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  Ketch

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  Breaking free of Port Agrith's dizzying press was a mixed blessing, Ketch decided. On one hand, it meant that she no longer had to so often dance through alleyways with her cloak tucked tightly around her, avoiding the far too plentiful folk strolling about te into the night. On the other hand, it meant she was heading innd, a few day's walk finding herself farther from the sea than she'd been in all her life.

  The climate she ventured into was strange, as well. She hadn't made her mind up about it. The ck of moisture in the air ought to have dried her out something fierce, but the sun's heat was far too weak to have the effect she expected. Before this journey, Ketch had never realized that shivering was something that happened without a fever. The cool Sporaton nights corrected her ignorance. The temperature continued to fall as she traveled innd, such that she began to require a fire in the night to sleep. She was increasingly grateful for the cloak Sara had gifted her, its wolf fur lined interior far more useful than she'd given it credit for.

  Being so far away from Selly was strange, too. She could barely feel the Bond's pull when she was awake, their usual communion possible only when she slept. Selly encouraged her on her way each night, wordless thoughts soothing her concerns as they always had at home, but it was difficult to ford the day without the comfortable pressure buoying her resolve in times of stress.

  She continued on, nonetheless. She had told Sara herself that she was their best chance at infiltrating Sporatos, and it was with no small amount of pride that knew herself honest when she made the cim. The bolstered levels afforded by her entanglement with Sara were an incredible aid, and she scarcely could believe anything would spot her if she wished otherwise.

  Selly had disagreed, unfortunately. As tempting as it had been to stay in Port Agrith to follow the body of Captain Vidanya, Selly's subtle guidances had driven her away. They hoped for the arrogant captain to be revived, after all, and that required talents of a caliber that far outstripped Ketch and Selliana's own. It was a near certainty that such a power would detect Ketch lurking nearby, no matter how well she hid herself.

  Thus, her journey north. Less risk, less reward, but far more chance of success. As the crow flew, her journey began two hundred and fifty miles from the capital. At the pace she was now capable of as an Irregur, that ought to have been half a month of walking, but the Sporaton roads weren't so kind. They twisted and turned, diving through valleys or weaving around forests, very little in the way of purposefully built highways present until one neared the capital. She would be spending the majority of a month endlessly meandering from vilge to vilge, all so she could hopefully catch a few glimpses of something in the capital that may aid Sara.

  Her goals she took pride in, but the actions required to accomplish them? Hardly illustrious.

  She was walking through yet another of the unbelievably common vilges when she encountered her first stumbling block, and it wasn't one she'd anticipated.

  Fresh fish.

  The scent of it nearly stumbled her when she hurried past a low-ceiling building, the unassuming warm glow of ntern light it had emanated doing nothing to prepare her for so welcoming a smell. Ketch spent half her waking hours past sunset, bedding down only when forced to by the cold, which meant she'd passed through this vilge when most were taking to their evening meals. Her mouth watered as her mind involuntarily summoned up images of grilling sabasins, a delicacy filleted and prepared by her father on the rare occasion he ventured above the waves for the purpose of cooking. Raw fish had suited her well all her life, and in fact she carried plenty of salted fish among her supplies, but the rare treat of anything simir to her father's cooking was irresistible. Despite herself, Ketch found her steady pace slowing, wandering towards the door.

  She leapt back in surprise when the door was flung open, a drunken man bowling out into the night without a care in the world. So addled was the man that she had to skirt around him, his ale-ridden vision not even registering Ketch in her dark cloak.

  Just as the door was going to shut behind him, she caught it. She argued with herself for a few moments more, already knowing she would give in. Her stomach's growls trumped common sense. Pulling the edges of her hood forward, Ketch stepped into the welcoming warmth with her head turned down.

  The scent of grilling fish would have been overpowering, if not for the myriad of other assaults on her senses. There was a buzz of foreign accents locked in dozens of conversations, underscored by clinking drinks and waved requests for more of this, more of that, a hubbub nearly alien to Ketch's solitary lifestyle. For such an average vilge, the tavern was filled to the brim, every chair at every table occupied, the only empty spaces up at a short bar. Through the threads of fur crowding her peripheral, Ketch made a careful sweep for anyone sporting the symbols of an authority figure. She'd done nothing criminal in her time in Sporatos thus far, but Azarketi were rare enough to be memorable here, and memorability was far from ideal for a spy.

  Finding no officials save a few off-duty catchpoles, Ketch began making her way up to the bar. Even she knew how suspicious it would be to stand at the door and gawk, no matter how unfamiliar she was with Sporatos in general. A traveler stopping by for a meal, she repeatedly reminded herself, wouldn't be so out of the ordinary in comparison.

  Or so she thought. The moment she pulled out a barstool and sat down, she felt the weight of several attentions nding upon her. The uncanny awareness of who was and wasn't looking at her was a peculiar sensation recently lended her by her css, one she still hadn't fully adjusted to. It felt like flies and moths alighting upon her skin, fluttering and flittering as the focus of those watching her waxed and waned. For the first few days after gaining the sense, she'd flinched under every gaze, driven to seclusion by the irritation.

  She pointedly gave no indication that she noticed anything at all, seeing as it would be impossible to see beyond the view of the bar her hood afforded her. Ketch waited patiently for someone to attend her.

  Eventually she felt the brush of a new fly, this one nding on her right eyebrow, and knew it was the barman arriving. She didn't look up as he spoke.

  "Can I get you anything, stranger?" He asked, voice only a little uncertain. No matter how strange her arrival, he was trying to make coin off of her, which required politeness. "Don't get many travelers stopping by after the harvest's done with, so there's none but the regurs to say it, but I can promise you myself that we've got good food and good beer."

  "I smelled grilling fish from the street," Ketch replied tersely, trying to mask her accent. "What sort do you have?"

  Though she couldn't see the barman above the chest, she watched his entire demeanor brighten.

  "Oh, you've fine taste, stranger! My boy caught himself darn near a whole school just this morning, all by his lonesome. A fine netter he's turning out to be, and yes, I do mean to brag." Ketch watched the man bring up his hands to count the options off on his fingers. "We've got a good few green-bellied catfish on the stove already, with some parchana and bass waiting in the wings, plus a few gar-looking things that the rest of the fishers have been arguing about the name of. All the same price, on account of my boy taking in such a fine catch, so you take your pick."

  Ketch shifted in her chair, debating. She'd never heard any of those names before, and really ought to pick something at random, but she was intimately familiar with just how bad certain fish could taste. She adjusted her pack on her back once more, a motion that caused the barman to lean away from her, for some reason. Now committed to continuing the conversation, Ketch felt it would be terribly awkward to do so without eye contact, and so lifted her head enough to look the barman in the face.

  Where she expected shock at her blue Azarketi complexion, she was surprised to find sudden relief filling the middle-aged man's face. He wiped his forehead as if he'd been sweating and smiled.

  "Y'shouldn't spook an old man like that, dear! Come now, take that hood down. Gave some of the kids a right proper fright, I daresay, though they won't admit it, of course."

  Confused, Ketch did as asked and lowered her hood. The moment she did so, she felt several of the heavier flies on her skin suddenly lift away, while a plethora of other, lighter ones flicked all across her skin. It seemed the patrons of the bar had been studiously avoiding looking at her, save for a few of the bulkier sort that had been watching her like a hawk.

  "I'm not sure what's best. What do you recommend?" Ketch asked, using the sentence she'd prepared for the barman's earlier question. Then, abruptly realizing the topic had already changed, said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cause any concern. What had you worried?"

  The barman leaned over the bar and pinched the edge of her cloak, lifting it up and off her shoulders. He moved so casually that Ketch didn't even think to stop him, even when he grabbed a handful and shoved it aside to show off her backpack.

  "It was your pack, girlie, and the way you were sitting. Don't do much traveling, do you?" The barman fshed a grin at the fellows who'd apparently been watching her. "See? Old Taniel knows best, I do. You shouldn't worry yourself about anything I don't, eh kids?" He returned his attention to Ketch, who was still sitting half-bent on the stool. "Like I was saying, girlie. It was the pack under your cloak. When you sat down like y'did, it gave you a mighty big hunch, and some of the youngsters got it in their heads you were some sort of creature walking out of the dark part of the woods. I knew better, of course, that's why I talked to you, but they're a daft lot even when they're not drunk."

  Ketch ran the scenario through her mind's eye again, this time from the perspective of the tavern's occupants. A hidden figure walks in, bck cloak with thick grey fur hiding all their features, and walks straight to the bar without a word. The moment they sit down, their back swells and distends unnaturally, humps and bumps in all the pces a normal person's spine couldn't be protruding.

  A recluse wearing a backpack was the most obvious expnation, as the barman had clearly deduced, but it wasn't hard for a farmer's overactive and inebriated imagination to make a few extra leaps than strictly necessary. Evie had warned her that the peasantry were superstitious, but reacting as they had was pure foolishness.

  Ketch felt herself flushing in embarrassment nonetheless, certain she made an amateur mistake regardless of where the true fault y, and filed for conversation to distract herself from the heat of her cheeks.

  "Sorry for the scare, sir. Didn't mean to intimidate, just the way I usually go about. But the fish your son caught? They sound nice. Good job to him. But I don't know enough of river fish to make a choice?"

  Ketch winced at the awkwardness of it all. To her relief, the barman didn't react as if she'd said anything unusual.

  "Well, if we're going to be cooking fish for an Azarketi, that's a whole different sort of thing. Last seen one of your sort when I lived down on the coast as a boy, but no matter how many years it's been, I still know you don't take swill. I'll head on into the back and help my wife cook one of those big fat gar up proper, hope that does you right. They're not bottom-feeders like the rest, so they ought to suite you."

  Before Ketch could thank him, or ask after price, or really say anything else, the barman disappeared into the back. She was left with a dozen people gncing her way and nothing to do, hands firmly in her p. She pressed a mild scowl onto her face that had served her well in the past when she wished to discourage any unwanted approaches, preparing to wait.

  She should have known it wouldn't work. She was too much of a curiosity to the people of this backwater vilge, as evidenced by the sidling way one of them made their way over to the barstool beside her. It was a woman, one of the burlier sort who had kept their attention firmly on Ketch when others gnced away. She took a seat beside Ketch without preamble, not trying to hide her interest, propping her head up with an elbow and staring directly at the side of Ketch's face.

  "So," the woman said, eyes trailing down to Ketch's neck, "can you breath underwater with those?"

  Ketch gnced at the woman from the corner of her eye. "My gills, you mean?"

  "Yeah. They really work, or are they just for show?"

  Gods. You'd think they never saw anyone other than humans before. Ketch took two purposeful breaths to calm herself. Unfortunately, doing so caused her gills to fre.

  "Whoah!" The woman shouted, leaning in. "You can really see in there, can't you? It's all pink and stuff, too, like a fish." She raised a finger up, as if to poke the skin.

  "Don't even think about it," Ketch snapped. The woman dropped her hand, but didn't stop her staring. Ketch sighed. "Yes, I can 'breathe' underwater. Am I really the first Azarketi to visit this vilge?"

  "First I seen, at least," the woman replied. Ketch flinched again as the woman stuck her hand out, but she was only offering handshake. "Yanet. Nice to meetcha."

  "Linn," Ketch replied, shaking the woman's hand. The false name slipped easily from her, the identification and background that Sara had concocted well memorized. Sara had insisted her cover story was designed to enthrall most commoners, mundane enough to be believable, but interesting enough to encourage misleading tall tales should anyone come asking after her ter.

  Ketch was to be Linn, an Azarketi youth who had been informed by her dying mother that the father she'd never known lived on the western coast of the continent. Adrift without her mother, grown distasteful of the waters she'd grown up in, 'Linn' set off across the continent to the western coast. Linn, if pressed, would admit the odds of finding her father were vanishingly remote, and that truthfully, she was after the adventure of the journey more than her father.

  A bit of a fairytale, Sara had admitted, but she'd been confident it would work. A hard life on the road neatly expined any Irregur feats Ketch might inadvertently demonstrate, as well as her inconsistent naiveté in the ways of Sporatos. The so-called 'Linn' was living the life of a traveler unbound by home or liege, not uncommon for the nomadic Azarketi people, and so long as she pyed her part believably, wistful romance would outweigh suspicion in most commoner's eyes.

  Unless, Ketch was now realizing, she came under enough attention that even casual conversation could pick apart her alibi. She could feel the interest radiating off Yanet as she let go of Ketch's webbed fingers.

  "So, what brings you to our wayward home?" Yanet asked. Thankfully the woman at least had the decency to avoid a verbal vivisection of Ketch's anatomy then and there. "Not a great pce for sightseeing, 'fraid to say, especially during fall. Much prettier when the fields are full."

  "I'm just heading west," Ketch replied. "Honestly, I probably shouldn't have stopped. Just been a while since I've had some proper cooked fish."

  "Shouldn'ta stopped?" Yanet asked. "What, you pnning to walk through the night?"

  "Until it gets too cold. The sun's not good for my skin, see?" Ketch held up her arm, running a finger along the scales that were nearly invisible to the naked eye. It was an easy distraction from more dangerous topics. Strangers asking after features common to any Azarketi were better than picking apart her backstory, though truthfully Ketch wasn't comfortable with either.

  Yanet held up a hand to where Ketch had indicated, then stopped herself, looking to Ketch. She reluctantly nodded the woman on, holding her forearm a bit closer, and Yanet went to touch.

  Frankly, Ketch didn't think her skin felt all that different from most surface folk's. The scales were incredibly thin, far softer than any fish. After familiarizing herself with Sara's skin over the past few months, Ketch didn't think she'd be able to tell the difference between human skin and Azarketi scales without looking.

  Yanet didn't seem to agree. She stroked up and down Ketch's arm in silent amazement, eyes wide with wonder. Ketch was starting to feel less frustrated with the woman's attention, and more embarrassed. When Yanet stopped gently rubbing and instead started to pick at a scale with her fingernail, Ketch pulled her arm away.

  "Alright, that's enough."

  "Oh! Sorry. Sorry. I didn't expect it to be so soft, was all."

  "I get that a lot."

  "A lot, eh?"

  Yanet's raised eyebrow caused Ketch to groan internally. If she was about to get hit on for her 'exotic beauty' minutes into her first proper exposure to the Sporaton people, Ketch could truly say goodbye to being just another face.

  Thankfully, Yanet's suggestive expression took a different angle. "Traveling girl like you must find yourself in a lot of handsome fellow's beds, I bet. If I could pick a life for me, it'd be that, I swear. Hard to find any of these dulrds attractive when I knew most of 'em since we were babes, after all..."

  Yanet threw a frown across the crowded room, and when Ketch followed it, she found herself frowning as well.

  "For your sake," Ketch said, "I hope this isn't all of your vilge's men." None could be said to be attractive, particurly while shoveling beer down their gullets after a long day's work.

  Yanet sighed, crossing her arms on the bar to rest her chin upon. "Pretty darn close to all of 'em, sad to say. What with the winter coming in, Taniel's been asking us to spend most of the evening in town, so each little house ain't burning charcoal so long. Not enough of it to st the whole winter otherwise, he says."

  Ketch's expression tilted towards confusion. "I walked by plenty of trees on the way here. Your charcoal burners run off or something?"

  "Nah, nah, nothing like that. Those forests y'walked through are the Lord and Lady's hunting grounds, y'see. Closest forest with anything we can actually cut is two days away, so it's been slow going getting the goods we need."

  It was fortunate that Sara wasn't here, Ketch reflected. Violence would have been imminent. "The Lords really won't let you take anything from their personal forest?" Ketch hoped the question would strike as naive, rather than rebellious.

  "'Course not," Yanet replied, dismissing the idea as if it were unimaginable. "Our own fault we ran out, really. Didn't pnt enough to make up for what we were cutting, these st few years. It'll be a cold winter or two, but it is what it is." She looked about the room once more. "Not that I'm eager to be spending more time elbow to elbow with this lot, I will say."

  Their conversation was interrupted as the barman returned, carrying a wide wooden pte trailing steam.

  "One fresh-grilled gar for the Azarketi girl in bck," he announced proudly, setting it down before Ketch with a flourish. He stepped back, eagerly watching her for her reaction.

  Ketch had to admit, the meal did look impressive. In life, the fish had likely been a foot and a half long, before being cut into three equal sections for her pte. Grilled to a uniform brown shade, striped with marks from the grill, it had her mouth watering instantly. The barman had arranged the sections to curl around the center of the pte, where the strange thin-lipped head was sitting atop a few slices of bread. It was probably supposed to be some kind of artistic way of presenting it, to assure Ketch the catch really was fresh, but she found dead eyes staring back at her a little disconcerting.

  Not that it made a difference. Ketch probably ought to have said something in thanks, but grilled fish right under her nose shoved lesser priorities to the side. She immediately grabbed a knife and dug in, slicing off the thinner pieces in the manner she was familiar with and tossing them into her mouth.

  "Oi! Taniel, you got other folk here too, remember!" The barman grinned at her with pride, leaving her to the feast as his attention was demanded by another of the tavern's patrons. Ketch waved her thanks as he left, mouth too full for words.

  "Been a while since you had a proper meal, I'm guessing," Yanet observed.

  Ketch nodded, swallowing a moment ter. "Far too long. It was rare that I had the chance to cook our fish at all, when I was at home."

  Yanet made a face of disgust. "You ate fish raw?"

  "Yes?"

  "Five gods, Linn, didja hate yourself?"

  It was Ketch's turn to look at Yanet like she was asking a stupid question. "It's fairly difficult to start a fire underwater, I'll assure you. And there's nothing wrong with eating them raw, so long as you get to it quickly."

  Yanet shivered theatrically. "Gods. Don't tell me you ate them soon as you caught them, blood and all?"

  "Of course we did."

  "No!" Yanet gasped, leaning forward. "Why didn't you at least bleed 'em before you chowed down?"

  Ketch smirked. Here she'd been worrying Yanet would be analyzing her cover story in detail, when the woman really only cared about things any old Azarketi could have told her.

  "You're welcome to try it if you ever find yourself underwater," Ketch said, "but I'd advise you carry a very rge spear when you do it. With that much blood in the water, the sharks won't be far behind."

  "Sharks?" Yanet leaned close, eyes sparkling. "You've seen 'em? A few of the folk that been down to the coast like to tell tall tales, like they were great big wolf-fish that lived in the sea, but I never knew what to make of that."

  Ketch snorted. "I'd sooner fight a pack of wolves than a single shark."

  Yanet spun in her chair, waving to someone in the tavern. "Tam! Tam, get over here. Linn here's seen sharks, and she says one of 'em is worse than a dozen wolves!" Yanet turned back to Ketch, smiling mischievously. "Tam's been tryna slide himself into the Lord's huntsman's good graces, ever since the huntsman's ss lost a couple of fingers on her good hand and couldn't shoot a bow st spring. Thinks he's gonna get an apprenticeship, but I think he's a damn fool if he thinks Sal won't learn to shoot with her offhand. Y'gotta tell him what you told me, it'll drive him crazy."

  Tam trudged up to the bar with a mug in hand, looking scornfully down at Ketch devouring her pte of gar. "What's this you're hollering about, Yan?"

  "Linn here says wolfs ain't shit to her, Tam, 'cause she's tangled with sharks before, which make them look like little puppies."

  "I did not say--"

  Beer spilled from Tam's mug as he dropped it on the bartop on Ketch's unoccupied side, taking a seat. "Y'ever shot a wolf before, girl?"

  "No, but I've--"

  "Then you got no damn idea what you're talkin' about! I'm sure the water's got all kinds of nasty business in it, but wolves, wolves? They're smart." Ketch could smell the alcohol on his breath as he drew the st word out, turning it into an accented ' smaahht'. "One shark?" He spat. "I could do that easy, so long as I got my good arrows with me. Whole different hunt, just huntin' one beast instead of a dozen."

  "Your bow wouldn't work underwater," Ketch pointed out, drawn into the argument against her better judgement. "The only way possible to hunt beneath the waves is with a spear."

  "Still!" Tam decred, spilling more beer with an emphatic thump of his mug on the countertop. "Wolves, they circle you, they come at you from all sides. You might get the couple in front of you, but the pair behind you'll rip your head off the moment they get a chance. Don't matter what it is, so long as there's only one of 'em"

  "Only worrying about in front and behind?" Ketch made a show of inspecting her fingernails. "I would have loved that when I had to hunt. What would your little bow do when a shark comes barreling up at you from below, fast as a racehorse and twice the size? Nothing, that's what."

  "Seems like it'd be pretty stupid to not be looking down, in that sort of case. Good hunters keep their eyes open and their ears listening, know the terrain like their own face. I wouldn't be surprised. Ever."

  Yanet ughed. "A good hunter, Tam? You ain't shot a thing in your life!"

  "'Cause that'd be poaching, 'till I'm apprenticed. Poaching the Lord's nds is no damn way to get the job, you know that."

  "But a 'good hunter' wouldn't get caught, would they?" Ketch sniped, unable to resist slipping the jibe in. "And besides, I can hardly believe I'm having this argument with some fool that's never even netted a minnow. My first hunt with my mother was before I came up to your knee."

  Tam spluttered, eyes weaving as he tried to piece together a response through his drunkenness. "Well, not all of us getta be born to a huntswoman, eh? I'm not damned fool enough to break the w, but I've done everything but. I go into the forest, I follow trails, I know what I'm doing--"

  "Tam!" Yanet scolded, reaching across Ketch's p to swat him. "Keep your trap shut, won't you?" A touch of concern entered her voice. "You really been going into the Lord's forest like that? They'll hang you for poaching!"

  Hang him? Ketch thought, taken aback. Just walking into the forest is a hanging offense?

  "I don't bring my bow with me, or anything other than my clothes," Tam said defensively, though he did lower his voice. "How they gonna say someone the next best thing to naked was poaching? I'll expin what I was doin', tell 'em it's because of how bad I want the apprenticeship, and for all you know, my gumption'll impress his Lordship enough to give me the job!"

  "If he doesn't lop your head off as he rides past, that is," Yanet countered, crossing her arms. "Tam, promise me you won't go into the forest like that again. At least ask the for permission first!"

  "Surely he wouldn't, though?" Ketch asked, emerging from her thoughts. "Have you hanged, I mean, even if you were poaching. That's not worth killing someone over, is it?"

  "Where you from that it's so different?" Tam asked, before his bleary eyes focused back on her distinctly blue skin. "Oh yeah. Ocean or somethin'. Well, yeah, Yan's right on that one, at least. If I was really poaching-- which I'm not -- that'd be liable to end up earning me a pce on the hangman's list. If I was lucky, I'd get away with them taking my hand."

  "Gods," Ketch whispered. Some of Sara's more... extreme thoughts on nobility were starting to look different. Sensing that both Tam and Yanet were looking at her rather oddly, Ketch tried to think of something to say that would expin her reaction as anything other than the sympathies of a violent revolutionary. "We didn't have anything like that to deal with in the ocean. Except for when you got close to a big port, there was always enough fish to go around."

  "Damn," Tam said, taking a drink. After a beat of silence, his face suddenly brightened."Y'know what I should do? I should get me some of those." Seeing Ketch's confusion, he waved vaguely at her gills. "Some of whatever-those-are. If I could live underwater like you, I'd be halfway to fame and fortune by this time next year."

  "A potion might let you manage it for a day or so, but I don't know of anything that could give you true gills like mine, sorry to say."

  Tam fell back into a pout. Yanet ughed at his expression, once more reaching over Ketch's p to sp him on the shoulder. After a minor bit of prodding, the conversation carried on, and Ketch found herself chipping in well after she'd finished her meal and should have been on her way.

  It was an interesting thing, to be talking with people who seemed so simir to her, but had lived such different lives. Between their casual references to restrictions Ketch had never fathomed and Evie's training on the legal rights of Sporaton commoners, she felt her own attitude towards the nobility skittering in the direction of Sara's. It wasn't like she'd loved them before, but she'd been a kid when Tulian fell. Seeing it for herself was something else.

  Ketch did finally extract herself from the table, using the half-true excuse of fragile skin to expin why she would walk through the night, instead of grabbing a room. She overpaid a little bit for her meal, a kindness the barman accepted silently, and then was back out on the empty street, gray clouds blocking the stars above.

  Up and down the street, now that she looked for it, she saw the signs of hardship in the town. The dirt roads had deep tracks worn in them, debris-strewn ditches running past rows of homes that had far too little light leaking from their windows . Most of the vilgers were in the tavern, using the stove and one another to stay warm until te hours forced them home.

  Not all the buildings were so dour. Down at the end of the street, towering over the rest of the thatch-roofed homes, was the vilge's manor. Its windows bzed with ntern light across all three stone stories, shining even through the richly dyed curtains that hid the interior, shadows of servants and other figures visible darting from room to room. Pulling her hood back up to cover her ears, Ketch took one slow step towards the manor, licking her lips.

  She was at her sixth Advancement now. Higher than her father, fifty years her senior, and just below her mother, who had spent decades prowling the deepwaters in pursuit of oceanic prey. Ketch could melt into the faintest shadow, find purchase on sheer cliffs, and count the breaths of a sleeping babe from across the room. The Lord and Lady of such an insignificant vilge, though perhaps educated in the ways of politics and war, would have nothing to answer someone like her. All it would take was waiting till the lights began to dim as the house prepared for bed, then a quick hop over the walls, slipping her knife through a lock, and...

  And what?

  Ketch would kill them both in their sleep, of course. She'd likely have time enough to find any heirs of ruling age as well, just to be thorough. But nothing would change for Tam or Yanet, none of their difficulties absolved by the murders. They would follow the dead nobility's edicts regardless, too fearful of reprisal from whoever would eventually repce their old rulers, and the repcement would likely be even more tyrannical, knowing they lorded over a people that had their predecessor killed.

  Ketch turned back towards the road out of town, buttoning her cloak against the growing chill. She would likely only make it a short way further before being forced to make camp and bed down, but it was better than resting in town. Too many prying eyes there, too many bad decisions to be made.

  Ketch had to remind herself once more that she wasn't Sara. She could control herself, keep her bde in its sheath, and if she really wanted to help these people, she'd do so subtly, ying the foundation for far grander pns. A Champion had advantages and leeway that Ketch did not. Her mission required discipline before passion, discretion before boldness, and thought before action. That was the life she'd chosen by entering the shadows.

  Ketch shook her head at her own thoughts. If she really preferred a life in the shadows, where did this biting anticipation for spring come from?