Chapter 489 — Sevin Terry
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
Amber listened to her subordinates' reports while quietly turning a dagger over in her hands. She seemed to be waiting for something; her long elven ears quivered faintly in the air, turning sharply toward some direction now and then, her expression distracted.
One of her subordinates finally noticed his chief's state and could not help asking, "Boss... are you listening?"
"I'm listening," Amber said, waving a hand idly. Then her ear twitched again. "But let's pause for now. We have guests tonight."
The agents exchanged astonished glances. Amber flicked her wrist, and the poisoned dagger she had been toying with vanished silently into its sheath—and almost at the same instant, a knock came at the door.
"Go open it—no violence."
The agent standing near the door took Amber's order and went at once to open it—but though Amber had said no violence, the man still rested his hand at his waist, where his short sword hung.
The door opened. A thin, tall middle-aged man in plain linen clothes, with short brown curly hair, stood in the doorway, looking like an ordinary commoner. Behind him stood two others, likewise in coarse cloth, likewise dressed as commoners.
The tall, thin man glanced into the room, a trace of wariness and tension plain on his face. The agents inside regarded the "guests" at the door with equal caution, and almost in unison every one of them tensed the muscles of his whole body:
Though all three at the door wore coarse linen, they could not possibly be commoners—their skin was full and lustrous, and though their expressions were tense, their eyes were bright. Clearly none of them had gone hungry recently, and people with such traits could only have come from the cathedral district!
Just as the atmosphere turned abruptly tense, Amber's voice came from the far end of the room: "Let them in. I knew they were coming."
The agent at the door eyed the three before him, stepped slightly aside to clear the way in, and once they had entered, immediately poked his head out for a swift look at the street. Only after confirming there was no ambush or tail did he duck back in and shut the door.
Under the weight of several fixed stares, the three made their way to Amber. She looked the tall, thin man—plainly their leader—up and down, then after a moment broke the silence herself: "I thought you wouldn't show. In which case I would have had to fall back on the contingency plan."
The tall, thin man gave a faint, bitter smile. "...We have been looking for you a long time. We never imagined you would be hiding this close to the cathedral district—right under our noses."
"The more dangerous the place, the safer; just as the more devout the place, the less faith there is." The offhand remark made the tall, thin man's face twitch. Before he could retort, she pressed on: "Introduce yourself. My people are curious."
"...Sevin Terry," the tall, thin man said after a moment's silence, with some reluctance. "A low-ranking priest, administrator of the western chapel. These two are my friends—Amal Krite and Coleman Ronny."
Amber nodded and explained casually to her subordinates: "This Sevin Terry is someone I invited. I slipped a little note onto him in secret, and arranged for him to come."
The agents in the room were somewhat startled, but everyone here had been trained by Amber's own hand; almost instantly they grasped what these three priests who had fled the cathedral district meant. No one raised an objection. They simply watched quietly to see how things would unfold.
"Honestly, I expected you to come alone," Amber said, turning to the priest named Sevin Terry, a hint of amusement in her tone. "When I heard three sets of footsteps, I very nearly sentenced you to death."
Sevin Terry paid no heed to her veiled threat. Instead he asked, curious: "Why contact me, of all people?"