King of Dust

Chapter 25

Her hair fanned around her head as she floated, her body lifeless and bloated in the lake. A day, she had been there. I could smell the decay. Lumas, Zinzan, and the group of us stared into the lake, accompanied by a few other Motreans who wanted to help. Urien pulled his notebook from his pocket and gazed out over the water. "Who was she?"

"Brunhilda, a fortuneteller," Zinzan replied. "She was one of the oldest among us and had been a fortuneteller for our caravan for generations. She predicted the births and lifepaths of all our children and helped us navigate times of hardship. She hardly ever left the camp."

"Would anyone have reason to murder her?"

"No." Lumas blinked away a sparkle at his eye, whether it was a tear or merely a trick of the light, I did not know.

"So, you see," Zinzan muttered, "the murderer cannot be one of us."

The other Mortreans fished her from the lake. They wept over her, and Urien confirmed that she had, indeed, been murdered. The marks on her neck indicated strangulation, and we sat in silence as the Mortreans built a coffin for her. Brunhilda's children did not touch her but sat by her side and spoke softly with her, apologizing for past slights and confessing secrets. I instructed my companions to consume nothing but coffee or liquor, and we waited. I did not want to disrupt their mourning process, and elder women moved in and out of the wake, keeping Brunhilda company until it was time to bury her.

"Should we go?" Yra asked, looking about at the scene. "This seems... personal."

"We should wait until we're told to leave," I instructed. "While you all are not Mortrean, I am."

"We could go and just leave Darius he—"

"No," Urien interjected. "I will not leave him alone."

"What?" I sneered. "Think I'm going to try and escape?"

"How long could we be potentially held up here?" Urien asked.

"A day, at most."

"A day? This murderer could have hit their next target by then. From what I understand, if the burgomaster's wife had been the first target, but they failed, then Brunhilda would be second. Because the body in Nessden that we saw this morning was so fresh, then—"

"Oh, my gods!" Astrid gasped. "It's a clue!"

We all turned to her and Yra furrowed his eyebrows. "What?"

"Think about it. Why else would the murderer have hung the body in Nessden in that way if they did not want us to follow it to the next one?"

"It is a bizarre coincidence," Urien agreed.

"Then what does the body in the lake tell us?" Yra leaned back in his chair and watched Mortreans light candles to bring into the wake tent.

"We found her face down," Urien muttered. "She wore all her clothes, and she had been strangled. Do we know if she had anything on her body?"

"If she did, we cannot remove anything," I urged.

"Can we at least look?"

"I can. You stay here and don't cause any trouble."

I stood and entered Brunhilda's tent, pulling the hoods from my head. Brunhilda laid there on her bed, purple and swollen and inhuman, and I watched the elder women who had been assigned to her tear up her clothes bit by bit. The shredding of fabric echoed throughout the tent, and I moved to the body. Slowly, her skin was being exposed, the soppy fabric tearing under the fingertips of the women. Candles had been stacked around her body, and they illuminated her corpse in an elegant way. All for the sake of preventing her spirit from turning evil and ravaging this camp.