Lynn Viehl - [Darkyn 08 - Lords of the Darkyn 01] by Nightborn (mobi)

hadn’t smashed they’d knocked over or thrown through the glass panels of the walls. He worked his way back to the gardener’s benches, where the nun crouched beside a large pot that had been cracked in two. Spilled black soil and the pale green, broken wands of paper, whites littered the ground around her.
    “Sister, what are you doing?”
    She did not respond as she used her hands to claw through the contents of the shattered pot, stopping only when her fingernails scraped the bottom. She rose quickly and looked all around her.
    “Sister.” He didn’t want to touch her, but she seemed unaware of his presence, so he reached for her dirty wrist. “Please, stop—”
    The moment his fingers began to curl around her wrist she pivoted, sliding her hand out through his so quickly he ended up with only a little soil in his palm. She moved around him as if he were nothing more than an object in her way, her eyes still searching the floor, until she made a strange sound and bent to pick up something.
    Korvel looked over her shoulder. The long green sack had been fashioned out of velvet and embroidered with golden thread. A symbol worked in the fabric, a tiny triad formed of three circles, had been stitched over and over to form two long cylinders side by side.
    “What is it?” he asked her.
    She removed the long gray metal case inside before dropping the sack. The hasp on one side of the case had been carelessly pried apart, and when she opened it he saw that the inside had been lined with the same embroidered green velvet.
    Whatever the case had once held, however, had been removed.
    With some difficulty Korvel bent and picked up the sack to examine the design again. Touching the fabric sent an unpleasant tingle through his fingers, but it faded almost as soon as he felt it. The arrangement of the two embroidered cylinders, however, finally made sense to him. “This was used to hold the scroll.”
    “It was.” The nun’s eyes shifted up, and in them he saw a strange weariness. “Who are you?”
    Since she knew where the scroll had been, she had to be an ally, but he would be sure of it. “I mean you no harm.” He reached for her, resting his fingertips against her throat. “Give me your name.”
    “Simone Derien.” She turned her head and took a deep breath. “You smell of larkspur.”
    She had a Frenchwoman’s discerning nose; the few mortal females he encountered remarked most often that he smelled like a pastry shop. Korvel frowned as his body swayed, and only then realized that his leg was buckling. The nun was too slight to bear the brunt of his weight, so he removed his hand and reached for the edge of a plant stand to brace himself. “Were you sent here?”
    “I was summoned.” She stared down at his leg. “You are bleeding all over the ground, Englishman.”
    He glanced at the small, wet red pool in which he stood. “So I am.”
    The plant stand insisted on tipping over at that moment, and took Korvel with it. He marveled that such a flimsy object could fell him, a feat not even the shrewdest, most skilled warrior among the guard had ever achieved.
    He landed on his side, his vision alternately blurring and sharpening, which allowed him to snatch glimpses of Sister Simone as she dropped down beside him. Why had he not noticed until this moment how unusual and lovely the green of her eyes was, or the intense perfection of her fair, delicate skin? Every feature on her face shouted purity, from the smooth arch of her pale brows to the sweet bow of her full, rosy lips.
    “It is good that you chose the Church,” he told her. “You have the face of an angel.”
    “You are delirious,” she replied, removing her head veil to reveal what seemed to be a crown of braided copper and gold. “Were you shot in the leg?”
    “Stabbed.” And with him on his back as he was, she could not remove the broken blade from the wound. That no longer seemed to trouble him as he fixed his gaze on the wondrous