"No?"
"No, sir.” Nightfall could not compromise. Though he could unlock the bonds once placed, the magic had become too insistent for more delays.
Volkmier did not relent. "I didn’t ask a question, Sudian. Do as you’re told."
"I’m trying to." Nightfall fixed the most earnest stare he could muster on Captain Volkmier, then quoted him nearly verbatim. "I was told to protect my master, and I’m bound to his service. I won’t leave him unguarded with men I don’t trust. I won’t leave him unprotected.”
"Your charge is with his father. No danger there.”
Nightfall tensed to rise, goaded to thoughtless action by the oath-bond.
The spear reared back. "Don’t test my aim. I’ve slain zigzagging rabbits smaller than your head."
"No choice." Time constraints made Nightfall’s sentences incomplete. “Kill me if must. Rather die than forsake master." Nightfall sprang to his feet and raced for the exit in a straight line Volkmier could not miss. Without so much as a backward glance, he charged into the courtyard, tensed for a stab through the back that never came. Nor did he hear a clatter to indicate the weapon had been misthrown. Nightfall knew a sudden camaraderie that both, it seemed, could understand. "Look to your own charge," he shouted as he ran. "The king may face the same danger."
Apparently not fully trusting the man he had just released, Volkmier shouted to his men. "Prisoner in the courtyard. Those on duty, man the walls and gates. The rest, inside to the North Tower chapel!"
Volkmier’s command was obviously intended to police Nightfall’s claims and keep him from escaping from the castle grounds. Since he had no intention of doing so, their position posed no threat. It would take time for the guardsmen to enter the door, head north, and clamber to the North Tower, a delay Nightfall dared not spare. He rushed north, praying to the Father the North Tower had been appropriately named. As Alyndar’s guard force rushed alternately to the periphery or the castle entry, Nightfall made a beeline for the northernmost tower.
Daylight turned the stonework into a glaze that revealed no hand or toeholds aside from sundry windows on every level, the ones on the lowest three shuttered and barred. Nightfall vaulted for the first, landing lightly on its ledge. From there, he dropped his weight as low as the wind would allow, shinnying as quickly as a menaced spider, trusting momentum and his featherweight to serve where the craft of the artisans foiled him. Each upward glance brought sunlight glaring into his eyes, the aftermath a bland sequence of lines and spots on the stonework that made grips even harder to find.
Glass paned the fourth and fifth floor windows, apparently to thwart insects. Nightfall doubted any man, himself included, could battle past the courtyard guards and scale the walls without noticeable equipment. Desperation goaded him up walls that had begun to seem glass-smooth and achingly hot from the sun. By the sixth floor, he realized he had lost a boot, and his fingers bled from the minuscule irregularities they groped to clasp repeatedly. Every leg or arm muscle ached, and the stone had abraded his cheek. His nose still throbbed from the fall, and his head pounded. Yet, these pains seemed a blessing. As he approached Prince Edward, the oath-bond had returned nearly to its nagging baseline. He drew some hope from the realization that the sixth floor windows sported no glass, shutters, or bars, just lacy curtains that flapped and spiraled in the wind. Heart pounding, Nightfall dropped his other boot and scooted upward.
The purple curtains on the seventh floor windows matched those on the sixth. Using their fluttering pattern as cover, he peeked into a massive chamber that surely accounted for the entirety of the level. He perched high over a dais that supported a glass case of books, the gold-inlaid box that held Leyne’s body, three hammer-and-fist banners of Alyndar, and a colossal candelabra holding eight burning, purple candles. Prince Edward slumped on the steps leading to the dais, Chancellor Gilleran in front of him, animatedly waving his arms.
I ’m too late. Nightfall’s heart seemed to stop, and pain fluttered through his chest. But the oath-bond remained at its lower level. Apparently, Edward lived. A moment later, a sigh shuddered through his body indicating consciousness as well. Both men wore tailored costumes, as richly dressed as nobility in court. Nightfall assessed the remainder of the room from habit. Wall sconces held lanterns, illuminating the central as well as the outer aisles between lengthy rows of pews. At the far end of the middle aisle, an iron-studded door stood closed.
Nightfall lowered himself through the window, scrambling down the wall to the floor, briefly losing track of his charge in the moments it took to climb. Those few instants cost him surprise.
Edward called out to him softly. "Nightfall."
Nightfall whirled at the address, realizing his mistake as he did so. In his nearly three decades of terrorizing the continent, he had never once crossed personae. Now, he had allowed emotion to steal his composure. He had fallen prey to the oldest and easiest trick in the world.
"Father take me, it’s true." Edward’s voice became an anguished sob, and he crumpled to the steps. "I believed in you. I dared to think someone believed in me. It was all a vicious lie."
Standing over the despondent prince, Gilleran smiled his triumph.
The rising prickles of the oath-bond were Nightfall’s first warning that his hatred had again intensified to thoughts of murder. Whether the news, so close on the heels of Leyne’s death, had overwhelmed Edward by itself or only with some magical assistance from the sorcerer, he did not know or care. He had only two options: win back the prince’s trust and turn him against the chancellor he had known since childhood or battle alone against an enemy he could not harm without destroying himself.
Chancellor Gilleran made the choice for him. "Just in time for the finale." He recited harsh syllables with a gesture that had become familiar, attention on Edward.
Edward lay, curled on the steps, weeping with the same world-oblivious grief he had displayed for his brother. It was a touching, heart-rending tribute, lost on its recipient who had eyes only for Gilleran.
The ice spell. Desperation drove Nightfall into a wild charge, thoughts deliberately focused only on defense. He could not clear the distance to physically disrupt the magic in time. The Magebane’s stone. Nightfall fumbled it free as he ran, shouting to draw what little regard he could seize from Edward’s unreasoning anguish. "Look!" The stone glowed red in his fist, and he turned his concentration to the death spell Gilleran had wrested from Ritworth.
Gilleran waved his hand toward Edward. An angry, blue light blazed from the stone, arching like lightning toward the magical energy. The forces met in silence, but a brilliant explosion of light slashed Nightfall’s vision, flinging sparks in a multicolored rain.
Gilleran retreated with a startled gasp.
Nightfall cleared the distance between then, speaking to Edward without bothering to see if the prince was watching. “See? I had the power to escape the bond at any time. I did believe in you. I chose to stay in your service!" It was a necessary lie. Until he roused Edward, he could accomplish nothing but delay.
"Murdering liar! Demon!" Gilleran undermined whatever confidence Nightfall had reclaimed. His gaze fixed on the stone, now cold and lifeless in Nightfall’s fist; and the icy corpse’s grin returned. "You have no power at all, over it or over me." He lurched toward Nightfall.
Hatred boiled within Nightfall, and he closed before he could think to do otherwise. The oath-bond caught him a blow he could not fend, an abrupt agony that shocked through his body. "No!" he screamed. ‘°Master, run. Save yourself." Before he could regain control of his limbs, Gilleran hammered a fist into his face that sprawled him. Rage and the need for vengeance struck as hard as the blow, bringing a whirlwind response from the oath-bond that spasmed every muscle in his body. Pain only fueled the venom, an ugly cycle he fought to escape. His body jerked into a wild seizure he felt helpless to override.