Mistress Of Masks (Book 1) by C.Greenwood Read Free Book Online Page B

expected from one who made his living hefting an axe. He didn’t look like an ailing man. Not until Eydis noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes and the slight looseness of skin indicating recent weight loss.
    “If you’re looking for my grave clothes, I’m not ready to be fitted for my death shroud just yet,” he said, his smile a surprising contrast to his intimidating size. It didn’t look like the smile of a man who killed people for a living.
    Eydis blushed, realizing he had caught her searching for signs of his illness.
    After brief introductions, Fenric’s sister made herself scarce, dragging her reluctant son out of the room with her. Eydis got the impression whatever Fenric’s business was with Silverwood Grove, Alda didn’t wish to know anything about it. Then again, considering her brother’s somewhat grisly profession, hers was probably a natural reaction.
    Fenric offered Eydis a drink and waved her to a seat as he pulled up a stool next to the empty fireplace. Accepting the letter she proffered, he split the wax seal with his thumbnail and perused the missive. Even as he read, he paused to cough into a folded handkerchief. Eydis couldn’t help noticing the kerchief was spotted with old bloodstains.
    “Do you know what this message is about?” he asked at length, folding the letter and tucking it away.
    “A little,” Eydis admitted. “If it alludes to someone with the lifetouch and a gift for magical masking, that is me.”
    “It is a great deal more than an introduction to you,” he replied. “It’s the answer to a dying man’s wish. A wish to bring a little light into the world to atone for all the lives he’s taken. A wish not to burden his family with a lengthy departure from this existence. And this,” he touched the coin pouch on his knee, “is an opportunity to leave my sister and her boy provided for, in the same bargain.”
    “The oracle has given you all that?” she asked.
    “I cannot speak to the oracle,” he shrugged. “It is Server Parthenia’s signature I see. She knows of my struggles, and her offer is a timely one. The task for which she hires me resolves many of my problems in a single stroke.”
    Confused, Eydis asked, “So what happens now?”
    “Now,” he said, “you and I have someplace to be and should hurry to get there.”
    Evidently he meant it, because he wasted little time in gathering a small bundle of belongings, grabbing his travel-stained cloak from a peg on the wall, and finding his family to bid them farewell. As casually as if he was going for a simple walk about town, he kissed his sister’s cheek and ruffled his nephew’s hair on his way out the door. But Eydis noticed how carefully he concealed his bundle of belongings beneath his cloak, and she saw him furtively drop his coin pouch on the shop counter. Clearly he didn’t wish the money to be discovered until after he had gone. She noticed too how soberly he fingered the chain and pendant at his throat as she walked alongside him down the muddy alley toward the wharf.
    “The emblem of the First Couple?” she asked, recognizing the symbol on the pendant from her days growing up in the seclusionary.
    “A gift from my late wife,” he said with a sad smile. “She was more devout than I.”
    It was a short distance to the quay. The docks were in disrepair and slick with saltwater and fish guts, so Eydis followed Fenric’s admonishment to watch her step. There were dozens of boats bobbing on the tide and as many fishermen wrestling with ropes and toiling to haul in the evening’s catch. But Fenric seemed to be looking for someone or something specific, and directly approached an old man with a cap pulled low over his forehead and a pipe jutting out the corner of his mouth.
    “By my eyes, it’s the executioner!” exclaimed the old man when they stood before him. “If you’re hunting for heads to cut off, Fen, all we’ve got ‘round here be of the fishy variety.”
    “That’s all