He walked toward the Great Hall slowly, almost reverently. The flood of memories from that awful day, the day everything in his life changed forever, came rushing back to him in an unexpectedly powerful torrent of grief.
The royal palace, the only home he had ever known, had been ransacked and looted from one end to the other.
In truth he had expected as much, but seeing it this way for the first time was still a great shock. Virtually everything of value had been taken—presumably by the Eutracian citizens, after the Minions had left. The Minions’ mission at that time had been to destroy, not to steal. The knowledge that his own countrymen had helped destroy this place only increased his pain as he walked through the broken, shattered shell that had once been his home.
The paintings, sculptures, and other works of art, including the tapestries his mother had so lovingly created, were all gone, the hallways and rooms stripped bare. Each of the passageways and chambers he now silently crept through yawned back at him sadly in their abject emptiness. Even the castle furniture was gone.
Moonlight swept through the many open and destroyed windows, casting his shadow across the walls. He approached the Great Hall with trepidation, knowing that this room would be the most difficult to bear. Finally standing at the entranceway to the room he had so longed to see, he thought at first that his heart might burst.
Like all the others, this room was empty. The windows were all smashed, their frames dangling drunkenly off the hinges. The remnants of the once-fine lace curtains were shredded and bloodied, fluttering uselessly in the night breeze. Despite the fact that this room had been looted, some responsible citizens had apparently retained the foresight to remove the hundreds of dead bodies that had once rested here. Presumably to forestall the vermin that would carry disease to the rest of the city, he reasoned. For that much at least, he found himself thankful.
But they had not cleaned the floor of its blood. The warm, crimson waves of death had simply been left to dry, virtually covering the black-and-white checkerboard floor. Upon the walls could still be seen the Pentangle, the symbol of the Coven, painted in the blood of his countrymen.
He slowly turned to find what it was he had truly come to see, to discover for himself whether they had taken that, too. He had to admit that he did not know how he would feel if it was still there. Part of him hoped that it too would be gone, so that he would not have to look upon it. But his eyes finally found it. He walked to it slowly. Gently going down on his knees, he started to weep.
He was before the altar of the Paragon—the marble edifice upon which he had been forced to take the life of his father.
He remained that way for some time, the tears coming freely as he was taken back to that awful day. Finally he stood, looking down at the top of the altar, where the Minion warriors had held his father down. Tristan forced his hand out, as though touching the marble could grant him some small measure of peace. But when his fingertips unexpectedly found the narrow groove created when his dreggan had gone through his father’s neck, he pulled his hand back in horror, the tears coming again. The altar’s top was still covered with the dried blood of the king. Tristan knew that even if the bloodstains faded into invisibility, for him their taint would live on in this piece of marble forever.
Forgive me, Father, he cried silently. And then he left the palace, hoping to leave behind the ghosts that plagued him so.
Guiding Pilgrim along the rather dark and muddy path, he knew in his heart that he was not visiting the graves simply as a favor to his sister. He was also going for himself. Turning his palms over, he could see the scars on each of them—the results of the blood oath he had taken upon himself the last time he had come here.
He stopped Pilgrim a short distance from the grave site and tied him to a tree. Then slowly, silently he drew his dreggan and stepped into the moonlit clearing.
This place had been chosen for the royal cemetery both because of its secluded location, and the fact that it overlooked one of the finest views of Tammerland. One side ended just short of a very high cliff; the other three sides were surrounded by forest. The graves appeared to be undisturbed, and for that he was thankful. The forest surrounding the grave site rustled quietly in the wind, the only other sound the quiet, reassuring calls of the tree frogs. Both the dew and the remains of the recent rain covered the ground, shimmering in the light of the three red moons. Everything seemed peaceful, and deserted.
Then, as Tristan started toward the graves, he realized that he was not alone.
Someone was standing across the clearing, his dark robe blending into the edge of the woods to Tristan’s left. The hood of his robe was up over his head. His face bowed down and his hands clasped in front of himself, he was apparently giving homage to the dead. Heart racing, Tristan waited to see what the stranger would do. And then it hit him.
He’s a consul of the Redoubt, he realized. He must be. Who else would wear such a robe and pay his respects to these graves? But how did he know who was buried here?
The unknown consul began to sob. Tristan debated whether he should make his presence known. After all, the consuls were friends. Thinking back to Joshua’s plight, he thought that perhaps this consul had suffered the same fate of losing his entire squad to brigards—or to those so-called birds of prey. But before the prince could make up his mind, the consul started to move. Running as fast as he could, the consul headed directly across the tops of the graves and toward the edge of the cliff.
Tristan froze. The consul was committing suicide!
The prince dropped his dreggan and tore from the edge of the forest, running across the graves at a right angle to the speeding consul. But the consul had been too fast, and Tristan had to change direction to have any hope of catching him before the man went over. With a last effort of will the prince launched himself forward, tightly gripping the consul around the knees. They both landed hard upon the wet earth, skidding to a stop just feet from the edge.
Tristan immediately got up on both knees, trying to turn the consul over to speak to him and to get a better look at his face. What he got instead was a quick, unexpected fist to the side of his chin—a very hard right that nearly knocked him unconscious. The consul then tried to push the prince away with pounding fists.
Tristan’s first reaction was to raise a fist to strike back, but he stopped himself. No doubt the consul did not realize who the prince was—only that he had been suddenly attacked. If the man was truly alone, he was probably frightened to death, especially if he had lost his squad.
Lowering his fist, Tristan held the consul’s arm strongly with one hand, and pulled back the hood of the man’s robe with his other. What he saw there in the moonlight took his breath away. The person in the robe was a woman.
Tristan sat there, stunned. Not only was this person no consul, but she was the most intensely beautiful woman he had ever seen. When the Parthalonian Gallipolai named Narissa had died in his arms, he had felt sure no other woman would ever equal her raw, physical beauty. But now he knew he had been wrong. Still holding her arm, he simply sat there in the wet grass, staring.
She leveled her eyes upon his with a look that seemed to go straight through him. “You’re hurting me,” she said hesitantly. There was a great deal of fear in the dark, husky voice, and her declaration to him was more than a simple statement of fact. It was an undeniable plea to let her go.