"A guard at the city gate told me Prince Rodek is not here, and that you hold no audiences with other nobles."
Buscan shrugged his bulky shoulders. "Uncertain times require extra precautions. When did you take up this new interest in the affairs of our state?"
"It is late," Osceline said. "Perhaps you could tell us why you've come?"
Her voice was clear and light, like notes from a flute. Chane watched the gently beating pulse in her pale throat.
Welstiel put the quill back down. "I am collecting records pertaining to my family. For the time we served the Antes, this was the place to begin, as your house currently rules the nation. If you have such, I need to see them."
"Is that all?" Buscan appeared relieved. "Oh, but I fear I can't help you in this. There are no records."
Welstiel folded his hands behind his back and beneath his cloak. The baron's answer was obviously insufficient, as he stared into Buscan's eyes.
"Any records are fewer than fifteen winters old," Buscan explained. "We tried to create a central archive to secure all documents. There was an insurrection by the Maghyar when Prince Demitri of the Serboe completed his term. A fourth of the city was razed, along with the judiciary building, and all the records inside were lost in a fire."
Chane couldn't tell if Welstiel was pleased or troubled by this news. Osceline wandered away to the polished round table below the painting.
"You are certain there is nothing left?" Welstiel asked.
The baron shook his head. "If that is all you came for, your journey has been for nothing."
Chane heard a hissing whisper, and turned his head toward the sound. Osceline was chanting, eyes fixed upon Welstiel and Buscan.
Before Chane could call out a warning, Welstiel's hand lashed out from behind his back at Buscan's chest. His hand jerked sideways, missing the baron entirely. There was a short dagger in his grip.
Buscan's teeth clenched, and his brow furrowed in anger.
He lunged for the hearth's mantel, and Chane saw a long war knife resting there in its sheath.
Chane swung out, catching a thick candle upon its stand, and slapped it toward Osceline. The wick snuffed, and the thick wax cylinder struck the side of her face. Her chanting ceased as she toppled against the wall and slid to the floor.
"Now!" Chane yelled at Welstiel.
Welstiel drove his blade through Buscan's back with enough force that the man's head struck the mantel's edge. When Welstiel jerked the blade out, Buscan stumbled back to crumple into the chair Osceline had been using. Welstiel closed on him, but the baron's eyes rolled toward his consort.
"Don't!" he cried out. "Not her… please."
Chane was already focused upon the floor beneath Osceline, and he began drawing the lines and figures in his mind to overlay what he saw. As her eyes met Buscan's gaze, she cringed in pain. Anguish marred her creamy features for an instant before they creased with hatred as she glared at Welstiel.
"No!" she shouted, and then her attention fixed on the low thrum of Chane's chant.
Through the encircled triangle Chane envisioned, he saw Osceline's eyes snap closed and her clenched fist raise before her face. She called out a single word Chane didn't catch, and her hand opened, fingers splayed wide.
Light exploded in Chane's vision, as if every candle in the room flared suddenly. Everything turned white, and the pain came too quickly for Chane to suppress. It shattered his focus and the rhythm of his incantation.
He rubbed his eyes, and slowly the dim swirling colors faded from his flash-blinded sight. Welstiel was in a similar state, but Buscan sat limp in the chair, staring up at the ceiling as he struggled to breathe.
Osceline was gone.
Welstiel shoved his blade through Buscan's chest.
The baron buckled under the blow, expelling a groan as air was forced from his lungs. Before his head dropped forward, Welstiel hurried to where Osceline had been. He thumped systematically on the wall's wooden planks. At a hollow sound, he stepped back and kicked out hard.
One plank snapped inward under his boot to reveal a space beyond it. He did not bother to look for a catch to open the hidden panel, and instead tore out the adjoining planks with his hands.
"Go after her," Welstiel said. "She must not speak to anyone!"
"And you?" Chane asked.
"I will deal with the old soldier. Kill her quickly, and join me in the courtyard."
Chane slipped into the passage. Envisioning Osceline's throat was enticing. She was aggressive and sensual. He hoped she would fight.
He stood upon the narrow landing of a dark staircase and opened his senses to smell for blood, life. There were quick footfalls coming from below. Osceline was running, and that made Chane smile. A chase was always a welcome prelude.
The passage steps emerged well below in what appeared to be a prison beneath the castle. Chane stepped out into a passage of iron cell doors. At the passage's end was another hall running left and right. He no longer smelled Osceline and stopped to listen again. All was silent, and then a metal door grated softly.
Chane ran after the echo of metal against stone as he turned left at the connecting passage. At the end of this new path was a door left ajar. He jerked it open to find a chamber with a table and chairs, perhaps a guards' room. Across it, Osceline pulled one last time upon a locked door, trying desperately to open it. She gave up and turned to face him.
Chane was surprised by her countenance. She appeared small and mundane, no longer dangerous and desirable. And tired, as if her spell had taken much from her. Chane felt a twinge of disappointment.
"You don't need to kill me," she said. "I would only do myself harm by speaking a word about who murdered Cezar. My master will be displeased enough as it is."
Chane did not break stride as he stepped toward her, and Osceline held up her hand, palm outward.
A sharp pain sliced through Chane's temples and behind his eyes. His vision swirled to black for an instant. Disoriented, he blinked. The room returned to his sight, but it was hazy. Osceline stood before the door but shimmered in waves like summer heat upon an open field.
Irrational rage rose in Chane to smother all calculated thought. He wanted her dead and no longer cared how. He lunged and grabbed her by the throat.
At first he felt nothing, as if his fingers had closed on air. Then his grip tightened on warm and pliant flesh. Chane blinked.
Osceline's throat was in his hands, her swollen tongue pressing out between paled lips and green eyes frozen wide and vacant. He felt cracked vertebrae under her skin and muscle.
Chane blinked again, and she lay dead on the floor at his feet. He stepped back, a mix of satisfaction and fury clouding his awareness.
He vaguely remembered rushing Osceline as she raised a hand toward him. He snatched her throat, bore her down, and crushed the life out of her. Yes, that was what had happened. She was dead, and he could leave. He returned to the passage doorway but stopped and looked back.
Osceline still lay near the locked side door, and Chane looked down at his own hands.
He remembered the feel of her neck breaking, but he had not bothered to taste her life as it vanished, and he couldn't understand why. Perhaps in his anger and panic to reach her before she could flash-blind him again, his instinct had taken more expedient action.
Not wishing to wander the castle in retreat, Chane backtracked to the wood-paneled room and down through the passages the old soldier had guided them along. As he emerged in the main hall to head for the front entrance, Welstiel stepped from a side corridor.
"Did you find the old guard?" Chane asked.
"Yes… and the woman?"
Chane remembered that he had clearly seen Osceline's body. "Dead… I snapped her neck… and left her below in the keep's prison."