Breath and Bone

Chapter 18

“How did this happen?” I said, rubbing my head to keep my sluggish blood flowing. I would need to sleep soon or I’d be gibbering. But not yet. Not until I understood the magnitude of this disaster. “You’re sure the witch doesn’t know his true identity?”

“We have no reason to believe she knows he is the prince,” said Voushanti. The mardane stood stiffly at the door of Elene’s retiring chamber. He had brought Saverian and me straight from the gates. “My lord’s saccheria struck him hard just as we left the Danae. In the physician’s absence, he chose to ride on to the monkhouse, where Thane Stearc would be able to care for him.”

“Papa always keeps a supply of Osriel’s medicines,” said Elene, her circled eyes speaking raw grief and desperate worry. “Saverian sees to it that he knows what to do for every variant of the disease. He had to ride as Gram. No one remaining at the abbey knows him as anyone but Papa’s secretary.”

Saverian huddled by the hearth wrapped in a dry blanket. Barely controlled fury had sealed her lips since she’d heard that all her worst fears for Osriel had come true. She clearly blamed herself.

I perched on a window seat, pretending I was not within walls. As long as I could see the sky, my lungs did not feel quite so starved or my stomach quite so certain it was going to turn wrong way out.

Elene, flushed as summer dawn, sat in a padded armchair, a bright-colored shawl covering what her shift and hastily donned bliaut did not. Sleep had left half of her short bronze braids unraveled, the others matted or sticking every which way. Heat rose from her as from a smoldering bonfire. “Sila Diaglou and a small force lay in wait at Gillarine for Papa to return from the warmoot. Before the priestess could remove Papa from the abbey, Osriel walked through the gate and right into her arms.”

Anger and resentment bulged Voushanti’s fists and twisted his scarred mouth. “My lord insisted I return to the bridge with my men as soon as we sighted the monkhouse gates. He did not permit disobedience.”

I squirmed at the remembrance of Voushanti’s battles of will with Osriel. Their hellish link of enchantment and submission still confounded me.

Elene beckoned me to her side and thrust a crumpled parchment into my hand. “The witch dispatched two of the monks to carry this message to Renna. Can you fathom her insolence?”

The precisely formed letters flowed into their usual incomprehensible blotches. My own cheeks hot, I shoved it back at her and returned to my window. “So tell me, what does it say?”

Elene frowned for a moment before her expression cleared in understanding. “Forgive me, Brother. Here, I’ll read it…” She smoothed the page and began, her voice swelling with repressed fury.

Osriel of Evanore,

Believing our partnership holds more promise for Navronne’s future than our enmity, I extend to you my sisterly goodwill and offer an exchange of benefits. Our purposes do not and cannot coincide. I serve Powers beyond the ken of any mortal born, while you serve your own secret pleasures of a diabolical odor. Yet our interests may not conflict in every instance.

You hold an injured monk, the chancellor of Gillarine Abbey, known to be involved in this Karish lighthouse foolishness. As your deeds exemplify no maudlin sympathies for Navronne’s peasants, I cannot conceive that this errant project holds any innate value in your estimation.

On the other hand, your position as Evanore’s lord makes your defensive strength dependent on a handful of ancient families who demand certain strict loyalties and protocols. Unfortunately, one of your warlords seems to have connived with these Karish librarians, and I have caught him at it. But he has convinced me he cannot work magic.

Perhaps you are strong enough to control your clansmen even while abandoning one of them to your adversaries. But if you prefer to avoid a disruption among your supporters, I can offer you this bargain. I will return your errant Thane Stearc in exchange for the monk Victor. To sweeten the offering, I will include your pureblood’s catamite. I doubt your warlord’s diseased scribe could survive the journey, but if you prefer him to the boy, you may have him instead. I believe we shall both be well pleased with the outcome of the trade, and our relative strengths will remain in balance.

I require this bargain be completed before the solstice. Do you agree to it, take the monk to the crossroads at Gilat on the Ardran High Road and send word to me at Fortress Torvo.

In the glory of the Gehoum,

Sila Diaglou

“Damnable…vile…” Rage threatened to cut off what remnants of use remained in my exhausted brain. “Gods ship them all to the netherworld!”

“Does anyone else find this letter’s language odd?” asked Saverian, her fiery anger banked by curiosity. “I thought the woman disdained learning.”

“She didn’t write it,” I said. “Gildas did. Who else would slander a child?” I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead as if it might prevent my skull’s imminent disintegration. “Why would they trade one for the other? Stearc can open the lighthouse as well as Brother Victor, right?”

“No.” Saverian returned to the hearth stool. “The opening requires two paired warders—one embodying the unlocking spell, one with power to release it.”

“And Gildas knows this?”

“Not unless they’ve tortured it out of someone,” she said. “Until this hour, I’ve been the only person outside the four warders themselves who knew. Luviar and Brother Victor were one pairing. Stearc and Osriel the second. The priestess and her monk don’t understand what they have.”

“Neither my abbot nor I revealed the secret.” An ill-favored little man wearing a black cowl and an eye patch shuffled through a side door not three paces from me, leaning heavily on a cane.

“Brother Victor!” I popped up from the window seat. Only fear of crushing his fragile bones kept me from embracing him. Which would have been an entirely unseemly greeting for the chancellor of Gillarine, and an act I would never have contemplated when I lived there. But I could not help the surge of pleasure as I bowed, cupping one palm in the other and extending them in an offering of Iero’s blessings.

He smiled back, stuffing his cane under one arm long enough to return the blessing. “Dear Brother Valen, one of my three blessed saviors”—he nodded graciously to Voushanti and Saverian. “It is a grace to see you returned safely to our company. Though, as always, you present yourself at inconvenient times.”

As I helped him settle gingerly into the chair beside Elene, he glanced curiously at my hands and then quickly to my face. I snatched my hands back under my cloak, hiding the marks that had paled to silver. I’d not told Elene or Voushanti of my own particular adventures in Aeginea as yet. Osriel’s predicament preempted every other concern.

“These secret pairings…” I began, returning to the lighthouse secret. Elene could not work magic, but Brother Victor was a pureblood sorcerer. The puzzle pieces shifted. “So, Mistress Elene, Osriel didn’t send you back here to assume Brother Victor’s burden, but to partner with him. To take Luviar’s place.”

She dipped her head, tears brightening her eyes. “We dare not leave my father and Osriel there together. Sila Diaglou will give them up only so long as she believes that only one warder is necessary. A pureblood warder. Dear, brave Brother Victor has agreed to the exchange.”

“Brother!” Saverian looked up in shock. “You can’t. You’re scarcely walking!”

“And what of Jullian?” I snapped. “You don’t think the priestess will notice you choosing to retrieve a sick man over a healthy, innocent boy?” That no one seemed concerned over the boy made me irrationally angry. I had yet to admit that Osriel’s life was worth the saving.

“If there is the slightest hope to rescue our prince, I must do it,” said Brother Victor. “I can transfer my wardship to another. And we must certainly do whatever we can to retrieve young Jullian as well. Perhaps I can speak to Gildas’s conscience…”

Perhaps they hadn’t told Victor about Gerard. “Gildas owns no conscience,” I said.

“The priestess will never yield a living captive.” Voushanti’s opinion interrupted the discussion with the subtle grace of a crossbow bolt. “Go through with this exchange and you but confirm she has a prize in hand. Then she will redouble her efforts to extract the truth from Thane Stearc. Whether or not he tells her what she wants to know, Thane Stearc is a dead man. His endurance is all that stands between Prince Osriel and Sila Diaglou’s questioning.” He glared at Saverian as if it were her fault Osriel was taken.

Voushanti’s reasoning—and its implication that Osriel was as good as dead, too—silenced us all. Elene closed her eyes and pressed folded hands to her mouth.

There had to be some other way to save three lives than to send this good man to certain death. I rolled the priestess’s message over in my mind. With every skill of memory I had developed through the years, I reviewed the exact phrasing, my thoughts focused as if heeding the whispers of stone. “She wants to have it done before the solstice,” I murmured.

Then truth struck home like a cudgel to the knees. “Of course!” I blurted out. “Max has settled her bargain with Prince Bayard!”

Saverian and Victor had not heard the details of Osriel’s meeting with his two half brothers at Gillarine. Thus I had to explain Osriel’s agreement with Bayard to join him in confronting the Harrowers, and how my brother Max, as Bayard’s negotiator, had been charged to drive a false bargain with the priestess over her demands for control of Evanore, the lighthouse, and me. “…and so Prince Osriel told them that either the joined might of Eodward’s sons defeats Sila Diaglou on the winter solstice or the world we know will end.”

“By the Mother, Riel!” Saverian’s harsh whisper split the despairing silence.

The problem, of course, was that without Osriel, his plan, whatever it might have been, collapsed like an empty sack. What hope had we of preventing Sila Diaglou from doing whatever she wished on the solstice? She could make Bayard her puppet king or crown herself. As long as she possessed the book of maps and the traitor Gildas to use it, she could eventually find every Danae sianou and work her poisoning, further corrupting the Canon. Harrowers would lay waste to Ardra. The warlords might hold Evanore against the combined legions of Harrowers and Moriangi, but what light would ever draw them from their caves as night and chaos drowned Navronne? No more savior princes waited hidden in Aeginea.

“Osriel commanded the warmoot to muster at Angor Nav on the solstice,” Elene said numbly. “He promised they would ride for Palinur the next day to enforce his claim to Navronne.”

No need to remind us that Angor Nav lay more than eighty quellae from Caedmon’s Bridge or to state the logical conclusion that Osriel had no intention of confronting Sila Diaglou with his Evanori legion. The prince had believed victory lay in the deserted gold mine of Dashon Ra, and if any knew what that dread solution entailed, it was Saverian. She looked as if she could snap bone with her teeth.

“Our first responsibility is to preserve the lighthouse,” said Brother Victor, always a man of practical reason. “Whatever plan Prince Osriel formulated and whatever he learned from the Danae that might aid him are imprisoned with him. So we must devise a new plan on our own.”

“Unless you’ve learned what we need, Valen,” said Elene, forcing her voice steady. “Perhaps he told you his intent before you were taken? Or perhaps you heard what he learned from the Danae?”

I heard her truer inquiry. Had I kept my promise to learn of Osriel’s dire enchantment and dissuade him from it?

I met her gaze and shook my head, then spoke to all. “We learned nothing from the prince or his meeting. But Saverian and I did learn that the Canon has been broken for a very long time. The Danae themselves are in decline and have found no answer for it. With each Harrower poisoning—what they did with Gerard and tried to do by killing Brother Horach—another part of the Canon is lost.”

Even as I spoke, many things seemed clearer in my own mind. On the day we retrieved Gerard’s body at Clyste’s Well, Kol, in his anger, had handed me the first clue. You lead me here, cleanse the Well so I do not sicken, return it to my memory so I cannot escape knowing what is lost—though I must lose it all over again. And Picus’s failing garden had given me the second.

“Once a sianou is poisoned, they can’t find their way there anymore,” I said. “And the rest of the land, despite their care, keeps failing. I saw what they do, what they fight, and I would wager on my hope of heaven that this failure is the root of our plagues and pestilence, our weather disturbances, too, for all I know. Prince Osriel went to the Danae hoping to gain use of their magic on the solstice, and we’ve no way of knowing what answer they gave him. But what Saverian learned is that no matter what they promised the prince, the archon’s enmity for humankind is so deep-rooted that trusting the Danae in any matter whatsoever increases our peril.”

As I laid out these truths, I saw no hope for Osriel or Stearc. Even if the thane had endured Sila Diaglou’s torments thus far, in the moment the priestess paraded her prisoners before Bayard, the game would be up and Osriel would die. It was only a matter of time.

“How long have we been gone?” I said. The confusions of Aeginea had destroyed my concept of time. Were we but a day or two from the solstice, I could see no course but to hide Elene and Victor and whatever monks we could salvage from Gillarine. Unbreached, the lighthouse might survive. But if those who could read the books and work the tools fell to Sila Diaglou’s holocaust, what matter if the priestess took her time to find her way inside? On the other hand, had we a sevenday, something more might be done, though I had no idea what.

“Six days have passed since you were taken.” Voushanti’s harsh intrusion grated on my spirit. “His Highness was made captive that same night. I returned to Renna only two days since.”

I spun to Saverian. “Only six! How could that be right?”

“Picus explained that it is not the days themselves, but the spending of human life that slows seven for one in Aeginea,” she said, with only vague attention. “Though time itself is fluid there, as we saw, the years pass side by side in the two planes, the sun’s passage marking the season’s change at the same hour.”

Saverian fell back into her own silence, distracted far beyond the matter of dirt and dishevelment and exhaustion. Her eyes flicked now and then toward Voushanti. But I accepted her word. Osriel had said something much the same.

Only six days…Perhaps we had a little time to work after all. “We’ve yet a fortnight until the solstice,” I said. “When is the anniversary of Eodward’s coronation? Has it passed? The prince was supposed to send to Bayard on that day to confirm their agreement.”

“The anniversary is three days hence,” said Brother Victor. “Mistress Saverian, did you say Picus?” She didn’t look up.

“A small, fast force might be able to intercept the priestess between the monkhouse and Palinur,” Voushanti broke in, his mailed bulk seeming to grow and fill the door. “One word and I can have the prince’s elite guard riding.”

“You will do nothing without my leave, Mardane,” said Elene harshly. “Renna is the gateway to Evanore. I’ll not leave it defenseless. As Prince Osriel’s appointed castellan, I command you stay here until Thane Boedec and Thanea Zurina arrive.”

“You cannot travel, Mardane,” said Saverian. “You know it.”

Voushanti folded his massive arms across his chest and looked away. I blinked, rubbed my own arms, and reached for better control of my wayward senses, for it seemed, just for a moment, that the edges of his flesh rippled like the surface of a wheat field. Though none acknowledged her comment, everyone looked as if a foul odor had wafted through the chamber.

“Sila Diaglou has several days’ head start and can call up remounts and reinforcements throughout Ardra,” I said, impatient with their secrets. “She’s likely back at Fortress Torvo already. We’ll have to take the prince from her there.”

My vow to preserve the lighthouse demanded Osriel’s rescue, no matter my grievances with him. And my vow to Jullian demanded my participation, for I could rely on no one else to protect him.

Brother Victor tapped his walking stick on the floor idly. “We would need to be sure Osriel and Stearc are inside the fortress. We’ve heard that Palinur is in confusion. Perhaps we could send in a small party, shielded with enchantment. Strike quickly.”

Elene’s head popped up. “You could locate them, right, Valen? Your magic…”

“Of course…yes.” I knew Jullian and Osriel well enough that I could locate them if I had a clue where to start.

Yet a direct assault on their prison was out of the question; the ancient fortress where Luviar had bled out his life sat in the heart of Palinur. And negotiations of any kind could allow Sila Diaglou to discover the prize that lay in her hand. Our plan must use stealth. Something unexpected…

“As for getting inside the fortress…” A fearful, horrid idea began to take shape in my head. “There’s a possibility I could do that, as well. Max has negotiated this solstice bargain between Bayard and Sila. If I were to go to Max…find out the terms agreed to…make sure they’ve no inkling of the prince’s situation, I could likely get inside.” As long as the priestess still wanted me. Getting four of us out would be another problem, unless my Danae skills could suffice.

Saverian threw off her blanket abruptly and kicked her hearth stool aside. “Your health is unstable, Valen. Someone should go with you.”

“No choice,” I said, shaking my head. “I can get to Max. But without a lot of awkward explanations, none of you would be admitted into the place I’ll have to meet him. Once we’ve spoken, I’ll return here, and we’ll decide how to proceed. Unless someone has a better idea?”

I expected at least Voushanti to argue, but he merely stared at me, his hand caressing his battered sword hilt.

Elene looked bewildered. “But your brother is in Palinur with Bayard! That’s weeks of traveling! We can’t afford—”

“Our sorcerer has acquired new skills, lady,” said the physician.

Brother Victor glanced between Saverian and me. “What’s happened to you, Brother Valen? There’s something very different about you tonight.”

“Perhaps Saverian could tell you some of it tomorrow, Brother. Just now…” Somehow deciding a course of action had released my weariness to settle on my shoulders like the gods’ yoke. And I would need all the wits I could muster where I was going. “I don’t know about the ladies, but I can’t promise one more sensible word until I find a bed. Mardane, if you could…”

“Excuse me, good Saverian,” said Brother Victor, insistently, “did you say Picus?”

Voushanti, with as much curiosity as I had ever seen on his scarred visage, motioned me toward a side passage and a stair. When he showed me a small tower chamber, I almost wept at the sight of the plump pillows and folded blankets piled on a bed. Dané or not, world’s end or not, walls or not, I had to sleep. “Four hours or morning, Mardane, whichever comes later.”

Voushanti jerked his head and left. I drifted off still piecing together the puzzle of the Canon, the Danae, the Harrowers, the world’s end—why had I not asked Kol about the damnable weather?

The ancient wall embedded in crumbling earth…pebbles and mud washed down to the road at its base, crusted and frozen in this early morning. A gentle rightward curve…dawn smells of roasting meat, of baking bread, of damp earth…And around the next corner the sound of dribbling water—here melting ice dripping into the cistern, there the font that never froze or dried. Scrawny trees grew sidewise from the bank, branches heavy with snow drooping over the road…in my face…tickling, scratching, freezing…the smell of burning from the lower city…

I walked around the corner, and in less time than it took to think it, the narrow alley that squeezed between Renna’s kitchens and an ancient fortification built into an Evanori mountainside led me straight into the narrow lane in Palinur, more than two hundred quellae distant. The stare of an Evanori guardsman, flummoxed at the sight of an oddly naked man in the kitchen alley, now came from a ragged woman using water from the Aingerou’s Font to wash vomit off her boy child.

The boy pointed at me and cried out weakly, “Mama, look! He’s on fire…an angel…”

“Not so!” I whispered, embarrassed. “Sorry! Shhh!” But the lad’s thready cry bounced through the lane like a child’s ball, from one hushed voice to the next, for a beggars’ city jammed the lane that ought to have been deserted.

In the past, this favored quarter of Palinur had escaped the untidy truths of hard living. Evidently that was no longer the case. A few small fires smoldered here and there among makeshift tents and crude lean-tos, built from branches cut from the overhanging trees. Fortunately most of the crowd still slept.

I jogged down the crowded roadway, jumping over pools of filth, bundled possessions, and sprawled bodies, then dived over the low wall into a crusted snowbank and scrambled well away from the lane. Thanks to half a night’s rest and enough roast venison and jam tarts to breakfast a legion of halfbreed Danae, the cold did not bother me. All the same, best not dawdle. Fine houses, like those around here, would have pureblood guards and magical wards. Staying hidden in the straggling shrubbery, I donned my silk and satin finery.

Elene had somehow managed to get my pureblood cloak and mask cleaned by the time Voushanti woke me that morning. She had brought them herself, along with her thanks for my venture. “We all knew you were extraordinary, Valen, even when you were playing monk,” she’d said, touching the gards on my hand. When I inquired about her health, her courage came near breaking. “He doesn’t know,” she’d whispered, crossing her arms on her breast. “He could die this very day, not knowing of his child.”

I’d had little comfort to offer. The remembrance of her grief and the weight of her head on my chest ached like old wounds, as I slipped on my mask, hopped over the wall, and hurried up the lane. A cloud of yellow smoke and frost haze masked the lower city.

I had not expected ever to walk this particular lane again. But a pureblood head of family had the authority to summon each of his children to the family home without specifying a reason. If I worked matters right with Claudio de Cartamandua, he would arrange my meeting with Max.

“Best run, pureblood,” snarled a woman who was skinning what appeared to be a cat. “Orange-heads drove out a number of your kind just yesterday. We’ll see purebloods plowin’ come spring. Your pretty fur cloaks’ll ne’er keep ye warm in the mud.”

A few others joined her taunts. For once I was happy to see armed warriors in Registry black and red patrolling the upper end of the lane. They rousted a few sleepers who had wandered too close, but did not challenge me as I strode past them to the iron gate with the bronze gryphon.

How truth can change everything. Unlike the last time Serena Fortuna had brought me to these gates, my gut did not seethe with fear and loathing, nor did my skin blanch at unwelcome memories. None of the past had been my fault. Claudio and Josefina de Cartamandua-Celestine were not my parents. As I touched the lock and assembled my favorite spell, it occurred to me for the first time that Claudio, not Max, was my brother—and only half a one at that. Laughing, I fed magic into my spell, and the familiar lock shattered in a fizz of gold sparks and twisted bronze. Then I yanked the bellpull to wake them up and walked in.

Chapter 19

Five heavily armed guards met me in the entry court, blocking the gap between the iron lampposts and the lily-shaped brazier dedicated to Deunor Lightbringer. Their challenge died upon their lips as I removed my mask. They could not fail to recognize me or recall the dread prince who owned my contract.

“Announce me to Eqastré Cartamandua-Celestine,” I said with true Aurellian arrogance, while gloating childishly inside at naming my erstwhile parent as an equal. Truly this pureblood lunacy brought out the worst in me.

I did not wait for their return. Rather I strolled into the columned reception room, where my family had sold me to Prince Osriel. Naught had changed there, from the richly colored floor mosaics that displayed the order of the planets to the marble statuary, gilt caskets, tapestries, and urns. For generations, pureblood families had profited from Navronne’s hunger for sorcery. My family had been particularly successful at it until I’d come along.

“…impossible! Where is this visitor?” Claudio strode into the room in the company of the guards, as well as two gentleman attendants of exceptionally sturdy physique. He halted when he caught sight of me. “Magrog’s teeth!”

“Patronn.” Maintaining protocol, I sank to one knee and touched my forehead with my gloved fingertips. His servants were present, and I was not yet ready to proclaim my true heritage. Proof of one member’s tainted blood would call into question the lineal purity of every member of the family. I could ruin this house by removing one of my gloves.

For fifteen years this stocky, black-haired man adorned in red and green velvets and a fox-lined pelisse had been the bane of my life, unrelenting in his despite, deliberate in his cruelty. For twelve years more, I had struggled to survive in alleyways and battlefields, choosing poverty, abasement, and danger in preference to his sovereignty and the life it prescribed. Today, as I rose from my brief genuflection, I looked Claudio de Cartamandua-Celestine in the eye and smiled.

His glare of malice shifted to uncertainty. His eyes narrowed, and his powerful fists began to quiver. “Insolent…”

Protocol forbade him to touch me. My contract permitted only Osriel to do that. I longed to tell Claudio I knew his dirty secrets, but what I needed today was for him to summon Max. In no wise could I expect willing cooperation, and it was not yet time for threats, which meant I had to proceed very carefully.

“Please do not trouble yourself with the conventions of refreshment or pleasantries, Patronn. I am here strictly on business, and must make speedy work of it. My royal master bids me—” I twirled a finger to indicate his retinue. “Ah, I really must present his request in private.”

Though he would clearly prefer to strangle me, Claudio motioned his attendants to the corners where they could not hear us, and then seated himself in a delicate armchair. He left me the choice to remain standing, drag another chair to his side, or sit on the floor—any one of which would be demeaning to a pureblood. As he intended. He was a bit discomfited when I chose to perch on a marble table a few steps away. My position only emphasized the difference in our height.

“You look well, Valen,” he said. “Does submission to the Bastard suit you, then?” Curiosity poked through his studied calm like a kitten’s sharp claws through silk.

“My master believes in strict discipline, as you warned me.” I folded my gloved hands in my lap. “And he has schooled me quickly in his requirements. Fortunately, he is pleased with my talents. So much so that he is interested in pursuing a contract with another of our family. In short, he desires a cartographer to map the new bounds of his kingdom. My difficulties with written language preclude such service, of course. But what prince would consider other than a Cartamandua to make him maps?”

“His kingdom? You’re saying Osriel the Bastard intends to claim the throne?” His dark eyes raked my face, hunting signs of the mockery and lies that had passed my lips far more often than serious discourse.

But thanks to this man, I was well practiced in deceit. I only smiled again and shrugged. “He has his plans. As you might imagine, I tried to divert his attention to other mapmakers, but he would have none. He bids me insist, and I do not disobey. I am to remind you that Evanore’s gold could ensure our family’s fortunes for decades to come.”

My father sprang from his seat, walked away a few steps, then spun to face me, calculating. “You cannot be serious.”

“I told him it must be Max or Phoebia, as Nilla and Thalassa have taken the Celestine bent instead of yours. Janus, of course, is out of the question. And you…well, you are head of family and could not possibly leave Palinur. My master will not be denied, Patronn.”

There passed a long silence. He chewed on his lip and did not take his eyes from me. I strove to remain neutral in expression.

He lowered his brows, pursed his lips, and glanced at me sidewise. “Phoebia has decent skills. Max’s are better, if he would only get off his horse and use them, but he is contracted to Prince Bayard.”

I swallowed my disgust at his connivance. “I need to speak with each of them, of course, to form a better estimate of their experience with such work and their degree of willingness to cooperate with a demanding master. Once my lord has my report, he will send Mardane Voushanti to negotiate terms. He doesn’t quite trust me to do that as yet.”

Yes, that last point made him relax a bit. That any master would trust me was the most difficult of all these matters for him to believe.

“Phoebia is easily available,” he said, “and Max…fortunately he is in the city just now. I can send an official summons as head of family, which requires no explanation to his master.” He rubbed his chin in a mockery of indecision. “But, of course, to release him from Prince Bayard’s contract…that would cost a great deal of money.”

Somewhere in our family veins must run a river of lies. Had Max not complained to me of how our family’s contract value had waned due to my rebellion and long disappearance, I would have believed his last concern.

“Understood,” I said. “Now, I shall require privacy for the interviews. My master would not wish his business to become public prematurely. I’ve certainly no fear of anyone in the family speaking out of turn, but servants…” I shrugged again. “And you have frequently expressed your disinterest in anything from my lips. Unless that has changed?”

I thought his teeth might grind to powder. Mighty is the power of fear and gold to a pureblood. But Claudio’s pride and hatred won out. He spread his arms. “Wherever you like.”

Despicable gatzé! What kind of man would even consider pledging his young daughter to a master of Osriel’s foul repute—a daughter who had amassed no history of violence or disobedience as I had? Even Max, though arrogant beyond bearing, had been the most dutiful of sons, deserving no such fate.

As I waited for Claudio to summon my young sister, I tried to think what to say to her. Bringing Max to the neutral ground of our family home, out of his master’s hearing, had seemed a more reasonable course than tracking him down myself in war-ravaged Palinur. I had foolishly assumed Bia’s father would wish to shield her from a monster, making this bit of playacting unnecessary. On the other hand, I wished again that I had some excuse for speaking with Thalassa, but this lie was elaborate enough without working Samele’s high priestess into it.

Footsteps hurried through the tiled passages of the family wing. As I stood, the walls of the room wavered and bulged. I closed my eyes for a moment, breathed deep, and blessed the potion Saverian had offered me that morning to tame my nausea at sitting indoors. The insidious panic of collapsing walls, I had to manage for myself. The symptoms seemed much worse since taking on my Danae gards. Or perhaps it was only my approaching birthday.

“Serena pauli,” I said, offering a shallow bow to the young woman who appeared at the door, her arm firmly in Claudio’s grip. I motioned a servant to bring her a chair, and then waited as Claudio dismissed the servants and guardsmen. When he saw I was not going to begin until he’d followed them, the glowering Claudio whirled and withdrew.

My younger sister Phoebia, a plainer, less womanly version of her mother and elder sister, wore her heavy black hair wound about her head in tight braids like a warrior’s helm and resentment about her shoulders like a mantle. She had been so young when I left home, I did not know her well enough to read beyond her sullen facade. The only time I’d seen her since my recapture, she’d spat on me.

“Our conversation will be private, Bia,” I said, drawing my chair close so we would not be overheard. “Patronn told you why I’ve been sent here?”

She jerked her head in acknowledgment. Her knuckles were bloodless, and a thin film of sweat sheened her copper-colored skin.

“You’ve naught to fear from either me or my master,” I said. “He is hard, and a man of fearsome mystery, but fair to his servants who carry out their duties…” We spoke for more than an hour of the tasks she performed for the family—coloring Claudio’s maps, inking lists of place names and distances, using her Cartamandua bent to smooth curves and add in details he thought too unimportant for his particular attention. She did not travel, did not publish maps of her own, and had attracted neither a contract nor an offer of marriage. She blamed her sorry lot on me. I could not deny the responsibility. Despite my rehabilitation by the pureblood Registry, my years as a recondeur had made alliance with our family a risk for other purebloods. Petronilla’s beauty had caught Bia’s twin a lucky match, and Max and Thalassa had the talent and determination to gain them favored, if not excessively profitable, contracts. Which left Phoebia alone with a despicable father and a drunken mother.

Though she did not warm as we spoke, her fists unclenched. In the end, I felt sorry that I had no contract to offer her. When I heard the bustle of an arrival from the front of the house, I stood and, to her astonishment, kissed her hand. “I doubt my master will take you on this time, serena pauli. Right now he needs particular skills. But if this succession is settled favorably, he will have need of many services.”

She touched her fingers to her forehead, then wriggled those I had kissed, examining them as if half expecting they might break out in a rash. “The city…out there…is very bad, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve heard that Harrowers burn books, so I would guess that they’ll have no use for maps. And they despise purebloods.”

“All true.”

She looked up at me, her dark eyes troubled. “What should I do, Valen? Matronn warns of this danger—a dark veil, she calls it—that is coming down on Navronne. She sees purebloods sent into the countryside to dig and plant…to labor in the fields like villeins. Patronn refuses to listen. He calls me stupid to worry.”

I shivered. Josefina de Cartamandua-Celestine’s divinations invariably made me shiver.

“You are not stupid to worry,” I said, touching Bia’s shoulders, wishing I could do more for her. “Go to Thalassa. Patronn can’t stop you going to temple. Temples are little safer than anywhere else, as it happens, but Lassa understands what’s happening in the world as well as anyone. She’ll see to you.”

Bia didn’t question how I knew all this. I was no diviner. But she ducked her head and hurried out of the room a great deal livelier than she’d come. Then Max strode through the doorway, leather and steel gleaming from beneath his cloak, and I could think no more of frightened little sisters.

“What in the name of the blistering bawds do you think you’re doing?” he said through clenched teeth, as he whipped off his mask. “If one word leaks out linking Bayard and Osriel, this little game is up. Are you as mad as your prince, or is this his imbecilic idea?”

“Sit down and speak normally,” I said, as I bowed and touched my forehead. “Patronn believes I’m here to discuss a possible contract between you and Prince Osriel, and we would not wish him to learn differently. Hear me out, and all will become clear.”

Though seething, he greeted me properly and lowered his compact bulk into the chair. “We are involved in no alleyway scrap, Valen. The witch has left Grav Hurd, her favorite ax man, here in the city. He’s pushing Prince Bayard to close the temples and alehouses and ship any man, woman, or child convicted of crimes into the countryside where they can ‘heed the voice of the Gehoum.’ He threatens to bring down the Registry tower. We are drowning in madmen.”

“I understand,” I said, leaning back in my chair as if settling in for a long interview. “Prince Osriel has sent me to hear the terms of the solstice bargain you’ve worked out with her.”

He leaned back, twisting the corner of his thick mustache where it tangled in his well-trimmed beard. The beard was Max’s only true rebellion of his one-and-thirty years. Claudio hated it. “Why now?” he demanded. “It was your master who chose to confirm the agreement on Coronation Day.”

I’d never seen Max so serious. His private face had always been a snigger, and he met every circumstance by boasting of some way to turn it to his advantage. Only a few short weeks ago, he had twiddled magical dust from his fingers and joked how sorcerers would be exempt from any harsh future by virtue of the awe in which we were held. Yet, in a way, his sobriety might make my task easier. I quickly rethought my approach.

“Prince Osriel is a hard master, Max, and more clever than you can imagine. He will do anything to accomplish his purposes. He’s told me I need to prepare—” I leaned forward and dropped my voice even lower. “Great gods, Max, tell me that you’ve talked the priestess out of having me.”

His black eyes sharpened. “Why would you care? I assumed from all he said that this bargain was but a feint as long as we got Sila into Evanore by the solstice.”

“It is and it isn’t. He wants her focused on the solstice and will do whatever is needed to convince her that she’s won. Indeed that is the night that will prove who holds power in Navronne. But he also wishes—” I stopped. “Tell me the bargain, Max.”

“One honest answer first. Did Osriel send you to me? Here?” He watched me unblinking, his every sinew like stretched wire.

I shook my head and felt him relax.

“All right, then. You’ll be hearing the terms soon enough.” He rested his thick forearms on his spread thighs and clasped his hands loosely. He was already gaining confidence…recognizing advantage to be won. “I met twice with this Grav Hurd—a smart devil, tough as a spire nut—and once with the priestess herself, to wring out the final changes. I tell you, Valen, these people make Patronn seem as charming as a courtesan. But we came to agreement, signed and sealed. It states that as of midnight on the winter solstice Sila Diaglou will reign sovereign in Evanore, subject only to Navronne’s crown. She will administer Evanore’s gold, but will pay the crown a twice-yearly tithe of no less than ten thousand solae—and don’t ask me who will collect it. Prince Bayard will not release Prince Perryn into her custody, but agrees to parade him in chains through the streets of Palinur on the first day of the new year and allow the priestess to conduct a rite of purification for him. Perryn’s life will not be forfeit—though I would not stand in his boots that day for all of Evanore’s gold. As for the lighthouse…she dropped the demand for its location, indicating that it was no longer of immediate concern. But you, little brother…” He paused for a long moment in this impressive recital, gazing at his boots and shaking his head, near smiling when he raised his head and took up again. “On your contract she would budge not one quat. And no matter how I strutted or wheedled, the witch would not tell me why. So…Prince Bayard agreed that you are to be turned over to her on the solstice.”

I should have been happy to hear this. My hope to get near Osriel and Stearc and Jullian relied on Sila Diaglou’s intent to have me. It fit with my odd, unlikely belief that my personal mystery was fundamentally entangled with Navronne’s doom. But all I could feel was hollow and clammy…the dread of being locked in a tomb while living…the dread of facing Judgment Night and seeing the One God point to the downward path. What did a priestess who found joy in bleeding miscreants and innocents want with me? I just had to believe she didn’t want me dead.

I mustered a voice. “What of my master? What do they propose to do about him as they apportion his demesne?”

“Ah, yes…” He tapped his fingertips together for a moment, then shrugged. “If the priestess captures him on the night of the solstice, she may keep him, but he will neither be publicly punished nor publicly displayed. He will disappear.”

“And if he were to end up in Prince Bayard’s custody?”

Max shrugged and grinned. “Well, for the purposes of the agreement, we implied the result would be the same…Osriel would be neither seen nor heard from again…which could, of course, mean private retirement or exile. But, of course, Bayard believes that our joined might will defeat the witch and that Prince Osriel will come to an equitable and honorable agreement with his elder brother as to Navronne’s ruling.”

“Yes. That is certainly the intent.” Though, after Osriel’s betrayal in Aeginea, I had no more certainty of his true intent than I did of Bayard’s.

Max leaned close again and his smile vanished. “Now, why are you and I discussing what must be laid out again three days hence for your master’s messenger?”

“He desires for her to have me before solstice night, Max. She has a Karish monk in her party.”

“Her pet monk…yes, I saw him. Smug kind of fellow, always whispering in her ear. I never trust a man who shaves off all his hair.”

“That’s him—Gildas. The monk owns some secret…gods, I don’t know what.” I rubbed my head and kneaded my neck. The wavering walls left me dizzy and sweating, like a prisoner awaiting the hangman. Did I appear as ill as I felt, Max would certainly believe me frightened—as I hoped for him to do. “So Osriel is sending me to Bayard. He’s going to let you turn me over to the priestess as a pledge of good faith, as if you’d caught me by good fortune. And then…he’s commanded me to kill Gildas. I’ve no qualms about that. We’ve no love between us, Gildas and I. That he serves the priestess is reason enough to condemn him. But my master’s given me no way out. Just says that he’ll see to it as he’s no intention of forfeiting my contract. He says that all will be sorted out on the solstice. Max, I’ve seen what Sila Diaglou does to those who displease her. But if I disobey the Bastard…”

He settled back in his chair, tilting his head, saying nothing. It took no Danae senses to feel his mind racing.

I stood up abruptly. “All right, then. Thank you for sharing the information with me, ancieno. I’ll figure out something.” I hurried toward the entry court door, listening…

“Wait!”

Closing my eyes, I promised Serena Fortuna a grand libation. I swung around slowly.

Max waved me back to my chair, and when I was seated, leaned forward as if to hold me there with his authority. “I know exactly what solution you’ll ‘figure out,’ little brother—the same as always. But running away will not save you this time. Despite Grav Hurd’s best efforts to drive all purebloods out of the city, the Registry is like to be the only power that survives this war—and once they find you again, they’ll bury you so deep, you’ll remember this house as heaven and beg for Patronn’s strap in preference to their gentle hands.” He smoothed and straightened the front of my pourpoint as if he were a caring elder brother. “And, of course, you would destroy the family along the way, not to mention laying waste all this delicate negotiating—for which I have pledged every minim of my own future.”

No matter that I had expected this response from him—no matter that I had come here rejoicing that I no longer accounted these people the whole of my kin—I could not stifle the rage his calculation roused in me. I let him see it. “And why would I be willing to suffer either Sila Diaglou’s fury or Osriel the Bastard’s to preserve this misbegotten family or this misbegotten kingdom?”

“Hold, little brother. I am not suggesting you sit back and accept your dismal lot.” He smiled in the very same superior manner he claimed to detest in Gildas. “I owe you a debt. You gave me this chance for advancement when you stood up for my honor in front of your prince and mine. Even you know the importance of honor and trust to those of us who actually believe in pureblood contracts. So perhaps you and I can come to an accommodation…help each other…”

“Max will see no advantage to warning Gildas of my murderous intent. He’d much rather have Gildas’s secrets.” I dug into the platter of roast pork under Saverian’s watchful eye. The two of us sat in the courtyard at Renna Syne two hours after my return from Palinur. “I’m not leaving Max personally at risk. He won’t even know I was actually after Jullian, Stearc, and the prince until we’re safely back here. All Sila’s anger and Bayard’s will fall on me and through me to Osriel. Bayard is conspiring against the priestess already, and I’ve hopes our prince will forgive me for saving his neck.”

“But you trust Max enough that this weapon he promises to supply is your only sure defense and this escape route he gave you is your only way out?” Saverian’s skepticism could have eroded Renna’s cliffs, so it did no good at all for my fragile confidence.

“In the best case, I won’t need to rely on either one. I’ve size, I’ve magic, and I’ve surprise to wield. Surely something in Fortress Torvo will remind me enough of something here that I can shift the four of us straight back here. And yes, before you ask again, I’ll not let Max turn me over until I’ve made sure the prisoners are actually in the fortress.”

The physician poked at the blaze in the fire pit. The serving man had thought she was mad to have wood hauled into the sunny courtyard of the window house. He was not present to note the greater oddity when I stripped off my cloak, tunic, and shirt as I ate, basking in the frigid air as if it were a river of mead, while Saverian huddled next to her blaze. Only a few hours remained until sundown, when Voushanti was to deliver me to Prince Bayard. Every time I thought of it, my gut tied itself in knots and my head got woozy.

“I won’t argue that we’ve much choice in the matter,” said the physician, “but your plan is madness. You’ve no idea what Sila Diaglou thinks to do with you. Do you actually believe she’ll allow you to roam free and abscond with her prisoners?”

“In the best case, I’ll have the three of them out before she can get over the surprise. In the worst case, well…” The worst cases were innumerable, and I couldn’t bear thinking about them. We’d no time to plan more intricate ploys. “…I’ll just have to lie a bit more. It’s still my finest talent.”

I had exercised that skill in plenty since I’d returned from Palinur, pulled on the damp clothes I’d stashed behind a water cask in Renna’s back alley, and rousted my fellow conspirators from their afternoon’s business. I had told Elene I had no reason to fear Sila Diaglou’s custody, as the priestess had made clear she wanted me alive. I had promised Brother Victor that no amount of intelligence and clever deceit could give Gildas the power to match a half-Danae half sorcerer. I’d assured all of them that my new skills could certainly get me and the prisoners out of Sila Diaglou’s house and back here in good order. I had even asked Elene to show me Renna’s dungeons so I could impress their complete image—the stink produced by the three drunkard prisoners, the chill, the taste and smell of iron and damp and enclosing walls—firmly on my mind. I had insisted that she needn’t worry about my pallor as I followed her through those dank passages, and when we’d come out into the wintry sunlight, I distracted them all from my sick fear and sketchy plan by showing them the fronds of sea grass that marked my hand with pale blue and silver light.

Saverian knew better. I appreciated that she didn’t contradict me until we were alone. While Elene, Brother Victor, and Voushanti prepared a letter in Osriel’s name, confirming the solstice plan and offering me to Bayard as a “gift of good faith” to hand over to Sila Diaglou and close their bargain, the two of us had hiked over to Renna Syne. Along with some of the wardrobe Osriel had provided me, Saverian had supplied food, medicine, and her own astringent honesty.

“This Gildas will suspect you’re there to take the boy and the others. He knows about your problem with nivat. That should worry you. One wrong word from Max and he’ll pounce.”

It did worry me. And then there was the matter of being staked bound and bleeding over some Danae sianou. Alone and dying slowly…great gods, what end could be worse than that? Especially when all assurance about what might come after my death had been upended. Saverian’s marrow-deep scrutiny had surely uncovered this fear, too.

“Yes. Yes. And yes,” I said. “It is a demented plan. A thousand things can go wrong. But from the beginning Sila has said she wants my contract, not just me. She has some use for me, Saverian. She’s not going to kill me or let Gildas do it. And if she has some use for me, then I have leverage. I won’t be shut up in a box. As for the nivat…I’ll be wary. At the first whiff, I’ll shut down my sense of smell—Kol taught me how to do that. Yes, I could be horribly wrong about all this, and if you think I am terrified, that’s not even the half of it. Gods, I’m no strategist. This is all I can think to do.”

I stuffed down more food, not knowing when I might get to eat again. I had to stay warm. I had to stay sensible. Saverian was too good at making me think, however uncomfortable. It was certainly possible that my connection with Osriel might lead Gildas to suspect that Osriel and Gram were the same man. In that case, the game would be up before it had even begun.

“You should get the others to prepare for the worst,” I said. “They respect you, listen to you. They know about strategy and tactics and all those things I’ve no head for. They must know some way to call in Osriel’s warlords. So use it and persuade the lords to defend Caedmon’s Bridge on the solstice. Stash Gillarine’s monks in the highest mountains of Evanore.”

“What if you’re wrong about bigger things, Valen?” said the physician softly. “What if your importance to the Danae is more critical than saving Osriel or Jullian or this lighthouse? Your mother had some plan for you.”

That argument, of course, I had no possible way to rebut, so I tried to explain the course that spirit and instinct had chosen for me. “Jullian is my friend and my sworn responsibility. Stearc is an honorable man and beloved of my friends. Though Osriel betrayed me, though he terrifies me, he is my lord and rightful king. He wants to do right for Navronne, even beyond his own life and honor and future—I can see that much. My mother told no one her plan, so I can’t see what would be so important that I must let my friends and my king die. And no one else has the skills to save them. I might. So, physician, steer me a better course.”

“Kill Voushanti.”

“Spirits of night!” I said, near choking. I dropped my eating knife into the platter as if it had given her the macabre idea. Had I not already closed down the rattling abundance of my senses, I would have been sure I had misheard. “Why, in the name of the Mother—?”

“He is already dead. Has been for over ten years. And if no one steps forward by tomorrow night, he’ll die again, this time with no coming back. To continue breathing he must be blood-bound to another living person. Osriel and Stearc are not available. Elene will have naught to do with the business. The monk is too weak. I can’t do it myself if I’m going to work the spell, not that I’m interested in having so close an attachment to him, either. He is brutish and bullheaded, frightens most of my patients, and has no respect for women, especially those who aspire to studies. I could perhaps persuade Philo or Melkire to the task—they respect him and are not so afraid as everyone else—but Osriel has given me no leave to tell anyone else of this.”

I worked to take in so much information. “But you’re telling me.”

“I believe the prince would trust you with the knowledge. In the days ahead, you might need someone who is bound to your will and devoted to your service…at least until Osriel can take on the burden again. It won’t improve your crazy plan, but it might give you and Riel a better chance of surviving it.”

She spoke as seriously and reasonably as Brother Sebastian explaining the structure of virtue. But the little lines atop the bridge of her nose had deepened to little ravines. Slowly I wiped my greasy mouth on my shirttail, startled as always to see the silvery gards gleaming from my hand. I swallowed. “Are you planning to explain more or do you expect me just to agree to such a mystery at your suggestion? Which I won’t.”

She shoved the plate of meat back toward me and refilled my cup with Evanori ale that tasted as if it had been made from discarded boots. “Keep eating. You don’t have much time, and if we’re to do this, we’ll need to do it soon.”

I just looked at her with the kind of expression such a ridiculous suggestion deserved.

She sighed and rested the ale pitcher in her lap. “Voushanti was the third son of a minor Evanori family, a veteran, competent warrior. When King Eodward moved his mistress to Renna to get her away from your hateful purebloods, he sent Voushanti along as her bodyguard. Voushanti was arrogant and silent and not particularly happy at being shoved off to watch over a woman. Everyone here was a bit afraid of him. And then Lirene died.”

The physician took on her most argumentative expression, but her eyes were focused on the past and not on me.

“You have to understand how Osriel adored his mother. She cared for him through so much pain and sickness, sang to him, bathed him, held him through long, dreadful nights. He was only seven when a sudden fever took her. He truly believed he would die without her. Evanori have stories…well, all warrior people have stories, I’m sure, about heroes that live beyond death. On the day of Lirene’s funeral rites, Riel told me that his magic was going to bring her back. Voushanti heard him say it, and called Osriel a blasphemer to so question the laws of the gods and insult the memory of true warriors. Osriel hated Voushanti from that day.”

“He planned to bring his mother back from the dead,” I said numbly.

“Osriel read everything he could find about Aurellian sorcery, and he questioned my mother and his father’s other purebloods until their ears blistered. He studied and followed my mother about as she worked with the sick. She said Riel could have been a healer himself were he not a king’s bastard, required to study politics and war. Everyone believed Osriel sought a cure for saccheria, but I knew what he was looking for. At twelve, when his father took him to Ardra for the first time, he brought back a wagonload of Aurellian books, and in an old book of herb spells, he found the key.”

Saverian’s long, capable fingers were tangled in a knot, pressed to her chin, and she kept her eyes averted as people do when they tell stories they believe they should not.

“At fifteen, he showed me how he could smother a frog and set it breathing again. A few months later, he claimed to have touched the living soul of a villein who had been kicked by a horse, though the man’s soul escaped him before he could catch it. By this time he had accepted that his mother was gone, but he could not stop.” She paused, pressing her lips together.

“And Voushanti?” I said, urging her on.

“From the day Lirene died, wherever Osriel walked, sat, studied, or slept, Voushanti stood by. Riel hated it. He called the saccheria his prison, and Voushanti his warder. When he was small, he cast magical curses at Voushanti—little flaming, stinging things—and his father chastised him sorely for it. By the time he turned sixteen, he merely lived as if Voushanti did not exist.

“One winter afternoon, Osriel was sitting in the old library of this house, studying. He was feverish again, his joints so swollen that any movement was excruciating. He was practicing fire work, smothering the hearth fire and starting it up again with pure magic. Voushanti warned him repeatedly to stop, for the steward had reported the library chimney clogged. Voushanti stood directly in front of the hearth…”

I needed no more words to see what happened—a frustrated, angry, pain-racked youth flaunting his talent before his jailer, casting a great flaming spell toward the hearth.

Saverian stopped and drank from her ale cup. I was so caught up in the story, my own remained untouched. “Voushanti saved him from the fire,” I said.

Saverian drained her cup. “The place burned like dry wheat. You can still see the ruin out behind the west wing. Voushanti took the full brunt of Osriel’s fireburst and the eruption of the chimney, yet he carried Osriel out, completely shielding him from the flames. No one could have survived such injuries as the mardane bore. My mother pronounced him dead within the hour.”

Like the tides of Evaldamon, cold dread swept over me again. “But Osriel…”

“He demanded servants carry the body into his private study. Almost a full day later, Riel summoned my mother to tend Voushanti’s burns. Lungs, heart, all his organs were functioning, though his burns remained savage. Voushanti lived again.”

“You say this has happened more than once…his dying…”

“Three that I know of. One that I saw, when Riel was too sick to complete the spell and called me in to help. Severe wounds can stop Voushanti’s heart, but he can be brought back if the enchantment is renewed immediately. Time can stop his heart if the enchantment is not renewed at least once in a sevenday. But the one whose blood seals the enchantment on the mardane’s lips is bound to him, able to command Voushanti to his service. Unless you force him elsewhere, Voushanti will not leave your side. He will sense your presence, know when you’re in trouble, and he fights like a man who has nothing to lose. He could make the difference between your venture’s success and failure.”

“What of his soul?”

“I don’t believe in souls.”

“What does the prince say?”

She folded her arms tight across her breast and hardened her mouth as if expecting me to assault her. “He says that Voushanti’s soul and body are fused, and that when his body dies at last—truly and forever—his soul will die with it. Osriel bears some dreadful guilt over the whole thing, which is ridiculous. The magic is truly remarkable.”

I would have given my teeth to have more time to consider what Saverian had told me, for in her story of Osriel’s bold sorcery lay the truth about dead men’s eyes and votive vessels sealed with blood and what Osriel intended to do with them. I had assumed he planned some great enchantment, built with the substance and energies he had stolen from dying men. But now…It came to me that the Bastard thought to ensorcel himself an army.

Chapter 20

“Who gave you leave to speak of these matters?” The red centers of Voushanti’s dark eyes gleamed with fury. “The prince will have you flogged.”

Saverian stepped closer to my side, as if together we could withstand his wrath. I wished I was far from Saverian’s meticulously ordered study.

“The prince commanded me to do what was necessary to give you a full span of life, Mardane,” said Saverian. “You owe him your obedience, as I do.”

“Him. Not you. Not this fey sorcerer.”

“Then do as he would command you. If you have another partner in mind, perhaps Magnus could fetch him.”

Cream-colored light streamed from a lamp of the magical variety that lit Renna Syne, illuminating shelf upon shelf filled with books, beakers, bottles, and jars. Two well-scrubbed tables laid out with brass implements, mortar and pestle, pans, and balances furnished one end of the room. A chair, side table, and footstool held the opposite end, with a variety of stools and benches in between. The physician had failed to mention the chamber’s location in the bowels of Renna’s fortress or its lack of windows. Evidently she disliked being bothered by household noise, outdoor views, or air as she worked.

When I had said I would consider doing as she suggested, Saverian had bustled me here immediately. “What of your scruples?” I’d asked her, as we traipsed across the dry hillside between Renna Syne and the fortress. “You once told me that ‘no worthy physician could stand by and see a healthy body damaged.’”

“To cause death deliberately violates every principle of the healer’s art,” she had said. “And to keep a body alive by enchantment violates the good order of nature that stands before any god in my esteem. But if I refuse to perpetuate Osriel’s ugly mistake, then I have destroyed Voushanti just as surely and far more permanently. He will die unless you and I do this.” That was the point I could not argue.

Then we had arrived and Voushanti had been waiting for her. And before I could say yes or no, she had told Voushanti I would be his new partner in this macabre business. Since then he had been circling the workroom like a trapped wolf.

Saverian continued to speak calmly. “It seems unlikely that the prince will return in time to perform this service for you himself. As you are accompanying Magnus to Palinur to effect our lord’s rescue, it would be most inconvenient if you were to die in the midst of it. This seems a reasonable solution to your problem.”

“Reasonable?” There ensued one of the most horrible sounds I had ever heard—a strident gargling bellow that might have emanated from one of the nearby dungeons. The accompanying jerk of Voushanti’s shoulders and the spasm of emotion that crossed his scarred visage gave me the unlikely idea that he was laughing. “You cannot even tell me how this one’s fey blood might affect the enchantment. Would I had a tankard, physician, that I could raise it to your twisted notion of reason.”

Saverian, unfazed, pointed to a long low bench. Scuffed leather covered its thin padding. “I promise you will be no more dead using the sorcerer’s blood than you will be without it. You’ve an appointment in Palinur three hours hence, Mardane, which means you’ve little enough time for recovery. If we’re to do this, we do it now.”

Events swept past and over me like a flock of startled crows. Abandoning me at the door, where I held a drowning man’s grip on a much too low lintel stone, Saverian dragged a stepstool to one of her shelves and retrieved a small enameled canister shaped like an angel. She set the canister on a knee-high table in company with a silver lancet, a square stack of folded linen, and a bronze basin with an extended lip like that of a pitcher.

“Slitting your heart vein will be quickest, Lord Voushanti, though the blood loss will likely leave you weaker than you would prefer,” she said. “But delivering Magnus to Prince Bayard should not entail a fight, and the journey…you will marvel at its ease and, in fact, decide that you have bound yourself to a fine racehorse. We’ll hope he keeps his pace reasonable in deference to your recent demise.”

Like dust motes floating on the light, her macabre humor failed to settle. Voushanti’s pacing slowed. Perhaps he might refuse the enchantment…which seemed a vile and wicked hope.

Saverian paused in her preparations. “Do you wish a sleeping draft? I know Prince Osriel does not offer, but I could—”

“No!” None of his answers had approached the ferocity of this one.

Without further argument, the seething warrior removed his leather jupon, gray tunic, and wool shirt, exposing broad chest and shoulders mottled with ugly red burn scars, old battle wounds, and patches of black and gray hair. He laid his garments on Saverian’s chair and reclined on the leather bench.

At Saverian’s direction I moved to Voushanti’s side. He averted his face, and neither twitched nor fidgeted.

With a flurry of brusque steps and clinking glass, Saverian added a few vials, tapers, and small dishes to her supplies. Then she doused the magical lamp and brought a lighted candle to her table. Drawing her stool beside mine, she thrust a stained but clean wadded sheet into my sweating hands. “Be ready with this,” she said softly.

I could not think what she meant, but didn’t ask. My eyes would not leave the wide flat handle of the lancet that lay snug in her hand.

“Mardane Voushanti, is it your will that I take you past the brink of unlife and work this magic to restore your breath and blood?”

He jerked his head in assent, but fixed his eyes on the far wall.

“Speak your will, or I’ll have none of this,” she snapped. “No man will say I chose this way.”

Voushanti swiveled his head to glare redly at the both of us. “You’ve not bound me to this bench. Obey our master’s will. Take this life and give it back.”

He turned away again. Saverian probed his neck with two fingers and without hesitation jabbed her lancet in between.

Blood spewed from Voushanti’s wound like the liquid fire Aurellians discharge from their warships to set their enemies ablaze. Only by fortunate reaction did I hold up the wadded linen to catch this monstrous volley. Voushanti jerked and gripped the edge of the bench, emitting only a grunt.

Saverian, her hands gloved in gore, snatched up one of her smaller folds of linen and held it to the surging flow, channeling it into the long lip of the tin basin, a river of red that threatened to overflow the vessel. The chamber fell silent, save for Voushanti’s rapid, shallow breaths.

I rubbed my arms through the thin shirtsleeves, afraid to let myself feel anything. I had experienced a man’s death once. Saverian must wear steel beneath her plain garb.

As the pulsing flow of blood dwindled, Voushanti’s breath began to labor. The half of his face we could see was a morbid blue-white and sheened with sweat. His hands that had gripped the bench now lay flaccid on its cracked leather.

Saverian had me set the heavy basin aside while she wiped her hands clean. Then she turned the warrior’s head to face us and slipped another square of folded linen under the wound to absorb the waning trickle of his life. His scarred face was slack, his stare dull, even as his chest strained and heaved to draw each breath.

I labored with him. The walls bulged and writhed around us. The flat iron stink of blood wakened reminders of battlefield nights, of wails and screams and dread visions. The physician dipped a finger into a small jar and dabbed a yellow ointment on Voushanti’s eyelids, flooding the thickening air with the pungent perfume of ysomar that the Karish said would summon angels to carry the soul to heaven, and the Sinduri claimed would call the Ferryman to the earthly shore to transport the soul to the Kemen Sky Lord’s feasting halls or Magrog’s land of torment. But what if a man’s soul was “fused to his body” and could not journey onward? What if a man had no soul?

I had stabbed Boreas for mercy, drowned a pack of Harrowers to save other lives, and slain Navronne’s enemies for my king. None of these deaths rested easy in my mind, but at the least I had believed that those victims would be granted some existence beyond this life. Every god I knew promised a continuing for those who had a soul, so I’d never imagined I was sending them to endless nothing. But this…what was this we did here? A certain horror gripped my breath and bone. I could no longer sit still.

Grabbing Saverian’s arm, I yanked her off her stool and dragged her away from the couch so Voushanti could not hear me. Scarlet cheeked, she wrestled to get free. “Are you mad?” she spat. “I need to watch him.”

“Is there a chance this spell won’t revive him?” I said, harsh and quiet. “Have you done it before…you yourself?”

“I’ve seen it done. I know what to do.”

“But is there a chance? Could he not revive?” I shook her, unwilling to release her until I heard yea or nay.

“No spell is proof against failure,” she said. “I’ll do my best, which is better than most. Now let me go, lest his heart stop for too long, for then the magic will fail.”

I let her go, and she hurried back to her work, examining the blood that dribbled slowly from Voushanti’s neck. Briskly, she sprinkled herbs and powders from her vials into three glass dishes and used a thin brass spatula to dip blood from the basin and drip some on each dish. With thumb and forefinger she used one mixture to draw sigils on Voushanti’s forehead and cheeks. With another, she marked spiked crescents under her own eyes.

Wiping her lancet clean on another folded square, she beckoned me back to my place. “The time approaches. Stop now, and you murder him.”

Furious at myself for not questioning earlier, furious at Saverian, at Osriel, I returned to my stool. We might have already sent this man to his end. Alone. Before Saverian could stop me, I laid my hand on Voushanti’s spasming breast.

“Valen! What are you doing?”

So near, linked by touch and his blood on my skin, I existed with and in him. I opened my senses.

The cold of Navronne’s untimely winter was as nothing to the bitter hour of Voushanti’s dying. One gouge of fire seared my neck…one grating burn marked agonized lungs…elsewise, waking mind hung suspended in a world of freezing black. Utterly alone. Anger rumbled faintly in the dark like retreating thunder. No fear, though. No grief. Not his, at least.

One more straining breath and the body could do no more. The candlelight retracted to a pinpoint, only bright enough to serve as a reminder of loss. And as light and pain flared and faded, Voushanti and I shared one silent cry of such piercing hunger as tore the fabric of the descending night…

“Valen! Give me your hand. Now!”

I gasped, blinked, and snatched my hand from the clammy, flaccid body. Shuddering, wagging my head, I tried to clear out the morbid darkness, but patterns of light and shadow, more than could be explained by one small candle, shifted and wavered on the walls and in the very air itself, overflowing that chamber as the mardane’s blood did the tin vessel. Saverian’s cheekbones, flushed under the blood marks, and her green eyes, fiery with purpose, supplied the only sparks of color. The angel canister stood open on the table, whatever enchantment it had contained now released.

Murmuring words I could not distinguish, Saverian scooped a fragrant green liquid from her third glass dish and traced patterns on my cheeks and forehead. Then her warm fingers clamped my wrist and pressed the back of my hand to a leather cushion that rested in her lap. Quick as lightning, her sharp little blade scored my thumb. Pain far beyond the wounding shot through my hand and up my arm as if traveling through my gards.

She pressed my bloody thumb to Voushanti’s lips, crying out in Aurellian, “Rise and live, mortal man, all desire and worth bound to thy master’s will until heart stops, bone crumbles, and breath fails.” Her marks on my face grew hot, as if Kol were at his work again, and I felt the varied parts of the spell engage, as if they were the shafts and cogs of a mill wheel.

Shadows whirled over our heads, raising a wind that flapped book pages and rattled the shelves. Glassware tumbled to the stone floor and smashed alongside metal containers that clattered and bounced. The candle winked out. And still the physician held my bleeding thumb to those cold lips.

Then, of a sudden, Voushanti’s head jerked beneath my hand, and a shaft of red lightning shot from his dead eyes straight into my own head. For one soul-searing moment, I could not look away…and then it was over. Darkness engulfed us again, the quivering excitement of air and life that signified enchantment vanished. Saverian released her grip.

Blind in the absolute blackness, I cradled my cut hand to my breast, hoping to ease the pain in my arm and in my soul. The marks on my face cooled quickly, and the rattles and clatters ceased as the whirlwind dissipated. A choking noise came from the bench in front of me.

“Come away,” whispered Saverian in my ear, drawing me up and away from the muffled sounds. “Careful. Mind the lintel.”

I shuffled my feet to keep from stumbling over the debris and extended one hand at head height. Just as my fingers encountered stone and I ducked my head to clear the doorway, a pale light burst out behind me, illuminating Saverian’s face and hands. Two fingers of her right hand were pointed at a lamp in the room behind. I turned to look, but glimpsed only Voushanti’s back as she pulled the heavy door closed.

“He prefers to be alone as he recovers,” she said. “It takes him an hour or so to gather himself, somewhat longer to heal from whatever has brought him to the point of death. He likes it quiet.”

Not quiet, I thought. Private. I could hear the groans of pain and despair that burst through his choking silence, only to be buried in his thick arms and in layers of bloody linen and leather.

“I need to get out of here,” I said, as the torches that lit the long passage swelled into glaring banners of hell. The entire weight of the fortress pressed upon the back of my neck.

“You did well,” said the physician, hurrying her steps and pointing to a stair that I knew led to light and air. “I was worried about your tolerating the chamber. But for me to attempt such a working anywhere else would have been—”

“Never again,” I said, taking the steps three at a time, leaving her behind. “No matter who commands or who begs, I won’t be part of that again.” The enchantment clung to my spirit like dung to a boot. I had touched earth with magic and glimpsed its patterns of life and death and growing. Nowhere in that grand display was there a place for what I had just experienced.

Saverian rejoined me in the well yard where I sprawled on the dry grass inhaling great gulps of air and sky. Despite the hazy blue overhead, evening had already come to the little garth and the stone-bordered well, enclosed as they were in the heart of the fortress. “Osriel and his magics seem to have that effect on everyone.”

“Are there others like Voushanti?” I said.

“Osriel says Voushanti is the only one.”

“Is this what he plans for the solstice, Saverian?”

“That’s impossible,” she said, averting her eyes. “Osriel does not collect bodies. This enchantment cannot be worked on those dead more than a few hours.”

But the weakness of her denial only made my conviction stronger. I rolled up to sitting. “I’ve little enough knowledge of sorcery or natural philosophy. But I know that such magic as we just aided will not repair what’s wrong with the world. I won’t let him do it.”

Her color flamed like a bonfire. “You cannot leave Osriel with Sila Diaglou! The danger, if she identifies him…”

“I’ve said I’ll do my best to get him out. But if none of you will explain what he plans, then he’ll have to tell me himself, and I’ll be his judge before I set him free to do it.”

What if Sila wanted to bleed him? Osriel had said that sacrificing a body consecrated to Navronne might have consequences beyond the poisoning of one sianou. I needed to ask Kol if that was true.

Of a sudden my chest tightened with a longing that left me breathless, a wrenching ache I had known since childhood, never able to name its cause or its object. I had believed it only another symptom of the insatiable disease that drove me wild. But now images raced through my mind: of my uncle’s grace and beauty as he strode through boundless vistas of earth and sky, forest and sea. Of the power he had brought to healing one small garden meadow. Ah, gods, I wanted to be in Aeginea dancing and not setting out to war.

“Valen, are you ill?” Saverian seemed to speak from a vast distance, as if the few steps that separated us were the Caurean Sea. “What’s wrong?”

“Naught,” I said, blinking rapidly and stroking the blade of healthy winter-dry grass that grew in this little yard. Tears were surely but stray remnants of my long madness. “Naught.”

From Renna’s walls the watch called the second hour past noonday. So late in the year, sundown would follow in little more than two hours. Time to be traveling.

I left Elene’s retiring room bearing a small case with my extra clothes, the vials of Saverian’s potions—some for me, some for Osriel, some to use as weapons should the opportunity arise—and the fervent prayers and good wishes of Elene and Brother Victor.

The lady and the monk had read me the letter to Bayard they had composed while Saverian and I had been engaged in murder and resurrection. Had I not been so disturbed at my own part in Voushanti’s ordeal and this entirely ludicrous bout of homesickness for Aeginea, a home I had known but a few hours, the scroll’s contents might have given me a laugh.

I have enjoyed controlling Magnus’s infamous streak of rebellion, but find him much less interesting without it. His myriad lacks—reading, writing, education, combat training, and even rudimentary sorcery—leave him somewhat bored and lacking purpose. As I cannot imagine what use the priestess has for him, I have decided that his best use might be to discover her intents.

Though my life’s purpose remained determinedly unclear, the past few weeks had been anything but boring. Elene and Brother Victor had sealed this missive with Osriel’s signet. I wondered which of them had come up with the wording.

I hurried along the Great Hall gallery, where Saverian and I had spied on the warmoot. The hall sat dark and deserted, smelling of old smoke, old ale, and the old wood of the massive ceiling beams.

Our ragged little cabal of three had agreed that Elene and Brother Victor would send a long-planned alarm to Prior Nemesio at Gillarine. The coded message would bring the prior and his flock to shelter at Magora Syne—Osriel’s most remote stronghold, deep in Evanore’s mountains. A sevenday without word from me, and they would command Osriel’s warlords to muster at Caedmon’s Bridge on the winter solstice.

I had insisted that Elene and Brother Victor, as the last lighthouse warders, should not attend that solstice confrontation, but retreat to Magora Syne as well. “You guard Navronne’s future in many ways,” I said. “You must keep Saverian informed of all circumstances…see that she goes with you.” I made sure Elene met my gaze and caught my double meaning. Should Osriel fall, she carried Eodward’s rightful heir.

My footsteps clattered and echoed on the downward stair, and I emerged into late afternoon. Wind whined and blustered about the fortress arches and towers. Despite the hazy sunlight, the smell of the wind promised snow before morning. Halfway along the covered walk that led past the Great Hall to the kitchen alley, I switched the small, heavy case to my left hand, as it was irritating the cut on my thumb.

“I can carry that, sorcerer.” Mardane Voushanti appeared at my left side, matching me step for step. Impeccably garbed in a spruce green cloak and a silver hauberk blazoned with Osriel’s wolf, he kept his gaze straight ahead as he held out his hand for the case.

“That’s not necessary.”

I did not slow my pace and did not stare. I’d not quite believed he would meet me here as Saverian had promised when she left me in the well yard.

“You should take this, though.” I passed him the scroll bearing Osriel’s seal. “Max—Prince Bayard’s pureblood—will meet us at my family’s house with a small escort. If you sense anything amiss, we’ll turn right around and come back here.”

“And once you are in the custody of Sila Diaglou, I am to wait for some signal from you—a bonfire or magical explosion—at which time I am to charge into Fortress Torvo and pull you out. That is, unless you have burst from her dungeons with the prince and the thane or crawled out along some escape path given you by a generous not-brother who has always loathed you. That is a fool’s plan…no plan at all.”

If it sounded ridiculous, it felt impossible. “I believe I can do this,” I said. “But I’ve no idea how long it might take to discover where Jullian is or to find the opportunity to get to the others. If I think of anything else between here and there, I’ll be sure to tell you. Just stay close and be alert.”

The mardane halted. I kept walking. “I’ll give you two days,” he called after me. “Mistress Elene has given me a well-filled purse. Bring the prince out before midnight two days hence, or I’ll buy me some fighters and come in after you.”

I stopped and looked back at him. The scarlet centers of his eyes had heated in defiance, but I had not even asked Saverian how to call up the power I had over him. I had no desire to wield Osriel’s red lightning. “Three days,” I said. “But buy your fighters and have them ready beforehand.”

“Done.” He jerked his massive head and caught up with me. The unscarred half of his face was the color of chalk. We resumed our walk and rounded the corner into the alley that so resembled the lane in Palinur. “You will abandon me and get the prince straight back here if we cannot rendezvous,” he said.

“I will. I assumed that’s what his sworn protector would wish.”

When we reached a certain dark little gap between two deserted storage buildings, I stopped and set down my case. “If you’ll be so kind as to keep prying eyes away, I need to…uh…change my clothes.”

Perhaps Saverian’s summary description of my new talents had not included the required livery, for Voushanti’s startled visage hinted that he’d not expected me to emerge from the gap lacking all accoutrement save light-drawn rocks and sea creatures.

“Strange, are they not?” I tossed the bundle of wool and velvet atop the case and stretched out my arms. With every passing moment in this shadowed alley, my gards brightened and their color deepened. Somehow the sight of them…or perhaps the gards themselves…left me feeling stronger, less battered by the wretched day, and if not exactly warm, somewhat warmer than my state of undress would promise. “Can’t say I know what exactly they are. But they don’t work if I keep them hidden.”

His terrible eyes traveled up my body until they locked on my own. The red centers pulsed faintly, very like his blood as it had leaked out of him. “We are two of a kind,” he said, his mouth twisting in his grotesque semblance of amusement. “Neither here nor there.”

Squirming inside, I picked up my case and my clothes bundle. “We’d best move. Wouldn’t want to be late.” The ways in which I did not wish to resemble Voushanti were beyond numbering.

Shoving worries and plans aside, I stepped forward, my eyes on the stone walls and banks, on the overhanging trees, my ears on the dribbling conduit that piped water from the well yard. I inhaled the scents of the fortress cookfires and refuse heaps, and recalled the stink of fear as the ragged folk gathered on the hillside lane near the Cartamandua house. The air would be thicker in Palinur…and a wetter cold than here…with more snow on the ground—old, wet snow, freezing as the night approached.

We walked slowly along the alley. At a particular well-shadowed length of the wall, I threw my bundles over and climbed up the old stones…

…straight into the brushy, snow-clogged beech grove in Palinur where I had undressed on my way back to Renna earlier in the day. Voushanti topped the wall and immediately spun in his tracks, for the babble, clatter, and stink of the beggars’ encampment fell on our heads like a bludgeon. Fires had driven more people into the purebloods’ lane. Enchantments vibrated on every side of us, shielding the fine houses that stood back from the lane.

“I’ll be ready to go in just a moment.” As I bent down to retrieve my clothes, my foot broke through the crusted snow, scraping my ankle and shin. A youthful voice cried, “Mam, it’s the angel come back again!” And Saverian climbed over the wall.

“Gods’ teeth!” I said, as running feet crashed through the underbrush from farther down the lane, and bodies gathered just at the point we’d topped the wall—cutting off my return route. We had nowhere to run. This particular grove crowded between my family’s garden wall and the lane. I shoved Voushanti and my case behind the largest tree, then grabbed my cloak and Saverian and dived into the underbrush. “What the devil are you doing here?”

Saverian crawled on top of me, spreading her own cloak wide and enfolding me in her arms. “Just be still,” she whispered. “Your gards shine like a watch fire.” I drew my legs up under her, while she proceeded to tuck all the straggling bits of me and my distinctively colored cloak out of sight.

“Over there in the trees,” piped the child. “By the saints, I swear it. Knew he’d come back!”

“’Tis a sign! The god’s not forgotten us.” Murmurs swelled from the lane beyond the grove. “He sends his holy legion to drive out these Harrowers!”

“Blue fire, ye say, child?” said a man with a voice like gravel. “My gammy told me of those who wear naught but blue fire…”

“And wings, boy, did ye see wings or no?” Boots and bodies crashed through the dry brush.

Saverian hissed. “Do something, sorcerer. Move, else they’ll think we’re dead and not just preoccupied.”

The warm weight of her body pressed my bare backside into the twigs and snow. How like Saverian to lie close in a thorny bed…which thought led me to remember Elene in my bed, sunlight bathing her golden skin…which led me to recall Saverian’s capable hands, guiding me through my nivat madness…touching me everywhere…Of a sudden, fear and strangeness and this ridiculous situation, lustful memory and a barrage of sensations—earth and snow and woman and oncoming night—enveloped me in such a fever, I could not control it.

“Deunor’s mercy, mistress,” I choked, “I dare not move.”

But I did. Safely hidden beneath her cloak, I snaked my arm up her back. Fingering her neck, I pressed her head gently downward, until her face rested in the crook of my neck and shoulder. Her breath so warm…so inviting. Her bones so firm and straight. My alter hand stroked her rigid spine to yielding…then found its way to her backside, while my knee drew up between her legs and nudged them apart…

Her head popped up. “Villain madman!” A sharp blow stung my cheek…and waked me from my fog of lust to shuffling bodies and laughter all around our ungainly heap. “Get your hands off—”

I pulled her head downward, crushing her lips against mine. Her hands scratched and gouged my arms and pulled my hair as she tried to wrestle away. Scrabbling, wriggling, she drew her knee up sharply, and I shifted to preclude disaster, praying her cloak would not fall aside and display my glowing feet.

“No angel here, young Filp,” said the gravel-voiced man. “’Tis only ones searching for a bit of heaven fallen in the midst of hell.”

“Could ye not give a man a quat to ’imself?” I shouted, squeezing Saverian’s face to my shoulder before she bit my lips off. “Yea, laugh as ye will…get ye all to Magrog’s furnace and take all pinchy wives with ye!”

The men shoved the pale-haired child behind the women. Ribald comments all around and they decided the fun was over. Murmurs and laughter faded into the evening noises of the lane.

“I’m sorry,” I said, still muzzling the squirming physician. Torn between annoyance that she had intruded her peculiar self into an already precarious activity and a fear that I’d committed an unpardonable sin and forfeited her skillful and sensible aid, I couldn’t stop talking. “My head just went off…well, not my head exactly…but it’s been a long, weary autumn…yet I meant no ill to you. I would never—Well, I don’t think I would. I do appreciate your hiding me—damnably awkward to light up like this when I can’t afford attention. Though one might say you invited this problem by coming along where you were not expected—though certainly you did not invite my inappropriate reaction—but I’ve no idea what we’re going to do with you or how we’re going to keep you safe when you cannot possibly go with us. What the devil were you thinking?” Hoping she had enough fodder for conversation beyond withering my manhood, I released her.

She climbed to her feet without the least care where her elbows, knees, and fists found purchase. Were her discomfiture a bit more intense, her complexion might have lit sigils of its own in purest scarlet.

“I thought that the people who were most likely to need my care happened to be in Palinur—three men with somewhat specialized needs that no hedgerow leech or back-alley surgeon is capable of tending. I thought that you and I had come to some kind of mutual respect, untainted, for the most part, by the brutish instincts of those who prefer action to reason.”

“Well, of course, we—”

“As for my safety, you are most certainly not responsible for me. Nor is anyone but myself. After a discussion with Brother Victor, I decided that I might better be close by as you attempt this rescue, and that as long as I was here, I could bring news of these ventures to your sister, the Sinduria, who seems to care what becomes of you, though she’s not yet been informed that she is not your sister. And I brought these.” She pulled a vial and a scrap of stained canvas from her pocket and shoved them into my hand. “Elene told me that touching blood enabled you to track a person more easily—a detail that you failed to mention to me. While you and Mistress Moonhead exchanged your overwrought farewells, I was retrieving a sample of Prince Osriel’s blood, which I keep on hand to formulate his medicines. I also managed to acquire this scrap cut from one of Thane Stearc’s old jupons, though I don’t know that dried blood has the same useful properties for pureblood magic.”

“Blood…gods, yes. It makes tracking much easier. I just never imagined anyone would have any.” Thickheaded and embarrassed, I brushed twigs and ice crystals from my skin. “And, yes, Thalassa should be told. All right…yes, that would be kind of you…”

Happily for me, Voushanti joined us before I could get too tangled up in words or recollections of the sensation of Saverian’s breath on my skin. The sun was sinking. I turned my back to her and donned my finery as quickly as I could. Nothing like the luxurious restriction of buttons and laces for taming lustful mania. Gods, Saverian…of all women in the world…

So do as she says, fool. Attempt to reason, instead of acting blindly. I fastened my cloak with the ivory-and-gold wolf brooch.

“You can’t traipse alone through Palinur, mistress physician,” I said, tugging the mask from my pocket. “No matter how easily you can ensorcel those who aim to harm you, it’s too dangerous. I wouldn’t let any friend of mine do so. I’ll come up with some explanation for Max, so Voushanti can deliver you to Thalassa.”

Voushanti, his own attire impeccable despite his sojourn in the shrubbery, glared at me as if I were a particularly stupid infant. “To change your arrangements this late risks the entire plan, such as it is. And I must follow you to the Harrower priestess, so we’ll know where you and the prince are held. I’ve no time to coddle foolish women.”

“I’m not an idiot,” said Saverian, her dignity regained though her skin retained a rosy hue. “I’ll wait here until Magnus is delivered and transferred. Once you know his location, Mardane, you can return here for me. I would welcome your escort on my brief visit to the Mother’s temple.”

“Leaving the scene will jeopardize the prince’s rescue,” snapped Voushanti. “You have blood-bound me to this man, but I cannot read his thoughts. With no means of contact between us, I must be available at whatever time he chooses.”

“No means of contact?” Saverian raised her eyebrows, quite smug. “You gentlemen really should have said something earlier. I can, of course, work a small enchantment…”

Stupid not to think of it. My sister Thalassa had once worked a word trigger with her favorite insults, so that anywhere within ten quellae, I could hear her address me as fiend heart or iron skull did she but feed magic to the words.

Voushanti and I left the beech grove tight bound with the names of dead man and bluejay and a few specific signals for special circumstances. If he didn’t hear from me in three days, he would force his way inside Fortress Torvo. As we picked our way through the crowded lane to our meeting with Max, my hearing picked Saverian’s laughter out of the noise. I smiled as I remembered the warmth of her breath and the feel of her firm flesh and slender bones crushed against my skin. What an extraordinary woman.

Chapter 21

“See the iron grate over the drainage canal? That’s where you’ll come out. You can still quicken a spell, yes?” Max spoke using only the half of his mouth beneath his mask. As protocol required refraining from conversation in the presence of ordinaries, every pureblood youth developed the skill early on.

“Yes.” I mimicked his trick. Though I stood slightly behind him, I was enough taller that I could easily be observed by either the spear-wielding Harrowers guarding Sila Diaglou’s gates, the bowmen on the barbican above the gate tunnel, or the five of Bayard’s warriors who surrounded us protectively, while their captain identified our party to the gate commander.

The knee-high grate to which Max referred blocked the only breach in the thick, ugly walls of Fortress Torvo. The canal had once drained water and sewage from the fortress, but that function had likely been relocated as the city grew up around the place. Weeds, dirty snow, and broken paving choked the old ditch, which disappeared into the squalid houses and snow-clogged ruins that crowded this miserable square. Riie Doloure. Last time I had been here, Harrowers had been throwing severed heads from the battlements down to their rioting fellows and fire had raged in the tenements. On that vile morning, men and women had been screaming from behind those walls, one of them Abbot Luviar, as his executioner exposed his bowels and set them afire.

Another wave of the sweats dampened my skin, my hands trembled in their bonds of silk and steel, and my own bowels threatened to betray me. What kind of idiot would broach Sila Diaglou’s fortress in shackles? And Gildas would be here. Gildas, who knew all my weaknesses.

The plan we had made over the past day had gone smoothly thus far. Max, Voushanti, and I had made a show of my resistance in front of Prince Bayard, enough to make Bayard think me cowardly and not worth keeping for himself. Sila Diaglou had accepted Bayard’s request for a meeting. Now it was up to Max to convince her of our story, and it was up to Max’s spy within Sila’s entourage to provide me a blade. With a weapon and a smattering of luck, I could get out of a warded cell. Outside of a cell, I could use magic to free the others. Somehow. That was the plan. As with most plans, it seemed far less plausible in daylight.

“Forward,” ordered Bayard’s captain upon his return from the gate. “Lower arms.”

He pivoted smartly. We marched briskly past the gate guards, under the raised portcullis, and into the gate tunnel. I resisted the urge to look back at the burned-out tenements where Voushanti and Saverian were to have set up their watchpost by now. Rather I gave thanks that my hands were silkbound and that Max’s hand gripped my arm to prevent my stumbling in the dark. I did not want to touch earth and sense the horrors that had gone on here.

The dark-stained gallows, the judges’ platform, and the prisoners’ cage stood vacant in the outer bailey, like the bones of some vicious monster left to rot in the weak sunlight. As we were hurried across the yard and through the inner gate, I noted the rubble-filled drainage channel. Another grate barred its passage through the inner wall. If I could find no promising venue to key my Danae shifting, I might be forced to use Max’s route to the outside. Naught of this executioner’s yard recalled enough of Renna’s baileys that I could take us from one to the other by Danae magic.

Sweat dribbled down my back. I could not retreat now. They were here—Stearc and Osriel at least. One touch of the blood samples that Saverian had brought had told me that much. But I could get no better sense of their exact location until I was inside.

We proceeded up a narrow ramp, overlooked by the inner wall walk, two flanking towers, and the arrow loops of the blocklike keep. What remained of Fortress Torvo’s conical roofs stated that this small fortress had been here long before the Aurellian invasion, long before Palinur had grown into a great city.

A barren courtyard awaited us, and more Harrower troops—some in the shabby cottes and braies of townsmen or the shapeless tunics of villeins, some in sturdier padded leather jaques with metal plates sewn on arms and breast. But all of them wore orange rags tied about their necks or arms or trailing from their hats. At the head of a wooden stair, two Harrowers opened the iron-bound doors of the keep.

Max released my arm and smoothed the wrinkles his fingers had made in my velvet sleeve. His dark eyes glittered. “Well done, little brother. I doubted you’d balls enough to make it so far without bolting. Are you ready?”

Who could be ready for the things Sila did? I ducked my head, rather than embarrassing myself by choking within his hearing. The priestess wanted me alive. She had some use for me. I had to believe that.

Max grinned and flicked a finger at one of his men, who quickly knelt in front of me with a weighty set of shackles. I lashed out at the soldier’s head with my bound hands and twisted away as if to bolt. But as Max and I had planned, a few wrenched muscles, bruising holds, and snarled curses later, I was well subdued and stumbling up the steps in chains.

Max gripped my arm with one hand. “After you.” Then he added so that none but I could hear, “May Serena Fortuna smile on our first fraternal venture. My spy will use the password brethren.”

Inhaling a last breath of the open air, I stepped inside.

No dais or grand chair marked Sila Diaglou’s barren hall. No tapestries covered the smoke-blackened walls. The old fortress was well suited to a temporary military headquarters—the best-fortified position in the city outside the royal compound itself, plenty of space for bedding down men and animals. Splintered remnants marked where wooden walls had once divided the long chamber into three. Where the roof had leaked at one end of the hall, the rotting roof beams sagged ominously. Harrower fighters drifted in and out of the hall, warming themselves at the cookfires scattered across the cracked stone floor. I doubted the drafty ruin ever got warm.

Leaving our escort at the door, Max led me confidently through the busy chamber, past five or six warriors arguing across a broad table propped up at one corner with stones. A troop of perhaps twenty—a mix of poorly turned out swordsmen, ragged townsmen, and several sturdy women—stood attentively as an officer gave them orders to raze a mill outside the city’s southern gates. Women and boys served out the steaming contents of copper cauldrons to the milling fighters.

At the far end of the hall, a group of ten or fifteen split and moved aside at our approach. Sila Diaglou stood in the center. Warrior’s garb of steel-reinforced leather rested as comfortably on her tall, slender frame as on any man’s, while her flaxen hair, cut short since I had seen her preside over Luviar’s execution, now curled about her pale, imperious face like the fair locks of painted cherubs. Here in the ruddy light of cookfires and torches, the murderous witch appeared little older than Elene.

A tall, elderly woman in shapeless brown leaned on Sila’s right arm. Though the wisps of white hair escaped from her wimple seemed oddly out of place in such a company, the old woman’s narrow eyes gleamed as sharp as an Aurellian poniard. Beside her stood a beardless man with a needle-sharp chin, a small, copper-skinned young woman with great brown eyes, and a soft-looking man with oiled black curls and an ear that was split, gnarled, and bulging like a chestnut canker—Sila’s accomplices in slaughter.

But it was the youngish man on Sila Diaglou’s left who spurred my deepest revulsion. Though he had traded the black gown and cowl of Saint Ophir for gray tunic and black braies and hose, his hairless skull, the solid line of black eyebrows, raised in surprise, and the deep-set eyes and well-drawn mouth, so quick to take on a grin, marked him as Gildas—child stealer, liar, and traitor to all he professed.

“Holy one,” said Max to the priestess, touching his fingers to his forehead in respect, “I bring greetings from His Highness Prince Bayard and a gift to serve as proof of his sincerity and good favor. Have I your leave to tell the tale?”

“Speak, pureblood.” Sky-blue eyes stared coldly from beneath Sila Diaglou’s intelligent brow. Her face, square cut like a faceted gem, was flawed only by the diagonal seams on her cheeks, carved by her own hand on the day she had publicly abjured Arrosa and the rest of the elder gods. As a girl she had pledged service to the goddess of love, so I’d heard, but only a year out of her novitiate, she had claimed Arrosa’s temple corrupted, its priestesses little more than whores for wealthy donors, its rites a mockery rather than a celebration of fertility and renewal. How her indignation had translated to leveling civilization I had yet to comprehend.

Max inclined his head. “Early this morning, I was summoned to my father’s house on urgent family business. Unlikely as it seemed, my brother had arrived, ostensibly to seek my young sister’s contract for a mapping project desired by his master, Prince Osriel. Further questioning revealed that he had, in fact, approached us without the knowledge or permission of his fearsome lord and sought our aid to escape his burdensome contract on the grounds that his master had threatened his immortal soul. Of course, revoking a contract is impossible without the Registry’s consent, which will never be granted in Valen’s case. But I, ever mindful of the gifts that fate lays before us, agreed to allow my foolish brother to plead his case before Prince Bayard.”

The priestess scrutinized Max as if she were a gem cutter examining the facets laid bare by her work. Her attention did not waver, even as Gildas murmured into her ear.

“Speaking frankly, holy one, this put my lord in a difficult position.” Max, the consummate performer, stood with his hands clasped behind his back, well away from weapons, his feet widespread, back straight, and voice casual and confident—postures taught us early to put ordinaries at ease. “Until the day he assumes his rightful crown, Prince Bayard must obey the law of the land, which demands he return a recondeur to his contracted master within a day. But my master, also ever mindful of the gifts that fate lays before us, understands that you do not recognize the authority of the Registry, and that this brother of mine is the very pureblood whose submission you desire. In short, lady, Magnus Valentia de Cartamandua-Celestine is yours to do with as you please.”

Max sounded altogether too pleased with himself for my comfort, though I had devised this story and put it in his mouth. He stood to gain in everyone’s favor. We had ensured that he remained entirely within pureblood discipline. The only untruths he told were those he had agreed upon with Bayard for the purposes of his bargain with Osriel.

“And what change does Prince Bayard seek in the terms of our agreement?” asked the priestess.

“My master concedes that you have been most generous in our negotiation, holy one, and asks only your continued assurance that once you and he have subdued the Bastard of Evanore, you will take a knee at my lord’s coronation on the first day of the new year, then sit at his right hand as his most valued friend and ally.”

An old comrade of mine, a veteran of the Hansker wars, had once pointed out that only the most assured of commanders would approach a subordinate or prisoner of greater height while in the presence of other subordinates. I had observed the rule proven time and again, and this occasion was no different. Despite my topping her by a dozen quattae, Sila gave her elderly companion’s arm to the doe-eyed woman and came forward to take a closer look. She appeared supremely confident, as only those who hold the leash of heaven can.

She touched the ivory-and-gold wolf brooch on my breast, then lifted the front laps of my cloak and tossed them over my shoulders. Folding her arms, she walked around me, her face unexpressive as she examined the fine embroidery and ivory buttons on my doublet, my gold-link belt, and the pearl trilliots sewn on my green satin sleeves. She even crouched down to examine my shackles and ran her fingers over my fine leather boots.

At such close proximity, I expected to see lines and weathering in her cheeks, signs of her age that I knew to be past forty. Yet save for the dual scars, her skin shone as flawless as that of a healthy child. Cold, though. Great gods, the air around her felt colder than the winter sky, so cold I could neither smell nor taste her scent. I could sense nothing of her at all. Perhaps I’d worn clothes for too long.

She straightened up again. “No weapons save these,” she said, touching my silkbound hands. “I had understood his poor skills warranted no such restriction.”

I had persuaded Max to allow me to keep my gloves on beneath the cord bindings, as the weather was so bitter. Though my sweating palms had dampened both gloves and silk, my gards remained hidden. The longer I could conceal them, the better. I had few enough surprises to spring on Gildas.

“The binding is merely a formality, holy one,” said Max. “My brother is adept at lock breaking and crude illusions, but little else of sorcery. But what gentleman would lay an unsheathed knife in an ally’s hand, though the blade be dull as lead? The shackles…alas, I must warn you that it is only with great…firmness…that my lord and I have persuaded him of his limited choices. He will likely walk gingerly for a few days. He has a nasty habit of bolting his responsibilities.”

“Indeed, he shall serve for much more than lock breaking.” The priestess’s blue gaze met mine…turning my bones to ice. With a firm finger, she traced the line of my mask down my brow and nose, coming to rest on my lips, her touch so charged with heat and light, it sent waves of urgency straight to my groin.

“I accept the gift,” she said, breaking away briskly. “Tell your prince that I find it most pleasing. If all falls out on the solstice as he has promised, he need have no fear of my defection.” Which sounded no firm assurance to me, though, in truth, my head had emptied of all save an ill-defined dread that fell far outside the bounds of my expectations.

“Then I shall take my leave of you, holy one. May your life and health prosper.” Max signaled one of his men to hand over my case and left the key to my shackles with one of Sila’s guards. Then he stood at my shoulder, straightened his back, and touched fingers to brow. As he spun around to go, his cloak flared. Under its cover, where Sila Diaglou could not see it, his hand squeezed my arm.

Still dazed, I met his gaze and caught a quick wink. Then he was gone. I had not wits enough to decide if his gesture was reassurance or apology or merely Max’s usual self-indulgent humor, combining the concern of a proper brother with a taunt. All I wanted to do was run.

“Falderrene, Jakome, take him to the chamber we have prepared for this day.” As she issued this unsettling command, the Harrower priestess had already turned her back to me.

She spread her arms as if to embrace the rest of the company. “My beloved companions, have I not assured you that our dedication and righteous service will force the world into its proper order? Destiny has laid a treasure in our hands—one I have long sought. The future proceeds as I have spoken!”

Addressing such a multitude did not coarsen the priestess’s voice. Though speaking in such a cavernous space, her tone maintained a certain intimacy, as if she spoke to each of us alone. Every conversation ceased. Every face turned toward the woman, as if she were the divine prophet Karus, come back to life clothed in the sun.

“The last walls shall crumble!” Triumph…exultation…joy…her song without music rang from the rotting rafters. “The mighty shall be brought low, no being that breathes the air of this world set above another. No cache or hoard shall remain unopened; no treasure be locked away whether in vault, veins, or marrow. Burn, harrow, and level this blighted land! Let all who stand in our way feel our knives, our spears, our claws that in the future we shape, all may be one in awe and service before the mighty Gehoum!”

Cheers shook Torvo’s foundation. Ferocious. Wild. Terrifying. As if there were seven hundred partisans in the hall and not seventy. The only one who did not cheer was the old woman in brown.

As the cheering throng swarmed Sila Diaglou, Falderrene, the murderous minor noble with the malformed ear, and a bony pale-haired young man she had named Jakome led me briskly toward the corner where the rectangular hall butted into one of Torvo’s massive towers. A third man followed with my case. To my surprise, once we passed through a low arch into the tower, they shoved me onto the upward stair.

My escorts did not speak, save for whispered watchwords for the guard at each landing. Shaken by the intimate intensity of Sila’s touch, appalled at the power of her conviction, and alarmed at the mysterious connection of such ferocity with me, I felt what small confidence I had brought with me seep away. As well I did not know what to think, for getting my shackled feet up the tight, narrow stair without hands to grip or balance proved a challenge. I listened for any hint of my friends or the prince along the way, but the fortress walls were so thick that a hundred muted conversations sounded no different from scuttling rats.

Our destination lay at the very summit of the stair, where the tower roof of layered wood, earth, and lead pressed so low I could not stand straight, where the steps were so impossibly shallow, only the toe of my boots could fit, where the only light was an arrow loop. No matter Saverian’s potion, I pressed my bound hands to my mouth to keep from heaving as I waited for my escorts to unfasten the latches of a solid iron door. Surely I would die in such a prison.

The door swung open with a metallic screech. Blessed cold air bathed my feverish face, and the last rays of sunset, arrowing beneath a thick pall of clouds, near blinded me. All gods be praised, the chamber was open to the sky.

“In with you.” Falderrene motioned me forward.

I ducked my head lower and stepped in, astonished to discover I could stand straight without touching the ragged timbers of the ceiling as it swooped upward to its conical peak. Not one, but five tall windows opened onto the settling night. Though defensive iron grillwork yet guarded the window openings, only rusted hinges remained of their wooden shutters. A laugh bubbled up inside me, withheld only by my silk mask. Did they think to torment me with exposure to the elements?

Falderrene unhooked a jangling ring from his belt and dangled it in the air. “Shall we toss a coin for who plays nursemaid tonight, friend?”

The pale-haired Jakome snatched the keys and twisted his whey-colored face into a bitter snarl. “I’ve a personal interest tonight. The holy one forbids me interfere, but I’d stay close. He is an animal.”

Falderrene grinned unpleasantly and swept an oily lock behind his malformed ear. “As you wish. Might as well remove his shackles. Not even his gatzé master can retrieve him here. He’ll not escape lest he can fly. I’ll wait on the stair lest he give you any trouble.”

As the pale-haired Jakome bent to unlock my ankles, a survey of the chamber’s furnishings revealed comforts not usual for a common prisoner. A small cabinet held a painted washing bowl, night jar, and neatly stacked towels. The bed, piled with thick quilts, was a rarity—built long enough to accommodate a person of my size. And though the crumbling hole in the center of the stone floor had not held a watchfire for many years, a lamp with a glass wind shield sat on a small round table beside a bowl of apples.

The chains clanked and rattled as my bony jailer stood up again. I shook out my legs, relishing the lightness.

“A meal will be brought shortly,” said Jakome. “The same as we all eat. Though the chamber’s open to the weather, you’ve been left blankets enough. This is no pureblood palace, but Sila Diaglou has no wish to starve or freeze you.”

His wish, though…His face told me that his wish was different and had a great deal to do with sharp knives and stakes through the gut. Would that I could shove the man and all his fellows down the stairs and burn this maniac-infested den until the lead roofs fell in on them all.

The ragged guardsman had carried in my case and set it beside a plain wood chest. Jakome yanked open the case and threw my silks, velvets, damasks, and linens onto the stone floor, searching them briskly. Looking me straight in the eye, he hawked and spat on my spare mask, wadded it up, and threw it atop the pile of clothes. “We’ll see you get proper clothes. When all are brought low, such pureblood fripperies will have no use.”

No use mentioning that I’d done my best to forgo pureblood frippery for most of my life.

He turned the emptied case upside down and shook it. Naught fell out. “That’s it, then,” he said as he stood up again. Tossing the case onto the pile, he waved the guardsman toward the stair. “Get on. Tell Falderrene I’ll set the locks and meet him below.”

Once we were alone, Jakome’s colorless lips curled into a toothy grin. He pulled out his knife and twirled it in his fingers. “I’ve heard you have need of a knife. Heard it from my brethren.”

“Saints and angels!” Surprise and relief turned my spine to jelly. “Do you ever need a recommendation for an acting troupe, say the word! Can you get me out of these?” I held out my bound hands.

“Aye, I can and will. But you must kneel first, pureblood.” His bony chin indicated the floor.

“Why so?” I was already spying out places to hide the weapon.

“Because I’m still thinking whether or not to give you what was promised. Matters have changed.” Venom laced his tongue. “Do your knees bend? I’ve ne’er seen a pureblood kneel.”

I knelt, my spirits plummeting. I knew this kind of man. Give him the deference he wanted and he might relent. He couldn’t have much time until he was missed. “Come,” I said, wheedling, “you were trusted…well paid…”

“Shhh.” He pressed the knife point to my lips, unmasked rage and bloodthirst reddening his white skin. I held my tongue and gave up hope of the knife. Keeping blood and breath would be enough. “The thing is, I was paid to give you a knife if I could manage it without being caught. But if I’ve decided I can’t manage it, who’s going to hear your complaint?”

He spun the weapon in the air and snatched the hilt, then waved the weapon slowly side to side as one might try to mesmerize a dog. “You’re being given what you don’t deserve, as pureblood pups are always given what they don’t deserve. It would please me to carve your throat out.”

I maintained discipline, keeping my shoulders relaxed, my mouth shut, and my gaze somewhere neutral, even when tiny flames rippled along the edges of his blade. The fellow must have a trace of sorcerer’s blood, at the least.

After a few uncomfortable moments, he exhaled in disgust and let the flames die, then began to cut away the silken cords that bound my hands. “Fortunately, you’ve worse to come than I could do to you.”

“Ouch! Careful!” I snatched my hands away and shook off the remnants of the bindings. His last cut had slashed through cords and glove alike, leaving an ugly red smear on his dagger and a fiery laceration at the base of my thumb. “Are you wholly an idiot as well as a scoundrel?”

“Not I, pureblood. Not I.” Sneering, Jakome left the chamber, slammed the iron door shut behind him, and shot the noisy bolt.

Breathing raggedly, I sagged back onto my heels, bent my head to my knees, and tried to slow my hammering heart. When my refocused senses told me that no one remained outside the door or on the stair, I pulled off mask, cloak, and gloves and got to work. Without a weapon I would have to find another way out of this prison. And if Jakome was going to report Max’s bribe to Sila Diaglou, I’d best get out of here fast.

First, test the door. I structured a voiding spell. Releasing magic into the spell, I traced an arc at the bottom of the iron door. The iron remained cold and inert. Neither did the locks respond to my best probing with so much as a spark. Disappointing, but no surprise. I had assumed Sila would have my prison warded to preclude all common spellwork. Jakome had worked his little fire magic with the door open.

I retrieved my leather case and ripped out the false bottom Saverian had cleverly disguised so that I needed no magic to open it. I pulled out her three vials of medicines—blue for me, amber for the prince, clear for the tincture of yellow broom—a useful common remedy that could ream a man’s guts. I had intended to carry these in my pocket once I had been searched, but after Jakome’s words about new clothes, decided I’d best find a place in my cell to stash them. With the open windows, perhaps I wouldn’t need my own remedy.

The clothes chest had no pockets or drawers, but a wooden tray, half its length, had been crafted to sit in the top of it to hold buckles or belts or other oddments. Several objects sat in the tray already: a dice box, a canvas bag of knucklebones, a long narrow board pocked with egg-shaped hollows for playing armaments, and a set of ivory and jet pebblelike game pieces. I emptied the canvas bag, dropped the vials into it, then replaced the bones. I had always been luckier at knucklebones than dice.

Games. From the look of it, they intended to keep me here a while. Which made no sense at all. If Sila and Gildas didn’t want my bent to lead them into Aeginea…or anywhere else…then what, in Iero’s heaven, did they want with me?

Now to test the greater magic. Common wards laid to prevent spellworking could not disrupt the bent—the inborn talents of a pureblood. Most talents prescribed by a pureblood bent had naught to offer in the way of escape routes or weaponry and posed little risk to a jailer.

I loosened my belt and fumbled beneath layers of pourpoint, shirt, and tunic to find the upper hem of my chausses. Two scraps of stained fabric lay hidden next to my skin—one, the bloodstained canvas from Stearc’s jupon, the other a square of linen Saverian had dipped in the vial of Osriel’s blood.

Best not think too much of what I had to do. I laid the scraps on the floor, pressed my hands atop them, and closing my eyes, poured out magic enough to search Fortress Torvo. Indeed, naught prevented me…though I came to wish it had.

I cursed. Swore. Eventually I crawled away, buried my face in the bedclothes, and screamed out a monumental rage. Had any other edifice this side of hell seen so much of torment? The Harrowers’ self-righteous slaughter was only the most recent depredation. For decades this ruin had been a secret prison, used by nobles who took pleasure in meting out punishments in cruel excess of those mandated by Eodward’s ideals of justice. Men, women, children, noble or common…none were exempt. Before that, the fortress was used similarly by the Aurellians, a race whose delight in torture reached levels of depravity that counterbalanced every glory of their arts and every marvel of their building. And in ancient Ardra, before the rise of the enlightened Caedmon, Ardran nobles had lived in constant war with one another, as well as with the Moriangi Gravs to the north—and they had locked their rivals and their families here to starve. Every wail and scream and bloodletting had left its mark upon this stone. Despair had become its mortar.

But my uncomfortable exercise had repaid me. Osriel and Stearc were held straight down below me, six levels, at the least. Both men lived—that the magic had worked told me that much—but I could discern naught of their condition. I fixed their guide threads in my mind, the route of steps and passages through layer upon layer of blood-woven history, a trail that would lead me to them as soon as I could manage it. Some of the blood and pain I felt was surely theirs.

But what of Jullian? I had no blood to trace him. Of all the prisoners who had trod these vile halls, far too many had been boys. Three days…most of this one gone already.

The sun had gone, leaving the night beyond the windows black as pitch. The wind whistled through the window grates, as I yanked and twisted each one. Many of the bars were loose in the weathered stone facings; some were rusted through, some missing altogether. A little brutish work would allow me to crawl out. But one glance down into the blackness showed the pin-pricks of light that would be torches at the gates. As far as I had learned, Danae did not fly, and surely even Kol could not survive so great a leap. Damn the cowardly Jakome to the nethermost regions of hell!

Of a sudden I heard murmurings outside my door, and the bolts and latches scraped. By the time the door swung open, I was seated in one of my two chairs, feet propped on the table, and my gloves covering the blue telltales on my hands. I snatched up an apple and started munching. The taste of the fruit and the scents of porridge and wine waked an appetite I’d thought ruined by my searching.

“Good evening, Magnus Valentia.” A small woman hurried past me and set a loaded tray on my table, as an invisible companion closed and locked the door behind her. “A simple meal, but nourishing. And hot, if we partake right away.”

The soft-voiced visitor, barefoot and clothed in a plain white shift, was Sila Diaglou’s young devotee, the copper-skinned young woman with the earth-brown eyes. Thick hair the color of walnuts hung over her shoulder in a single plait, as if she were on her way to bed. Any man would find her alluring did she not have a habit of smearing her victims’ blood on her full lips.

“I do not sit down with murderers.”

She wrinkled her brow as if pondering the course of the universe. “But you’ve broken bread with other warriors, have you not—your comrades-in-arms in Prince Perryn’s service? War is dreadful, but when the world’s need demands it, all must serve. Some by killing. Some by dying.”

“My comrades took no pleasure in their deeds. They did not slaughter innocents or lick their blood.” Yet Boreas had notched his spear whenever he skewered a beardless Moriangi, saying he’d “keep the river dogs from growing up another warrior from a whelp.” And Boreas was not near the worst of those I’d called comrade.

“Some kinds of killing cannot be justified by war,” I said. “Unclean killing. Children.”

“If the war itself be noble, then I can’t see how one death be different from another. Please, let us not argue this evening. You should eat.” She had set out two deep bowls of porridge, a small plate of butter and bread, two spoons, and a steaming pitcher, and now poured wine into two waiting cups, sloshing a bit onto the table. The stout fragrance of wine and cloves filled the room, swirled by the chill breeze, setting up a raging thirst in me. Of a sudden I was sweating.

The girl perched on the second chair, tucked her bare feet under her robe, and dipped her spoon. “Will you not tell me more of yourself, Magnus?” she said between bites. “Then I’ll do the same. My mistress would not have us enemies.” Her great eyes gleamed in the lamplight, no hint of guile. Indeed they were empty of anything save eager curiosity and a certain sincere…appreciation.

I looked away. I did need to eat. Even more, I longed for the wine. It was a mercy that only this girl had been sent here. I was much too tired to spar with Gildas or Sila herself. Yet I would need to have a care. This girl was little more than a child herself—sixteen, seventeen—but a child who collaborated in murder. I dared not forget that.

I swirled the wine in the wooden cup, inhaling. Bless all gods, no lurking scent of nivat or anything else untoward wafted from it. Cloves certainly…a touch of cinnamon. Sweet Erdru, the aroma itself could get me drunk. All the better to sleep and forget what my bent had shown me.

I touched my tongue to one drop left hanging on the rim. Warmth spread from toes to eyebrows in less time than a flicker’s peck. No nivat. No lurking trace of herbs or potions. But the wine itself was disappointing, heavy on the tongue and tasting as if it had been kept in a cask of iron instead of oak. No use risking a muddled head for spoilt wine.

Unable to stomach sitting with the girl, I left the wine cup on the table and perched on a window ledge with bowl and spoon. Perhaps I could induce her to tell me where Jullian was kept or discover a way to get out of this room. The cursed Jakome’s treachery had been a sore blow.

“You speak first,” I said. “You likely know a few things about me already. What is your name?”

“Malena.”

An Aurellian word. “Goddess’s treasure.”

A pleasured flush deepened her already richly colored skin. “That’s right. I was a third daughter of a third daughter, so my parents gave me to the temple in Avenus when I turned five. They’d no coin for the fee, so I was put to work in the temple baths—scrubbing tiles, fetching water or towels or candles, waiting in corners till I was needed.” She popped a bite of buttered bread in her mouth.

“Arrosa’s temple, then.” Only the goddess of love required baths in her temple.

“Mmm.” She nodded and swallowed her bread. “I was lucky to serve and not take vows, though I didn’t know it then. I didn’t understand what I saw—the wickedness what took place in the baths.”

She licked the butter off her small, delicate fingers.

“Copulation…mating…is no corruption,” I said. “Arrosa blesses earthly love, makes it divine, if pleasure is shared freely.” The qualifier was not widely preached, of course, but its truth had become apparent to me early on, and no woman I’d had since had ever disagreed.

“Well, of course we’re meant to join and make more of us, and if we can take comfort in it, all the better.” A sprightly smile illuminated her round cheeks and pointed chin, then faded as she knit her brow. “But in the temple, pleasure was not offered freely. Novices younger than me were used by whatever great lords and warriors took a fancy. I heard them screaming from the bath, saw them thrashing in the water when the lords forced them down on their…laps. And I had to bring towels to wipe the girls’ blood, and oils to anoint their skin, so they could be sent into the bedchambers to glorify Arrosa through the night.”

I well knew such crimes happened. I had warned Jullian of them, sworn to protect him. I wished she would speak of something else. All manner of unseemly urges seemed waked in me this night.

“One night when I was ten, a lord tired of the priestess who serviced him in the bath. He bellowed that he preferred a younger body. He saw me hiding in the corner and demanded me. And he got me. For a sevenday. Even though I could offer him no temple blessing. Even though I could not read to him from the temple writs or recite the lays of love.”

Her simple statement of evil gave weight to her story that indignant diatribes could not. I believed her.

“Afterward, I ran away. If I had taken vows, like Sila, they would have come after me, and I would have had to cut myself as she did to undo the swearing. But I was just a bath girl…”

“…Yet your parents refused to take you back—their gift to the goddess.” No need to ask what had happened to her after. I had been fifteen when I ran away, and the ways to feed oneself so young were very few. “I’m sorry for what happened to you, but it does not…cannot…justify—”

“But I am not sorry! Don’t you see?” She twiddled with the lamp, retracting the wick so its fire dimmed, confining the pool of light to the table and her red-gold complexion. “Had I stayed a bath girl at the temple I’d not have met Sila. I’d not have learned of the Gehoum, and how we must make ourselves humble before them. I’d not understand the need for cleansing and repentance or to tear down the false structures of learning and privilege that make one man’s will more powerful than the purity of a girl.”

I had learned long before that when a certain note crept into an otherwise reasonable argument, it paid a man naught to continue. The fanatic’s gleam shone in Malena’s soft brown eyes, and she was never going to agree that her slaughtering children in the name of her uncaring Gehoum was no holier than a lord’s raping children in the name of his own pleasure.

“I’ve eaten all I can bear,” I said, setting down the tasteless porridge. I wanted this woman out of here. Long-buried memories of drunken soldiers and their rough, fumbling hands, of filthy alleyways and painful humiliations, had gotten tangled with images of bath girls and swimming brown eyes and soft copper-hued limbs. “Tell your mistress and her monk that sad stories and beds with quilts will not make me their willing captive. Let them come and tell me what they want of me.”

I saw no use in pretending cooperation. Gildas knew me too well. I just needed to keep their eyes on me and away from the captives down below. But what if I found a way to get Osriel out of here, yet had not secured Jullian? I shoved the thought away as soon as it appeared. I had two more days.

Malena set down her spoon, picked up my wine cup, and joined me at the window. Her round cheeks bloomed with health. “Dear Magnus,” she said, pressing the cup into my hand. “The holy one has sent me to tell you what she wants of you.”

Her lips parted slightly. Soft. Waiting. I drained the cup in one gulp, and her smile blossomed in fragrant sweetness like moonflowers. A gust of wind whistled through the iron grate, and she shivered.

“And what is that?” I said, relishing the potent richness of the wine. Malena was so small…so fragile in the thin white shift that fluttered in the wind, giving shape to the ripened form beneath. I wrapped my arms about the trembling girl to shield her from the cold.

She wrapped her arms about my neck and pulled my head down so she could whisper in my ear. “I am your chosen mate.”

Chapter 22

“Chosen mate?” Increasingly thickheaded, as if I’d drunk a vat of wine, I could not seem to grasp her meaning.

“Mmm. The world shall be renewed.” Her fingers stroked my neck and teased at my ears.

My body swam with lust. My mind swam with the wine and unfocused danger, and I knew I should stop what I was doing. I just could not remember why. Even as I voiced the question that might elaborate the risk, my gloved fingers found the ties that held her flimsy shift closed, and I pulled.

Goddess Mother… Her breast tasted of ginger and honey.

“I am the holy one’s gift to you…prepared…purified…ah…” The soft catch in her throat as I pushed the gossamer fabric downward and shifted my mouth from one sweet curve to another drove me out of my senses. I drew her to the bed and lay beside her. As she unfastened my buttons and laces, I imagined vaguely that I should stay her hand. But instead I loosed her hair, inhaled her rising scent, and traced the line of neck and jaw and mouth with kisses, inhaling her sweetness as a starving man devours the first spoonful of sustenance.

“Why would the goddess send a gift to me now?” I whispered, my words buried in Malena’s smooth belly, as somewhere above my head her trembling hands unbuttoned my gloves. “I’ve failed to honor blessed Arrosa for far too long, though I am ever her servant in mind.”

The girl’s laugh echoed the song of larks, until she freed my hands and gasped again. I took full advantage. My fingers explored silken breasts, smooth flanks, and swollen lips, while my mouth continued its downward trek. “Careful, lady,” I mumbled, as her quest to strip away my layered garb grew insistent enough to tear skin along with fabric. But I was as eager as she. More.

“Ah, Magnus, they told me you might—But I never—” Her voice quivered…caught in a sob…as her fingers traced a path on my naked back. “They are so beautiful. You are so beautiful…”

Of a sudden my back bloomed in exquisite fire. Her fingernails had transformed to steel blades that slashed a path of agony across my skin. The pain drove me into frenzy.

I buried myself in her. Heedless…mindless…I strove and thrust and drowned in sensation that sent coils and spirals of lightning to every quat of my skin. Were the dissolution of the world appointed for the culmination of my act, I could not have stopped. And the explosion, when it came, had naught to do with sweetness or shared pleasure. Only need.

Laughter eddied about my head, swirling, dipping…changing pitch from low to high and back again. Sluggish, sated, incapable of movement, I sat with my fire-scoured back against the curved wall of my tower prison, my head on my knees. Wine lay sour on my tongue, though I could remember only one cup.

“Well done, child.” The higher-pitched voice. Sila Diaglou. She had said this three times. I couldn’t understand it. Why weren’t they angry?

The two of them—priestess and monk—had burst through the door and pulled me off the girl. Was it Malena’s strangled cries and strident weeping had brought them or was it my bellow of completion? They were gentle enough, supporting me stumbling toward a window and lowering me to the floor. But since then, my head had grown so heavy I could not lift it. Nor could I persuade my tongue to speak such apology as I wished. Sorry…sorry…sorry. Never do I take without giving…or so I intend…never, never would I take pleasure in forcing…in injury…

The tide of shame drenched me yet again, swirling my meager thoughts into confusion. The girl had screamed and wept and begged. How could she not be injured? Why did they laugh? Gildas’s robust chortle was unmistakable. Even Malena’s moans and whimpers had yielded to girlish giggles.

A bitterly cold wind raked my naked skin. Sapphire light danced beneath the flutter of my eyelashes. My gards entirely visible…I tried to draw in my limbs…hating to be so exposed…hating for them to see. But I could scarcely twitch my fingers.

I had felt washed clean in Aeginea—the gards a sign of renewed purpose, a hint of a joy that I had not believed existed in this life. No more of that! I had proved myself an animal, a damnable, brutish thug who had so pompously called judgment on men who corrupted children. What had come over me?

Someone new arrived, cursing under his breath, his malevolence hammering at me.

“Get her up,” the priestess commanded. “Carefully, Jakome! Do not drop her on the stair. Stay abed and still until I come to you, child.”

Feet shuffled and scrambled. “Kasiya Gehoum, mistress. Sanguiera, orongia, vazte, kevrana.” Bleed, suffer, die, purify. Malena’s cheerful invocation of blood and suffering only worsened my confusion. Your chosen mate…not chosen by Arrosa, but by Sila Diaglou. They had used the girl—a willing girl. And used my cursed weakness for pleasuring, for wine…

“Did I not tell you that his appetites would be his leash?” said the monk, as if in echo of my self-condemnation. The syllables grated on my ear like steel on glass. “A little wine, a fair young body…and so much easier than reasoning with him or putting him to the question. He will be everything you wish. Pliable. Controllable. One taste of decadent pain and pleasure, and he is yours.”

How did the priestess bear his patronizing manner? How had I ever mistaken it for brotherly mentoring and friendship?

A finger began tracing the patterns on my back. The priestess’s, I knew, from the heat. At least her touch did not sap my wits this time, as I had so little remaining. Her exploration, though not purposefully brutal, did not avoid the lacerations that dribbled warm blood down my flanks. That I flinched each time she encountered one did not deter her. The blade had been no lust-fueled imagining. They must have hidden it beneath the palliasse.

“What does it mean that he displays Danae markings, Gildas? You said he did not know what he was.”

“It would appear he’s found out. We can ask him, as soon as he recovers enough to speak, but I would not count any report he gives as reliable. Not yet. He has no fond feelings for either of us, and you’ve heard his history of lies.”

Recovers… Like a sleeping lion, mortal dread raised its head and set me screaming inside. Wake up, fool. Wake up. But I had smelled the wine, sampled a drop before drinking. And porridge could not mask poison.

“We must ask the old one what the marks signify and what powers they give him.”

Unnamed panic threatened logic. How was it possible they knew of my mixed birth? And what old one could they ask? Not Stearc or Osriel. The image of Picus flew through my head, but he had no intercourse with Navronne. Why could I not lift my head and ask them?

This leaden indolence, this sodden paralysis that left me near incapable of reason…I had not felt the like since the morning Luviar died, the last time Gildas and I had spoken, when I yet believed him my friend…

And then as words and events settled like a silken shroud, giving shape to those things beneath, the simple truth came clear. Fear robbed me of breath. Pain and pleasure…Gildas knew all my vices.

Of course, I’d not smelled nivat in the wine. The heat of enchantment burned away the scent of blood-spelled nivat. They had laced the wine with doulon paste. Never had that possibility crossed my mind. Gildas was no sorcerer; he would need my blood. And now, too late, I remembered Jakome’s knife and his smirk as he had slashed my hand. I had been lost the moment the first droplet of tainted wine had touched my tongue. Saverian had warned me. A fool should know what his stupidity has cost him.

Sila Diaglou knelt on the floor beside me. Her breath smelled of anise, and her hand stroked my hair and the back of my neck as if I were a favored hound. I would have given an arm not to shiver at her touch. I would have given both legs to believe they had not infected me with my old sin.

The woman gently blotted the blood dribbling down my back, and in a flutter of panic, I wondered if she licked it from her fingers. “They truly find pleasure in the wounding…during the carnal act? I’d never heard that. It seems depraved.”

“Dear Sila, in these few matters…especially in regard to the male response…how could you know…how could even the old one know? The journals of Picus recount the Danae male’s need for pain during copulation.”

For one brief instant, the world grew quiet, as if I had closed off my senses to heed a stone’s cry. Gildas lied. Saverian had told me the journals did not speak of nivat. And in this lie did I sound a gulf between the monk and the priestess. Great Iero, mighty Kemen, give me strength and wit to fill that gap with liquid fire and shatter their unholy collaboration!

“Your plan is sound, mistress. The pureblood stranglehold will be broken. The long-lived will infuse your people with strength and endurance beyond human understanding. Navronne will be brought to its knees, groveling before the Gehoum for generation upon generation.” His passion sounded convincing…except to one who had heard this same passion for the lighthouse and its learning, for friendship and holy brotherhood.

“I must see to Malena,” said the priestess, rising from my side. “That we could have a catch at first mating is presumptuous, but failure shall not be accounted to any lack of diligence on my part.”

Infuse your people…a catch? They wanted me to breed a child on the girl…Harrowers and Danae and Aurellian sorcery. My spinning head came near flying off.

Gildas chuckled. “I yield to the students of Arrosa’s temple. We were not taught of such women’s matters at Gillarine. I’ll put this one to bed. I doubt my old friend will be lucid before morning. To get him drunk loosed his true nature.”

“Bring him to me as soon as he wakes tomorrow. As yet we’ve had no response from Prince Osriel on our offer to trade these useless prisoners for the monk. The Bastard is the last obstacle on our road. If Magnus can unlock his plots and mysteries, our war is won.”

“As you command, priestess. A peaceful night to you.”

“And you, Gildas. Well done.”

Osriel the Bastard…the King of Navronne. The lord’s secretary who lay ill in their dungeon. They didn’t know! This reminder of my purpose gave me an anchor. They must not find out.

The door opened and closed. Someone set the lock. The wind howled and swirled, rattling the loose bars. In the lulls, I heard Gildas’s breathing as he waited, and I smelled the taint of nivat on him. Had I thought it would do any good, I would have stuck a finger down my throat to purge the poison I had downed so blithely. Naught could purge the evil if I had planted a part-Danae child in Sila Diaglou’s hands this night.

“So, friend Valen, do you appreciate your lovely open chamber? What captive in all Navronne has a cell so suited to his nature? You can thank me for that. I’ll confess I did not at all expect to see you marked, but then, Stearc and his tidy Gram were always parsimonious with details from old Picus’s journals. Did the Bastard whip these sigils out of you, or is it something like a boy’s night spew that comes upon one like you at the proper time and season? And you ran away from Osriel—no surprise that—but to your family? That is perhaps the most difficult of all these manifold mysteries to comprehend.” Gildas’s questions were like a sea creature’s tentacles, touching me lightly on every side, exploring, distracting, any one of them capable of stinging me to death.

“So am I to be kept here like a stallion until I breed true?” I said, summoning control enough to lift my head. Gildas sat across the chamber, his feet propped on the clothes chest. The faint azure glow from my gards, our only illumination, kept him a dark outline.

“I suspected you were more wakeful than you showed,” he said, white teeth gleaming. “It saves me a deal of explaining. And the answer is yes, at least until the balance of power shifts on the winter solstice. The lady thinks to create a new world, where the boundaries between purebloods, ordinaries, Ardran, Moriangi, and even your dancing kinsmen are erased. You are to be—excuse the crude expression—the seed and root of that new world. Half pureblood sorcerer, half Danae. My reports of you had already intrigued her, but when I informed her of your unique bloodlines she came near rapture. We have no evidence of another Danae–pureblood mating in the history of the world.”

My mind stuttered over the simple immensity of what he described. Somehow I had always dismissed Harrower rants as ploys to attract the gullible. I’d never imagined the priestess believed what she preached. “She would destroy pureblood sorcery?”

“Certainly the end of pureblood breeding laws will dilute the Aurellian bent. But it will take on a new life and character by the infusion of Danae blood—so Sila imagines. From the long night of the great Harrowing shall rise a new race of men and women—robust in health, what remains of the world’s magic held captive in their veins, with no need for books or gods or kings or anything else that might elevate one above another. A seductive vision, is it not? She sees you, the Danae-bred Cartamandua recondeur, as the exemplar of her new world.”

Seductive…deeply, intelligently seductive. Magnificent. Surely it was my addled state that came up with no answer to it. How could I argue against breaking down barriers of birth, a man who had rebelled against the strictures of breeding my entire life, son of two people who had done the same?

“How did you guess what I was? How could you possibly have known?” I had more pressing questions, but I needed time to think. Gildas lived by his cleverness. If he kept secrets from Sila Diaglou, then he likely had no confidant among her company and might enjoy a bit of boasting.

“I put it all together when you refused to walk into the Well grotto. The place profoundly affected you—as if you could feel the myrtle and hyssop that bound its guardian—and yet you had taken on the search eagerly and actually found the Well when no one else could do it. You could not have used the maps, for I had long discovered your inability to read. But the possibility that you were a Cartamandua simply did not occur to me. You are so unlike the rest of them.”

“I’ll thank you for that, at least.” I pressed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets, trying to squeeze out the muzziness. Beyond Sila Diaglou’s seductive vision lay her murderous war to implement it. I needed some way to free my friends.

Gildas continued eagerly, as I had known he would. “You’d had me curious from the night I submitted to Sila’s whip—proofs of devotion are a dreadful bother. You located me despite a barricade of magic, and our companions told odd tales of ghostly apparitions that night. As I asked myself why visiting the Well would affect you so strangely, I recalled your collapse on that very first day I took you into the cloister garth—the residue of the Scourge clearly affects you, whether the rite succeeds or no. And, of course, I had witnessed your uncontrollable aversion to captivity. I could find only one explanation to encompass all these things. Days later, when Gram told me of your emotional response to seeing a Dané, I was sure of you. Truly you had me coming and going when you were exposed as a pureblood.”

I blurted one cheerless guffaw. “And then I begged you to bring me nivat. You must have been beside yourself.” I had handed him the very leash that would bring me to heel.

His white teeth gleamed in the dark. “The tainted water was the final test. By that time I could see that your Danae characteristics were tempered by your human heritage, so I trusted you wouldn’t die from a few drops of blood in the water.”

Damnable savage to so callously dismiss a boy’s torment! “Do you long for hell, child murderer? For I swear by every god and demon, you will meet the Tormentor himself before another season passes.”

“You will do nothing to me.” He jumped up from his chair, his playful drawl abandoned. “Claudio de Cartamandua did me a great service when he made your childhood a misery. He left you weak. A penchant for unsavory pleasure rules your flesh, and this maudlin sentiment with regard to children rules your wit.”

My loathing for Gildas eclipsed every hatred of my life. “If you’ve touched him, Gildas—”

“I’ve kept young Jullian safe. Intact. Healthy. He begins to understand that men of exceptional mind must lead the world out of its morass. If I choose to complete his education, he will serve as a fine acolyte in the new order. Indeed, friend Valen, I hold everything you want and need.”

A soft clicking sound came from his direction, almost like a shower of raindrops…or nutshells shaken in a bag…or seeds…The earth-ripe scent that accompanied the sound constricted my lungs and clenched my gut. With every breath the craving spread its spiked tentacles through flesh and bone. The same paralyzed incapacity that prevented me from shoving Gerard’s murderer through the iron bars into eternal night was all that held me back from snatching away his hoard. His soft chuckle said he knew that.

My hands trembled like a palsied beggar’s. I needed to drag my mind away from nivat and the hellish cost of deeper enslavement. Saverian…great heaven grant that she would help me again. For now, I had to live with it and find a way to damn Gildas to eternal fire.

Somehow thoughts of my astringent angel affected me as might an icy plunge, for it occurred to me that Gildas’s lie about a Danae predilection for pain meant that he had not told Sila Diaglou of my problem with the doulon. Harrowers despised twist-minds, and burnt or bled them. They did not use us to breed favorites. Which meant that Gildas intended to hide his deepest hold on me. Which meant that he had plans beyond those of Sila Diaglou, and it would best serve my interests if I learned of them. So let the arrogant gatzé believe he owned me.

“Indeed, it seems I am your thrall.” It took no effort to mime a doulon slave with an aching head and resentful soul. “How much did you give me that morning you betrayed Luviar? I lost the rest of my supply on that day’s adventure, and you’ve no concept of wrath until you try telling Osriel of Evanore that you’re no good to him unless he feeds you nivat every five days.”

“Every five days?” Gildas chortled. “I’ll confess I gave you most of what you had in hopes you would lose track of the day’s events. And I knew it would accelerate your cravings, a matter I thought might be useful. But I’d no idea it would compromise you so sorely. I am sorry for that. Truly I bear you no ill will. Tell me, what use did Osriel have for you?”

This casual inquiry bore all the power of his considerable intellect and will. The answer would take some care.

“What do you think? The Bastard wanted entry to Aeginea.” Summoning every reserve of will, I reached a hand behind me to the window facing, hauled myself to my feet, and rested my ponderous head on the iron grate. “I refused to take him, and he did exactly what you will do. I held out for three days from the onset of my hunger. Remind me not to do that again, Brother.”

“So you took Osriel the Bastard to Aeginea.” Gildas hated that thought. “What did he learn? Who did he see? What was it like?”

“I’ve no idea. He waited until I was near my time again. I led him past the Sentinel Oak and promptly lost my mind. But somewhere along the way, he sold me to a clutch of the blue-marked gatzi. One of them did this”—I swept my hand across my pulsing sigils—“which makes the entire world into a madhouse. Then someone tied me to a tree and said he was going to break my knees. Gods…I went crazy. Broke the bindings and ran. I hope they killed the Bastard. I hope they died doing it.”

“And you ran to your family. Astonishing…and yet your family is a strange mix. What could exemplify it better than your brother’s clumsy attempt to bribe a weapon into your hand after serving you up to Sila Diaglou?”

I sputtered in disgust. “I needed money. I needed nivat. I needed a roof and walls to protect me from this rabble you’ve joined. That Max betrayed me to Bayard Slugwit was no surprise. And only a doulon-crazed fool would believe he’d help me out of this madhouse. He likely paid your whey-faced lout to taunt me with the knife, not give it.” And more clearly than ever, Jakome was Gildas’s whey-faced lout, not Sila Diaglou’s. Jakome had taken my blood for the doulon.

“So, tell me, Brother Gildas, if the mad priestess plans to create a new world from mingling my blood with that of her mad followers, what is to be your place in it? Chief Corrupter? The Baron of Books?” And here I took the dangerous leap. “Or are your aims, perhaps, different than the lady’s?”

He strolled across the room and halted just behind me. I gripped the iron window grate, straining every sense to decide if cold steel was aimed at my back. But instead, he spoke softly over my shoulder. “You know I cannot trust you, dear fellow. You have made clear that you have no use for practical, unsentimental men. Know, too, that I have given the priestess everything she has demanded of me. She is fiercely loyal and will believe no slander—especially from a renowned liar. And she relishes bleeding doulon slaves to poison Danae sianous. But I will also tell you this, my friend: Heed my direction, and one day soon, before these cretins wreak heaven’s wrath on the winter solstice, you and I will exchange favors. You would like to keep your mind and be free of this madhouse and a future impregnating Harrower broodmares. I would like to spend the next few hundred years in Aeginea. I believe I’ve knowledge enough that I can buy the archon’s good will, but alas, your book of maps does not suffice to get me beyond their borders.”

Inside, I smiled with grim satisfaction and chose to take one more risky step. “Give me Jullian along with the nivat, and all my skills will be at your service, Brother Treacher. The boy stays with me until we go, and I breathe no word of your plan to him, to Sila, or to anyone. Sentiment and pragmatism will walk hand in hand.”

His breath moved on my back, fast and hot. My own breath held still as my mind raced over everything I’d told him—where I might have yielded too easily or pushed too hard.

“Done,” he said at last, clapping a hand on my bare shoulder, his forced joviality reopening one of Malena’s lacerations. He snatched up the bloody rag from the floor and blotted the wound.

I did not allow him to see my fierce hope. If I could truly persuade the blackguard to give me Jullian, I would tear down these walls with my toes if need be to get us out.

“The diviners have foreseen the fall of humankind, Valen. It is up to each of us to find our way through it. Follow my lead, and you will survive as you have all these years.” He dropped something onto the table and tapped on the door. The door guard let him out and set the lock.

His parting gift comprised a small canvas bag holding a silver needle, a linen thread, a finger-length rectangle of mirror glass, and three nivat seeds—far too few for one doulon spell, but sufficient to rouse my hunger. I clutched the bag to my chest and told myself that I dared not risk my pretense of cooperation by tossing the seeds from the window.

If I were actually planning to deliver Gildas to Max, I could save my brother the work of interrogation and tell him Gildas’s secrets, writ as plain as my own on this night. Instead of serving as the lighthouse Scholar, vowed to teach the world what might be forgotten in the Great Harrowing, Gildas planned to keep his treasury of knowledge all to himself. Instead of watching magic that he himself could never possess become every man’s birthright, he could astonish the ignorant by fashioning a spindle, by predicting the sunrise or the change of seasons, by working the magic of fire by striking flint to steel or the magic of life by suturing a wound. Gildas fancied himself a prophet, an alchemist, a sorcerer. The weary survivors of the world’s chaos would name him a god.

Chapter 23

Lust and nivat plagued my dreams. I was out of bed and pacing my tower cage well before what passed for sunrise. I donned my shirt and chausses, unable to bear the thought of my captors gawking at the mystery of my gards, and hoping that clothing might quench the dual fires that plagued me with fits of the shakes.

Trying to recapture some use of my senses, I examined the inner side of the door locks, peering through the seams of the door, tapping, shaking, rattling. The exercise revealed little. I needed to be out of here.

When Malena brought ale and bread, I could not eat. I could not speak. I could not look at her without wanting to tear away her gown—stitched of common russet, buttoned tight across her breasts to reveal everything of softness and curves. I hated myself for it. I hated those who tempted me to it. I didn’t understand it. In the past, the doulon had quenched all fleshly desires, not driven them. I donned my pourpoint, thinking to put another layer between my skin and temptation.

The girl played the good wife, commenting upon the weather and the food and did I wish for a heavier cloak to wear over my garments. She folded the clothes still scattered on the floor and laid them in the clothes chest. She even began some apology for serving me wine laced with “vigger’s salt,” which was the common name for saffron that alley witches swore could inflame a man’s flagging prick.

I choked on a miserable laugh, closed off my hearing, and clung to the window bars. Saffron was more expensive than nivat.

Though I did not suffer from the cold, the morning was bitter. Ice crystals whipped through the barred windows, swirling on the floor and settling like dust in the cracks and crevices on either side of the door. In the mottled gray of storm and smoke, Palinur spread below my tower like a battlefield, its streets and houses like fallen soldiers—some of them charred ruins, half buried in mud and blackened snow, a few still displaying life and movement. Somewhere out there, Voushanti and Saverian awaited my call.

Considering the two of them gave me extraordinary comfort. That a dead man with a mote of hell in his eye and a physician with a desert for a heart seemed like the world’s finest companions told me what a nest of lunatics I’d come to. And I was as bad as any of them. The moment I had Jullian at my side, we would find a way through this damnable door, down to the prison level, and out of this cursed place.

“Dear Magnus, the day is so very cold.” A weight pressed softly against my back and Malena reached her arms about my waist. She was shivering, and my arms ached to enfold her. “Could we not begin again? If we learned more of each other, we could be friends.” Her fingernails were chewed and broken, ridged with black dirt and a rusty residue that could so easily be old blood. Saints and angels!

I grasped one of her hands as it snaked toward my groin and twisted her arm as I turned, using it to force her back toward the door. “Let us learn more of each other, Malena. Shall I tell you stories of my friend Gerard, of how he loved to watch the wall of light move across the refectory or how he named all the abbey’s goats after holy saints or how this boy, who blanched at butchering a chicken, sat bravely on a wounded soldier, singing of hearth and home, as our infirmarian sawed off the man’s leg? Tell me, Malena, did you cut Gerard at the Well? Did you drive the spikes that held his hands to the rock or taste his blood? You will need more than vigger’s salt to make me lie with you of my own will.”

Even as I spoke these things, my body craved her. Revolted, I shoved her against the wall and returned to my window. I would bind my hands to the bars before touching her again.

“You speak bravely in the light, Magnus,” she said, all sweetness foregone. “But when I come in the night, you shall bend as the earth must bend before the power of the Gehoum. They care naught for one boy, naught for you, naught for me, but only that the land and people be subdued and humble and made clean. Your body speaks their will. Look at your hands.” Indeed my shaking dwarfed her shivers.

She rapped on the door and was released. I wondered if the unhappy Jakome was forced to deliver her to me. I hoped so. I wondered if she had “caught,” and near screamed at the thought of a child given life from a doulonfed frenzy and in such a creature as Malena.

The morning was quiet so high in the tower. I fidgeted and paced. I sipped Saverian’s potion, hoping it might quench these other uneasy sensations as effectively as it controlled my stomach. After my outburst at Malena, I might find myself in the dungeons by midday. I touched the stone floor and, for the tenth time that morning, verified that the guide threads I had established the previous night were still intact. Somewhere far below me, Osriel and Stearc yet breathed.

I had just emptied the ale pitcher out the window without tasting its contents, when the bolts and latches rattled again. This time I heeded every snick of pins and levers in the locks. My visitor was Gildas.

“You’ve distressed our little wench this morning, Valen.”

“As long as I’ve a mind to choose with, I choose not to dance to Sila Diaglou’s music,” I said. “Which leaves me perhaps two days until I succumb.” I prayed I was misleading him. The more preoccupied I seemed to be with my cravings, the less cautious he might be.

“I am to take you to the priestess. Alas, good Jakome is required to bind your hands against the chance of some magical escape. Do I need to call for shackles, as well, or ruffians with blades?”

Lifting the hems of pourpoint and shirt, I showed him his little bag tied at my waist. “Your leash is quite strong enough, though it’s mostly promises as yet; three seeds get me nowhere but sick. Nor have I seen my young friend this morning. And all bargains are moot, if the priestess thinks to bleed me.”

Gildas grinned. “Sila much prefers you alive…as do I. I discussed Jullian with her last night, suggesting we entrust the boy to your care. I proposed that he could relieve Malena of serving your meals. Thus reassured that we mean well, you might be more attentive to the young woman’s charms.” Sila seemed receptive. Perhaps you could set her remaining doubts at rest during this morning’s interview. Each hour you behave well will add weight to your nivat bag.”

Gildas admitted Jakome, who carried a grimy wad of silken cord. The silkbinding took an extraordinarily long time, for Jakome wasn’t particularly good at it. He bound the cords tight, but uneven. And unlike pureblood guards, whose skilled binding left no bit of flesh exposed and not the least possibility of movement, Jakome failed to keep my fingers properly clasped and tucked as he worked. With a little time, I might be able to wriggle my thumbs loose and poke them through the coils of cord. The bony man completed the tedious task by spitting on the already filthy wrappings, evidently his idea of a proper torment.

Gildas led the way down the tight coil of worn and broken steps. Jakome followed behind me.

Once free of the wards on my door, I snatched the opportunity for spellwork. Dead man. Fallow. I closed my eyes and fed a bit of magic into the words. Fallow would inform Saverian and Voushanti that I was alive and safe enough for the moment. I strained my inner ear until I heard the echo. Bluejay. Fallow. In heart and head I thanked Saverian for her cleverness and skill.

How different from this doulonfed frenzy had been the forces that heated me as I lay with Saverian in the shrubbery. I needed to hold fast to that memory…which made me smile at what Saverian might say to my using carnal thoughts of her to shield me from unsavory lust.

Three landings down, a doorway opened into a long, wide passage. Embrasures along the left-hand wall admitted smoke and dusty light. A purposeful stumble allowed me to sneak a glimpse through one of them. The passage was actually an enclosed gallery that overlooked the long hall where I had been delivered the previous afternoon. Observers or bowmen could lurk here, completely hidden from below.

Opposite the embrasure wall, dim chambers opened off the gallery, appearing, for the most part, to be but habitat for spiders. But Gildas stopped at one doorway hung with a blanket. He held back the dingy wool, and Jakome shoved me into a cavelike chamber.

No windows graced this room. Arrow loops on the outer wall admitted bitter air and threads of wan daylight that scarce sufficed to keep me from colliding with Gildas. The now-familiar pressure of walls grew as I stood in the close quarters, but my stomach stayed in place, and again I blessed Saverian for her potion.

“Sila should be here by now.” Gildas’s voice dripped annoyance.

The sullen Jakome fed and stirred coals that smoldered in a rusty brazier. The rising flames pushed the darkness back a little.

The long, narrow chamber appeared to be a soldier’s billet, or more properly, a commander’s billet, as I saw no sign that more than one person slept here. Wool blankets were folded neatly atop a rolled-up palliasse. A folding table and several stools leaned against one wall, alongside a pile of leather saddle packs. For the most part the accumulated dust, dried mud clots, ancient straw, stone flakes, wood chips, bark, and ash that grimed the chamber and hearth had been left where they lay. But the end wall closest to me, where the firelight shone brightest, had been swept and scrubbed clean before someone mounted a map of Navronne. Only in my family’s home had I ever seen a map so large—fully twice the width of my arm span and almost as high. Janus de Cartamandua had drawn both of them.

Jakome took up a guard stance at the door. Gildas had begun to pace, glancing constantly into the shadows as if expecting gatzi to pop out at us.

I could not take my eyes from the map, noting the bold arcs of Janus’s roads, each drawn in one stroke of his favorite pen, the particular feathery gray foliage of his trees that no artist had ever been able to duplicate, the oddly individual faces he gave to the birds that inhabited the map borders. Heaven’s mercy, had he known what happened to failed Danae?

Gildas glanced from me to Jakome. “Something’s off. Don’t let him out of here.”

The monk pushed through the hanging blanket and disappeared. Jakome drew his sword and blocked the doorway behind him. His mouth twisted upward and his sharp eyes fixed on me, as if he hoped I would challenge him.

But it was the map that drew me, not the prospect of being skewered trying to escape while my hands were bound. Jakome made no move to stop me as I strolled across the room to an arrow loop and peered down at an inner ward littered with broken masonry and fine rubble. Several corbeled privies had collapsed, tearing down half of a sewage-stained wall. After a short time, I drifted idly toward the map.

Something struck me as odd beyond its grand scale, but I couldn’t decide what it was. The borders and compass rose were grandly decorated. The firelight sparkled from flecks of gold that had been mixed with some of the inks. It was certainly very old. A Cartamandua map never yellowed or cracked, but rather took on a certain luster, as if the lines and colors, the drawing and the magic had blended and transformed it into something richer and deeper than its parts. This one seemed near as deep as it was wide. The ink washes were curious—only two colors, green and ocher, spread across irregularly shaped areas that corresponded to no other boundaries. Yet there was something more…

Uneasy, I glanced over my shoulder at the bored Jakome and at the far end of the chamber where the darkness hung so deep, unpenetrated by flame or thready daylight. Then I peered a little closer at the map.

Increasingly frustrated, I tapped my silkbound hands on my mouth and chin, rested them on my head, and dropped them down again. My fingers itched to trace the web of paths, like those through Mellune Forest, where I had misled the pursuing Harrowers. They ached to touch the fine details, such as the cairn that marked the split in the track leading to Caedmon’s Bridge and Fortress Groult. In satisfaction I noted the vast distances Saverian and I had frog-leaped from the rounded hills of northeastern Ardra to the hills of Palinur, to the bogs, to the cairn, to the Sentinel Oak—

I blinked. I would have sworn I had seen the faint shape of the Sentinel Oak depicted beside the cairn near Caedmon’s Bridge, but now I stared at the spot directly, I saw only the cairn. I angled my head to the side, and again glimpsed the tree.

Shifting my examination westward, I scanned past the limits of civilized lands, across the wilds of the Aponavi, to the shores of the western sea that separated Navronne and Cymra from the uncharted lands beyond. Under a wash of green, the coastline jagged and curved, and I wondered which curve might be the shore of Evaldamon—Kol’s sianou, where the days passed more slowly than elsewhere in Aeginea. Somehow I felt that if I could touch the map, I would know such truths—as if I were a blind man touching his lover’s face.

Of a sudden, I caught my breath—that’s what it was. This map had no words! Not one anywhere.

“Wait outside, Jakome.” Sila Diaglou’s cool voice spun me away from the map. “And you, dear Gildas, I wish you to take our provisioning in hand. Hurd’s fifth legion, the last of our assault force, marches for Evanore this afternoon, and Falderrene has not the cleverness to see it done properly. The Grav has been so busy rousting purebloods, he’s had no time to see to it himself.”

Sila swept through the door curtain. Gildas followed close behind, protesting. “But, holy one, I was to be here—”

“I prefer to interview Magnus alone. Remind Jakome that no one interrupts me. And take the book—I want another site before tomorrow.”

“Of course, holy one.” Gildas, flushed the hue of poppies, rummaged in the piled baggage and pulled out a thick square of brown leather, then inclined his back and left.

I stared after him, ready to bash my head against the wall in frustration. Perhaps Sila knew Gildas was not entirely committed to her purposes. Perhaps not. But she had just sent him away with my book of Cartamandua maps. I had not been certain it yet existed.

Once we were alone, the priestess moved briskly to retrieve a soiled cloak from the piled baggage. She fastened it about her shoulders and drew it close, giving an exaggerated shiver as she moved to the hearth. The action made her seem almost human.

“The cusp of autumn arrives untimely.” She gazed into the leaping flames and spoke in a dreamy singsong voice. “Dun haze. Tarnished gold. Leaves…glory dulled…whipped from their branches. Wolves gather, howling, gnawing the light. No more the culmination of summer, but harbinger of bitter blue days and ever longer nights. The dance is finished, and my heart aches for the waning season.”

She looked over her shoulder at me, her eyes narrowed, judging. “My grandmother taught me that when I was very small. It’s supposed to be sung. Have you heard it?”

“No,” I said, mystified, wary.

“She called it ‘The Canticle of the Autumn.’ I’m sure there once was a canticle for each season, but she never sang any but this one. Autumn is a sorrowful season. A dying season.”

Somehow such flat pronouncement raised my dander. “This autumn, yes. But a rightful autumn is golden and fruitful, a worthy celebration of summer’s labors.”

“And so you would say, too, that winter is not death.”

Who could argue that the winter that held Navronne in its grip was not death? Not I, who had always envisioned the netherworld as a dungeon of ice.

Turning back to the fire, she drew a greasy packet from her cloak, unwrapped it, and pulled out two flat strips of dried meat. She tore off a bite and closed her eyes in the way of a soldier who has been too long in the field and savors his meat as a sign he yet lives. Wordless, she offered me the second piece. I shook my head, and she devoured it, while I repeatedly rolled one thumb against the other in an attempt to free them from their bindings. I hated feeling so helpless in her presence.

When she had finished the meat and wiped her hands on her breeches, she drained a small flask rifled from the depths of her cloak. Then she sighed and tossed another stick on the fire. “I apologize for your hand bindings, for your confinement, and for last night’s…coercion. You showed up at my door so unexpectedly. Though I believe you will eventually grant me your willing cooperation, events leave me little leeway for chance, and I must seize opportunity. Malena happens to be fertile just now.”

“I await your explanations, madam.” Though expert at lies, I had never been very successful at feigning cooperation with those who restrained me and pretended they were doing it for some greater good. Yet I neither spat at her nor cursed her soul to everlasting fire as I would like to have done. If I were to save my friends, I needed to find some common ground with this woman.

“You were examining my map,” she said, ignoring my abruptness. “It’s a Cartamandua map, as I’m sure you can tell—an unusual one.”

“I’ve seen only a few so large.” Perhaps she would tell me what she thought was unusual. No words…I’d never seen a finished map lacking written names and keys. Janus had not made it for me; it was far too old. Yet naught gave me indication that it was incomplete. His own gryphon mark was scribed at the lower right corner. The cartographer’s mark was always the last thing added.

“You may study it sometime, if you wish, before I destroy it.” No gloating or cruelty or irony accompanied this offer. With the same casual sincerity that Picus spoke of forsaking the human world to live in penitence, she spoke of destroying a work of incomparable magic, artistry, and breadth of knowledge. It must have taken Janus more than a year just to render it, and untold years of travel and study to gather the material for the early sketches. Saints and angels, the vellum itself was priceless without accounting for the map. Only a few sorcerers in the history of Navronne had been able to transform sewn vellum into so large and seamless a whole.

“Why would you destroy such a marvel?” I said, the tantalizing mystery overwhelming my wish to let her lead the conversation. “What god could possibly wish it? Surely to know the size and variety of the world can but glorify whatever powers rule it.”

Sila nodded, as if expecting that very question. “The map, like those things hidden in the Gillarine lighthouse, is an artifact of corruption. Until we have lived through the age of breaking and repentance, we have no need for such knowledge. Until we have destroyed the barriers that separate those who can make such a thing from those who cannot, we have no right to it. We shall drive the purebloods from their comfortable walls and squeeze the long-lived from their hiding places, breaking down the boundaries of birth and blood that hoard their gifts from humankind. When my use for this map is done, I’ll burn it. I don’t expect you to grasp everything right away.”

Right away…so she expected me to live beyond the moment, at least. “Do you truly believe that mating me with your illiterate handmaiden will enable every man and woman to create such a work as this?”

“If not, then we have no need of such works.” Always simple answers. Of all the things I had learned in my life, nothing was so simple as fanatics imagined.

“I don’t understand any of this,” I said. “I very much dislike being used for anyone’s breeding projects.”

Even from the side, I could see her smile blossom. The curve of her lips dimpled her left cheek just below the terrible scar, completely transforming her. She would never be a transcendent beauty like Elene, but when Sila Diaglou turned her smile on me, it felt as if Navronne’s winter had yielded to such a glory of summer as I could scarce remember. The world and all its troubles receded into dim anxiety beside an urgent need to touch her cheek. Great merciful Mother! Was my entire being reduced to naught but my treacherous prick?

“I fully expected such rebellious sentiment from you, Magnus. Your indignation but confirms that you are meant to stand at my side and lead our people into a new age.”

“Lead? At your side?” No beggar presented with a crown of rubies could be more astonished or more skeptical.

She rose and joined me at the map, smiled again, and with one finger gently closed my mouth. “Who else could I trust to see both the wisdom of the future I propose and its dangers? Your life will stretch long enough to ensure we move past our time of suffering and penitence and into the new order”—she touched my wrist, setting my skin afire where a streak of pale blue peeked out between the silkbinding and my sleeve—“longer than I first imagined, longer than my own. Your unique magic will grow in these stretched years, serving to keep you safe and strong enough to lead. And your moral stature will shield the remnants of the old races from oppression as they die away.”

I had expected to find Sila Diaglou evil incarnate, a leering devil who relished blood, or perhaps a drooling madwoman who saw macabre visions. What was beginning to disturb me most were these times that she seemed halfway reasonable. She shivered in the chilly fortress, relished her supper, had a grandmother who taught her songs. She worried about moral stature and oppression…which made her act of stabbing a spear through Boreas’s gut to pin his bleeding body to the earth all the more horrific. I would not allow myself to become one of her besotted sheep.

I wrenched my attention from her face before I was completely undone. Behind her, the hanging blanket that covered the door to the gallery swayed, as if just dropped back into place. Despite Jakome’s wards, someone had been standing there, listening to what she had just said. Or perhaps I was merely twitchy because Gildas’s danger loomed so large. The last place on earth I dared stand was on some pedestal Gildas desired for himself.

I stepped away from Sila. If she viewed the move as a retreat, so be it. “Madam, I claim no unique magic and no moral stature. Indeed I think you mistake me for someone entirely different. But even if I were as you say, and even if I espoused your goals—which seem so grand as to be impossible—how could a person of any ‘moral stature’ countenance your tactics? These rites of blood, these burnings, and spreading fear…” I dared not mention the Danae. Not until I understood more. “I don’t believe in your Gehoum.”

“Your feelings are but confirmation of my judgment,” she said without the least trace of rancor. “They do you credit. But you must abandon your childish views, these notions of benevolent mother goddesses, compassionate father gods, and nurturing Danae guardians. No one tends this world. The universe is not benevolent. Look upon the stars—equal in their clarity, undivided in their brilliance—and the harsh truth of the universe becomes clear. I name this truth Gehoum that my followers might grasp it. It prescribes simplicity and demands order, and we who see the rancorous division and greed our ancestors have wrought upon the world, the corruption, this hoarding of talent, wealth, and privilege, the cruelties of war and servitude, must accomplish its return to purity. To me falls the dread task of cleansing, to you the task of regeneration. Our destinies track side by side, but shall never…marry.” Her apologetic smile ravished my wits.

Of a sudden, wood rapped on stone from the gloom at the far end of the chamber. “Regeneration? Fool of a girl! Didst thou think I would not learn of this connivance?”

“Grandam! Why are you hiding here?” Sila grabbed an unlit torch from the sconce by the door and shoved it into the brazier. Once it flared, she raised it high.

The shadows fled to reveal a person sitting in the room’s farthest corner. Shapeless robes and wimple hid all but her face and the walking stick she rapped angrily against the floor.

“I seek to understand why my dearest girl has not brought me this perverse creature fallen into her grasp. As she does not see fit to confide in me, I must resort to devious means.”

The pale-complected woman who voiced this harsh complaint was the ancient I had seen with Sila in the hall the previous day.

“Have you learned no lesson I’ve taught you, girl? The long-lived are a wound, festering with pride and corruption. They serve no purpose and cannot be made clean. And these Aurellian magicians dare set themselves above the rest of us. The world must be purged of them both, along with Caedmon’s prideful get. This halfbreed is abomination, yet you think to breed him and make more?”

“I will not bend just because you and I disagree, Grandam.” Exhibiting her coldest self again, Sila set the blazing torch in its sconce and knelt beside the old woman to kiss her cheek. “You would chastise me did I betray my convictions for sentiment, would you not? Thus I chose not to distress you with my decision.”

“But what is this breeding plan but sentimental attachment to corruption?” No excess affection displayed itself between Sila and her elder as they argued the merits of the world’s ruin.

Momentarily abandoned, I shook off my fascination with Sila Diaglou’s family disagreements, and stooped down as if using my bundled hands to adjust my boot. A little more wriggling and my thumbs poked through the layered cords and touched the floor. I poured out magic, searching for the threads of life I had created the previous night. Gods, I was halfway to the prince and Stearc.

“Magnus?” Sila’s hand touched my shoulder.

I blinked and looked up. “My boot…”

The lady’s laugh bit flesh as fiercely as Malena’s blade. “Do you think I don’t know what you do when you touch the ground? Gildas has told me of your Aurellian bent—and of your fondness for the Karish boy. Truly I have no wish to do him harm.”

This gentle declaration appalled me. She did not see what she had done to Gerard and Jullian as harm. How could a flesh-and-blood woman feel nothing?

One by one my secrets had fallen open to her, but anger hardened my resolve that she would not learn the rest. “You are most gracious, madam,” I said, bowing my head and climbing to my feet with as much dignity as bound hands allowed. “This child…I’ll confess I am preoccupied. He saved my life. Such a debt must be repaid, else a man’s life never comes into balance. With my own fate so little in my control, my concern for his rules both head and heart.”

“You must tame such weakness that your mind may be devoted to the greater good, Magnus. So my grandmother taught me.” She beckoned me to follow. “Come, she asks to meet you.”

Dutifully I stood before the old woman—older than I had thought from a distance. Framed by veil and wimple, her brow was high and her cheeks taut over square-cut bones like Sila’s, her dry skin finely checkered, like linen washed too many times and shriveled in the sun. Yet her turquoise eyes were astonishingly unclouded by time. They could have looked out at me from the face of a maid of one-and-twenty, save for the layer upon layer of despite in them. No few decades could have accumulated the depth of malice written in this woman’s face.

“Tell me of your parentage, abomination,” she said, wasting no time on pleasantries.

More than Gildas, more even than Sila, this woman incited me to caution. Her intelligence and festered grievance were so closely twined, opening anything of myself to her felt akin to spreading the lips of a wound and asking for salt. “I believe your granddaughter thinks bloodlines important only in their purposeful unraveling.”

She leaned forward, her invisible hands propped on her stick, her body formless beneath the heavy robes that draped her head and spilled from her shoulders. “Call it an old woman’s curiosity.”

Years…malevolence…somehow the pressure of her scrutiny squeezed an answer out of me. “My father is Janus de Cartamandua-Magistoria, a pureblood who languishes in drooling mania for his sins. I did not know my mother, and he did not tell me of her. I was raised as human, only learning of my dual heritage these past weeks.”

“Son of the pureblood who returned Caedmon’s spawn to Navronne.” Hatred poured out of the old woman in a poison spew. “That itself is enough reason to drain thy blood. Who told you of your unnatural birthing if not the animal who caused it?”

No difficulty in framing this answer. Truth would suffice. “My master, Prince Osriel, is an uncommon mage. He suspected the truth—using much the same evidence as Gildas, I suppose. Once his theory proved correct, he discarded me in some bargain with the Danae. Osriel explains neither his methods nor reasons.”

“And now you have passed two of the remasti while out of your head. How is that possible? The dam directs such matters. Yet she has clearly been uninterested all these years, and who else of the long-lived would bother to force a human-raised halfbreed through the passages? And why?”

The old woman held me paralyzed with her attention—a much more fearsome scrutiny than Sila’s. I dared not answer. I dared not meet her gaze. Surely she could read my flesh and bone. Sila saw people as clay to be molded to her will. This woman viewed us as prey.

“I desire to look upon his gards.” The old woman’s crackling voice rose a note. “Perhaps they are but pureblood enchantment designed to deceive, some play of this cursed Osriel. Have him show me, Sila.”

“This serves no purpose, Grandam. His marks are not spellworked.” Sila’s impatience scraped my nerves, creating noise and distraction when some insight waited just beyond my grasp. How did the old woman know so much of Danae?

As much to quiet the argument as anything else, I stuck my bundled hands in front of the old woman’s nose. “Look as you please, gammy. The god-cursed Danae did this thing to me. For all I know, they were trying to drive me as mad as my father.”

With a sigh of exasperation, Sila yanked my sleeve upward as far as it would go, exposing my right wrist and half my forearm. The gards had paled to silver, faintly tinted with blue. The old woman bent her head over my arm. Her breath seared my skin, as if hellfire burned within her withered body.

She slumped back into her chair. “The gards are true,” she said, her venom muted.

“As long as you confess their validity, then tell me what skills they give him, Grandam.”

The old woman averted her face. Had I not been cranked tight as a crossbow, I might not have noted the alteration in her expression—a closing, as if she had determined not to share what she had seen. “After taking the two remasti so short a time ago? Nothing of import. He experiences the world as unending noise and confusion. If you want to keep him living, lock him away where he can touch the wind and breathe. I am surprised he is not slamming his head against these walls. I am not surprised you find him pliable to breeding lust. He has completed only two changes. The third awaits.”

The third remasti—the maturing of fleshly desire—was that what was happening to me? How did she know?

Frigid as the coming night, Sila glanced from her grandmother to me. “And one more question…Gildas says that Danae males need pain to quicken their seed. You never told me that.”

The old woman snorted, an amusement that sounded like cracking wood. “I’m sure he must be correct,” she said. “Gildas knows everything. My small experience is of human males, and that is quite revolting enough. Do not fear, granddaughter, this one shall become everything you wish.”

“Who are you?” I whispered.

The old woman merely bobbed her head while staring until I felt naked.

Sila grabbed two of the folding stools and beckoned me to the brazier, leaving the old woman hunched in her dim corner like a mother spider. Relief warmed me more than the flames.

“Do not expect me to apologize for my grandmother’s plain speech. Grandam has a gift for seeing through all the world’s masks, and she has taught me to do the same. We speak as we find. But my experience out in the field, seeing the cleansing as we accomplish it, has caused my vision to expand beyond hers. Once the harrowing is done, something will grow; it can be weeds or it can be wheat. I have great hopes for you.”

She beamed, and I began to understand why men and women destroyed themselves for her. Her beliefs permeated her being—flesh and spirit indistinct one from the other and exposed for all to view. She stood as an exemplar of truth, naught hidden, naught sly or deceitful. She wore no mantle of ambition or greed. No petty grievance sullied her mission. No wonder the battered poor overlooked her ruthless strikes against their own interests. They believed her.

I could not succumb to fascination. For every answer I gleaned, two more questions arose. “To learn more of this vile”—I gestured toward my body—“state I have been left in would be a boon. Noisy is a mild description of what they’ve done to me. How does your grandmother know these things?”

“She has lived a long time. And now, dear Magnus”—she leaned forward, hands folded—“I must know about Prince Osriel.”

For near an hour, she questioned me, precisely and specifically, about Osriel’s magic, his fortresses, his legions, and his gold. The intriguing map loomed over us, yet I could spare no thoughts for it. The interrogation justified the prince’s close grip on his secrets, for I had scant need to lie or hide anything. I spoke of his cruel and varying humors, of his disdain for friends and confidants, and his callous use of Jullian as hostage. Without mentioning gold mines or walking dead men, I spoke of my certainty that Osriel dabbled in vile and wicked sorcery, developed through long study. I described in gruesome detail the scene in Gillarine’s kitchen when he took the dead messenger’s eyes, while disclaiming any knowledge of what he did with them. When she asked me what I could tell of his military aide, Mardane Voushanti, rumored to be under diabolical influence, I said only that the man was a formidable warrior and shared his master’s scorn for unskillful pureblood vagabonds. And I could certainly tell her nothing of Osriel’s bargain with the Danae.

When she questioned me of Evanori military strength, I gave her modest estimates of the warmoot and vouched the warlords’ loyalty was for Caedmon’s kin and no love for Osriel himself. And when she probed to discover his plans, I said only that I had been discovered and tossed out before I could hear the prince’s charge to his warriors. The Bastard believed his brothers weak and untrustworthy, I said, and Sila herself to be his only worthy rival. All his machinations were to defeat her—but I swore I could not tell her what those strategies were. “He never trusted me.”

While displaying reluctance to aid her cause, I let her tease out this information. And I focused my answers through the prism of Osriel’s betrayal, allowing my rage to surface and taint every detail of my experiences with the worst possible interpretation. And as I spoke, I gave full rein to my body’s certainty that the arrow slits in her walls were closing and I would soon be dead of suffocation. Sweat beaded on my forehead, and I twitched and fidgeted. Her grandam should be well pleased that I was half a lunatic.

“What of this Stearc of Erasku?” she said, after I repeated my claim that Osriel favored no Evanori lord above another. “Your friend from the cabal? And his secretary and his charming squire? How does Osriel view their activities?”

I croaked a laugh. “Friend? The thane damned me as a coward from our first meeting. And I don’t believe he changes his mind. The only time I saw Stearc at Renna was on the night of the warmoot, amid the other lords. I glimpsed Gram—the secretary—only briefly on that visit, but was not allowed to speak with him. I doubt the prince takes notice of secretaries. As for the girl, she near fainted from fright when I once mentioned Osriel’s name. I gathered she believed he would flay them for their activities.”

“Why did you help the cabal? Gildas could not explain why you would endanger yourself for those who want to preserve their superiority over common men.”

“I was looking for advantage,” I said. “If they had found out I could not read, they would have thrown me out of Gillarine. I had no intention of starving.” As I said this, it came to me that this crass rendering was naught but truth. Yet even if I had dared explain to Sila Diaglou how my motives had changed, she would not have understood. Faith was not a word she had use for.

“So what of the monk you saved from my hangman—the chancellor Victor—what happened to him?”

“Osriel never permitted me to see him. He claimed that his house mage had put Brother Victor into a healing sleep to recover from his wounds. I didn’t particularly care. Save for Jullian, the Tormentor can take the whole lot of the cursed cabal—including your pet monk, Gildas. They thought to use me, just like every other person in my life has sought to use me, and when they had squeezed the use from me, they threw me to the dogs. The boy was the only one of the lot who tried to teach me how to read their fine books.”

“Loyalty is a great virtue and should be rewarded.” She stood and motioned me toward the door. I prayed I had not given her anything of value, nor condemned myself with some contradiction of Stearc’s testimony.

“Jakome!” The guard came running. “Return Magnus to his chamber and unbind his hands. Then inform Gildas that, at his convenience, he may release the boy to our guest’s protection.”

She held my wrists and smiled, sending spiders’ feet creeping up my back. “Sleep well, and do not think to deny Malena again. She is strong and faithful, and it is my will that she catch your seed.”

Chapter 24

Leaving Sila’s chamber felt like crawling out of a grave. Jakome led me to the tower stair, only to have Sila call him back to her door for one more message—a summons for Gildas to join her for the evening meal.

As I awaited my jailer’s return, the downward stair gaped dark in front of me. I wished an apology to those who languished below. One more day, Lord Prince, I said. One more day, Stearc. Let me get Jullian and then I’ll find a way down to you. More than any bloodline, book, or tool, this world needed something of innocence preserved.

“Come, Grandam. I will take you back to your room.” As Jakome sauntered back toward me, Sila led her grandmother down the gallery. The old woman moved in a halting, rolling gait, leaning heavily on Sila’s arm and a walking stick. Surely some cruelty had blighted her life to nurture such malevolence.

Of a sudden, the world held its breath…as bits and pieces of our strange interview peppered my thoughts like wind-driven sand. “What’s wrong with the old woman?” I whispered, not expecting an answer.

“Move along or I’ll see you walk the same as she,” said Jakome, snarling and shoving me roughly toward the stair. “Even crippled, you can still service a quenyt.”

I balked, staring at the two receding backs. “Sila’s grandam…her legs are crippled…or is it her knees?”

“What of it?” he said. “Now get on with you.”

The old one, they called her, the venomous old woman who knew the lore of Danae. A woman bitter at humankind and the Danae and Caedmon’s line alike, whose shapeless garments hid hands and feet, arms and crippled knees…and what else?

“What do you name the old woman?” I said, as I stumbled numbly up the stairs and through the door of my tower chamber.

“She gives no one her name,” said my jailer, unbinding my hands. “She says we’re to call her the Scourge.”

Surely breaking a girl’s knees at fourteen would sow hatred enough for a lifetime of bitter harvesting—especially in a girl whose half-Danae father had broken the Canon and whose human mother had murdered her kin. Especially in a child who had been taunted and shunned and used to trick her own mother to her death. Ronila.

The one person who had ever been kind to her—a human man vowed to chastity—had tormented himself with guilt after lying with her. And even Picus had turned away from her, choosing to hold to his monk’s vows and stay with his young prince while Ronila fled to the human world, bringing with her knowledge of the Scourge—the Danae vulnerability to tormented death.

Wind howled through the window bars. I had neither eaten nor drunk since the previous night, and the hunger and chill crept into my bones. I wasn’t sure whether I needed to crawl under the quilts or take off my clothes.

Jakome slammed the door and shot the bolts. I sank to my bed and imagined what might have gone through Ronila’s mind when Eodward and Picus had returned to Navronne. An old woman by then, she would have seen Picus still in his prime, reflecting his prince’s glory. Five short years after their return, Picus had vanished—after Ronila had shown him evidence that the offspring of Danae–human mating had no souls, a grandchild, perhaps, nurtured and tutored in the ways of hate, a granddaughter who saw no crime in slaughter, who believed that art and beauty, learning and faith were corruption and that the earth must be wiped clean of gods and Danae, monks and kings—everything Picus valued. Even in his despair, he could not have imagined what she would grow up to be.

Now I knew what had nagged at my head when Picus recounted Ronila’s accusations. The halfbreed girl’s condemnation had reflected the words of the Harrower blood rite—sanguiera, orongia, vazte. Bleed, suffer, die. Ronila, the Scourge. Sila Diaglou, a mixed-blood Dané.

No wonder Sila used a wordless map. She could read words no better than I could. No gards marked her hands—not even the pale silver of gards too long hidden. So she had not passed even the first remasti. My experience was so different—being half-Aurellian sorcerer already—I had no idea what power Sila might have. Was it her Danae blood that enabled her to mesmerize a crowd, to make women weep when they saw her scarred cheeks, to make men believe that they should tear down their cities and burn their fields? She had said her grandmother had taught her to control her heart and her body, so she must be unmatched in discipline…but then, the world knew that already. And she would not be easy to kill. Gods, the others…the cabal…Osriel…needed to know this great secret.

I crouched beside the door and ran my fingers over the lock. The warded iron was no more yielding of its secrets than earlier. Nonetheless, I pulled one of the pebblelike armaments game pieces from the clothes chest, examined it carefully, and used its likeness along with my experience and estimates of this type of lock to lay the rough groundwork for a spell.

Once I had done what I could—without a better idea of the lock or magic to feed the spell, that was not so much—I shed my outer layers of pourpoint and boots, hiked up my shirtsleeves and unlaced the neck, and sat against the wall under the middle window. As sheltered from the wind as I could manage, I hoped the bit of exposure might strengthen my gards without giving me frostbite. I practiced closure and control, listening only for footsteps on the stair. Ready.

Next time the door latches rattled, I was able to visualize the snap of the bronze levers and the draw of the lock pins. By the time the door opened to Gildas, I had refined my internal image of the lock.

“Whoa, a dismal, blustery afternoon,” he said, standing in the doorway and holding a small lamp. “Is the coming storm too stout even for a halfbreed Dané?”

“Where is Jullian?” I said, without moving. “The priestess gave her permission for him to stay here.”

“Jakome brings him. I wanted to make a few things clear before his arrival.”

Gildas wrenched a balky handle on the outside of the door and shut the door firmly behind him. The pins and levers moved—slight differences this time with the latch already set. I refined the lock’s image yet again.

Suppressing a smile, I opened my palms in invitation. My gards wreathed my fingers in sapphire light.

He used his small lamp to light the larger one on my table. Then he squatted beside me and reached for my right arm, hesitating only at the last moment. “May I?”

In the interest of our partnership, I suppressed my revulsion and allowed him to take my arm. He peered at my wrist and turned it over. “It seems you have powerful kin, Valen, and we don’t quite believe your claim that these marks happened by chance.”

I followed his gaze. The grass outlined so delicately on my forearm and fingers might have been sea grass as I assumed. But among the fronds that curved along the inside of my wrist, where I had not seen it before, stretched a long, lean cat with a snarling face. I thumped the back of my head against the wall. Ronila would surely know Stian’s mark.

His long brow drawn tight in consideration, Gildas released my arm and returned to the vicinity of the door. “Something is not right about your presence here, friend. I am told that you may have acquired certain…capabilities…along with these Danae markings, skills that might contribute to an escape. We can’t have that.”

“Did you forget your leash?” I said bitterly. “You own me now.”

“I’ve not forgotten.” Leaning in deceptive ease against the door, he tossed a fist-sized pouch across the room. It landed heavily in my lap. The smell near set me howling. “Because you lied to me, I think we must restructure our agreement slightly. I want you to work your nasty little enchantment this afternoon.”

A stray wind gust snapped my hair, stinging against my cheek. “But it’s not time yet. If I do it between times…”

“…your need will grow stronger and demand to be serviced more often. Alas, that’s true.” He cocked his head. “But it only accelerates a condition that exists in you already. Do it now, or Jakome will introduce our young friend to the doulon.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “Iero’s holy name, Gildas. You would not…”

But whyever would I imagine that he would balk at this depravity? No one would ever fault Gildas de Pontia for failure of insight. His very posture, so like a strutting rooster, told me he knew that of all the torments he might promise, this one I could not abide.

Rage and hatred only fueled the need lurking in my veins. I struggled to form a plan. To attack him. To delay. To run. But each solution would forfeit lives more important than mine. One more doulon would not kill me, only embed the craving deeper. What did he plan that called for so strong a control of me?

“You lied to me, as well. You’ve Ronila to take you into Aeginea. Why do you need me?”

“So the clever sorcerer has guessed the crone’s name,” he said. For one moment I glimpsed the true man—greedy, prideful, jealous—the man who had grown up shamed by his poor and ignorant family. Then he slipped on his smiling mask again. “Let’s say I enjoy watching you grovel. Do it now, Valen. And don’t think to throttle me or toss the bag through the windows. Without my password, Jakome will not open this door. When he informs Sila, you will bleed out your remaining life in ways most unpleasant. And then he’ll see that Jullian loses his soul to this perversion.” He shrugged and screwed up his mouth in distaste. “You must understand, I intend to live in this world on my own terms or none, and you are necessary to my plan. Do as I say, and Sila will not know the ugly truth about the abomination she has chosen to…plow her fields. We shall merely proceed with our bargain as before.”

I knew well the determination to find something better than the life one was born to. Not even Voushanti would be so dangerous a foe as Gildas. I wanted to tear out the blackguard’s heart.

Hands shaking, I set out the needle, mirror, and thread and spilled out a pile of hard black seeds beside them. I was a doulon slave already. Gildas and Jakome had but fed tinder to the coals that Saverian had warned would ever burn in me. To do it once more…truly it could not make ridding myself of the doulon’s yoke worse than what I’d gone through after twelve years’ enslavement. I just needed to retain as much sense as possible. Control it. And before they could force me to do this a third time, Jullian and I would be away from here.

Gildas watched from the doorway. Using my arm to shield the work from the wind, I crushed the seeds with the bottom of the wooden cup. I tried not to inhale as I worked, but by the time they were powder, my heart was galloping. I dragged the lamp close.

“Wait,” he said. “Before you begin, double that amount.”

I stared at the pile of seeds in horror. Double…never had I known any doulon slave who used so much at once. “Fires of Deunor, Gildas, you’ll leave me no mind! I’ve told you I’ll do as you wish.”

“I want this leash secure.” Why would he doubt? Unless Ronila had told him something…

I recalled his anxious glances into the corner when he took me to Sila’s room…his annoyance that Sila was late for the meeting. He had known Ronila was there. The old woman had not contradicted his pronouncement about Danae males and their need for pain, though she had grown up in Aeginea and knew better.

I poured out more seeds, crushed them, imagining each as one of Gildas’s bones.

Ronila had no use for Sila’s vision of regeneration and neither did Gildas. At least for the moment, they were allies.

I pricked my finger with the silver needle. It was not so insulting a discomfort as Jakome’s knife, but the pain of this exercise ran much deeper than my skin. I would give much to believe that the remasti had given me a higher tolerance for the perverse enchantment.

My blood dripped into the crushed nivat, the scents mingling. Desire crept upward from my toes, inward from my fingers. “Gildas, please…” My voice was already hoarse with need.

“Remember, I’ve watched you do this. I’ll know if you don’t complete it correctly.”

I held the little mirror glass upright, angled so that I could see the fumes rise. Between two fingers of the alter hand, I gripped the length of linen thread, dangling the end into the sodden little heap. Gildas would expect that. But he didn’t know why I used the thread. Thus he didn’t stop me when my last two fingers made contact with the mound. To touch the paste as it heated drew off some of its potency, spreading the infusion over the preparation time. A small difference only, but perhaps enough to keep me sane. I released magic to flow through my fingers and down the thread.

My gaze fixed on the ensorcelled mirror, as the otherwise invisible fumes rose from the bubbling black paste. Wind doused Gildas’s lamp and threatened the shielded table lamp. Sweat dribbled down my cheeks, down my spine, as dark fire prickled my hidden fingers and surged up my arm. The locks snapped on the door.

Ought to look. Ought to listen…to refine the lock spell. Ought to stop… But I had gone too far. Even when the damnable mirror glass reflected the ruddy young face and the widening eyes of Ardran blue, I could not stop.

“Your protector is occupied for the moment, lad,” said Gildas. “Did you not know of his little problem?”

“What does he, Brother? Is it some pureblood magic?” Innocent still.

Had I owned a mind or conscience just then, I would have wept at Jullian’s wondering stare. As it was, my arm quivered with the doulon’s burning, and all I could think was, Please, gods, make it hurt more.

Gildas chuckled. “I’m sure he’ll explain when he’s done. Tell him that Malena’s forked blade can seal the spell, if he can but wait till nightfall to soothe all his lusts together. Then the priestess and I will both be happy.”

His voice swelled in my ear. “You will be my slave, halfbreed, and I will not be a kind master.”

Whispers and laughs faded. Friends…concerns…dangers faded. The world faded. Eventually the fumes ceased their rising, and I let the mirror glass fall. As my fingers scooped the hot paste onto my greedy tongue, my other hand groped about the table as if it had a mind of its own. Glass will cut…hot oil will burn. I needed pain.

The doulon itself carved paths of agony from eyes to heart to limbs. My vision blurred. My back spasmed as if an Aurellian torturer had hung me from his hook and dragged me behind his chariot. Every nerve stretched taut and snapped like drawn bowstrings, launching nets that encompassed every part and portion of my body.

Not enough. Not enough. Gods…I did not want to be this thing.

I swept my arm across the table. The lamp crashed to the floor; the oil pooled and flared. The black paste clogged my gullet, slid downward, and seared my empty stomach. Still the enchantment would not resolve, but kept building…waiting. I choked and gasped and shook, hammered my fists on the table, then gripped its edge as if to snap the oaken plank in twain. I needed more.

“Brother Valen? What’s wrong? Why do you look like that?”

“Strike me…please…use anything!” Lest I be driven to roll in burning lamp oil or gash my hands with shards of glass, damaging myself beyond recovery.

Wind tearing at his hair, Jullian backed away and pressed himself to the door.

“Do it now, boy! Make it hurt!” My heart rattled my ribs, threatening to burst. My lungs strained for air enough to feed the raging power of enchantment. I screamed at him. “By holy Iero’s hand, strike me! I beg you!”

His twelve-year-old limbs had done their share of labor around the abbey. He broke the second chair over my head. It was enough.

A bolt of joyless ecstasy shot through my head and heart and gut, wiping clean the canvas of agony, settling the shards of life and mind into their proper places. I roared in release and rapture.

As ever, the sensation abandoned me as quickly as it had come, and I collapsed across the table, dull, lead-limbed, sick. Only this time my head and shoulders felt as if I had rammed into a tree. And this time it was Jullian weeping.

Though I could not lift my head from the table, I clung to conscious thought, heeded the crackle of dying flames, the smoky stink of cheap lamp oil, the blessedly cold wind—anything to keep me sensible for one moment. The two gatzi had left the boy and me to enjoy this vileness alone.

I stretched out my hand across the table, palm up, and beckoned him nearer. “It’s all right, Archangel,” I croaked, near weeping myself when I felt him step closer. I did not deserve such trust. “You did well. Thank you. Just…give me a little time.”

He tiptoed across to the bed and sat, and I fell into blackness.

“Brother Valen.” The whisper came from a thousand quellae distant. From another world. I turned my back on it and slipped again into my sinful dreams.

“Brother Valen.” The whisper touched me again, like the soft pecking of a chick.

I reached for my wits, caution nagging that I had been unconscious much too long. Mud clogged my veins. Every pore and sinew begged for sleep, and I longed to drag my leaden limbs into a badger’s burrow and hide. From what?

“Brother Valen.” Quiet. Patient. Terrified.

Like a rain of sewage, the abasement of the day fell on my head. I located my hand and raised it, hoping he would see I was something awake. Then I turned my face to the windows, inhaling wind and cloud and winter to sweep away the detritus of sin. The sun, fallen far into the west, hid deep behind Navronne’s shroud of storm. I willed it to sear away these aches and guilts as if it were a cautery iron.

I had no more time for sleep. Soon would come nightfall and Malena. Goddess mother, even after all this, the passing thought of the hateful wench…so ripe and willing…heated my core. I had no time for that either.

I raised my head a quat or two. Blotted my mouth on the back of my hand so as not to drool before the boy. Which seemed a silly matter now he’d seen my worst. “Are you well, lad?”

“None’s harmed me.” The terse declaration spoke more description than a warmoot’s worth of tales. Jullian, the scholarly boy who read books I would never comprehend, had no words to explain what his captors had done. What I had just done. So, Valen Lackwit, let anger banish lust and shame.

“Sorry I took so long to find you,” I said, shuddering as a howling gust billowed the shirt on my back. “Not much of a rescuer, eh?”

“I knew you’d come.”

Needing to be still before my skull cracked, I lowered my head onto my hand, where a sea star nestled in the grass. “A few matters came up along the way. Some ugly…like what you just saw. Some wondrous…unexpected.”

“Guessed that.” The bed creaked. His sandals scuffed a step or two in my direction. I felt his eyes on my glowing arms and feet. “Are you a demon?” he said softly.

“Great gods, no. Or…I believe not.” I grinned into my hand. “I’ll show you later. Just now”—I opened my ears; no one on the stair as yet—“we need to prepare for visitors. In the chest, there’s a bag of knucklebones.”

He scrambled to the task. Before I could lift my head up again, the canvas bag sat in front of my nose, alongside Gildas’s small lamp, relit from the dying flames of the spilled oil. “Do you know about the others held captive here—Thane Stearc and Gram?” he whispered over my bent back. “They need rescuing more than me. When I heard you’d come, I thought…”

“Aye, I know of them. We’re all getting out.”

“I don’t think—” His breathing came heavy and fast. “I don’t think they could possibly—I’ve heard Thane Stearc since they brought him here. Why would they do that to anyone? They’ve kept me just down the passage from his cell. They wake me so I can hear. I pray…” His voice quivered. “I pray for him to die.”

“The pr—Gram. Have you heard him, as well?” Jullian did not know Gram’s true identity.

“Coughing. Crying out. Mumbling madness like with a fever. Gildas complains he’s dying and can’t tell them what they want.” Good to hear the boy’s touch of anger. He should be angry. “Gildas says Stearc will open the lighthouse or they’ll burn off his—”

“Doesn’t matter what the gatzé says, Jullian. We’ll get them home.” I ignored the way the room sloshed like the waves of Evaldamon and lifted my head higher where I could look at the boy, so he might believe. His aspirant’s gown had been replaced by scraggly leggings and a thin yellow tunic, belted with rope. Dirt and grease matted his red-gold hair, and his ruddy cheeks were pinched with cold and fear. But his hands held steadier than mine, and his slender jaw jutted firm, willing to work with a demon to free his friends.

“Father Abbot would be proud of you, Jullian. There’s naught you could have done to help Stearc. Stearc himself would tell you that. The god knows it, too.”

I had once imagined Jullian to be Eodward’s youngest bastard, a Pretender to the Navron throne, hidden at Gillarine until his majority. Though I knew better now, he was well worthy of it—likely more so than any of the three men who stood in line.

“Gildas said I would stay here with you from now on, save when your…woman…came.”

“We’ve a thing or two to teach Brother Gildas.”

I fumbled Saverian’s vials from the knucklebone bag, wishing one of her medicines might help what was most wrong with me. I drained the blue vial. If we were going to be rousting dungeons, my stomach would need calming. The prince’s vial I stuck in the pouch at my waist, along with the vial of yellow broom. On the floor the silver needle gleamed in the lamplight, and beside it lay the little mirror, cracked through the middle. The nivat bag lay soaking up the unburned lamp oil. Even shamed and sickened, I dared not touch them.

“Those things I was using…toss them through the window bars. Quickly, before I tell you different.”

“What are they?” he said, retrieving them gingerly. “I thought you were working some powerful sorcery. Or dying.”

“Something of both.”

“While I waited…I touched you…to make sure you were breathing.” Gods, he was apologizing.

“The enchantment is called the doulon, Jullian. It is a sinful weakness, a poison that enslaves the mind and body. When I was scarce older than you, I used it to run away from terrible things. But the doulon itself is more terrible than any of the things I ran from. Someone may tempt you to it some day. Gildas may. But don’t allow it. Not ever.”

I did not watch as he disposed of the implements of sin, lest I grab them away. Instead I pressed my eyeballs back into their sockets and tried to think how to go about what we needed to do. Last time Gildas had given me an excess of nivat, I had experienced recurring attacks of thickheaded confusion for most of a day. Abbot Luviar had died because of it. I could not allow that to happen again.

“Gildas says you’re to be his slave,” said the boy. “I didn’t see how he could force you.”

I shoved myself to my feet. “He won’t. Help me with this palliasse.”

Using the lamp flame to burn through the rope webbing, we unstrung half the bed and ended up with several moderate lengths of rope. I had Jullian pile the palliasse and quilts back over the half-strung frame, using the broken chair to create a hollow like a badger’s burrow at one end, while I rested my woozy head between my knees. Great gods how was I ever going to accomplish anything?

“Can you tell me what guards watch Stearc and Gram?” I asked from my odd position.

“There’s always one or two in the passage except when they all go down to beat Thane Stearc in the morning and when they…hurt…him in the evening. Nikred or Crado mostly. Both of them in the day. At night they take turns for rounds, changing at Matins and Lauds and again at Prime.” Matins—morning at midnight. Lauds was third hour, Prime sixth—the dawn hour in summer. “I try to keep the Hours here. I thought…I hoped I might help him.”

“And this torturing happens the same time every night?”

“Between Vespers and Compline…when they call the last watch but one before Matins. Crado says they like him to know when it’s coming.”

“All right.” Slowly I sat back onto my heels. The boy perched on the rumpled bed, two or three steps away, his body a wiry knot. “So tell me how the cells are laid out, if you can.”

In moments he had sketched an outline of the prison block in the sooty remnants of my lamp. I planted the image in my head, then had him rub it out with his boot. “Clearly you’re a good observer. So did you happen to note the guards when they brought you up the stair earlier?”

Though his eyes flicked between my face and my glowing hands, he did not falter with his answers. “One at each level. Sometimes when Gildas brought me to walk in the inner ward or to study the map, I’d see two at the hall level.”

I popped my head up, blinking until the windows took their proper places instead of whirling one atop the other. “To study the map—the big one in Sila’s sleeping chamber?”

“Aye, that’s it. Gildas doesn’t understand what she does with it, so he studies it when she’s not there, and he has me study it, too, so I can remind him of details he might forget. It maddens him that no paper or pens are allowed here, save the map, your grandfather’s book, and the Aurellian book he uses to interpret the maps.”

The great map…its luster of age and art and magic…its shifting images…had captured my imagination. I closed my eyes and envisioned the green and ocher washes over the wordless fiché. Made for those who could not read words—Danae, then, or halfbreeds like me and Sila. Just as in the book of maps, Janus’s secrets lay exposed for all to see, if only I knew how to look at it. “Does Gildas say what he suspects about the map?”

Jullian shook his shaggy head. “Only that the features change over time. He thinks the old woman knows a secret about it that even Sila doesn’t know, and that bites him sorely.”

A map made for the Danae…but Kol had shown me they could not interpret maps, even ones without words. What would prompt Janus to make them a map—a map that Sila found use for and that held place in the gap of secrets between Sila and Gildas and Ronila?

I felt the sun slipping lower. Both enlightenment and vengeance must wait, for I’d yet to come up with a route out of Fortress Torvo. “Where did they take you to walk?”

“Gildas would walk me in the inner ward—”

“—where half the north end wall has collapsed? Piles of rubble all around?”

“Aye.” Wind rattled the window bars. Jullian scrambled back onto the bed, shivering, burrowing slowly into the quilts.

I pushed myself up to a squat, summoned all my resolve, and stood up. In hopes that movement might shift the clay in my limbs and rouse some insight, I crossed the room, raking fingers through my hair, trying to reconstruct the scene I’d glimpsed through Sila Diaglou’s arrow loops. “The broken wall once supported a row of privies hanging out over the court. Do you recall seeing a drainage canal on that end of the yard? It would only make sense…the sewage draining out of the privies into the canal.” Unless the privies had been put in after the canal was rerouted, or no one had considered draining the muck from an inner court that was naught but a well in which to trap one’s enemies and pour down death on them.

“A cistern sits in the middle of the court, but I didn’t see a canal. If it’s there, it’s full of rock.”

I grabbed my heaviest wool shirt from the clothes chest, convinced my leaden feet to carry me back to the bed, and dropped the shirt over Jullian’s head. Then I took myself to the window, bathing my skin in the cold afternoon. “Did you notice any grates around the walls? Something as tall as my knees?”

His head popped through the shirt’s neck hole, his eyes curious. “Aye, I saw a rat squeezing through a grate…just south of the broken wall…at the ground where a canal might run…”

I grinned as he wrestled his arms into the warm gray shirt and retied his rope belt to tame its bulk. “I know going inward seems an unlikely route to the outside, but it might serve if we can find no better. You can find the way to this yard in a hurry?”

He gave me his most scathing look. It was all I could do to keep from ruffling his filthy hair.

Footsteps echoed on the stair. I knelt in front of Jullian and took his cold hands in mine. “A woman is going to come here soon. You must hide in the burrow you made, and make not a sound, not a sneeze, not a prayer, no matter what you hear or think you hear. You’ll come out only when I tell you.”

He nodded, solemn faced, curious, but not so frightened anymore.

“Gildas thinks to torment me by prisoning us together, knowing you’ll see what this vile enchantment does to me and what Sila Diaglou intends for me to do here every night. But then, he doesn’t believe in angels or aingerou or any other blessing that a god might send to sinful men. We’re going to show him different.”

Chapter 25

Malena arrived with the early nightfall. I waited behind the door. In the instant the door opened, breaking the barrier ward that bound the room, I touched the lock and quickened the spell I had built throughout the day. Anticipation held my bones rigid…with so much depending on a blindworked spell in an unfamiliar lock…and every alternative sure to draw blood.

As the girl crossed the room with a supper tray, I buried my face in my hands, listening for the latch. The guard on the stair pulled the door shut. The pins and levers moved…and stopped short, as if a small clot of dirt, oil, and bronze shavings, about the size of an armaments game piece, had slipped into the works and prevented them seating properly. I smiled into my fists.

Again Malena wore naught but flimsy shift and braided hair. Again she set out warmed wine. I had eaten nothing since the previous night, and even the prospect of maggoty bread would have set me ravening had I not spent the last half hour practicing what Kol named closure, attempting to subdue every sense to my will. Three times in the past hour echoes of the doulon had threatened to unhinge me, wreaking havoc in my head and shooting spasms of pain and desire through breath and bone. But I had cut them off like rotted limbs. No matter desire, no matter temptation, no matter perversion, neither Gildas nor Sila Diaglou would control my deeds this night.

“Where is the boy?” said my chosen mate, forgoing all pretense of holy ardor. “I was told he would be here. We’re to send him out to Jakome when the time comes, unless you wish him to watch.”

“Gildas took him,” I said. “They fed me extra vigger’s salt this afternoon and I got a bit…tightwound…waiting for you.” I shrugged and pointed out the broken lamp, the rumpled bed and scattered cups.

She pouted a bit, as if she had been looking forward to the extra company, then watched in puzzlement as I tied my spare hose over my feet like soft slippers, hiding my gards. The hose would be easier than boots to remove if I had to bare my gards in a hurry. “Cold feet,” I said.

She retrieved the wooden cups from under the clothes chest where I’d thrown them. “Do you wish to sup first or shall we do our mistress’s bidding so I can be away from here the sooner?”

“Our mistress has explained her remarkable…glorious…vision,” I said. “And I understand a great deal more about what we must sacrifice than I did this morning. But I’ve not eaten all day, and I’d not wish to fail in strength or endurance tonight.” I smiled and tugged at the lace that bound up her braid.

I did not want to tip my hand by rushing. The call of fifth watch had not long passed and Stearc’s punishment would not begin until sixth.

Malena did not seem mollified. She dragged a quilt from the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. Blessings to Serena Fortuna, Jullian’s hide-away was not exposed.

I took possession of the remaining chair, poured the wine, and offered her a cup. As she drained her cup, I swirled my own and sniffed it. Though I doubted Malena was a doulon slave, and I didn’t think Gildas would risk a second doulon for me in the same day, not after the pile of seeds he’d had me use, I dared not taste it. I did devour the porridge and bread, and when Malena said she had already eaten, I ate hers as well, praying with every bite that nourishment might put some bone in my knees and wit in my skull.

I was not halfway through the second bowl when my body spasmed with a burst of heat that shot me to the verge of ecstasy only to send me earth-ward again, as if I plummeted from Stian’s rock Stathero. Breathing hard, trying not to lose what I had already eaten, I pushed the porridge away and told myself this was but an echo of the doulon as I had experienced before when I had used too much nivat. Keep moving. Hold fast. Men will not die today because of your weakness.

“What’s wrong?” said Malena, from her perch on my clothes chest.

“Naught,” I said. “I just—Birthing a new race is a great responsibility.”

I beckoned the girl to my lap. She had refilled her cup, and a droplet of red hung at the corner of her mouth. It sickened me.

“A cup of wine can smooth over many a grievance,” I said, and traced my fingers about her face. Her body softened in my arms. When I touched her lips, she nipped my finger and smirked. A few kisses and I set her cup aside, gathered her in my arms, and carried her to the bed. She did not protest at its sagging middle nor did she argue when I took both her wrists in my left hand and drew them up over her head, kissing her neck.

“Shhh,” I said, as I pulled out one of the lengths of rope from the side of the bed and tied her wrists. “There are many variants of pleasuring, Malena.”

Her eyes grew very wide. She licked her lips and attempted a smile. Only when I snatched my mask out from the same hiding place and stuffed it in her mouth did she understand. She growled and struggled, drumming her feet on the palliasse, squirming and writhing to get out from under me or at least get a knee where she could do some damage. But I had very long legs and arms and the memory of Gerard to force her still.

Once the rope was snug around her ankles, I tucked quilts around her. “We’re going to have a very quiet evening tonight, chosen one,” I said, using spare laces to snug the mask in her mouth. “I do not sit down with murderers. I do not lie with them. Holy Mother Samele grant that you never carry a child—mine or any other man’s.”

Malena’s glare could have poisoned the world ocean itself.

I detached a little bag from my waist, made sure the three lonely seeds remained intact, and tucked the bag between her breasts. “I am returning the holy one’s gift. Gildas gave them to me and told me that Sila wished me to be a slave as well as a whore. Tell her I prefer not.” I trusted her to report my words exactly. I hoped Gildas would be in Sila’s presence as she did so.

And then I peered around the end of the bed, met Jullian’s very large eyes peeking out from his burrow, and grinned. “Time to go.”

Regrettably we dared not take my pureblood cloak with its thick fur lining, so I pinned a plain gray blanket around Jullian’s shoulders. The boy gaped at the writhing Malena as I handed him our remaining lengths of rope and grabbed the bag of knucklebones from the clothes chest. I dropped the dice and the armaments game pieces into the bag, as well, tied it at my waist, and pulled on my gloves to hide the last of my gards. Jullian, looking puzzled, pointed at my discarded boots. I shook my head, pressed a finger to my lips, and doused the lamp. At the last moment, I snatched one of the oaken legs of the chair the boy had broken over my head.

I held the door handle for a moment, listening. Only one person stood beyond the door. I hoped it was Jakome. A shudder of warmth raced up my spine, threatening my concentration, but I held tight to my focus. Making sure Jullian stood behind me, I pulled open the door.

“Malena?” growled the man on the dark landing.

Grinning in unseemly pleasure, I triggered the second piece of the lock spell. The lock burst in a shower of yellow sparks, illuminating Jakome’s shocked face. Backhand, I slammed my arm into the join of his neck and shoulder. He slumped to his knees, retching, and I whacked the chair leg behind his ear to put him out of his misery for the moment.

Before very long, Jakome was bound as tight as I could draw rope, rolled up in a quilt, and deposited alongside Malena. I tied his orange scarf about my head and his dagger sheath about my thigh. His greasy brown cloak hung from my shoulders. As we pulled the iron door shut behind us, I triggered the last piece of the lock spell, unraveling the obstruction and fusing the broken pins in place. Someone would have to ram the door from its hinges to release the two.

Jullian started down the steps, but I snagged the neck of his shirt and forced him to sit on the step beside me. “What?” he spluttered.

“We need to listen for a bit to learn the exact time.” Given the early nightfall, and the span I’d used to eat and secure the two upstairs, the hour should be very close to sixth watch—poor Stearc’s wretched hour. The fortress was filled with muted sounds—barked commands…roaring fires…the boots and grunts of departing patrols…grim laughter. I listened carefully for sounds from Sila’s bedchamber. If the map was left unguarded…

The mystery of Sila’s map grew on me like a boil. What use did Sila find in it? She already had my book and Gildas to take her to Danae sianous. Osriel must come first; to go after the map before securing the prince would be sheer lunacy. I wanted it, though. If I got the chance, I’d take it.

Of a sudden, fire ravished my limbs yet again, then abandoned me chilled and dizzy. The dark stair gaped and deepened in front of me like the maw of hell…

“Brother! Wake up!” Hands tapped my cheek and shook my shoulders in company with this anxious whisper.

I blinked. My heart sank. Jullian’s scrawny limbs were knotted about my arms and shoulders, preventing me from sliding farther down the stair. My head was jammed uncomfortably against the curved wall and seemed to be several steps lower than my feet. “Ow!” I sat up, untwisting my neck and getting my legs below me.

“You fell…just rolled forward off the step.”

“Dizzy,” I said. “Part of that ugly business earlier. I’ll try not to let it happen again. But if I should, just slap me. Kick me. Call me a gatzi spawn and get me moving.”

There was no going back. I shook off the worry, took myself back into quiet, and focused on the plan. “I wasn’t out for long, was I? They didn’t call the watch?”

“Nay. Not yet.”

“Sixth watch. All hail the mighty Gehoum!” When it came at last, the call rippled through the fortress, passed from one voice to another, advancing and receding around each level according to the caller’s distance from our stair.

“I’m going to treat you like a prisoner,” I said, prodding both of us to our feet. “When we reach the prison level, call for your mam to let me know.”

When the watch cry circled the level just below us and came round again to the stair, I bellowed my own, “Sixth watch. All hail the mighty Gehoum!” I grabbed the neck of Jullian’s borrowed shirt and whispered in his ear, “Fight me.” Then I dragged him down the stair as fast as I could, right past the guardsmen changing their posts. “Filthy little beggar,” I grumbled. “Ye’ll sleep in yer cell again tonight, and every night, if I have my way of it. Don’t think to get out of it by whimpering to no one.”

I was afraid at first Jullian hadn’t understood my instruction, but then he set to pummeling my ribs with such ferocity, I had to wrestle him under my arm, and still he would squirm loose. One of the guards we passed on the downward stair laughed and called after us, “Got a feisty one there!”

No one bothered us as we descended into the depths of the fortress, and Jullian had no need to call for his long-dead mother. The stair ended in a circular pit. Torches burned in sconces on the wall, but their light did not illuminate much past three dark openings in the wall. Mighty gods…

Two of the openings were blocked by collapsed walls or ceilings. The third opened into a passage, and from it issued a low keening I could scarce define as human, as if all the pain and despair this place had known had been drawn together into one terrible voice. Stearc’s voice.

I set Jullian on his feet, but I did not release my hold on him. To Gram, I mouthed, and urged him forward, my hand on his shoulder, ready to sweep him out of the way if we encountered trouble.

The passage appeared to be deserted as the boy had said. And as his sketch had shown, his own cell was first inside the doorway. Its position near the exit and its door of open bars had left him better air, if the thick, unwholesome vapors of this place could be named air. Torchlight revealed straw and blankets and a rusty lamp mounted on the wall unlit. Perhaps it had been a guardroom at one time.

But the cells farther down the passage—all but two empty, according to Jullian—had no such amenities. I held my arm over my mouth and nose and worked as hard as I knew how to keep focused. My king lay dying in this fetid darkness.

We arrived at a thick iron door similar to the one on my tower room, only with a slot at the bottom for passing food and slops, and an eye-level grate for observing the inmate. A lung-stripping cough and fevered mumbling from inside the cell were sufficient to set me working on the lock.

Crude, warded by only the simplest magic, it succumbed more easily than the one on my tower door. I dragged the heavy door open, hoping the scrape of hinges would not bring guards running. The stench of sickness and rot escaped the cell in a flood, clogging my throat with bile. Torchlight from the passage revealed a dark form curled on the floor of dirt, rubble, and a scattering of moldy straw.

“Close the door all but a crack,” I whispered to the boy. “Keep watch.”

I ducked through the low door, stepped over a tin cup and an untouched bowl of something manifestly inedible, and dropped to my knees beside the prisoner. He clutched a threadbare blanket around his racked shoulders. The cramped cell felt cold as a tomb.

A cough broke into words. “Milkmaids merry ’neath a cherry blossom tree. Spring comes anon and they’re beckonin’ me.” The chatter of teeth punctuated this rasping singsong.

“Quietly now,” I said, and touched his shoulder. He jerked as if I’d stabbed him. The heat of his fever near blistered my hand, even through blanket and glove. “Can you sit up?”

From the far end of the passage, Stearc’s formless wail sharpened into a bellow of agony. A shudder rippled Osriel’s slender body. “Master’s crying in the hall. Kenty’s never got the ball. All fall. All fall. All fall…”

“He’s been that way since they brought him,” offered Jullian in a whisper. “Out of his head.”

Great gods have mercy. Trying not to twist or strain his joints—Saverian had warned me to be careful—I rolled him onto his back. Osriel was almost unrecognizable in the poor light…more than being grimy and unshaven. His eyes were sunken, his neck swollen, his skin cracked and peeling. I fumbled at my waist for Saverian’s amber vial and broke the wax seal.

Though the prince’s eyes were closed, his unmusical croaking continued. “Grapes die in the fields. Warriors die on their shields. Angels dance in the trees. Gatzi dance—”

“Gram, listen to me.” I lifted him up and cradled his lolling head, shook his chin, tugged at his hair. “I’ve brought you medicine from an old friend of yours. She says you must drink it all, even if it tastes like the dead man’s boots.”

His fevered mumbling ceased abruptly, and his eyes flicked open as if I’d dropped ice in his trews. He squinted in the feeble light, his gaze running from my fingers to my head. “Valen!”

I almost dropped him from the surprise.

His mind, it appeared, was not so sorely affected by his illness as his body. His hoarse expulsion of my name sent him into a fit of coughing, and his body tried to roll to the side and curl into a knot, as if to escape the force of the spasms. Every movement wrenched an agonized grunt from him. I would have sworn he was laughing, too, or sobbing. Or more likely both at once, as Stearc was screaming again.

Trying to cushion his pain, I held Osriel tight until his paroxysm ceased and his shallow, gasping breaths had slowed. “Let’s get the good physician’s potion down you.” I emptied the vial down his throat, stuffed it back in my pocket, and used my teeth to yank the glove from my free hand. Whispering the words Saverian had said would speed the healing effects of the medicament, I touched his forehead and released magic in a tickling flood. Unfortunately we’d have to move him before the remedy could do its work.

“The boy,” he croaked. “He’s in this pit, too. And Stearc…”

“Jullian’s here with us. We’re going to take you out of here first. I’ll come back for Stearc.” Even if the thane had no torturers working on him at the present, I could not carry two injured men at once.

“He can’t last much longer. You won’t leave him here…no matter what…” This was as close to a command as a man in Osriel’s state could give.

“I’ll do everything I can.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and his mouth tight as I helped him to sitting. Shoulders, elbows…his every joint felt hot and swollen. “He has held all these wretched days…giving them some story. They haven’t touched me.”

Once he was sitting up on his own, I scraped together what straw and rubble lay within reach.

“Sorry, I need your blanket.” I snatched it away, near ripping the worn fabric in half, and tucked it around the pile. With a poorly structured inflation spell, the mound somewhat resembled a body.

As I picked up the glove I’d pulled off to work the magic, Osriel grabbed my wrist and held my glowing hand where he could see. His face tilted up toward mine, unreadable in the blue glow. “Two wonders in a single day,” he whispered. “A Harrower gives me a blanket out of mercy, and you appear at my side like Iero’s angel. Did I die when I was not paying attention, or have you come to see to that?”

I bent down and spoke in his ear. “My grievances will be reckoned later, lord.”

Jullian dragged the door open as I lifted Osriel to his feet and pulled his arm over my shoulder. After only a few agonizing steps, it became clear that this was much too slow. His joints could not bear weight.

“Wait,” he said, “I can—”

But with one hand holding Osriel’s arm, I bent down, caught him behind the knee, and drew his weight across my shoulders. He didn’t scream, but the heat of his fever burnt through my clothes. “Is this our reckoning?” he gasped.

“No.”

Jullian sped down the passage toward the stair. I hurried after him as quickly as I could, ducking to avoid the stone spans that supported the fortress floors above us. I tried not to jolt, as I could feel Osriel’s muffled groans rumbling down my spine.

Stearc’s cries had reverted from the rhythmic, escalating madness of a man under the lash to a constant drone. Even if his body survived until I could get back to him, what of his mind?

“Gildas and Grav Radulf are his questioners,” said Osriel as we ascended the prison stair. “I hear them pass every day. They laugh.” Hearing his bated fury, no promise of heaven would make me step between Osriel and Gildas, should such a meeting ever come to pass. Nor would I be so inclined did Iero himself command me.

I halted Jullian just below the main level, listening for movement both above and below, and trying to recall possible routes across the main hall to the outer wards. Sila’s great hall surged with people and noise. We hadn’t a chance of making it across to the exit doors. But according to Jullian’s description, we had but to slip behind the guards on the landing and through an alley to the left to reach the inner court.

A heated shudder arrowed through my limbs, and the curved walls began to melt like frost wraiths at sunrise. I planted my hand on the grimed stone and forced the walls back into their proper shape. I would not falter.

“Two guards at the landing,” I whispered to Jullian. “When I poke you, run for the inner court as quietly as you can. I’ll follow.”

“I’ll distract the guards,” said Osriel through clenched jaw. “Just signal me when.”

I jerked my head. Remembering several instances of his unsettling magics, I didn’t bother to ask him what he intended. So we crept upward to the juncture of the tower and the keep.

The smoky hall was a patchwork of cook fires and torchlight. The two orange-heads stood on either side of the arch that led into the noisy vastness. But no one guarded the path to the alley. Indeed, no intruder in his right mind would head into such a trap. But a torch blazed on the flanking piers, and the two men stood at such an angle they would surely spot any movement from our position on the stair. They carried bill hooks.

I tapped the prince on the hand and made sure he could see our problem, even from his awkward angle. He squeezed my hand in answer. He emitted a long sigh and the weight of him sagged even heavier on my back. I thought for a moment he’d passed out. Then I felt a low rumbling under my feet…or perhaps in my bones. Just enough to make me want to crawl into bed and pull the bedclothes over my head. The two guards, no disciplined warriors, shifted their stance uneasily, glancing over their shoulders. When a shadow darted past them into the hall, they pointed. A second one flew past, and they shouted, but no one paid any attention. The third set them charging into the crowd, yelling warnings, weapons leveled.

“Saints and angels,” I hissed. “Could you not have done something a bit more subtle?” Every blighted Harrower in the place was on the alert.

Jullian and I sped through the junction and into the alley, which was not an alley at all, but a short passage that opened into the undercroft of the keep. The cavernous vaults were long emptied, and only broken chimneys and masonry foundations remained of the kitchens and barracks that had once adjoined the bays on the outside walls. Some halfway along, Jullian angled sharply toward the inside walls and up a few steps into the rubble-strewn interior yard—the heart of Fortress Torvo. The place was as dark as a well of pitch.

“Where—?”

I hushed Jullian. Anyone could be watching from the walls that rose starkly on all sides. We crept along the wall that stretched to our left, disturbing several scuttling creatures on our way toward the collapsed privies. I set Jullian feeling along the lower spans of the wall for a grating that might indicate the outlet of a drainage canal. We reached the corner without finding it. The mounds of rubble would disguise any remnant of the canal itself.

I squatted and set Osriel on his feet. Jullian lent his shoulder, while I touched earth and hunted the way with magic.

My bent did not serve well to examine layers of human-built works. Only the passages of people and their purposes made sense of structures. But after sorting through two centuries of death and ugliness in the courtyard, I found an old streambed that coursed this dry slope in the direction that I wanted, and I surmised that the original drainage canal had channeled the stream. We should be standing right on top of it.

Holding tight to my fading hope that I’d not stuck us in a trap, I reached for Osriel. He stayed my hand when I moved to heft him across my back again, but accepted my arm under his shoulders. Jullian held close on the other side of him. The three of us proceeded slowly across the court to the far end wall, at the spot where the buried canal should pierce the foundation of the great hall. And indeed, set into the wall was a grate identical to those Max had shown me on the outer walls of the fortress—an iron-barred rectangle as high as my knees and twice that wide, and only halfway blocked by stones and dead thornbushes.

I lowered Osriel to the ground and pulled him and Jullian close, draping Jakome’s cloak over us to muffle the sound. “I’m going back for Stearc. Max—Prince Bayard’s pureblood—told me that this drainage canal tunnels under the fortress and exits outside the walls. But he’s got the grates warded, and the moment we breach them, he’ll know. I’d like to postpone that as long as possible, as I’d rather not end up in Bayard’s hands after getting out of Sila’s, so I’m going to leave you here. A certain touch on opposing corners will unlock the grates, if you need to get out before I return. Do you understand, Gram? Can you manage that much?”

The prince nodded. His magic would suffice.

“Good. Voushanti will be waiting for us outside the walls, off to the right. Give me an hour past seventh watch. No more. And mind your voices. These upper walls open into occupied chambers.”

“Iero’s grace,” whispered Jullian. “I’ll keep watch so Gram can rest.”

I smiled and ruffled his hair. He hated that.

A hand squeezed my aching shoulder, then three fingers touched my cheek in the manner of a king to his knight. Osriel’s hand seemed steadier and less fevered than earlier. My hopes crept higher. As I slunk away, I let magic flow into three whispered words, charging them with power to reach beyond the fortress. Dead man. Parley.

Moments later, I heard the response. Bluejay. Parley. Voushanti and his bought fighters would not attack the fortress, but would watch for us to emerge from the drainage canal.

The return across the courtyard seemed interminable. I dared not hurry, lest some scuffing or stumble alert a watcher in one of the chambers that overlooked the yard. It was easier to walk quietly without boots, though the hose tied over my feet were getting a bit ragged. But eventually I reached the passage and the undercroft, and I raced back to the tower.

The hall remained in an uproar. A crowd of orange-heads, many with torches, centered on a few men arguing. Only one guard had returned to the tower stair. He shifted nervously, starting at every shout from the conflict in the hall, frequently spinning around to stare behind him, approximately in my direction. From the bag at my waist, I pulled one of the knucklebones and lofted it into the hall behind his back. He darted forward a few steps, and I slipped behind him and took the downward stairs three at a time.

I flattened my back to the wall beside the doorway to the prison passage. The torture session was ended, and the slow pacing of a single guard echoed in the passage. Praise be to Serena Fortuna, they seemed not to have discovered their missing prisoner.

The guard’s footsteps paused. Soft fumbling noises came from just beyond the doorway, and then a trickle of water that grew into a stream. An opportunity not to be missed.

I took him from behind with angled blows to his neck. He dropped to his knees. Reaching around, I slammed a sidearm blow to his chest. My forearm glanced up to his throat, sending him to the floor clutching his throat and wheezing like a bellows. An elbow to the back of his neck stopped his clutching and wheezing.

Only after I had the scraggly fellow unconscious in his pool of piss did I remember Jakome’s dagger strapped to my thigh. It had been a very long time since I’d possessed a weapon.

Had I been sure he’d caused Stearc’s screams, I might have slit his throat and thought it justice. But it occurred to me that this might be the very guard who had shown a sick prisoner the mercy of a blanket. I was no judge. So I tied his hands with his orange scarf, emptied Saverian’s vial of yellow broom into him, and tucked him under the blanket in Osriel’s cell. Whenever he woke he would be so busy puking, he’d not be able to raise the alarm. I snatched up his ragged cloak and flop-brimmed hat, grabbed one of the torches, and ran for Stearc.

They hadn’t bothered to lock the door at the end of the passage. The chamber was no cell, but a charnel house. Yet neither the implements on the walls nor the grotesque evidence of horrors held my gaze. In chains suspended from the roof beam hung the remnants of a man. The once powerful body of the Thane of Erasku had been purposefully destroyed by whips, murderously precise knife and ax work, and cautery irons. He had no feet. No nose. No ears. No fingers on his right hand, and only three remaining on his left. Had I not known who was held here, I could never have identified him as the proud warrior who believed in the honor of learning as much as he believed in the honor of his sword. The low despairing moan that seeped from his slack mouth might have been a threnody for the world’s reason.

“Stearc, it’s Valen come to help you,” I said, throttling my rage. Using a length of timber, I scraped away the filth underneath him and spread out the guard’s cloak.

“Valen?”

“I’m going to get you down.”

“No…no…no…no,” he rasped. “Must not falter. Will not.” Blood bubbled from his lips.

“You’ve held long enough, Thane. They’ve not touched him.” With my brutish lock spell, I burst his manacles and lowered him to the floor.

He cried out, little more than an animal’s bleat. The bloody claw that was his left hand gripped my arm with desperate strength. “He is safe?”

“He will be with Voushanti and Saverian within the hour.” Avoiding his dreadful wounds as best I could, I took Stearc’s face in my hands, making sure his eyes met mine. “I’m going to take you to him, Stearc. You will not die in this vile place, but in the shelter of your lord.”

Die he would. The instinct that had ever spoken to me of death and life told me clearly. But anyone with eyes must understand that will alone drove Stearc’s heart and lungs.

“No!” His hand pawed at me, and he came near rising from the ground. “Don’t let him—I honor him above all men. My king. But I would not meet the Ferryman blind.” Terror radiated from him like fever. “I would not be Voushanti.”

How could I console such fear? I saw no means for Osriel to work his dreadful rites in Torvo’s inner courtyard. But that was poor assurance for a man who had spent his last reserves of courage fifty times over. The prince might have other means to capture souls.

“All right, then.” Which set me a dilemma. I could not leave Stearc living. “I would do you a last service, Thane. Tell me what you want.”

“A blade.” He opened his bloody palm, rock steady. In the command I heard a trace of his old accusations. He had ever believed me a coward.

I gave him Jakome’s dagger and wrapped his bloody fingers around the hilt. Then I spoke clearly so he could not mistake. “I will tell your king and your daughter only of courage, lord, not of horror. The lighthouse will stand. Teneamus.”

He jerked his head. “For House Erasku,” he whispered. “For Evanore, for Navronne…teneamus.”

I took off my glove and laid my hand on his forehead, determined Stearc would not die alone. His existence comprised naught but shadings of mortal agony…a map in which every road led but to another shock or scouring, and every border marked but new violation. My part in his pain, shared through my bent and the gards on my hand, ended mercifully fast.

Gripping the dagger with the remaining fingers of his left hand, he used the palm of his mutilated right hand to plunge the blade into his throat. Blood spurted from the wound. His hands dropped away.

I stayed with him, and when the face of the world had faded to naught but cold and gray, I whispered in his ear, “Know this, too, warrior of Evanore; the blood of noble Caedmon mingles even now with the blood of House Erasku. Your beloved daughter carries Caedmon’s heir. And I vow upon the soul of our holy abbot that I will see them both safe until the end of days.”

The revelation did not violate my vow to Elene, for I told her secret only to a dead man. But I believed Stearc heard me, for his eyes grew fierce and bright just before the life went out of them.

I hung him from his chains again and removed all evidence of my coming. Let the butchers believe Iero’s angels had released him from his pain.

Chapter 26

“Seventh watch! All honor to the Gehoum!”

As the call caromed through the fortress, I crouched on the prison stair at the verge of the main level. This was taking much too long. At any moment a replacement would be coming down to relieve the guard who lay vomiting in Osriel’s cell. But a pair of cursed orange-heads stood just in front of me, one blocking the doorway to the great hall, one blocking the doorway of the alley to the inner court. Neither clattering knucklebones nor a shower of armament pebbles had distracted them. I had been hoping they would just go away. To get up to the gallery and Sila’s chamber, I would have to run between them.

Forced to stillness, I had grown even more determined to take the map. I tottered on the verge of understanding. My glimpse of the Sentinel Oak had told me the map held two layers of information—perhaps that was what Gildas could not see. Sila was using the map in her campaign to squeeze the long-lived from their hiding places so that she could mingle Danae blood with Aurellian and Navron bloodlines. Something in the map would tell me her next move or which boundaries she thought to break. Though I regretted every moment’s delay in getting Osriel free, I had to take the chance. The map could be the key to everything, and I had no intention of ever returning to this fortress of horrors.

The echoed call of the watch was slowing. Replacements had arrived for the two guards. I had to move. I seated the guard’s flop-brimmed hat on my head. Then I pelted up the stair as if newly come from the depths, sweeping Jakome’s brown cloak about my shoulders and calling to the two guards, “Tell Nikred I couldn’t wait for his lazy ass to show. I’m to relieve Jakome at the tower for the night.”

The two grunted assent and turned back to their replacements, while I raced up the stair to the gallery. One torch burned outside Sila Diaglou’s chamber, but no guard was posted. Soft light leaked around the door curtain. I held my breath and listened. One person inside, breathing softly.

I drew the knife, pulled back the edge of the curtain, and peered inside. Torches blazed on either side of the map. Ronila sat in front of it, her chin propped on her walking stick. Nothing for it but to slip inside, keeping my back against the wall.

“You might as well come in, abomination,” she said, not even shifting her gaze from the map.

Of course, Ronila would have skills like mine. Once I had confirmed that no one else was in the room, I strolled over to the map, keeping the knife under my cloak. “Did you know my father, Ronila?”

“I suppose you deem yourself wise.” Never had I heard amusement that tasted so much of gall and rancid life. She cocked her head at the map. “The answer is no. Cartamandua first came to Aeginea long after I had left. He is talented, I hear—talented at finding places he should not. As you are.”

“He was,” I said, staring at the map, trying to gauge its secret. Knotted cords looped from bolts in the wall through three bound eyelets sewn into the map’s upper edge. Three strokes of the knife would take it down. “The Danae took his mind for a failed promise.”

“Pah!” She blew a note of disgust. “The long-lived cannot admit they are as crippled as I am. Mixed blood will be your doom as it has been mine, abomination.”

“You know not even the half of it, Lady Scourge.” Though, in truth, I’d always thought the blood of my erstwhile mother’s prophecy meant I’d die in battle or at least in a fight. I’d never considered it might signify heritage…bloodlines…family. Even queasier than usual at recalling the divination, I shoved the annoying hat backward and scratched my head. “Do our kind see the future? I’ve not been taught that skill.”

“I see the future,” she said. “In the hour he broke me, I told Stian what I planned. He didn’t believe a crippled halfbreed girl could bring them down. But when he feels the world die, he will confess it at last. When he sees Tuari Archon himself lapping from my hand, he will admit my power, and I will see Stian Human-friend stand alone in the ruin of his making. Was it the proud son—the most arrogant of an arrogant race—who marked you or the old cat himself?”

“You made Sila a perfect tool for your vengeance,” I said, unwilling to yield even so small an answer. “You hate the Danae because they did not allow you to be one of them; you especially hate the archon because Tuari killed your mother. You hate Stian because, out of fear for the Canon, he crippled you, and because he allowed Eodward and Picus to live in Aeginea, so that a human man became your temptation. You loathe humankind because it was humans who sullied your blood, and you hate both Eodward and the Karish god, because they stole Picus’s affections that you believed should be yours alone. But I don’t understand your particular antipathy for purebloods. That mystifies me.”

She snickered at that. “My daughter, Sila’s mother, was more Dané than human. Such grace…such beauty…When she danced in my kitchen, she made Stian’s daughter, Clyste, look as a stick. The Aurellians ruled this benighted land…and one of their knights rode through my village when Tresila was but thirteen. He dragged her to their pleasure house, forced her to service his common soldiers and Navron slaveys. Not the purebloods, though. She was not perfect enough to break their bloodlines. Thirty years they kept her a slave.”

“But she birthed a child…”

“You’ve yet much to learn of your Danae kin. Even halfbreed females can choose to conceive or not. One of Eodward’s soldiers rescued Tresila from the Aurellian pleasure house. In gratitude…in gratitude…she gave him a child.” Her tongue near curled with her bile. “The slut died bearing Sila. That’s as well, as I would have killed her for it, as I did the cur who plowed her. You cannot measure my hatred for this world. Sila merely wishes no blot of green to remain on this map, but my vengeance will be sated only in the hour humankind reaps eternal desolation and no Danae gard lights the world’s darkness.”

No blot of green…I caught my breath and spun to look at the map again. This map was no ordinary fiché, where the significance lay in written symbols and proportionate distances, nor was it a grousherre, where disproportionately sized features demonstrated the mapmaker’s judgment of relative importance. In this map the shifting colors told the story. My eyes raced across the expanse. The lands about Gillarine gleamed ocher. The meadow near Elanus yet green. The bogs—Moth’s sianou—green. Kol’s western sea and its bordering shores green. The tangled waste of Mellune Forest ocher. Sianous—living or dead.

When a sianou was lost, the Danae could no longer remember it. Sila wanted to force them out of their hiding places, out of their sianous and into human lands. She wanted them to forget Aeginea completely and merge with humankind. What if Janus had made this map to show the Danae the lands they had forgotten, so that Kol and the others could dance and reclaim those lands…repair the broken Canon…repair the broken world? Gods, I was looking at the answer!

Excitement surged through flesh and bone as I reached up and sliced through the first cord holding the map. “I’m sorry for all that happened to you, Ronila. Sorrier for what you did to your granddaughter, a child who did not deserve to be warped for your vengeance. But Sila’s rapine cannot be allowed to succeed—nor can yours.”

The second supporting rope at the opposite corner split like dry wood at the touch of the knife. Rolling up the bottom edge of the map with my left hand, I reached for the third cord.

Ronila lunged from her chair, grabbed one of the torches, and flung it at me. As the old woman toppled to the floor, bellowing with spiteful laughter, the ancient parchment exploded into fire like nitre powder.

“No!” I bellowed. I dropped the rolled map, and it crashed to the floor. Using hands…feet…cloak…I tried to smother the spreading fire. But sparks set my cloak ablaze, and searing heat drove me backward. The flames chased charring blackness across the lustrous colors with the speed of shooting stars.

The woven curtain behind me roared into flame. Shouts and footsteps rang from the gallery. Ronila lay in a rumpled heap. “You’d best go quickly, abomination,” she said, waving me off with a hand streaked with azure. “My granddaughter will flay you.”

Blazing ash floated in the air. Acrid smoke billowed from blackened, smoldering curls of vellum, my hope vaporizing with it. With every breath I wanted to crush the cackling crone, but I dared not compromise those awaiting me. I had no such strength as Stearc. I ran.

Whether it was only the smoke from the gallery or someone had discovered the missing prisoners or the fused lock on my tower cell, the stair was swarming with Harrowers. “The gallery chamber’s afire!” I shouted when someone barred my way. And when a rough hand detained me and its owner snarled, “Who are you? I saw you go up…” I shoved him against the wall and said, “I’m Jakome’s brother. Where is he?” Then I grabbed a woman warrior and another man and dispatched them to the “east tower,” hoping such a thing existed, and the hunt for strangers quickly became the hunt for Jakome.

My hands were scorched and blistered, my gards peeking through the charred tatters of my gloves. I tucked my hands beneath my half-burnt cloak.

“Grandam!” Sila Diaglou raced past me, Gildas close on her heels. I pressed my back to the wall and ducked my head so that the flop-brimmed hat shadowed my face. Only the tether of Osriel’s illness kept me from plunging my knife into one or the other of them; he might need me to get free. I galloped downward just as Sila screamed, “That was Magnus! The one in the hat! Take him!”

I dodged down the prison-level stair, just far enough to discard the hat. Then I raced upward again, tossing two knucklebones over my shoulder, and commanded two men to check on the clattering noise. The moment the two were out of sight, I bolted for the alley. The hose covering my feet, soggy with the guard’s piss and Stearc’s blood, disintegrated as I sped through the voluminous undercrofts. When I reached the arch into the inner courtyard, I paused long enough to rip them off before they tripped me. I draped the scorched remnants of the cloak over my head, so that at least my pale face would not be visible to those above. I had to hope it would suffice to block any view of my blue-streaked feet as well. Then I moved.

The temptation to dash through the yard straight to Jullian and Osriel nearly overwhelmed me. But the arrow loops on the second level were bright with firelight, and the fortress exploding with shouts. I crept softly, silently through the rubble.

I was halfway across the yard, angling toward the corner, when footsteps and voices echoed in the undercroft behind me. “I’m sure I saw a fellow run this way. Same one as came up the stair.”

I dropped to the ground and held still under the ragged cloak, not even daring to look around to see if they followed me. Face buried in the dirt, I scrabbled for some spell that might give us time to get away, but I had naught in my bags of tricks that might deter a determined pursuit. Stupid…cocky…arrogant… Thinking I could get away with this. Allowing myself to be distracted and beaten by a bitter hag. Disappointment gnawed at my gut like rats.

“None would come in here. There’s no way out but this.” Though the sharp-voiced woman kept her excitement tight-reined, the close walls amplified her every word and footstep. I scarce breathed.

“Sila said to search everywhere.”

“She’ll tear every stone down before he gets away.”

At least three of them…curse the luck. Light danced on the broken paving that pressed my cheek. I could smell the hot resin of the torches. One step in my direction and I would have to run.

“Over there, Braut! Summat’s at the wall!” The three raced past me toward the north wall and the canal and my friends.

I leaped up, shouting, “Here, you damnable fools!”

They stopped, and turned my way, then looked back to the wall, where a shadow mimed a running man—though none of us were running.

“What is it?” They were pointing at me, and I realized the burnt cloak remained on the ground and the gards on my arms and feet glowed the hue of summer midnight. “Where’s the other?”

As their resolution wavered, a great explosive crack shot dust and rubble from the wall, and in a roaring avalanche the remainder of the privies crashed down, pulling much of the standing north wall down with it. Osriel…

The three Harrowers retreated screaming—more in fear than pain. Had they paused two steps closer to the wall, the masonry would lie atop their heads. And I was no more than ten paces farther away. I leaped and dodged the debris, grateful my half-Danae eyes could penetrate the clouds of dust that fogged the yard.

“Glad I didn’t choose to hug the wall,” I said, as I skidded into the corner where Jullian and Osriel waited. “Now we move. Even that display won’t hold Sila for long.”

Jullian quaked like a spring leaf, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly as he gaped at the man he knew as quiet, studious Gram.

Osriel huddled in the blanket Jullian had given him, his head resting heavy against the grate, as if he had expended every remaining portion of his strength. But his dark eyes blinked open when I knelt beside him. “Stearc?” he said.

My elation at the moment’s reprieve sank quickly under the burden of rage and disappointment. “I’m sorry, lord. He gave everything.”

Jullian choked back a cry.

We had no time for grief. The two of them had wisely cleared the rocks and weeds away from the grate. I touched its opposing corners, as Max had instructed, and fed magic to the spell that vibrated in the iron bars. A pop and hiss and the grate flopped forward into a very dark hole.

“Jullian first, then me, so I can help you through,” I said to Osriel, who had rolled forward onto all fours. He nodded without speaking, his head drooping between his quivering shoulders.

I reached out to the boy, but he scrambled backward. “Aegis Ieri,” he whispered, his head shifting frantically between Osriel and my glowing hand.

“You’ve no need of Iero’s shield, Jullian,” I said, as calmly as I could, considering my own heart clattered like hailstones on a slate roof. “This was but magic—considerable magic, to be sure. Gram has hidden skills—inherited from his mother, as my talents and my strange appearance are inherited from my parents. Whatever else he may be, he is still the good man you know as Gram.” It was the argument I used with myself every hour.

“I thought I knew Gildas,” said the boy.

“Indeed Gildas fooled us all,” I said. “But you know me, and I promised to protect you and get you out of here. We must go now.”

Had any man or woman I knew committed such a feat of bravery as Jullian when he crawled into that blackness under Fortress Torvo with Osriel and me? I felt humbled. And very anxious. This was Max’s route. Once I’d crawled into the hole myself and helped Osriel through, I set the grate back into the hole. It seated with a satisfying snick. I wondered if the unlocking spell worked from the back. In any case, I dared not leave it open.

After a brief attempt to confirm the route with my own skills—straight on, from what I could tell—I took the lead. Osriel tried to conjure us a light, but his hands were shaking with exhaustion. “Perhaps later,” he whispered hoarsely.

Sighing with inevitability, I removed the rest of my clothes, allowing my gards to provide us soft illumination approximately the hue of cornflowers.

Osriel’s eyes traveled my gards; then he turned away, unable to mask the beginnings of a smile.

Jullian needed a bit more reassurance after that. I pointed out Stian’s mark on my arm and the sea creatures that seemed to have taken up residence on my chest, and asked if any demon he could imagine would have cats and fish among their markings.

He heaved a great breath and pronounced his rueful verdict. “I suppose no immortal demon would have bothered eating Harrower porridge either.”

Even Osriel chuckled at that, though it set him coughing again.

We all needed something to take our mind off the place we traveled. The only thing worse than seeing the soured black slime we had to crawl through was smelling it. Osriel retched after every coughing fit. I tried not to inhale at all. Jullian vomited when he encountered a more solid lump that had at some time been a hound…or perhaps a pig. None of us complained that it was winter. To make this passage in the heat would have been insupportable.

“My mother was not who I thought,” I said to Jullian, hoping to mask the sounds of scuttering rats and the ominous creaks and groanings from the masonry above us. Max must have enjoyed the thought of me enduring this place. “Nor was my father, as it happens, but it is my mother’s race who display such marks as these. Her kind must go through four changes as they grow…”

By the time I had told them a bit about my uncle and tide pools and distressed rocks, a whiff of fresher air floated amid the fetid murk. I quickly hushed Jullian’s assault of questions and handed him my bundle of filthy clothes.

I crept forward the few quercae to the grate. Voices carried clearly through the frosty night, issuing crisp orders. Clanks and creaks were weapons being shifted in their owners’ grasp. Sila kept more experienced men on the gates than on the interior watch. I hoped their eyes were focused outward.

As far as I could tell, the bailey itself was deserted. The drainage canal was blocked by rubble, which left us either the more exposed route straight across the bailey to the grate in the outer wall or a series of shorter jaunts between gallows and stocks and prison cages. For the time, Osriel’s magic was spent. We could not depend on his power to hide us.

Still undecided, I touched the corners of the warded grate and quickened its unlocking spell. The grate fell smoothly into my hands. So far, Max’s route had worked perfectly. But he would never trust me to show up with Gildas at our rendezvous three streets away. Warned by his wards that we were coming out, he would be waiting, and he would insist on knowing everything about my companions. Best go for speed.

“Only two bits still to go,” I said when I returned to my companions. “Straight across the bailey and through another grate will take us under the outer wall. Do you need me to carry you, Gram? This is no time for pride. We must be quick.”

“Saverian is very good at potion making,” said the prince, already sounding stronger than he had earlier. “Just don’t ask me to conjure a rat’s squeak along the way. Hadn’t you best take this and cover up? My attire is less…conspicuous…than yours.”

I stayed his hand before he could shed the filthy blanket. “I—uh—hear better when I’m like this,” I said. “The blanket’s not big enough to hide all of me anyway. When you see I’m across with no disturbance, come after. Once we’re outside the walls, the nearest cover will be to the right. Go as fast as you can and stay low. I’m hoping that only friends will be waiting, but…” I shrugged.

We moved to the hole. One careful listening revealed no change; a careful observation revealed no eyes turned inward from the walls. I crawled through and dashed across the bailey. My bare feet made no sound, and I caught the third grate as it toppled inward, lowering it carefully into the hollow under the wall. I scuttered through and across the blessedly short distance to the outermost grate, then quickened its spell. A glance beyond the wall showed me naught but night in Riie Doloure. I left the grate leaning against its hole and crawled back the way I’d come.

The two hunched forms moved steadily across the bailey in my direction, not invisible but dark and quiet. They had crossed three quarters of the distance when the doors of the great hall burst open, and torchlight flooded the steps. A patrol of ten Harrowers emerged and ran for the gates. More men took positions on the steps and spread slowly outward, approaching the gallows platform, searching on and underneath it.

Osriel and Jullian had flattened themselves to the ground at the first disturbance and blended well into the mottled landscape of rubble and refuse. But if they remained where they were, the searchers would surely find them. I considered ten different plans and discarded them as quickly. If I set one foot out of the hole to distract the hunters, every eye would be on me. Osriel and Jullian might reach the tunnel, but I never would.

Under, through, or over a wall, thieves and lovers learn them all. The tavern reel’s chorus defined my dilemma. There would be no way through a gate so well guarded, and no way to get back to the tunnel and under the wall faster than Harrowers could be outside it waiting for me. Which left over…

My stomach lurched. I closed my eyes and recalled the layout of the bailey as I’d seen it from the inside. The stair to the wall walk was some halfway between my position and the gates. No time to think. No time to doubt. Holy Erdru, god of drunkards and madmen, preserve your faithful servant.

I crawled out of the hole and darted up and over the wooden platform where Sila’s judges had mandated death and mayhem, crouching low and putting as much distance as possible between me and the open grate in the corner. I was halfway to the gallows when they spotted me.

“Look!” Twenty voices at once screamed out. Everything seemed to stop for that moment, just as on the day Voushanti and I had stormed this same gallows under the shield of Osriel’s enchantment to rescue Brother Victor. I spun in place. Searchers backed away. Some weapons clanked to the ground—not all, sadly.

Murmurings rose through the hush. Sorcery! Ghost! Spirit!

Stubbing my toes on broken planks and mounds of crusted snow, ignoring splinters that pierced my blistered hands, I climbed up onto the gallows. I quickened my simplest, crudest lock spell and touched the chains on the bloodstained drawing frame, where Luviar had been splayed and gutted like a boar. The iron shattered in a shower of red sparks. And then I did the same to the hinges on the gallows traps.

Angel! Guardian!

I dared not look to the corner. How long would it take for Osriel and Jullian to understand and move?

Somewhere behind the glaring torches, a snapped order imposed discipline. Boots crept toward me from the direction of the gates. I gripped a post, swung around it, and leaped off the platform, mustering what grace I could so as not to eternally sully all legends of the Danae. I landed on the balls of my feet with only moderate jarring of spine and limbs. Then I sprinted for the stair to the walls.

“Magnus!” Sila cried from the doors. “You will not escape! Your destiny lies with me!”

I had no breath to answer as I took the stairs three at a time. No wit to create some memorable farewell. I was too busy trying to remember what Kol had told me. Drive thy spirit upward with the leap. Hold it firm and soaring. It is will that counters the forces that draw us to earth.

For my king and my friend, I thought as I topped the stair and bounded across the wall walk with ten Harrowers charging from each flank. Stearc died to keep Osriel safe.

But it was not such noble thoughts that drove my spirit upward as I leaped from the wall of Fortress Torvo, or held it firm and soaring as I fell toward earth, but the remembrance of my uncle’s healing grace as he danced, and a stubborn will that Ronila’s malignancy would not destroy the beauty he had wrought.

Chapter 27

I landed on one foot and one knee. Breathless. Not with fear, though I would have sworn I’d left my stomach on Torvo’s wall. Not with pain, though grit and gravel and all manner of foulness had most uncomfortably embedded themselves in my knee. Exhilaration starved my lungs. I felt as if angels had borne me on their wings, as if I had lived my life in a cave and only now had glimpsed my first sunrise.

But four men with swords pelted toward me from the gates, Torvo’s portcullis ground upward with a troop of Harrowers ready to burst from behind it, and five well-armed riders in Registry colors blockaded Riie Doloure. Their commander sat astride a very large bay, perhaps ten paces from me. Only my conviction that he would be waiting kept my eyes from sliding away from him. Max was a master at obscuré spells.

I could not but grin when I saw his face illumined by Torvo’s torches. Not even when we were boys had I seen Max completely unmasked—which had naught to do with the pureblood silk that clung to half his face.

“Balls enough?” I called across the distance between us, opening my arms.

A slow grin broke through his awe. “Balls enough, little—Little bastard. Did you accomplish whatever you came here for?”

“Beware of Jakome,” I said, grinning back at him. I would not take his bait. “He’s false. But I’ve left you clean, do you but go now. If these Harrowers identify you…take my word, they will be out of humor.”

Whether or not he believed me, he must have decided he could work no more advantage from the situation. Laughing robustly, he wheeled his mount and rejoined his men. With a snapped command of dismissal, they vanished into the city. I sprinted back toward the hole in Torvo’s wall.

“Dead man!” I bellowed, quite unnecessarily, for Voushanti and a handful of leather-clad irregulars were already swarming out of the charred ruin of a tenement and inserting themselves between me and the oncoming Harrowers. Jullian was helping Osriel away from the wall. Between the two of us, we half carried, half dragged him toward the ruin where Voushanti had been waiting.

My back itched. I prayed that Sila had made it clear she wanted me alive. Bowmen on fortress walls in a night action could get twitchy fingers, and a glowing blue rock on a man’s back would make a fine target.

Battle erupted behind us. Weapons clanged and shouts of bravado warped quickly into cries of anguish as we ducked under a fallen beam and into the blackened skeleton of a house.

Half of a blackened wall leaned crazily against a snow-clogged hearth. With my gards and the faint wash of torchlight from the fortress the only light, the mottled floor was tricky going. Pools of sooty slush made it difficult to distinguish pits where foundation stones had been carted away. Bundles of unburnt straw lay around the place, as if someone was trying to blot up the slush. The ruin reeked of lamp oil.

“This way!” A pale light bloomed at the back of the ruin, where a stone stair led downward. “Mother of Night, Riel! And Thane Stearc?” She must have read our faces. “Ah, a pestilence on these vermin.”

Before we could blink, Saverian had Osriel seated on a bit of broken wall, draining vials of two different potions, Jullian wrapping the prince and himself in dry cloaks, and me dispatched to find us a way out. The physician’s practical fury seemed to cleanse the air of Ronila’s madness like a taste of fresh limes cleanses the palate. “Make it fast, Valen.”

I hurried down the broken steps into the ancient lane that had been uncovered two months ago by the raging fires of a Harrower mob. The noise of the fighting fell away quickly. The lane cut across a hillside, and its builders had installed high stone walls to hold back the dirt. But the stone houses that had lined the lane had vanished long before I was born, and the fires had burned off the vegetation that held the hill stable. Now mud had slumped down from the hillside, and I couldn’t find the place I was looking for…a courtyard…a way out…

The intoxication of my leap from the walls deserted me, leaving a profound uneasiness in its wake. I felt cold, light-headed. The place, the night…everything felt wrong. I needed to get back. Voushanti and his men were sorely outnumbered.

In desperation, I knelt and touched the frozen mud, pushing magic through exhaustion and confusion. And there in front of me lay a silver path. A Dané had once walked here. More than one, perhaps, for just ahead lay a knot of silver—not an unruly tangle, but layer upon layer of loops and windings as Kol laid down when he danced. In the center of the knot grew a winter-bare apple tree, vibrant with life and health here in the midst of a city gone mad. I should have guessed this was a Dané sianou when I’d first found it, but I’d not known how to look.

Racing back toward the others, I gave the final signal. Dead man. Harvest. Voushanti would retreat to the ruined tenement to join us. Bluejay. Harvest.

The physician, the prince, and the boy crouched in the lane behind a fallen beam. Osriel held a decrepit sword, while Saverian hefted a rusty ax—perhaps better were hard to come by in the city. Jullian seemed to be their rear guard and sagged in relief at the sight of me, lowering a dagger half the length of his arm. The combat was deafening and very close.

Voushanti’s bellow thundered through the din. “Fall back! To me! To me!”

“I’ve found the way out,” I said, “or would you three prefer to stay here and fight?”

Osriel conceded me only a glance. “Saverian has propped me up to scare off Harrower crows,” he said with a hint of laughter. “But altogether, I’d prefer a bed.”

“As soon as Voushanti steps under the beam, we can go,” said Saverian, dropping her ax. “Wait here and be ready.” She ran up the steps into the ruined house.

“Hold on!” I bolted after her. “Are you mad?”

She ignored me as first one and then another of Voushanti’s exhausted fighters yelled haven and stumbled through the crossed beams. Four…five…six of them…and then Voushanti himself burst through. “Now, mage!” snapped the warrior.

As Voushanti twisted and skewered the Harrower who tried to follow him inside, Saverian touched the bundles of straw nearest the opening. Green flames exploded from the bundles, consuming another attacker, who stumbled screaming over his dead comrade. The physician ran from one bundle to the next until the entire front of the ruin was walled in flame taller than my head. Only one of Voushanti’s goggle-eyed mercenaries stood his ground long enough to catch the bag Saverian tossed him. Payment in hand, he followed his comrades straight up the steep hillside behind the ruined house and into the night.

“Time to go,” said Saverian, as Voushanti hacked at another man who braved the flames. “The fire won’t hold them long.”

Voushanti held the doorway until we were down the steps, lining the opening with dead and screaming wounded.

“Now, dead man!” I yelled over the roar of the flames. “Stay with me!”

As I led them down the ancient lane, I had a vague impression of Voushanti descending the steps in one jump and green flames exploding behind him. Shoving the roused fear and anxieties of battle aside, I sought clarity and memory enough to make the shift. A small courtyard…healthy growth bared by winter…high walls and the knee-high ring of stones in the center…a pool of sustaining life—here an apple tree rooted deep in the hillside, there a well rooted deep in a mountain…air touched with winter and smoke, here from straw burning to preserve valuable lives, there from hearthfires and kitchens…

One by one, my charges hurried into the apple court, as I had named the strange little lane in Palinur—Jullian, fiercely determined; Osriel, flushed and wheezing; Saverian batting sparks from her jupon; and then Voushanti, blood-splattered and facing backward. From the smoke behind us burst another figure, a giant-sized warrior wearing a ragged cloak, dented helm, and orange badge.

When Voushanti took him down with an ax to his thigh, the Harrower bled his life onto the winter grass of the well yard at Renna, some two hundred quellae south of Fortress Torvo. It was snowing.

Jullian, who had spun around to watch Voushanti dispatch the Harrower, bumped into me when I halted at the stone circle of the well. I caught his arm before he stumbled over my feet and stuck me or himself with his dagger. “Easy, lad. I don’t think any others can follow us here.”

The mud-drowned lane, eerie flames, and rampaging Harrowers had vanished. Behind Voushanti stretched a colonnade fronting the cold inner wall of Renna’s keep. The boy heaved a quivering sigh as he looked up at me. “Magic again?”

I squatted beside him and held out my arm in parallel with my glowing thighs. “Aye. It’s one thing these are good for. You’ll note that Gram is fairly well astonished, too.”

Osriel spun so quickly with his neck craned up at Renna’s heights that Saverian stood ready to catch him should he topple. “Well done,” said the prince. “Oh, very well done, Valen.”

Jullian leaned his head to my ear. “He’s not just Gram, is he? All three of you call him lord. And he brought down that wall.”

“He is Gram, but no, not just Gram. By now you’ve surely guessed his true name.”

The boy acknowledged without words, his face a pale blur in the night.

“You’ve no need to be afraid, Jullian.” I made no effort to keep my voice down. “Prince Osriel has found it necessary to keep people fearful of him…to protect himself and our cabal and his people here in Evanore. Abbot Luviar was once his tutor.”

But, of course, there was ample reason to be afraid of Osriel, not for Jullian alone, but for all of us together. Grateful as I was to stand in Renna’s shelter instead of Sila Diaglou’s tower, much as my legs felt like clay, my back wrenched, and my feet battered, my night’s work could not be declared finished.

“And Voushanti”—Osriel gripped the mardane’s shoulder and inspected him as if seeking the source of the blood that stained Voushanti’s hauberk and leathers—“a magnificently executed retrieval. Your valor and your skill in arms are unmatched.” His voice dropped a little. “You are well, Mardane? Saverian took care of you?”

“I am whole for now, my lord. The physician did as you commanded. I am bound to the sorcerer.”

“To Valen?” On any other night, I might have missed the hint of dismay in Osriel’s voice. He masked it quickly by a gallant bow in Saverian’s direction. “And your skills, physician…and friend…remain unmatched and irreplaceable. What greater wonder can I demonstrate to these present than walking up yonder stair without reclining on Valen’s shoulders or weighting my noble companion Jullian’s arm?”

“Your physician prescribes food, wine, bath, and bed,” said Saverian with no hint of sentiment, as she shoved her straggling hair away from her soot-smudged face.

“I must see Elene first,” said Osriel, his momentary lightness shed like an unwanted cloak. “Perhaps you would accompany me, Valen, and tell us what you can of Stearc’s end.”

Ah, Mother Samele embrace Elene, who must soon be torn asunder by sorrow and relief…and all the questions and fears this prince held for her. Her plight only hardened the resolution grown solid in my gut.

“I will, of course, lord,” I said, standing up, while keeping a hand on Jullian’s shoulder. “But I might suggest we not wake her to such ill news before I’ve had a chance to discuss the matter with you. Saverian, as the prince has downed multiple vials of your marvelous elixirs, would it compromise him too severely to speak with me for a little?”

She raised her eyebrows and twisted her mouth in her ironical fashion that illumined her awkward features with life and wit. “As Lord Osriel will tell you himself, I am not his keeper. He knows my recommendations and will likely do with them as he always has.”

She rummaged in a pouch at her waist and tossed me another vial. Then she held out her hand to the boy at my side, let her magelight swell to a soft ivory where he could see it glowing from her fingers, and smiled in a way that instantly dispatched his awe. “Come, noble Jullian. You, at least, will enjoy what I have to offer in the way of food and bed. Prince Osriel has told me a great deal about you these past few years. He lives in awe of your scholarship…”

As the woman and boy headed for the stair at the corner of the colonnade, Osriel glanced my way and dipped his head, then addressed Voushanti. “Mardane, perhaps you would notify the watch that we have returned, and that Mistress Elene is not to be disturbed until I wait upon her.”

Voushanti shifted his attention to me. Pinpoints of red centered his dark gaze. Only after I had given an uneasy nod did he bow to Osriel. “As you command, my lord prince.” He pivoted and followed Saverian and Jullian out of the well yard, leaving Osriel and me alone.

“So we are to have our reckoning before even we get warm.” Osriel spread his arms as if to welcome whatever I might bring, then seemed to think better of it. Shivering, he drew Saverian’s heavy cloak tight. “It hardly seems fair to ask me to take you on when I’ve just seen you leap to earth from a height no man should survive, clad in naught but mythlight, and you’ve carried me out of hell to my own house in less time than it would take me to walk my own walls.”

“Let us walk a bit, my lord. I’d not wish some lurking guard to hear what we might say.” I pointed to the colonnade. Rather than taking the upper stair to the Great Hall and bedchambers or the lower stair to the passages where Saverian’s workroom lay, we strolled along the covered walk so like those surrounding the cloister garth at Gillarine—the three-petaled lily of Navronne embedded in its stonework, the cherubic aingerou carved into the slender pillars, the square of grass alongside our path, centered by a springfed font. We rounded the corner in truth and memory…

…and we were there, staring up at the shattered tower of the abbey church, at the gutted remnants of the library and scriptorium, at the darkness of the deserted dorter. At the burnt and broken shell of a place once holy.

Osriel halted and stepped away from me, whipping his head from one side of the cloister to the other. “What have you done? Why have you brought me here?”

“I needed us to be in a neutral place,” I said. “Away from devoted warriors, away from swords and dungeons and magic—or, at least, magic that is outside of ourselves. I thought at first to take you into the wild, to some place where you could not find your way back if this discussion goes for naught. But I’ve no wish to harm you, lord. This place…I think we both care for it and will think twice before bringing any further evil to it. I thought perhaps to find my friend Gram waiting here.”

In the azure light of my gards, his gaunt face appeared carved in ice. “I am your king and your bound master. I need discuss nothing with you.”

He thrust this harsh rhetoric between us like the first feint in a dual. I didn’t think I needed to remind him of his promise that once I took him into Aeginea I would be free to go my own way. Nor did I mention that to abandon him here in his present state without Saverian’s medicine would likely mean his death. Instead I strolled down the west cloister walk away from the church. After a moment he joined me.

“I wish we were not so tired,” I said, offering him my arm. He shook his head. “I wish you were not ill. I wish we had more time to debate and reason.”

We rounded the south end of the cloister and walked past the refectory to the calefactory—an open room lined with stone benches and centered by a great hearth and a neat wood stack. “You need warmth, and I need open air. I doubt Nemesio would mind if we use his warming room. The brothers have taken refuge at Magora Syne.”

In normal times the brothers kept the calefactory fire burning through the winter for the monks to stop in and warm their hands as they went about their work and prayer. Once I had laid the fire, Osriel summoned a spell to set it ablaze. He sat cross-legged beside it, hunched forward as if hoping to draw strength and nourishment from the flames as well as warmth. I sat on the stone bench where I could breathe cold air and see his face.

Even the bright flames could not push back the shadows of Gillarine. Too much death and sorrow lingered just beyond the light. Stearc’s presence loomed very large. And I held the memory of the thane’s last fear as a shield before my own.

“So speak,” said the prince, once his shivering had eased. “You’ve not brought me here to play monk.”

“I will ask you to hear me out before argument or comment,” I said. “I’ve never laid all this out at once.”

He did not respond, so I plunged ahead. “You are my rightful king, son of a man I honored and vowed to follow to the death. You are a man I have been astonished and pleased to name my friend, for one of the things I’ve learned since first I came to Gillarine is that I never before owned a true friend—one who would hold me fast as I fell into hell and strive to pull me out again, one who would trust me in matters of importance, one who would know me, for I believed I could not allow anyone to know me.”

He propped his elbows on his knees and rested his chin on his clasped hands. Waiting for me to go on. Yielding nothing. A wall stood between us, and my purpose was to shatter it and expose what lay beyond—marvelous or terrible as it might be.

“I’ve not brought you here to explain why you betrayed me to those who would destroy me. I’ve convinced myself that you saw no other choices open to you.” His unguarded smile when he first looked full on my gards had but confirmed my growing suspicion. “I believe you held a hope that my uncle would do exactly as he did. I believe you brought Saverian apurpose on that journey, knowing that her nature would prompt her to do exactly as she did, or if the worst came to pass, to amend matters as she could.”

That surprised him. His head jerked up and his dark eyes met mine. Though he made no acknowledgment, I took his silence as confirmation.

I pushed on. “Rather I want to tell you what I’ve learned these past days, in hopes we can make some sense of it together before we fall off the edge of the world. Some you surely know, some you surely don’t. I told you and Jullian some of what Kol taught me, but I didn’t tell you about Picus.”

“Picus?” Another surprise that shocked him rigid. “Where? How did—?”

“Please, lord, hear me out. Picus lives in Aeginea…”

I told him of the monk and his sin, of Ronila and her web of hate, of Gildas and Sila, of the lost map and my conviction that it had depicted the tale of the world’s ruin. I laid out the evidence of Tuari’s humiliation at the actions of his half-human brother, his retribution on Llio’s wife, and his punishment by Stian. And I told how Saverian and I had both realized that Osriel’s quest for power from the Danae could backlash and make matters worse.

“…and so we are left with Sila Diaglou, entirely sane, entirely ruthless, and determined to purify Navronne and reshape it according to her peculiar vision, with Gildas, who schemes to become the lord of chaos, and with Ronila, who intends to destroy us all. They will cross Caedmon’s Bridge in little more than a sevenday. I don’t completely understand my skills, lord, but I have bound them to your father’s service, to Abbot Luviar’s vision, to Jullian’s protection and the protection of two others whose names I cannot reveal. I would use them in the service of Navronne…in your service, too, if those two are the same. Tell me what is to happen at the mine called Dashon Ra on the winter solstice.”

Osriel’s eyes were closed, so that for a moment I thought he had fallen asleep. But he shifted and straightened and met my gaze unflinching, though his dark eyes held the bleakness of Navronne’s winter. “I will position a small force at the Bridge, commanding them to lure the Harrowers into the hills behind Renna. Thanks to preparations I have made over the years, Sila will find the vale of Dashon Ra harder to escape than to enter—now I know she is half Dané, I’ll have to consider more carefully how to deal with her own person, and her gammy’s, I suppose. With enough magic entirely channeled into the gold veins at Dashon Ra, I can free the souls I have imprisoned. Bound by blood to my will, they must and shall do my bidding. I plan to give them the Harrower legions.”

Cold horror struck me like a demon’s hand. “Instill the dead souls in living hosts?”

He shot to his feet at my first word, gripping one column of the great hearth as if it were all that stood between him and dissolution. “Do not preach to me of the evil of this course until you have seen the future your sister, the diviner, has shown me. Were I to send a living army down upon Sila Diaglou’s trapped legions to save this kingdom from such a future, no man or woman would fault me. Kings must command their people to die for them. Had I the slightest hope of an alternative, I would welcome it with all my heart. But I cannot condemn Navronne to centuries of starvation, disease, and enslavement for my lack of will to use what knowledge and skill I possess.”

“But what becomes of such an army?” An army of revenants…living bodies possessed by the angry dead.

“Under my command, they will turn on my brother’s troops. If my brother is wise, he will lay down his arms and come to terms with me. We must consummate the bargain quickly. Without an infusion of my blood, my warriors will have but seven days of life, perhaps twice that if the Danae keep their word. But those will be days they would not own had I left their corpses undisturbed on Perryn’s and Bayard’s battlegrounds. Perhaps they can make some peace with that.”

I shook my head. “Not peace, my lord. And you well know it. Their souls’ future will be forfeit. You will force them to trade seven days of breathing for the fullness of whatever life lies beyond this one. They’ll not have even the time to seek out their families. And what of the Harrowers’ souls displaced? Are they rightfully dead or are they lost to heaven as well? Or are they, in turn, prisoned in your veins of gold? Three days ago, I shared Voushanti’s dying, lord, and such despair as I felt cannot heal what ails Navronne. If you win your throne by such means, how ever will you govern?”

“My warlords will protect me in the beginning. From there my own deeds must tell. I’ll do what I can to hold back the night. And we must hope that the Danae, left alone and undisturbed, can heal the things I cannot.” He braced his back against the graceful column, as unyielding as the stone. “I have pondered this course for three years, Valen. Could I see but a glimmer of hope in some other plan, I would leap at it. Luviar knew about Voushanti. He knew of my work with the dead, and why I donned terror as a pureblood dons his mask. Indeed, he knew better than I of all my strengths and weaknesses, and to the very end he counseled me that his god would show me the path of right. Yet even Luviar, in all his wisdom, could not tell me another way.”

I stepped out of the calefactory enclosure full into the wind, for it felt as if the heat muddied my thoughts. “And what if Tuari Archon betrays you?” For, of course, Osriel intended the magic of the Canon to be channeled into the veins of gold to empower his army of souls. “Ronila spoke as if Tuari was already her tool.”

The prince riffled his hair with his slender fingers, truly puzzled. “Spite would be his only reason. I yielded every point, gave him everything he asked for. To demonstrate trust and buy the parley, I pledged him fair recompense for my father’s failure to return to Aeginea. To prove my faith, I returned the treasure that was stolen—and it is his own people who lost you again, after all. Our joined power on the solstice will end the sianou poisonings. But in the event you are right and Tuari upends the bargain, I do have an alternative. Certain rites can release the power bound in my blood as Caedmon’s heir. It should be enough to do as I want. Perhaps that is the only just solution after all.”

And then I put together the clues and understood what he had planned all along. No wonder Saverian would not speak of it. Sila Diaglou had once demanded a scion of Caedmon’s house to bleed in her penitential rites, and Osriel had told me that blood consecrated to Navronne would be supremely potent. He had told Elene that his plan would end his last hope of heaven, but he had not meant that merely as an acknowledgment of a monstrous crime.

“You think to have Saverian bleed you as Sila would,” I said, appalled at what I envisioned. “You die in torment to release this power in your veins, and she returns you to life to use it. You would yield your own soul to win this battle.”

He let his head fall back against the pillar and closed his eyes. “Actually I intend Voushanti to do the bleeding part. I’ll need him back from you before we begin.”

To spend one’s entire life dependent on the blood of others—whom would he choose? Saverian herself…his loyal childhood friend coerced into this macabre partnership? Not Elene. He had pushed her away, for love must surely wither in such a feeding. Voushanti…their survival linked one to the other like conjoined twins?

“I’ll not put Voushanti through another death to change guardianship, lord. Though I know he will obey you, even in this, it is cruel and inhuman and unworthy of you to ask it of him.”

“We must all heed cruel necessity—whether prince, warrior, or half-blood Dané, whether man or woman.”

And then did another consideration chill me. “Ah, lord, what did you promise Tuari to redeem your father’s betrayal?”

“Only that which I shall make sure never to have—a firstborn child for them to nurture in my father’s place.”

“Spirits of night, but you—” I bit my tongue. I was sworn to secrecy on the matter. Of course the Danae would require balance in such a bargain, and if Osriel’s firstborn was the price of the parley itself, this bargain would stand…no matter what happened on the solstice. I was sworn to protect Elene and the child, whatever that might mean in the future. Osriel could not know. “Could you find naught else, lord?”

He dropped his head between his stiff shoulders and laughed—a sad, despairing humor. “How far you’ve come, friend Valen, from the rogue who tried to steal my nivat offering. You lack even a sprout of wings, yet I feel as if the judgment of heaven rests in your word. Can you not see? My father left his beloved kingdom—his people—in my protection. Do I wait another season, I’ll have naught left to save. How can I ask of others what I would not give myself?”

I stared into the broken, snow-drenched cloisters of Gillarine and sought answers. Ruin lay in every direction that I could see. To stop Osriel left Navronne at the mercy of Sila Diaglou. But I had no confidence that even so determined a warrior as Sila could outfox the witch who had made her—and that made our end far worse. No wheat would grow from an earth of Ronila’s harrowing. And Gildas, the monk who aspired to godhood, was the blind bargain in the game. At some point he would strike out on a separate course from his malignant partner. He intended me to be a part of it, and the hunger lurking even now in my blood gave me the unsettling feeling that my escape from Fortress Torvo had not concerned him as much as it should have. Though even a victory would tally an unsupportable cost, who else but Osriel had the remotest chance of stopping these three?

Not I. If I had a part in this conflict…in this world…it yet remained hidden from me. My mother’s purposes were unfathomable. The impossible yearnings waked by my contact with my Danae kin seemed selfish and trivial beside the magnitude of the ruin we faced. And so I was left only with tangled vows and awe for those who would give so much for naught but sheerest love. I felt in sore need of counsel.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead and approached the drooping shape braced upright by the pillar. “Come, my lord, let me take you home to bed.”

He cocked his head. “No argument? No fiery sword?”

I gave him Saverian’s vial. When he had drained it and some of the rigidity had left his stance, I offered him my arm. He relinquished his pillar and allowed me to slip my arm under his shoulders. As we moved slowly through the cloisters, a flurry of bats flew out from the burnt undercrofts.

“Just…wait for me, lord,” I said as I walked us back to Renna. “Don’t tell anyone about your plan, and don’t do anything irretrievable until I get back. I doubt I’ve the wit to find you another way, but perhaps my uncle does.”