I
t wasn’t until Aleesha reported to her mistress that Emilie wasn’t anywhere to be found that Luciena really started to worry. Nor was she entirely certain that “nowhere to be found” was an accurate statement. Krakandar Palace was a huge place riddled with hidden nooks and crannies a tenyear-old might hide in, not to mention the labyrinthine slaveways which it would take days to search, if they were really serious about it.
No, Emilie had found entertainment somewhere else in the palace and had given Aleesha the slip long enough to find it. It was up to the adults to find Emilie, because until she was ready, she probably didn’t want to be found.
“Did she say anything to you before she left the nursery?” Luciena demanded of her slave.
“Not a word, my lady. Not really.”
“What exactly does
not really
mean?”
“Well, she was talking about a promise her father made to take her riding later today … I don’t know … maybe she went looking for him?”
“Didn’t
you
check?”
“Your husband is with Lord Damaran, my lady,” the slave replied. “I’m not about to knock on his door. Besides, I didn’t think she’d go …”
Luciena cursed under her breath, not waiting to hear the rest of Aleesha’s explanation. She hurried out of the nursery, across the foyer and along the broad east wing corridor where Mahkas’s office was located. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the door when she reached it, and then opened it cautiously, dreading what she might find inside. If Mahkas was feeling fractious and didn’t want to be disturbed, who knew how he’d react to this unwelcome interruption.
“Luciena!” Xanda was alone in the study, working on the accounts by the look of it. He looked up in surprise when the door opened. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for Emilie. She’s been missing for nearly two hours from the nursery. Aleesha thought she might have come looking for you. Have you seen her?”
He shook his head, apparently unconcerned. “Not for a while. I promised her we’d go riding as soon as I was finished here and she said she’d wait for me. I assumed she meant in the nursery.”
“Never assume anything with that girl,” Luciena warned in exasperation. “I’ll bet you anything you care to name that she’s
waiting
for you down in the stables, hoping she doesn’t get caught.”
He smiled. “Well, I’m nearly done here. Did you want me to go and find her?”
“I’ll come with you. We need to have a talk to that girl about the meaning of the rule
no roaming around the palace unaccompanied.”
Xanda closed the ledger he’d been reading and rose to his feet. “I can’t say I blame her, though. This palace is wonderful for a child. Or at least it used to be.”
Luciena frowned. “Ah yes, the good old days. I remember some of those wonderful things you and your cousins got up to as children. Wasn’t sneaking out onto a second-storey roof and drinking yourselves into oblivion with a stolen wineskin one of your favourite pastimes?”
“You make it sound so unromantic, Luciena.”
“I recall it being perilously dangerous. You haven’t been filling Emilie’s head with your wild childhood reminiscences, I hope?”
“Gods no!” Xanda exclaimed in alarm. “I don’t want my child doing even half the things I got up to as a boy.”
“I’m very relieved to hear it. You don’t think they would have let her go riding on her own, do you?”
“Unless she’s bullied one of the stable boys into saddling a horse for her, I doubt it. I don’t think she’s tall enough to saddle a Raider’s mount on her own.”
“Let’s just go down to the stables and find out for certain,” Luciena suggested, a little impatiently. Xanda’s words had left her feeling even more nervous. Emilie wouldn’t think twice before trying to bully a stable boy.
Xanda followed Luciena’s impatient steps through the palace and out through the solar into the garden that led down to the corrals. When they arrived at the stables, the warm summer air was buzzing with the sound of flies and thick with the smell of horse manure but there was no sign of Emilie, which relieved Luciena no end. If her daughter had found mischief to get into, obviously she’d found it elsewhere.
“Jendar, have you seen my daughter this morning?” Xanda asked one of the stable boys mucking out an empty stall near the entrance.
The lad stopped his shovelling long enough to point in the direction of the yards. “She’s with Lord Damaran, sir. Down in the round yard, I think.”
“Lord
Damaran
?” Luciena exclaimed in alarm. “What’s she doing with him?”
The young slave shrugged, the goings-on among the highborn obviously something he cared little about. “She was hanging around here for a while, getting underfoot, when Lord Damaran came down to check on Brehn’s Pride. She got to talking with him about you taking her out this afternoon, my lord, so he saddled the bad-tempered brute and took her down to the round yard for a ride.”
“Who are you calling a bad-tempered brute?” she asked distractedly, looking around for Emilie.
“That stallion of his, Brehn’s Pride,” the slave replied, shaking his head. “Mean-spirited thing it is. Even Lord Damaran can’t control him half the time.”
“And he took my daughter riding on this beast?”
“Hang on a minute!” Xanda said, grabbing her arm before she could storm off in the direction of the round yard.
She shook free of him impatiently. “
Xanda
! That maniac has my daughter! And he’s put her on a damned stallion! Even if it wasn’t this brute his slaves claim, she’s barely mastered her pony …”
“If they’re in the round yard, she’s not likely to hurt herself. Mahkas wouldn’t let her come to any harm …”
“Ah, yes!” she agreed. “The great Mahkas Damaran! The well-known Regent of Krakandar, renowned throughout the land for
not
hurting people!”
Xanda glanced around at the slaves who’d stopped working to watch this interesting altercation between two of their ruling family. He took Luciena’s arm and led her out of the stables, and out of earshot—provided they didn’t shout—of their audience.
“Calm down, Luciena.”
“Calm
down
?” she hissed furiously. “How can you tell me to calm down? He’s got Emilie …”
“And I will go and get her,” he promised. “Let me handle this. You’ll just make things worse.”
“Xanda, have you forgotten Leila already?”
“Of course not! But this isn’t the same thing. However twisted, Mahkas had a reason for what he did to Leila …”
“By the gods, Xanda! You’re
defending
him again!”
“I’m doing nothing of the kind. Now please, Luci, let me deal with this.”
Luciena wanted to scream at him.
Don’t you understand!
This place was dangerous and her children were in the most danger of all. They were living under the roof of a madman, at the mercy of his fickle moods, and her husband, the father of those same children, seemed reluctant to do anything to protect them.
She searched his face, wondering why he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—see what was so clear to her. “The biggest mistake I ever made was agreeing to stay here when Damin left the city. I should have got out—with my children—while I still had the chance.”
Xanda sighed wearily, as if he was tired of hearing her complain about it. “I’m doing what I can, Luci. More than you realise. But it’s important … no, it’s
critical …
that you do nothing to upset my uncle at the moment. Chief among the things
likely
to set him off, incidentally, is you marching down to the round yard to deliver a scathingly indignant lecture on his total lack of common sense and responsibility.”
She scorned his excuses, sick of his insistence that doing nothing equated with doing something. “You’re not doing a damned thing to help us, Xanda, except defending that monster at every turn.”
“Luci, trust me on this,” he pleaded, lowering his voice. “I can’t tell you why, certainly not standing here in the stables, but I’m doing far more than you realise to get you and our children out of danger.
Please
don’t jeopardise my efforts for the sake of a silly argument.”
Luciena’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What are you talking about?”
Xanda hesitated for a moment, glancing over his shoulder before he replied. “If I promise to tell you later, will you promise to turn around, go back to the palace, and let me fetch Emilie?”
Luciena debated the issue silently, not at all happy about the idea, but conceding, however reluctantly, that Xanda was making sense. “You’ll bring her straight back?”
“I’ll be back before you can say
Xanda
,
where the hell have you been?
I promise.”
“And you’ll tell me what’s really going on?”
“I swear.”
Luciena nodded grudgingly. “You have to say something to him, Xanda. We can’t have him taking Emilie riding every time he’s feeling—”
“Go, Luci! I said I’d deal with it.”
With a great deal of reluctance, Luciena did as her husband asked. She turned her back on the stables, the flies, and the rank smell of the manure and made her way back to the palace, trying to imagine what plans Xanda might have up his sleeve. It disturbed her to think he was plotting against Mahkas without telling her about it, almost as much as the idea that others might be plotting with him.
Luciena had no problem overthrowing Mahkas Damaran. But if she was going to be tainted by a plot and possibly condemned by it if it failed—which, if her husband was a key player, was unavoidable—if she was going to risk her children, she wanted to know the details.
“Y
ou’re still alive, I see.”
Kalan Hawksword stared down at the figure lying on the bed, without compassion. Galon Miar looked around the room, blinking owlishly, as if his eyes were having trouble focusing.
“Lady
Kalan …
um … where am I?”
“In my mother’s bed,” Kalan informed him coldly. “This is her room, in case you’re wondering, but then, you probably wouldn’t recognise it, I suppose. I don’t believe you’ve seen it in daylight.”
He grimaced at her tone. “You’re mad at me about something, aren’t you?”
“You really are very good at reading people. Do they teach you that in assassin school?”
“Apparently they don’t teach manners in sorcerer school,” he retorted. “What happened to me? And why can’t I feel anything below my waist?”
Kalan smiled nastily. “After the guards ran you through and then knocked you unconscious when they found you trying to rape my mother, I gave you something for the pain. They tell me it’s quite agonising when you castrate someone.”
Galon was silent while her words sank in and then, with a panicked cry, he threw the covers back to check the damage for himself. There was a bandage around his chest, but he was wearing nothing else.
Hastily he covered himself again, and glared at her. Kalan burst out laughing.
“That was cruel, Kalan,” her mother scolded, entering the room with a slave behind her carrying a tray.
“But you should have seen the look on his face, Mother. It was priceless.”
The assassin looked up at the princess, not in the least bit amused. “Your daughter is
sick
, your highness.”
“And yet we feed her anyway,” Marla replied. “How are you feeling?”
“Like my head’s been cleaved in two and some bastard stabbed me in the back. How bad is it?”
“Better than you deserve,” Kalan informed him. “But you were lucky. You weren’t actually run through. The guard who stabbed you hit a rib and the blade slid off your left side, so it’s really only a flesh wound, albeit a rather long and impressive one.”
Galon turned to her mother with a frown. “You need to do something about your guards.”
“I’m not going to chastise them for trying to protect me, Galon.”
“I wasn’t going to suggest you do, your highness. But if they seriously thought I was raping you, they should have killed me, not left me with a flesh wound. And for that matter, running a sword into me when I was on top of you was insanely dangerous. If my rib hadn’t deflected it, the blade might have gone right through me and into you, as well.”
“You? On top of my mother?” Kalan remarked. “There’s an image I could have done without.” Having the guards burst into a room in response to the sounds of a struggle, only to find her mother in the grip of unbridled passion with a lover—one who had actually sneaked in through her bedroom window—was a little more than Kalan was ready to deal with at the moment.
It was almost as bad
, she mused,
as when I thought Wrayan and Mother were more than just good friends
.
Frowning, Kalan watched her mother chatting affably with Galon Miar as the slave placed the breakfast tray on the bed. She knew Marla was probably already looking for another husband, but after sixteen years of Ruxton Tirstone, who was pleasant and unobtrusive, Kalan wasn’t sure she was prepared to welcome a man like Galon Miar into the family. In her mind, ideally, Marla’s next husband should be someone very old and preferably bedridden; someone willing to let her mother control his political power and his wealth and not actually make any demands on Marla or her family. Galon Miar was far too full of life (and obviously lust) for Kalan’s comfort.
“Will you be needing me any further this morning, Mother?” she asked. Kalan had her own part to play in their complex plan to bring Alija down and she was anxious to get on with it.
“No, thank you, Kalan,” her mother replied. “Once the draught has worn off, I’m sure Galon will be able to find his way home without any further assistance.”
“See that you
do
go home,” Kalan advised the assassin, then turned on her heel and stalked out of the room, leaving her mother alone with him. She’d barely closed the door, however, before her mother followed her into the hall.
“Kalan!”
She impatiently turned and looked at her mother. “What?”
Marla closed the bedroom door before she answered. “That last remark was uncalled for.”
“I’m sorry. Did I hurt your precious lover’s feelings?”
“Galon Miar is not my lover.”
“Then why is he still breathing, Mother?”
Marla sighed. “The situation is complicated, Kalan.”
“
Bizarre
is the word
I
was leaning towards.”
“Galon Miar is in a position to do me a very useful service.”
“So is any
court’esa
worth the price of his collar.”
“I wasn’t referring to that kind of service,” her mother explained patiently, walking toward her. “There are other things afoot, things you don’t know about. Even more delicate than this business with Alija …”
Kalan took a step back. She wasn’t in the mood to hug and make up. “You don’t have to justify yourself to me, Mother. I don’t really care who you sleep with. I just think you should be a little more cautious, that’s all. You don’t know anything about that man.”
“Wrayan says he can be trusted.”
“Wrayan said Galon Miar can probably be trusted not to betray us to the Patriots. That’s not the same thing as trusting the man in your bed.”
Marla sighed. “I didn’t invite him in, you know.”
“You seem to have a rather unconventional method of throwing him out.”
“It’s not what you think. He does it to rattle me, that’s all.”
Kalan was unconvinced. “Don’t try and fool yourself, Mother. I was watching him the other night when he was here. He never takes his eyes off you. I swear he counts your heartbeats. Are you in love with him?”
“The only man I have ever truly loved was your father, Kalan.”
“Didn’t you love Damin’s father, too?”
She shook her head. “I respected him. Liked him, even. But I never loved him. Love isn’t required to produce an heir to the throne, you know, just the willingness of both parties to do what’s required of them.”
Kalan was so much luckier than her mother, she often thought. “I should thank you more often, you know, for letting me find a way to escape your fate.”
“Speaking of which,” her mother remarked, eyeing the itchy black robes Kalan was wearing. “Given your formal attire, I gather you’re on your way to the Sorcerers’ Palace?”
Kalan nodded. “I’m going to visit Bruno. He’s a traditionalist. Or he doesn’t recognise me if I’m not wearing my robes. I’ve never been really able to work out which it was, actually. Whatever the reason, we need Bruno Sanval on our side. He’ll have to be ready to step up and take over when Alija’s gone. And it will be up to him to appoint a new Lower Arrion, as well, and that’s a decision we need to have some control over. There are more peripheral consequences to this plot than you realise, Mother.”
“You sound as if you enjoy the politics of it all.”
“What can I say?” She shrugged. “I am my mother’s daughter.”
Marla had no answer for that. “Be careful.”
Kalan stared at her, a little offended by the warning. “There’s an assassin in your bed, Mother, and you’re telling
me
to be careful?”
“The irony is not lost on me, darling.”
“Well, I’ll promise to be careful, if you promise me you’ll do the same.”
Her mother seemed satisfied with that. “A fair exchange.”
“Then be careful, Mother.”
“I’m always careful, Kalan, that’s why we’re all still here.”
The Chief Librarian of the Sorcerers’ Collective library was a man named Dikorian Frye. At first glance, he seemed an odd choice for librarian. He was a big, muscular man who seemed more at home with physical labour than the intellectual pursuits of a scholar. But he was a cheerful soul and Kalan had always got along with him. He was also the only person in the Sorcerers’ Collective likely to know the whereabouts of the Lower Arrion, Bruno Sanval.
“Kalan Hawksword!” the big librarian exclaimed when he saw her enter through the large carved doors of the labyrinthine library. “I thought you were lost in the north of Pentamor somewhere, hiding from the plague!”
“I was in Krakandar, actually. I got back a few weeks ago,” she told him, standing on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I’m glad to see you survived the troubles, Dikorian.”
“Only because no self-respecting rat would be seen down here in the bowels of the Sorcerers’ Collective,” he chuckled. “What are you doing here, anyway? Didn’t I hear you swear at your graduation that you weren’t planning to open another book until you turned thirty? Or was it young Rorin who said that? Might have been him. He never was one for studying, much.”
“It was probably Rory,” she agreed with a laugh. “And it’s an oath I can vouch that he’s keeping religiously.”
“Then what can I do for you, my dear?”
“I was looking for the Lower Arrion. Is he down here?”
“When
isn’t
he down here?” Dikorian asked. “You’ll find him in the Harshini archives. Down one level, third door on the left.”
“Thanks.”
“Come see me before you go!” he called after her.
“I will,” she promised over her shoulder as she headed down the stairs that would take her into the lower levels of the vast Greenharbour library.
When Kalan first came to the Sorcerers’ Collective as an eleven-year-old, she’d expected the lower levels of the library to be a dank, dark place, lit by flickering torches, cluttered with several thousand years of accumulated dust, rotting books and fragile scrolls. To her surprise, it was quite the opposite. There was no dust to speak of, and certainly no damp. The information stored here was far too precious to allow it to be consumed by mould. To reduce the risk of fire, the passageways were well lit with glass-shielded oil lamps designed to discourage people bringing candles or torches down there; the corridors were wide and the small rooms that led off them clearly marked with their particular area of interest.
It was clean and well ventilated and never allowed to degenerate. The Harshini would come back someday, the Sorcerers’ Collective believed. When they returned, they would find their library just as they’d left it.
The room where the Lower Arrion was ensconced had a small brass plaque attached to the wall by the door, which announced
Harshini
:
Xaphista to Sisters of the Blade
. Kalan wasn’t surprised to find him here. Bruno’s obsession was to discover the location of Sanctuary (or even confirm that it really existed) and if he had to read every single word in the archives to find it, then he was quite prepared to do it.
She knocked on the door and then opened it. The old man was hunched over an ancient scroll, examining the faded text with a small magnifying glass.
“Bruno?”
“Hmmm?” he replied without looking up.
“It’s me. Kalan Hawksword.”
He spared her a brief glance and went back to examining his scroll. “Thought you died in the plague.”
“It would seem not.”
“Pass me that.”
“What?” she asked, looking around.
“That!” he told her impatiently, waving in the general direction of the end of the long table near where she stood. Kalan looked around and guessed he meant the small open notebook beside the inkwell. She picked it up and walked the length of the long bench to hand it to him.
He accepted it without looking up and began flicking through the pages until he found what he was looking for. Brushing his long white hair out of his face, he laid the notebook down next to the scroll and began moving the magnifying glass from one to the other, comparing the text of the scroll and the notebook, making strange little noises that sounded as if he’d discovered something momentous.
“Have you found it?” She wasn’t asking out of idle curiosity. Her whole plan hinged on Bruno
not
having reached his life’s goal to find the hidden Harshini settlement.
He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “The writings of Balankanan the Minstrel clearly refer to his intention to stay for some time in a place north of a small human village in the Sanctuary Mountains named Hayden, while he mastered the remaining Songs of Gimlorie, and he uses the word
sanctuary
on a number of occasions, but not in the titular context. Paranasien, some two hundred years later, however, says the Harshini who came to his aid took him back to …” he referred to his notes, “ …
a white fortress of inestimable beauty hidden high in the mountains …
which was much farther north, according to his diaries.”