I drag a painful breath into my chest and expel it with force: “You lie, Larongar.”
“Do I?” The mortal king pulls a face. “I do enjoy a good lie now and then. It is the mortal’s prerogative, one of the few advantages we enjoy over the fae. A gift from the gods themselves, as it were. But in this case, no. No, I speak only the absolute truth, whether or not you care to believe it.” He rests his hand firmly on the hilt of his sword, but still does not draw. “I’ve not yet summoned my guard, boy,” he says, “but they will come at my shout, and you will be cut down. However, as you’ve done me service and rid me of an unwelcome burden”—another short glance back at Artoris’s corpse—“I feel generous. Put my daughter down, and you may leave my house unharmed. You may even takethatone with you, if you like,” he adds with a dismissive wave of his hand at Lyria, who growls in her throat like an angry cat.
“I will go nowhere without Ilsevel,” I answer coldly.
Even by moonlight I can see the hot flush of anger rising in the king’s cheeks. “If there isonething I grow tired of,” he snarls, “it is other men telling me what they will do with my own daughter. She’smine, you half-breed barbarian. Her husband is dead, so the right of paternity returns to me.” He begins to draw his blade, the sharp steal glinting. “I intend to hold onto my property—”
He never finishes that sentence. The words frozen on his lips, he staggers abruptly, howling with fury, and I realize he’s just been struck by a heavy object across the side of the head. He’s too big a man to be brought down by a single blow, andbegins to round on his unseen attacker. Before he can discern the figure in the shadows, however, Lyria springs into action. A rune already formed in the air with her fingertips, she stretches out her hand and smacks her father’s forehead.
A flare of green light nearly blinds me. I turn my face away, but hear thethudof Larongar’s collapse.
When the afterglow subsides, I peer into the dark doorway where our unexpected ally lurks. It takes a moment for myibrildianeyes to make sense of the shadows, but then I see her—a woman clad in regal robes of red silk and ermine, bedecked in jewels. A crown weighs heavily upon her head, and she grips a scepter with both hands, like avaritarblade.
Her cold gaze seeks mine across the moonlit space. When she speaks, I recognize something of Ilsevel’s timbre in her tone, though she lacks the gods-gifted musicality. “Do you truly love my daughter?” she asks.
It’s the queen—Larongar’s wife. Very unlike Ilsevel in appearance, from what I can see of her in the gloom. But there is something of Ilsevel’s wild spirit in her, buried deep but not entirely gone.
“I do,” I answer, my voice strangely hushed, almost reverent in her presence.
“And she loves you?”
I look down at my wife’s pain-wreathed face, fallen back across my arm. Will she love me when she wakes? When she remembers all I have done? Is there any real hope for the two of us to makeour way through this tangled darkness?
When I look up, I meet the queen’s gaze firmly. “She does.”
The cold woman brandishes her scepter, as though she would fight me. She speaks in a half-strangled voice: “Then in the name of all the gods, get you gone from here at once!”
Lyria, who had been checking the effectiveness of her rune upon the unconscious king, springs to her feet. “By your leave, my queen,” she murmurs with a hasty curtsy. Then, whirling on heel, she lunges for me, grabs my shoulder, and tugs me along the gallery.
I cast a last look back and catch a glimpse of the queen, standing over the fallen bodies of her husband and Artoris. Her proud dignity and ferociousness withers, and she looks strangely abandoned. But there is a chilling triumph in her gaze as well. I watch her heft the scepter, considering.
Then we turn a corner, and she is beyond my sight.
Lyria takes me on a roundabout route through the castle, avoiding guards and merrymakers alike. Her deflection runes prove strong; no one seems to have discovered the bridegroom’s corpse yet. She leads us without incident out to the castle gardens, where all is very still and empty. Strains of lively dancing music lilt on the night breeze, bearing with it the laughter of all those oblivious revelers. It is a haunting sound to my ear. The spring air still carriesa trace of winter’s chill, but the flowering shrubs perfume the air so gently, one could almost forget the imminent peril surrounding us.
My guide’s footsteps are quick and sure in the darkness. I suspect she’s using witch magic to augment her eyesight, for she sees as well as anyibrildianand never stumbles. Sooner than I expect, we reach the bottom of the garden and the doorway leading into the sacred courtyard. She makes a sign above the door—another rune, I trust—and it opens silently to give us entrance.
“Hurry.” She beckons, as though expecting at any moment that we’ll be set upon.
I duck my head and carry Ilsevel under the low lintel. Immediately I feel the change in the air as we step from the mortal garden into this hallowed space. The difference is so profound, I come to an abrupt halt and simply stand there for some moments, breathing in the air, which is far more nourishing to my lungs. With each breath, I exhale a silent prayer of thanksgiving to Nornala for guiding me this far, for leading me back to Ilsevel. Now, if she will just guide us a little farther . . .
“This way,” Lyria says, breaking the moment. She motions sharply, and I follow her around the basin and the statue of the lovers to the ivy wall at the back of the yard. She sweeps back the ivy. I catch another flashing glimpse of green runes, which vanish almost immediately, leaving a faint burn behind my eyelids. “Watch your step,” Lyria cautions as she leads the way down the narrow stair.
I am obliged to adjust my grip on Ilsevel so as to keep frombashing her head against the too-close wall. I hate to jostle her, knowing full well the pain I am causing. But I haven’t any choice. Leaving behind the moonlight, I plunge into that dark descent, following the witchy woman who has become my unexpected ally.
A storm of thoughts preys on the boundaries of my mind, seeking entrance. Larongar’s voice seems to ring inside my head:“Did you not know? Your father is at the heart of it all.”
I don’t have to believe it. Larongar is an avowed liar; nothing he says should be accepted at face value. Only . . .
Only I do believe.
But I cannot let these dark thoughts overwhelm me. Not while Ilsevel’s life hangs in such precarious balance.
Pushing down all fears and horrors and locking them tight where they cannot influence me, I focus instead on the back of Lyria’s head, which even myibrildianeyes struggle to discern in this deep darkness. The uncarved stone walls seem to be closing, and I don’t know how much farther my broad frame can go.
Just when I fear I’ll have to turn back, the space before me suddenly opens up. I step out from the stairwell into a damp cavern. The music of trickling water on stone fills my ears. Moonlight pouring through crevices in the high ceiling overhead illuminates the world so brilliantly, I blink at the glare. My breath catches, and I turn slowly in awe, taking in the very cavern Ilsevel once described to me. The faces of the seven gods surround us—not carved by the hand of man, but formed naturally bythe flowing water which trickles in rivulets down the walls. The smooth plains and sharp edges are all so well defined, and yet a slight turn of the head, and they simply vanish into stone, invisible to all who doubt their presence.
“Elawynn, Goddess of Mercy,” I whisper, my breath chilled in the air before me. “Lamruil, God of Darkness.”
