Page 34 of Beds and Blades

“Yes,” I said.

Flavia’s smile widened.

“It was a private moment,” I added, which was a bold statement regarding something that had apparently occurred in front of half a garrison.

“Not quite.”

Flavia grinned.

Her tone suggested she would respect that privacy after asking perhaps six more questions.

Before she could begin, the mess hall door slammed open hard enough to strike the wall.

Every conversation stopped.

The room changed instantly. One second it was breakfast, soldiers, bread, low voices. The next, every person in the hall had gone still with the collective attention of people trained to understand that a door opening that way meant something had gone wrong.

A soldier stood in the doorway, breathing hard.

He had one hand braced against the frame and the other pressed to his side as if he had run too fast too soon after being wounded.

“The crypt door is open!”

The words meant nothing to me.

They meant something to everyone else.

Benches scraped backward. Someone swore. Flavia went white.

The soldier swallowed.

“There’s someone in the courtyard,” he said. “Drained.”

At first, no one moved.

Then the mess hall erupted.

***

By the time we reached the courtyard, half the garrison seemed to be moving in the same direction.

Skip was already there.

He crossed the stones toward the crypt with his sword drawn but lowered, his expression so controlled that it took me a second to recognize what was underneath it.

Calculation.

Caen arrived moments later from the direction of her tower. Her leather coat was fastened hastily, her hair pulled back but not neatly. She looked better than she had last night, which was not the same thing as recovered. The sharpness had returned to her face, but the cost of the night still clung to her. The pendant at her throat glowed faintly. A tired ember rather than a flame.

The crypt entrance was built into the courtyard, its heavy stonework older than the keep around it. I recognized the function immediately. This was a tomb.

Stone steps descended from the courtyard into the crypt, steep and narrow and worn smooth by generations of boots. They disappeared into darkness before they reached the bottom. Below, the iron-banded door hung inward, half-torn from its hinges. The oak had splintered around the lock. The iron bands were bent outward. One hinge had been ripped partly free of the stone.

Whatever had opened it had not used a key. It had driven the door inward with the force of a battering ram.

The body lay at the top of the stairwell.

He was one of the younger garrison men. He lay on his side with one hand still curled near his throat, fingers stiff around nothing.