Rosa shook her head as though to clear her thoughts.
“Now I’ll speak of something else. During the battle that day, there was a suspicious man in the general’s army. He seemed to know a great deal about Nana. He tried to cast some strange spell on me. In other words, I don’t think you’re the only person General Nikephoros is after.”
“There’s someone in his army who wants Nana?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Gene realized it was entirely possible. The general’s men had first kidnapped Nana. His wish to duel with Gene came afterward.
“They kidnapped Nana. They tried to entice me at the library, and when that failed, they threatened me and disappeared. They may have been the ones who barred me from the library. I don’t think they mean to hide their connection to the general. Judging by the way he spoke to me during the siege, your sister may be next after you.”
Frowning, Gene thought before speaking.
“A group allied with the general is after Nana, ever since you first entered Delphinad. But the general wants to kill me. How are the two connected?”
“I don’t know either. There may be no particular connection. He wants to fight you, while that group is after my sister and me. They may merely be helping one another. Of course, the general could be working with them outright. Nana was held at his manor, and he is using that as a pretext to fight you.”
“So you and your sister are what they want, and I’m the bait?”
“Well, if that were true, I ought to consider that we’ve caused you enormous trouble by coming to Hawk House. But I think differently. If the general had no interest in you, there would be no reason to stage a siege in the middle of the city and even arrange a public duel. Quietly kidnapping two women would be much easier. Why make a disturbance and turn the Shadowhawk into an enemy merely because you rescued Nana? Why should a great general even stake his life?”
Gene was not the only man who would put his life at risk in the duel. As Rosa said, unless the general bore a personal grudge or had some objective, there was no need to go to such lengths. Was it because of his duel with Garon twenty-eight years earlier? Gene had struggled to understand how he could identify two different men simply because they had borne the same name. But things were different now. The first Shadowhawk of more than thirty years ago was none other than Gene’s teacher. The general seemed to have known that before Gene did. With Garon gone, was he repaying the grudge through Gene? Or did he believe defeating Gene would erase the old humiliation?
“Then why are they after you and your sister?”
“I don’t know. We came to this city for the first time in our lives, but the way they spoke when they met us, it was as though they’d been after us for a long time. They’re a suspicious lot. They say I’m indebted to them, that I ought to purify myself, that I should consider it an honor. Things like that make me wonder if they mean to use me as a sacrifice. Surely they can’t mean to make me their queen?”
Biting his lip, Gene shook his head.
“Aren’t you saying that too lightly? That sounds extremely dangerous. Delphinad has believers in every sort of god, and plenty of them do forbidden things. Demand living sacrifices, for example.”
“That’s true. Nebe too used to receive human sacrifices. We’ve changed them to animals for our own convenience, but perhaps Nebe still wants to eat people.”
Her tone was so matter-of-fact that it was absurd. Gene remembered what Sara had told him about the Billin and shook his head.
“Is Nebe another being like the Billin? The north is a hard place to live.”
“A southerner knows all about the Billin? But compared with them, Nebe would have to be called a merciful god. I’ve heard there are demons in the south too.”
“Demons are only legends. Anyway, this is important. Whether they’ve drawn you and your sister in to get at me, or me to get at you, it would be reasonable to think they have some single purpose. I don’t imagine they’ll claim we’re secretly brother and sister, do you?”
Rosa rarely responded to jokes, but this time the corner of her mouth rose.
“Well, my father is an absurd man, but a new younger sibling I might believe. An elder brother seems unlikely.”
“I’m the one who’d find that…”
Rather than finishing, Gene lowered his head and laughed. His family was so exalted that his very birth had been called a miracle. And no secret bloodline could be left alive. There was someone struggling to prevent even one from surviving, even Gene himself.
“What is their purpose? Do you know anything else?”
“They seem to serve something called Sing. Is that a god’s name? Have you heard it before?”
“Sing?”
Gene frowned and thought for a little while, then shook his head.
“No. You might do better to ask Luke about that.”
“I already have.”
“If even Luke doesn’t know… it would be best to visit the library.”
“I mean to. Once Nana can sleep, I intend to go tomorrow if possible. I thought even this might help. I couldn’t remember where I’d left it and only just found it.”
Rosa rubbed the doll between her fingers, then dusted it. Gene thought of offering to go to the library with her, but this was not the time. He shook off the thought and asked, “Where did you find it?”
“In the storeroom beneath the kitchen.”
She must have hidden Nana there during the siege. Gene glanced toward the kitchen. It looked as it had when he first returned, the dining room wrecked, the hearth all that remained of the kitchen she had barely cleaned. The day Rosa first arrived passed through his mind. He himself had asked her to stay when she meant to finish the job after making breakfast and leave. After that, she had made the kitchen and dining room excellent places, cooked for the men, and endured her share of their rudeness. None of it could have pleased her. At last, she had been caught in their fight and almost killed.
Before going to Kamaha, he had asked Rosa to wait just five days. Today was the fifth. Of course he did not want her to leave. But looking back made him feel ridiculous. He had not known this would happen, yet how could he ask her to remain in Hawk House after it? He was not that shameless.
“I have no excuse for asking you to stay in a place like this.”
He ought to have told her she could leave if she wished. No, better to ask when she meant to leave. In the end, however, that was all he said. Rosa looked straight at him.
“That’s true.”
Embarrassed, Gene looked somewhere else. She went on.
“But I’ve done nothing well either. I couldn’t protect it properly.”
“Protect it?”
“Looking at this state, you could hardly say I protected it.”
Rosa’s eyes returned to Gene as his gaze swept rapidly around them.
“We only barely escaped being wiped out.”
“Wait…”
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