My vision was cloudy. I cannot explain it save by comparison with the fugue of some drug or wine laced with the milk of the poppy. Something strange and alien was burning through my blood like a days worth of fever come all at once. Someone was shaking me and I could hear voices far away. The voice seemed wrong somehow, as though it were speaking in a language I had forgotten I had once spoken. A jolt brought me fully awake. I screamed and scrambled away from whatever it was that had burned me. To my shock it was Kian looking concerned and surprise. My hand went to my neck and found it clean and unbroken. For a moment I thought maybe I had imagined the whole thing, and I might have, save for the faint scent of sandalwood in the air.

"Camilla?" he asked, his eyes wide and worried. I pulled my hand away from my neck. Had Kian's touch burned me? Perhaps he had been trying to wake me with some spell.

"Guy," I managed, "and..." I trailed off getting unsteadily to my feet. The fire in my blood was still there, burning away my confusion and fatigue. I managed to stumble out the door and to the railing. Below in the courtyard were four dead men. Of the woman, the wagon, and Guy du Pounce there was no sign save for a swinging open gate that banged in the wind.

______________

Rumor had filtered down to the streets before midnight. All three Triumvir's had fled, Marco to his estates in the south, Imelda to Luccini. Romeo was rumored to have seized a ship and sailed west, though quite where remained uncertain. The condottieri had rallied and installed Livonia de la Camarilla as Dictator until new elections could be called and the city guard had ratified the choice. She seemed to be a minor noble known in the city, but quite how she had acquired enough gold bribe the condottieri into following her was a mystery to the populace. I thought I had a pretty good idea, especially seeing it was rumored that Guy du Pounce had pledged himself to protect her until 'the danger' had passed.

I didn't dare go back to the palace, not even for my lute and few possessions. The image of the woman still pulsed powerfully in my mind, and there was a dark attraction to returning to her side. Instead we went to a boarding house on the west side of the city. Remas had no port, but this was a place where merchants and beached sailors gathered. We purchased a room with our few remaining coins and I collapsed into sleep, too tired to answer any of Kian's questions or ask any of my own. I had uneasy dreams. I saw vast deserts and strange courts, odd writing on ancient sandstone walls. I tasted sandalwood, incense, and the bitter taste of something astringent and unpleasant. 

When I woke, Kian was dozing in a chair across from me. He stirred as I sat up giving me a crooked smile.

"Aren't I the one who is supposed to fall straight to sleep after?" he quipped. I smiled, feeling better for the jest.

"Seems to have done you good though, damn," he admitted frankly. I turned to look at myself in the mirror. My skin almost glowed, my features seemed subtly different, a touch more precise and sculpted some how. I touched my cheek and was relieved to find that it was warm.

"We should go," I declared, standing up as though to run out the door right that instant. Kian held up a hand in bar.

"Yes but go where. Word came an hour or so ago that the Dictator has closed the port at Astia," he explained. Astia was the major port of Remas, at the terminus of the Via Caravansia that lead to the city. Good were treked overland by a guild of wagoneers, the adminstration of which was so rich a position that no Triumvir was ever elected without their tacit approval.    

"Apparently one Hortiman Shultz and his escort were on the last ship out," Kian told me stretching his arms over his head in an exaggerated yawn.

"I should have told him to keep his tail between his legs on the way here, we would have made way better time."

"Kian..." I began, unable to think of quite what to say. I sat back down on the bed.

"I'm sorry."