Chapter Three: The Arbiter Arrives (1)

Elaine Cross arrived at the Border at sunset, on a silver-gray mare, in a coat of immaculate white.

She was beautiful in the way a scalpel is beautiful. Her hair was pinned in an unbroken line, her face perfect porcelain, her eyes gray-blue coins, and behind her rode six black-clad Arbiters, silver chains clinking at their belts, hung with the shattered wolf-Brands of the guardians she had broken.

The entire garrison held its breath.

Kael saluted at the head of the formation—a salute so precise it could have been printed. Elaine walked to him, looked him over, and her gaze went from his blood-stained sleeve to his immaculate collar to his face, slowly, the way a collector appraises a blade.

"Commander Voss." Her voice carried, warm and clear. "Three years. You've grown thin."

"The Border is cold, Arbiter."

"Is it." She smiled. Everyone within earshot went colder. She reached up, and with one finger, brushed a speck of ash from his shoulder—an intimacy so precise it was almost tender. "I heard the Border has grown… crowded. Monster surges. Refugees. And—" her finger came to rest over his heart, through the cloth, on the Brand, "—things that have no business living inside a guardian's chest."

Kael did not flinch. He looked down at her and said, very calmly: "A guardian has no wants. Only duties. You know that better than anyone."

"A guardian has no wants. Only duties." Elaine repeated the words like a prayer. "I taught you that. Do you remember? The night you took the Brand. You were the only one who didn't cry."

"I remember."

"Good." She stepped back, and her smile sharpened. "Then tonight, I will inspect the towers. All of them."

Kael's blood went cold.

Tower inspection was the Arbiter's ultimate power—the right to open any door on the Border, to search any guardian's private space. And Lila was asleep in his tower, wrapped in his blankets, wearing his bandage.

Elaine worked quickly, the way she did everything. She went tower to tower, methodical and merciless, turning out Rhett's hidden wine cellar with the enthusiasm of a woman born to ruin other people's days.

"This is just mead, Arbiter," Rhett babbled, clutching a jar. "It's, ah—medicinal. I have a condition. My liver—it's very anxious—"

"Your liver," Elaine said mildly, "has a gambling problem, Captain. Would you like me to pull your betting records to confirm?"

Rhett: "…"

Elaine ignored him and walked to Kael's tower.

Kael stood in the doorway, blocking her path.

"Arbiter." His voice was steady. "There's nothing in my tower worth inspecting."

"Is that so." Elaine tilted her head. "Then you won't mind if I check." She stepped close, and her voice dropped to a murmur, her breath almost brushing his ear: "The more you block me, Commander, the more I believe there's something in there you don't want me to see."

Above them, from the top of the tower, came a crash—*thump*—the sound of tiles shattering.

A black, furry, extremely fat object tumbled out of the hole in the roof, hit the ground with a solid *whump*, and let out an indignant yowl.

It was a cat. A filthy, spherical, black-and-white barn cat. It picked itself up, sneezed, and padded over to Kael, weaving around his boots, purring like a faulty engine.

Kael looked down at the cat. His face was perfectly blank.

Elaine looked down at the cat. She studied it for a long moment. The cat, unimpressed, stared back.

"…You have a cat," she said.

"…Yes." His voice was faintly strangled. "I found it."

"You don't keep things, Kael." Elaine's eyes narrowed. "You told me once that guardians can't have attachments. Not even cats."

"…It followed me home. It won't leave."

From the top of the tower came another sound, barely audible over the wind: a thin, wobbly, deeply unconvincing *mrrp*.

The fat cat on the ground swiveled its head upward, ears flat.

In the hole above, Lila crouched beside a deeply unamused Rhett, who was holding the actual source of the cat—a scraggly gray tom he had absolutely, definitely not stolen from the barracks kitchen.

"Stop doing the voice," Rhett hissed. "That woman's ears are sharper than a wight's!"

"Then hold still!" Lila hissed back. "You're shaking the whole tower!"

"I'm shaking because I'm terrified! She's going to audit me to death, and then I'll be dead, and my gambling debts will be my ghost's problem—"

Down below, Kael listened to the two idiots in his roof, and his temple began to pulse. He looked up. Through the hole, he could see Lila's red hair spilling down, her face smeared with soot, her eyes bright as a thief's. She caught his eye, winked, and mouthed four words:

You owe me one.

Kael looked away, stone-faced, and thought: I am going to die. I am absolutely going to die.