But his spell was cast, and the shadows took him, injured and insulted, to a safety that his enemies could not prevent him from attaining.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

Ser Valedan kai di'Leonne slowly lowered the sword that he had clung to so fiercely. Lowered it, seeing beyond the circle in which he and General Baredan di'Navarre stood, as if he were waking from a nightmare-and discovering that reality was far worse. Before him, between the cracks of stone and timbers that should have been his death, he could see the black back of the person who had, somehow, saved his life. He saw her sword rise and fall, as if the motion were linked to her breath; heard that breath, loud and heavy, as she brought the blade down, as she struggled to sheath it.

And he knew, as he watched, that it was a struggle.

General Baredan di'Navarre stared down at the floor- at what remained of the floor beneath the huge stone blocks and joists and beams. He cursed, and the sound was so welcome-so human- it drew Valedan's almost grateful attention, breaking her spell.

"What is it? What's wrong?" As if, surrounded by the ruins of a ceiling that had stood for four centuries, fires being banked by magical means to one side, something else needed to be wrong.

"My sun-scorched sword!" Baredan replied. He added a few words, a few colorful words, and then a few more for good measure. Serra Alina would doubtless let him understand, by the ice of her perfectly proper stare, how grave a crime he had just committed in the presence of the Tyr'agar, were she here. She was not.

"Tyr'agar," the General said, recovering with a humor that only those who walked close to death could know. He bowed. "It appears that I must forgo the usual ceremonies in favor of practicality."

Bemused, Valedan nodded, and then he frowned slightly. But only slightly; Serra Alina had been, in most things, his teacher; he understood form well. And he understood, as he met Baredan's grim smile, that the General had lost his sword. He could not imagine that his own father, his own dead, distant father, would ever have smiled, grimly or no, at such a loss, regardless of circ.u.mstance.

He started to speak, but Baredan lifted a hand, as if he did not know what the young man was about to say. "You must forgive me, Tyr'agar. We are on foreign soil, and I would say-although it is less clear now-that we are not among friends. We will guard our words and our clans."

But as he stopped speaking, he looked at Valedan di'Leonne as if seeing him for the first time. His blood had dried along the edge of Bloodhame because the boy had refused to let go of his weapon in what was, undoubtedly, the first real combat of any sort that he'd faced.

Baredan smiled. And his smile was as sharp as the Callestan blade.

The Greater a.s.sembly was not recalled that day. The ExaJted survived the flames, but their priests did not-and the death that should have been quick was both slow and terrible for each and every one of their attendants.

The Kings called for-and received-order in the hall, and then quickly disbanded the gathering; their Swords came, and those mages who served the Crowns within the Order. The Ten chose to accept the dismissal as a request, and they left the hall with their chosen guards, on the understanding that they would reconvene on the morrow.

All, of course, except for The Kalakar.

"What-exactly-did-you-think-you-were-doing?"

Kiriel, looking very much like the girl that they could never again believe she was, met Duarte's angry words with a slightly crimson face. She said nothing.

Behind the leader of the Ospreys stood The Kalakar, with Verrus Vernon and Verrus Korama to the right and left. Beside Duarte stood Alexis, her lovely hair twisted ' into a knot that the most nimble-fingered of the Ospreys could not have untied. She was angry. They all were.

"Sentrus Kiriel," The Kalakar said, "I'd advise you to answer the question. We are about to be called into private session with the Crowns and the Exalted; I wish to have something to say to them. It is a matter of no little import." The Swords that lined the walls of the largest of the chambers reserved for dignitaries who waited entry to the Hall of Wise Counsel were proof enough, if it were needed, of the truth of those words. But The Kalakar was certain that Kiriel did not know the Astari were present- if the girl even knew who the Astari were. She didn't know it herself for fact, but she'd known the Kings for years, and she was a good judge of their mood. "Kiriel."

"I was saving his life," Kiriel said, each word cool and civil.

"And you didn't think to warn anyone else? Twenty-seven men and women died in that attack." Verrus Korama took a breath, held it, and then expelled it. "Korama, please."

He had the grace to look embarra.s.sed, and the presence of mind to bring his fist sharply to his chest. "Kalakar." As a military man, he had seen death before; he would, no doubt, see it again. But not here, now now, and not in this manner: The screams of the priests echoed, a building and an hour away. The fire that the creature had thrown upon them had been in some way alive. It hollowed them, slowly.

"Thank you. Kiriel," The Kalakar continued as if there had been no interruption. "When did you know that the danger existed?"

"When the boy walked into the room." It was not as difficult as it should have been to hear her call the heir-presumptive to the Annagarian crown a boy. Duarte turned purple; Cook turned white. "And it didn't occur to you to warn any of the rest of us?"

"Duarte." The Kalakar again, sounding less and less pleased by the interruptions, which was no easy task. But Duarte was an Osprey. The Osprey. "Primus Duarte," Kiriel said very formally, "if I had uttered any warning at all, the boy would be dead. I thought-and I apologize for the thinking-that The Kalakar wished him to live."

"And the other twenty-seven?" It was Alexis' voice, strained and heated as she met the younger woman's implacable dark eyes. Her hand hovered above her dagger's hilt.

"The other twenty-seven were not important to The Kalakar." The dark-haired, pale girl turned to face The Kalakar, in whose name she had just dismissed two dozen lives. "The Kings were not in danger; their thrones-as the thrones of the Exalted-have been magicked in a way that I do not understand. They might have been injured, but I do not believe that Etridian could have killed them without risking his own existence. He chose not to try.

"Have I done wrong?"

The Kalakar met Kiriel's too-dark eyes. Then she turned her head slightly, and found Korama's gaze upon her. Am I that obvious? she thought, and was surprised at the discomfort that she felt. But she was an honest woman-at least with herself; she did not refute Kiriel's claim.

It's war, she thought, and knew it for truth. Knew it, intellectually, far later than she had on some more visceral level. Old instincts. A lot more than twenty-seven people are going to be dead. Some of them in worse ways. Although that, bless the Mother, was hard to imagine.

"No," she heard herself say. "But in the future, you're going to have to learn some of the Kalakar signals. Not only does your commanding officer-Primus Duarte, in this case-have the right to know of present danger, he has the obligation." She raised a hand to her temple and ma.s.saged her forehead. "Kiriel, you know the Kalakar rules, and you are a part of the House Guards. I have not asked you the questions that you will be asked when we approach the Crowns."

The young girl shrugged a slender shoulder.

"Who are you, Kiriel?"

"Kiriel di'Ashaf," the girl replied grimly, the set of her lips white.

Ser Fillipo par di'Callesta expected many things from this grim, cloudless day. He felt the heat on the back of his neck and raised his head, a man's gesture of defiance under the eyes of the Lord.

He was almost done with praying; the hours had dragged. And dragged. Serra Tara, his dutiful wife, had come and gone in the cool air, offering him water and sweet breads. He took some of each, enjoying neither. It took a certain strength to face death, to face a man's death, and he intended to have it.

Where was Valedan?

The Imperials were hard to understand. They did not value family, they did not cleave to blood; they did not spend their hours in the practice of war, preferring dance and letters and unfathomable art. Yet they knew how to fight. Some even understood death as well as a clansman.

His shadow, turning slowly, marked the pa.s.sage of time. His hands itched; it had been many years since, in a time of danger, he had had to forgo weaponry. Were Ser Kyro di'Lorenza not at his side, he would have borne it less graciously; less gracefully. But he knew that it was his lead these men followed, with or without the presence of the boy.

And he intended to lead them into whatever glory the Lord allowed unarmed prisoners in a foreign land. His gaze crossed the fountain, and came to rest upon the stone boy, whose pathetic blindfold and spindly body told the tale of Annagarian justice.

Justice.

The only sure justice was the rule of a man of power and honor-and it lasted as long, and traveled as far, as his reach. No more. No less. The Tyr'agar had not been a particularly just or honorable man.

Where was Valedan?

Ser Fillipo was on his feet before the peal of the gong had died into stillness. Ser Kyro and Ser Mauro joined him, as did Serra Alina. Serra Marlena was with Serra Helena, and his own wife, Serra Tara. In her quiet, sweet way, she was the same anchor for the women and children that he was for the men. Alina was too understandably dangerous, and she lacked, of all traits most endearing, that lovely sentimentality which made of a woman's arms and thoughts a man's haven.

He cast a sidelong glance at the dark-haired, hawklike profile. I would arm you, he thought. If such a thing were possible. And in this Empire, it was. He smiled, and the smile was a grimmer one. And if I thought you would follow my lead. He wished, not for the first time, that he had been a braver man. But he was who he was, and he had not taken such a Serra to wife, and the wife that he did have, he valued. Another walk beneath the open sky; another life.

And he might be meeting it sooner than he would like. The hangings were pushed aside, and Valedan di'Leonne entered the courtyard.

These four hostages, Fillipo, Kyro, Mauro, and Alina, turned hard and cold as they took in his appearance. Where he had gone dressed finely, if not well, he returned in disheveled, rent clothing; blood from multiple sc.r.a.pes and light cuts showed dark against his unusually fair complexion.

To his surprise, Ser Fillipo was surprised. Too many years living in the deceptive tolerance of the Essalieya-nese court. He realized that, had he been in the Tor Leonne in a similar position, he would also have felt surprise, but for a different reason; Valedan walked, he lived. If he had been roughly handled, it was clear that he had not-yet-been humiliated.

Ser Fillipo fell at once to his knee; his companions did likewise, carrying the charade through to the end.

And because they knelt, heads bowed, eyes to the warm stones beneath their feet, they did not see the men who entered the enclosure at his back.

"Rise," Valedan said, in a completely smooth voice.

Ser Fillipo lifted his head and froze in mid-motion. And then he smiled, although the smile was a very, very strange one. "Try'agnate," he said, meeting the eyes of his brother.

"Tyran," Ramiro di'Callesta replied. "Did you think I would leave you to the Northern wolves?"

Duvari had hardly aged in sixteen years; he had softened less. It was said, among the Astari, that time itself feared even the attempt to mark the Lord of the Compact, and if it was said with grim humor, it was at least humor. Devon ATerafin, who felt the years more keenly, wondered where the Kings had found such a defender, and just what they had had to sell to gain his loyalty; he hoped it wasn't going to be too costly in the Hall of Mandaros.

The ATerafin was not a vain man; his hair was no longer the blue-black that had been the envy- and desire-of many a courtier. But his back was unbent, his shoulders straight, his arms strong. He had many years of service left in him yet-and he acknowledged, with the same grim humor, that the Astari were determined to have all of them.

Acknowledged, with a wry smile, that he intended to offer them. Service to the Crowns had been the focal point of his adult life, and he wasn't certain that he knew what life would be without it. Very few of the Astari retired in so undramatic a fashion.

Meralonne APhaniel stood by the side of Sigurne Mel-lifas. The former was tall and straight, with white hair that fell past his shoulders and down the emerald back of his cloak. He'd aged as well as Duvari, although perhaps less silently. Of all the men in this large room, he was the only one who insistently, persistently, clung to his pipe. The woman beside him did not seem to notice. Where Meralonne had aged well, she had aged into a seeming frailty of size and height. Where Meralonne was p.r.o.ne to fiery speech, she was p.r.o.ne to silence-and perhaps for that reason, when she spoke, her words were treated with gravity.

The desire, Devon knew, to protect her was strong.

And it was willfully blind. Sigurne Mellifas was no stranger to violence or darkness. Or death. The platinum medallion that hung openly around her neck on a workmanlike, solid chain bore the three faces of the moon, and quartered within the full face, the elemental symbols. Mage-born. Mage-trained.

Beside Sigurne, in quiet conversation with her, was Bardmaster Marten. She was not, to the Astari's knowledge, born to the voice, but she held the college together as effectively as her predecessor-and the woman who had chosen her-the much missed Sioban Gla.s.sen.

It will do her good, Sioban had said. She's got the head for it-and the heart; she'll keep Senniel running in good order. She's not afraid of talent, especially not when it belongs to a young student who thinks too highly of his or her own abilities.

In the five years since Sioban had retired-if traveling through the Empire with a harp, a lute, and a bedroll could be called retirement-Solran had lived up to her former master's choice. She was good. And she was not afraid to accept her limitations and make use of the men and women around her who did not possess them.

At her side stood Kallandras of Senniel. The Astari knew him well, and for the most part, they trusted him. Devon did. Duvari did not. The Lord of the Compact disliked a man with an orphan boy's forgotten, mythical past; too many mysteries held danger. But he was, of all bards, the Queen Marieyan's favorite, and he had, by dint of a skill that he cared to offer no explanation for, saved her life six years past.

Mirialyn ACormaris stood by the side of her father's vacant chair, in a silence better suited to the grave. She was pale. Her hair was pulled and bound; it gleamed in the light like a bra.s.s helm. She was girded with sword, although she wore no armor, carried no shield. Her silence was telling, even frightening. She offered no counsel, as if she realized that the events had moved beyond Avantari, and therefore beyond her certain jurisdiction.

In front of the empty thrones stood Commander Sivari and the men who were, colloquially, called the Three-mars: Verrus Andromar, Verrus Lorimar and Verrus Kiti-mar. They spoke in deadly earnest, their words pitched to carry the few feet necessary to be heard by their comrades, no more. The Commander still had the bearing of Kings' Champion, although it had been many years since he'd had the time for the excess and the vanity of taking the Kings' Challenge.

The Kings' Challenge.

It was almost upon them; the summer was high, and the travelers, from the Western Kingdoms, the free towns, and, yes, the Southern Dominion, already crowded the inns, taverns, and homes that had been opened to such trade. The magisterial guards were almost beside themselves in their attempt to ensure the safety of foreign Southern men. The streets carried the anger of the Empire, and that anger, great mindless beast that it was, was turned toward all things Southern. Even the Terrean dialects so common in the hundred holdings had fallen into disuse as people afraid of the consequences of their heritage chose, wisely, to hide it. Most of the time, it worked. There had only been four deaths to date.

He was certain there would be more. Echoes of the Southern wars. Did they ever really die, or did they return, like the tide, in their time?

What will it be, Devon thought, into a room that bustled with more power than had been gathered for such a purpose in well over a decade.

As if in answer to the unspoken question, Healer Dan-tallon crossed the chamber, carrying a basin full of clean, warm water, and several cool cloths. He looked up and his gaze chanced across Devon's inquisitive glance, his green eyes wide and unwavering in a pale face. Denying death, and even injury, with unshakable certainty.

He approached the Exalted with more grace than he had ever approached the people who had been taken to the healeries. Devon knew it well, having been one of them. But he did not approach with much more grace, if Devon were honest. The Exalted did not seem to notice the lack of offered courtesy, which said much for their opinion of the Kings' healer. But the Exalted of Cormaris looked- almost-exasperated as he was forced to sit and bear said healer's ministrations.

The Exalted of the Mother tended her own wounds with a bitter, bitter anger that was palpable in the room. It was a sight seldom seen; the anger of the Mother was a cold, dark thing, and it was rarely wakened. Devon had never seen it until now, perhaps because he had never been so close to her in the aftermath of tragedy.

And it was tragedy, for the Churches; in one afternoon they had lost the most highly placed members of their heirarchies with the exception of the Exalted themselves. The creature that had risen from the pit made of the audience chamber floors had targeted the Exalted-and their attendants-as if they were his natural enemy.

They were.

Devon sighed as the Kings entered the room. It was time now to begin in earnest. What was decided here today, was decided; there would be no backward motion.

"Tell me, Fillipo," the Tyr'agnate said. "I am here under sufferance; I am not a hostage, but even so, I am to travel among you without my Tyran." He paused. "And I am not given leave to remain. Nor is my companion." He nodded quietly at Baredan's broad back, thinking, as he did, that he had not chosen poorly. Ser Kyro di'Lorenza was speaking with the General, his large hands occasionally rising and falling as if to make a point more forcefully.

The sun was low; the lamps, such as they were, were lit. It was hot here, and the slow ebb of day allowed the heat to linger, burning what it touched. Still, these two men found a place in the shade in which they might speak a moment in privacy.

"If you are asking me," the younger man said, "to judge the value of the young Tyr'agar, I'm afraid I must disappoint."

"Oh?"

"He surprises me," Ser Fillipo replied, as if that were explanation enough. To Ramiro di'Callesta, it was. They were cut from the same cloth, these two; they understood each other well. Very little surprised them. "How do you think it will go?"

The Callestan clanleader shrugged grimly. "For now? I think the Lord will smile. I am certain that clan Callesta and clan Lamberto will not lose their kin to the Kings' chosen executioners. Nor will the boy. But beyond that? The sun is in my eyes."

"Why did you come?"

"For the boy," Ramiro replied flatly, all pretense gone. "We did not know of the events that occurred in the Tor; we left before word arrived. But we came at a hard ride when news reached us." He turned then, seeking the sky a moment before he glanced away.

Fillipo looked at his brother's profile; his brother watched the burble of fountain water at the feet of the stone child. "What do you intend, Ramiro? I will follow you," he added softly, as if it were a question of choice.

"I intended to preserve the people of Averda-and the clan that rules the Terrean." He turned his hands over and stared at the new lines that sc.r.a.pes and splintered marble had drawn there. "The General Alesso di'Marente will rule the Tor by the end of the Festival, if I am not mistaken. But he will rule it," the Tyr'agnate added, with a grim smile, "without benefit of the Sun Sword and the bloodlines."

"You said, intended."

"Yes."

"Now?"

"For now it is enough to preserve the life of a par who does not know when silence serves best."

Ser Fillipo smiled; it was the first expression he had used, in his captivity, that made him look younger.

"She wasn't a demon." Jewel ATerafin ma.s.saged her forehead; her eyes throbbed, her head ached, and her throat was still raw from the force of the few words that she shouted across the floor of the Great a.s.sembly Chamber. Across the coming chasm that she, and only one other, had seen. "I've seen the kin before. I know what they look like." Pausing, she lifted her face and met The Terafin's open gaze. "I've seen," she said softly, "kin who were in all ways human-and I knew what they were."

"Then what was she? You saw her as well as any of the rest of us. She certainly wasn't human."

"I don't know."

Alayra's brow was a single line, which happened seldom. Each of the times she'd witnessed the expression, Jewel had wished she were somewhere else. Today was not to be the exception. Turning, she met The Terafin's cool eyes and realized that there would be no rescue from that quarter. Or, she realized, as she took in Morretz's expression, Avandar's grim stare, and Torvan's quiet sympathy, from any quarter.

There were days when being seer-born was a blessing. And there were days like these. "You were surprised by her." The Terafin. "Yes. But she wasn't a threat to you, or to me-or to anyone in that hall, I'd guess, except for the creature that rose out of the pit of the floor. I-" She closed her eyes; she couldn't help it. Her lids were almost aching with a tingle that sometimes presaged illness. And sometimes, vision.

"You had time to shout a warning to The Kalakar." Captain Alayra. She could not see the old soldier's face, but her voice sounded mere inches away. "Yes."

"ATerafin, wake up't"