“She… she won’t be harmed.”
But Anne heard the lie in his voice.
Taking a deep breath, she snapped her head back and felt it crush into the man’s face. He yelped, and Anne flung herself from the mare.
She landed badly, and pain coursed up her leg, which already was aching from an unhealed arrow wound. Gasping, she struggled to her feet and tried to get her bearings. She made out their trail and began hobbling back along it, shouting.
“Cazio! Sir Neil! Help me!”
She glanced back over her shoulder, almost feeling him there…
… but saw no one, only the horse. Why would he be hiding?
She quickened her pace, but the pain nearly paralyzed her. She went down on one knee, then doggedly fought her way back up.
Something moved in front of her, but she couldn’t see just what. It was like a brief shadow across water.
“Help!” she shouted again.
A palm snapped against the side of her head then, and as she fell, she saw a snowy blur. Then her arm was twisted hard behind her, and she was being forced back toward the horse. She gasped, wondering where Ernald had come from. Behind her? But she had looked for him.
Wherever he had gone, he was here now.
“Do not try that again, Princess,” he said. “I have no desire to hurt you, but I will do it if I must.”
“Let me go,” Anne demanded.
The knife was suddenly pricking into her neck again.
“Mount back up.”
“Not until you promise not to kill Austra.”
“I told you, she won’t be harmed.”
“Yes, but you were lying.”
“Mount, or I’ll cut your ear off.”
“My leg is hurt. You’ll have to lift me up.”
He laughed harshly. The knife came away, and he grasped her suddenly by the waist and threw her over the saddle, then pushed her injured leg over. She screamed, and bright speckles gyred before her eyes. By the time she could think again, he was sitting behind her, the knife again at her throat.
“I see now that being nice will get me nowhere,” he said, kicking the horse into motion.
Anne gasped for breath. It felt as if the pain had broken something loose in her, and the entire world was rushing up like a whirlwind or a hurricane from the sea. She shivered and felt the hairs on her neck stand on end.
“Let me go,” she said, her heart thundering in her chest. “Let me go.”
“Hush.”
“Let me go.”
This time he cuffed her with the hilt of the knife.
“Let me go!”
The words ripped out of her, and the man screamed.
Anne felt the knife in her hand suddenly, gripped in white knuckles, and with terrible desperation she drove it into his throat. In the same instant she felt a strange pain in her own throat and the sensation of something sliding under her tongue. She saw his eyes go wide and black and in those dark mirrors there was the image of a demon coming up from beneath.
Screaming, she wrenched the knife through his windpipe, noticing even as she did so that her hands were empty, that it wasn’t she who was holding the knife at all. And she understood just enough to flee, to run into the gaping darkness where her rage came from, to close her eyes and stop her ears to his gurgling…
The light dimmed, and she found herself back in her chair, facing the other man, the one who had been trying to rape her. The demon was there, stooping over him just as she had come down upon Ernald.
“Oh, no,” she murmured, staring up into the terrible face. “Oh, saints, no.”
She woke on a small mattress, unbound, with her clothes returned to a reasonable state of propriety. Her head throbbed, and she recognized the beginnings of a hangover.
Her captor sat on the floor a few kingsyards away, weeping quietly. Of the demon there was no sign.
Anne started to rise, but a sudden wave of nausea forced her back down. That wasn’t enough, however, and she had to struggle to her hands and knees to vomit.
“I’ll get you some water,” she heard the man say.
“No,” she growled. “I won’t drink anything else you give me.”
“As you wish, Your Highness.”
She felt the surprise dimly through her sickness and confusion.
“I’m sorry,” he added, and began crying again.
Anne groaned. She was missing time again. The demon hadn’t killed this man as it had killed Ernald, but it had done something.
“Listen to me,” she said. “What’s your name?”
He looked confused.
“Your name?”
“Wist,” he murmured. “Wist. They call me Wist.”
“You saw her, didn’t you, Wist? She was here?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“What did she look like?”
His eyes tried to bug from his head, and he gasped, clutching at his chest.
“I can’t remember,” he said. “It was the worst thing I ever saw. I can’t—I can’t see that again.”
“Did she untie me?”
“No, I did.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m supposed to,” he whimpered. “I’m supposed to help you.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“She didn’t say anything,” he said. “Not that I can remember. That is, there were words, but I couldn’t make them out, except that they hurt, and they still hurt unless I do what I’m supposed to do.”
“And what else are you supposed to do?” she asked suspiciously.
“Help you,” he said again.
“Help me what?”
He raised his hands helplessly. “Whatever you want.”
“Really,” she said. “Give me your knife, then.”
He clambered to his feet and presented her the weapon, hilt first. She reached for it, expecting him to withdraw it, but instead she grasped the smooth wooden handle.
She gagged, bent double, and began to vomit again.
When she was done, her head hurt as if struck from the inside by a hammer. Her chest felt ripped in two, and her vision was blurry. Her erstwhile captor was still whimpering before her, holding out the knife.
She arranged her clothes again and stood, finding the pain in her leg only slightly dulled.
“I’ll take that water now,” she said.
He brought her water and bread, and she had a bit of both. After that she felt better, calmer.
“Wist, where are we?” she asked.
“In the cellar of the beer hall,” he said.
“In Sevoyne?”
“Yes, in Sevoyne.”
“And who knows I’m here?”
“Myself and the captain of the guard. No one else.”
“But others are coming, and they will know where to find us,” she pushed on.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“Yes, Majesty,” she corrected gently. That simple act helped her find her center.
“Yes, Majesty.”
“There. And who is coming?”
“Penby and his lot were supposed to waylay you in the woods. They should be back by now, but I don’t—I don’t know where they are. Did you kill them?”
“Yes,” she lied. One of them is dead, at least. “Is anyone else meeting them here?”
He cowered a bit more. “I shouldn’t.”
“Answer me.”
“Someone is supposed to meet them, yes. I don’t know a name.”
“When?”
“Soon. I don’t know, but soon. Penby said by this afternoon.”
“Well, then we had better go now,” Anne said, picking up the knife.
His features contorted. “I… Yes. I’m supposed to do that.”
Anne looked him in the eye as hard as she could. She didn’t understand what was going on here. Was the demon, terrible as she was, an ally? Certainly she had killed one of Anne’s enemies and seemed to have… done something to this one. But if whatever had followed her back from the land of the dead was friendly, why did she fear it so?
And there was still the possibility that this was some sort of a trick Wist was playing on her, though she couldn’t see the point of such a ruse.