not be like them. That amount of stupidity could get a person robbed! But, for now, understanding the minds of dull-witted nobles would be to her advantage.

She surmised this braggart would skin himself alive before placing the jewel beyond gloating range. He’d made it rain silver after all. She’d also bet her own teeth that he’d want it close at hand.

That made the most likely place…

Wurhi crept to another doorway, placing an ear against the oak for ten heartbeats. When none stirred within, she drew a small flask and poured two generous dollops of olive oil onto the copper hinges, silencing them.

Slowly, she eased the door open.

A smile took her lips. “There you are, you pretty, pretty shiny.”

Silk tapestries flowed along the walls of the massive bed chamber, each portraying a scene of glory in battle. Taxidermied heads of hunting beasts jutted from the stones between: savage bears, cave lions, tigers with fangs larger than daggers, and a dire wolf with shining glass eyes. A hint of perfume danced with faded woodsmoke in her nostrils.

No stink of incense; the priests had not come yet.

She could hear the wind blowing low against the balcony’s double doors. Through the smoky glass she saw a light snow falling, swirling gently onto the gallery. Before her rose a great bed wrought of bronze and joined to precious woods she could not name.

Above the ostentatious bed - hung on a gilded hook: The Eye of Radiin.

Shuffling footsteps came from the hall behind her. Death-song rose close by.

Stifling a gasp, Wurhi darted through the doorway and peered around the edge of the door. A different priest shuffled through the hall where she once was. While a cowl obscured his face, he moved as a younger man. Sandy hued hair fell to his jawline and his oversized grey eyes never shifted in her direction as he passed.

The stink of myrrh followed him.

She let out a held breath when his song faded into another hall. Her heart shuddered like a frightened chick. The little thief missed her partner’s reassuring presence more by the heartbeat.

“I’d best be gone,” she whispered, darting across the room.

She leapt onto the bed and lifted the grand ruby from the hook. It dangled from its golden chain, refracting the light of the grey day and washing it crimson. Its darkened spot turned toward her like the point of an eye.

She chuckled. “You’re coming home with me, little pret-“

The reek of incense stung her nose.

Whishwhishwhishwhish!

She dived to the floor.

Crash!

A pair of bronze bolas struck the wall where legs once were.

In a blink, she was on her feet, her dagger flashing in her hand. Her lips pulled back in a snarl.

The blond priest came at her in a blur.

He clutched a mace in one hand.