A Sword from Red Ice

The standing water was a foot deep here and Raina hiked up her skirts and grimaced as cool, gelid liquid flooded over the tops of her boots. Luckily, Yarro Blackhails strongroom had been built a half-level higher than the corridor, and when she slid back the stone tile that concealed the entrance she was pleased to see dry ground below her. Feeling a spike of girlish energy, she vaulted through the opening.

The Hailstone stood here. She could feel its presence straightaway. Hie gods no longer lived there and the small chunk of granite retained no power, but some residue remained. It charged the space in the strongroom, lightly, almost imperceptibly pulsing the air. Raina looked, but did not approach it. It stood in the corner, a dull stone placed against a wall of dull stone. No dust had settled upon it and no spider had dared use it to anchor a web. The old Raina had had some jaw, she realized. To steal the stone: that took balls.

Quite suddenly she was too tired to think. Pulling off her boots, she glanced about for a place to sleep. Yarro Blackhail had built his small square strongroom to house treasure, not people, and beside the single market crate which she had brought here herself many months earlier there was nothing to interrupt the hardness of the stone floor. At least it was dry.

Raina lay down, bundled her shawl into a pillow, and fell into an exhausted asleep.

She dreamed of the gods. With the empty shell they had lived in less than ten feet away from her head Aow could she not?

When she awoke she knew what she must do.

The flame in the safelamp was guttering, and she worried about the time. How long had she been asleep? How much oil had the lamp reservoir contained when she first picked it up from the shelf by the kitchen stair? Had it been full? Or half empty? Stiff and muddy-headed, she found she could not be sure. All was quiet. Quickly she rose and stepped into her boots. The leather felt like pulp. Her dress was soggy around the hem and didn't smell good. She crossed to the tile entrance, placed an open hand on the indents in the stone and drew it back. Just as she swung a foot up to climb out, she thought about Dagro's belonging on the crate. Planting the foot back on the ground, she hesitated.

The light in the lamp could go out any moment. The oil in the reservoir was gone. A tremor of panic passed along her spine, and in defiance of it, or perhaps because of it, she turned back in to the room. The few items she had secreted after her husband's death lay on the top of the balsa-wood crate, gathering dust. Raina brushed her fingers over the tops of them, touching them one by one. She took what she needed and left.

She was going to have to kill Stannig Beade.

The price of regaining her peace of mind was his death.

The price of avenging Anwyn's murder was his death.

The price of becoming Hail chief was his death.

This time she did not bother to hike up her skirts. She had no idea what time it was and uncertainty made her hurry. Water sloshed at her feet, rippling ahead of her every step. Light do not go out, she told the lamp. The flame had shrunk to a small tooth of red. It illuminated a weak circle around her body, barely touching the walls and the surface of the water. She could smell decay now. The rot at the heart of the Hailhouse.

Tht.

Raina's head shot sideways to track the noise. She had just emerged from the foundation space and had climbed the half-stair to the lower cellar level. The sound had come from a corridor off to her right. Her gaze could not penetrate the blackness. She extended the lamp, but its light just created a red corona around the dark. Rat, she told herself, and moved on.

The second flight of steps seemed steeper than she remembered them and the weight of water in her dress dragged against her. Sections of the second, middle, level of the cellars were open to the space above and Raina realized she was missing the feint pools of diffused light that would filter down in daylight. It was after dark. She had slept in the strongroom all day.

Well and good. He would be back by now, and it did not take a scholar to guess where he would head once the business of settling the clan was done. Stannig Beade was growing bold in his use of this house. Raina turned from her usual path, entering a section of the underworld she had never entered before this night. Then I will have to grow bolder. And this is my house. Not his.