“Oh, please hurry, boy. We can’t keep my seamstress waiting.”
She minced down the steps with feigned exasperation, Kytt in tow. Once out of direct view, she reached out and took his hand.
“Let’s go.”
They hurried down the flights until voices reached them from the lower landing. “I see no reason why this could not wait,” she heard Delia exclaim. “A drunk Hand is a matter for the guards to attend.”
“It is one of your realm’s Hands, mistress. From Chrismferry. Master Munchcryden.” Sten sighed. “Mistress Liannora thought you’d prefer to avoid any embarrassment, especially for someone serving the fieldroom.”
“How generous of her,” Delia commented.
“Plus Master Munchcryden has specifically asked for you.”
“Very well.”
Laurelle knew how protective Delia was of the Hands left in her charge. And all knew Master Munchcryden’s disposition when it came to ale. It was a perfect excuse to lure Delia away for a few moments. A reasonable request. Then she could return to address the concerns raised by Laurelle.
But Delia had not heard the plot whispered in the hall.
It is easy to trip on a stair. To break a leg…or even a neck.
“Off here, mistress. There’s a back way, a little-used stair, where we can haul Master Munchcryden back to your rooms with few eyes present to note his state.”
“Let’s be quick, then.”
“After you, Mistress Delia.”
Laurelle rushed down to the next landing, rounding in time to see Sten vanish down a side passage. Kytt touched her elbow, not to stop her, only to warn her to be careful.
She had only one weapon. Her eyes, as witness.
Surely Sten would not harm Delia if there was a chance others would find out. He would have to back down.
Laurelle left the landing and headed down the hall toward the side passage where Delia and Sten had vanished.
Words carried back to her.
“Who are these men?” Delia asked, her voice muffled by the narrowness of the cross passage. Still, Laurelle heard a sudden note of suspicion.
“My men,” Sten answered calmly. “To help carry Master Munchcryden.”
Laurelle ran faster.
“The stairs are just ahead,” Sten assured her.
Reaching the arched opening, Laurelle spotted the grouping midway down the passage, huddled at the head of a dark stair. One of Sten’s men held aloft a lamp.
Delia took the first step down.
Laurelle lifted an arm. “Mistress Delia!”
Her call rang out just as Sten shoved with both arms. Delia had begun to turn, drawn by Laurelle’s cry-or perhaps sensing something amiss.
She shouted in surprise as she tumbled headlong out of sight. A crash of body on stone echoed to Laurelle-and Delia’s cry suddenly ended.
Laurelle found all eyes staring at her.
Sten lifted an arm. Laurelle backed away, bumping into Kytt.
Shadows shifted to the right. Laurelle saw more guards, more of Sten’s men, crossing from the main stairs into the passageway, latecomers, cutting off their retreat in that direction.
Swords slid from sheaths.
Kytt pulled Laurelle in the opposite direction, away from the stairs, toward the deeper depths of Tashijan. She stumbled after him.
Behind her, she heard one last order from Sten. “Go down. Make sure her neck is broken.”
Laurelle ran. Terror could not stop the tears from welling. Kytt led the way, hand in hers, turning one corner, then another with some instinct born of fear and Grace.
Still, boots pounded after them.
“Tashijan is rotted,” Lord Ulf said. “To the very stones of its foundation. From root to rooftop.”
Kathryn shook her head. Though the fire was at her back, the room had gone colder than the darkest crypt.
“Mirra has weeded seeds throughout your towers,” Ulf stated firmly. “And she is not the first. What you discovered below is but the first sprouts of a greater evil. It winds throughout Tashijan, deep into the past. And if left unchecked, far into the future, where our world will lie in ruins, trod by monsters a thousandfold worse than any carried by my winds.”
Kathryn held up a hand. “But now we know about Mirra’s treachery. We can stop her.”
The figure of ice sculpted its face into a mask of distaste and irritation. “Too late, castellan, too late by far. It is rooted too deeply. Like the seersong in the Wyr-mistress. It can’t be untangled, not without even worse ruin and damnation. Even you have been seeded.”
“Me?”
“With distrust. With impotency. You cannot even stop Warden Fields. He remains a puppet to the witch below, dancing to the pulls of her strings.”
“We can cut those strings.”
“And more will rise to tangle and knot harder. Do you think the Fiery Cross is a creation of the warden? It was birthed by distrust, dissension, suspicion. So thoroughly has Mirra wrought her discord that trust will never return to Tashijan.”
Kathryn remembered her attempt to restore trust between Argent and Tylar. Both sides had equally failed. Even she had whisked Tylar away without consulting the warden.
Distrust, dissension, suspicion.
Lord Ulf must have read her understanding. “There is no way to weed this patch. Best to burn it and salt the ground. Start anew. I’ve brought my forces far, at great cost and risk. Let us use the strength granted by the Cabal to set a cleansing fire here.”
“And do the Cabal’s bidding in this regard, too. Like killing Tylar.” Hardness entered her voice.
“While it might serve the Cabal, it benefits us even more. We must look past the present and take a long view ahead. Even if Mirra could be chased from your cellars, the Fiery Cross will achieve ascendancy. A new Order of Shadowknights will emerge under a new banner. Argent ser Fields intends dominion for this new Order-to place the knights above all else, even the gods. Such an act will open the way not only for the Cabal, but much worse. Myrillia will fall into chaos, return to the time of bloodshed and raving. In this one moment, we have a chance to change that course.”
“By destroying Tashijan?”
“To make it even stronger. The steel of a sword is made harder by fire and hammer. It is time for Tashijan to be forged anew.”
Kathryn could not deny that at moments of despair such thoughts had passed through her own mind. Tashijan was ravaged and weakened. The number of knights and masters had dwindled over the past centuries. And now as a new War of the Gods was upon them, Tashijan created more chaos, rather than less. Its own warden had employed Dark Grace. The Fiery Cross was a banner for the cruel and craven, whether it was men who beat horses or boys who sought to brand girls. And fewer and fewer voices spoke against this tide. There was no stopping it.
She stared into the icy eyes of Lord Ulf, aglow with Grace. She read no madness. Only truth. A hard truth. Did she have such hardness to match? Could she walk a path as ruthless as the one Lord Ulf proposed?
“You know I am right,” Lord Ulf said.
Kathryn bowed her head. “Your claims are indeed just, but before I agree or disagree, I still don’t understand what role you need from me. I’ve witnessed the power in your storm. Of what use am I to you?”
“You must protect the heart of Tashijan.”
She glanced up at him.
“As I open the cellars and lay waste to all, you must gather those you most trust. In secret, you must leave Tashijan. I will open a path through the storm for your exodus. Head away. And don’t look back.”
Kathryn shivered.
“Will you do this?”
She took a deep breath. She pondered the truth in all that was spoken here. As hard as his words were, they were sound of mind.
But not of heart.
As Lord Ulf wanted to lay waste to Tashijan, so had he sought Tylar with equal fervor. And while she might not know the true heart of Tashijan-whether it was salvageable or not-she knew Tylar’s heart. She had doubted him once, a lifetime ago, even spoken against him-but no longer. Fires of grief and bloodshed had already forged her anew, made her stronger in many ways. Also more certain.