Amberdrake closed his eyes, fighting off a faint. Winterhart—oh, gods—He had to think, had to keep Hadanelith talking so he could get the time to think.
“Why should the Kaled’a’in take the blame?” he asked thickly, opening his eyes again. “The Haighlei aren’t fools, you know—they don’t think all Outlanders look alike! You aren’t going to fool them by dressing up in one of my outfits.”
“Oh, my very dear Amberdrake,” Hadanelith said with a laugh that sent chills down his spine. “My dear, dear kestra’chern! They won’t see me when they see the murderer!”
His features blurred, and for a moment Amberdrake wondered frantically if the blow to his head had done something to his eyes as well. But nothing else was blurring, and in a moment, Hadanelith’s face sharpened into focus again.
Except that now it wasn’t Hadanelith’s face. It was a face Amberdrake knew only too well, for he looked at it in mirrors several times every day. It was the face that Winterhart knew as her own beloved’s.
“You see?” said Hadanelith. “These people so abhor magic that they’ll never dream someone might be wearing an illusion! That is the gift I have given these people—my originality. They would never have thought of this. They won’t see me when they see a Kaled’a’in murdering their King and his Consort-To-Be. They’ll see you.”
He laughed—or rather, giggled—a high-pitched whining sound that set Amberdrake even further on edge. I’d have banished him for that laugh alone, he thought irrelevantly.
“And the last thing, the very last thing that your dear, faithless lady will see,” Hadanelith continued gleefully, “is her former lover gutting her with a smile on his face. No one will doubt that you are completely capable of killing her and her betrothed; you made that perfectly clear with your dramatic scene in front of the entire Court.”
With a sickening wrench, Amberdrake realized that he himself had set the pattern for all of this. And it wasn’t the King that Hadanelith wanted—it was Winterhart. He was murdering the King because that was the only way he could get at Winterhart.
“She should have been mine,” Hadanelith said softly, as if he didn’t realize that he was speaking aloud. Amberdrake sensed the depth of obsession there, and shuddered. How long had Hadanelith been like this? How long had he wanted Winterhart? He must have known he could never have her!
All those women back at White Gryphon—they were in Winterhart’s pattern. Lean, elegant, strong-willed until he broke their will—why didn’t I see that before?
“If I cannot have her for my own, then I shall make sure no one else has a chance to carve her into another image,” Hadanelith whispered, confirming what Amberdrake had been thinking. Then he shook himself, and looked down at Amberdrake again with that odd, foam-flecked smile.
“A gut-stroke, I think,” he said meditatively. “In at the navel, to the left, and up. She will linger quite agonizingly, but not long enough for a Healer to get to her in time to save her. Treasure that image in your mind, Amberdrake. Hold it until I come back. Then Skandranon and I will play some charming little games, until I decide whether I’m going to teach you some of my arts, or let you go.”
“Let me go?” Amberdrake said, blinking stupidly, struggling against the multiple blows to his soul.
“Of course!” Hadanelith giggled again. “Why not? No one would ever believe you, and it would be such a major help to my friends if they were the ones to ‘capture’ you and bring you to justice! I understand that Haighlei executions are terribly entertaining.”
As Amberdrake stared at him, Hadanelith raised his right hand and wiggled the fingers at him in a childish gesture of leavetaking. “Fare, but not well, dear Amberdrake.”
Amberdrake expected him to walk out of the room in a normal fashion, but evidently that was not dramatic enough for him. He pirouetted in place—stepped to one side—and vanished.
“Kechara has all of this,” Skan said hoarsely as soon as he disappeared. “That’s why I wasn’t talking much. She’s relaying it to the others now.”
Which was, of course, one thing that Hadanelith hadn’t counted on.
“The problem is that everyone except Winterhart is too far back in the crowd to do any good,” Skan continued desperately. “And Winterhart isn’t a Mindspeaker, so they can’t warn her. They’ve decked Aubri out with a ceremonial drape that’s strapped down over his wings—he can’t fly—”
“Never mind,” Amberdrake said fiercely, as he willed his muscles to relax here and contract down hard there, and wriggled carefully in place. Got to get the strap around my elbows down first—His muscles protested sharply as he tried to squeeze his elbows together even tighter. Got to get some slack in the ropes—“There’s something else Hadanelith forgot—”
They were silk ropes, very impressive to look at and very strong, but also very slick. If you knew what you were doing, silk was the worst of all possible bindings, though the most ostentatious.
The elbow ties dropped past the joints. Now he could ease them further down.
By squirming and shaking, he managed to inch the bindings around his elbows down to his wrists.
Thank the gods he didn’t tether the elbow bindings to the back of the collar. Inexperienced binders work along the spine only, without thinking diagonally. The way he bound me, it looks nice, but isn‘t very hard to get out of—something a real kestra’chern would know.
He curled over backward until he got his wrists passed under his buttocks, then curled over forward and passed his legs through the arch of his arms. A moment later, he had his wrists in front of him and was untying the bindings on them with his teeth.
“I’m—a kestra’chern—Skan,” he said, around the mouthful of slick cord. “A real—kestra’chern. I’ve probably—forgotten—more about knots—and restraints—than that impostor—ever learned. There!”
The cords fell away from his wrists, and the ones that had held his elbows followed them. He unfastened the collar—which was looped through but not even locked!—and crawled over to Skandranon. He could get his legs free later. Now it was important to get Skandranon out of here and into the air!
Skan’s restraints were artistic, but not particularly clever or difficult to undo, either. “Dilettante!” he muttered, as he untied more silk cords and undid buckles. He had to mutter, to keep the fear at bay a little longer, or else it would paralyze him. “Rank amateur!”
Damn knots! Damn Hadanelith! Damn all these people to the coldest hells! I swear, if I had a knife—if Winterhart—oh, gods, if Winterhart—Knife—Winterhart—
He blinked, and shook his head as the light took on a thin quality. “Is it me, or is the light fading—”