"I'm not leaving," she warned. "There's more to protecting Frey than—"
"You are needed!" Chuillyon snapped. "If you were lost within scant years of the prince's apparent death, how could it be explained to the people?"
Reine scoffed. "Many of the people still think I'm guilty, no matter what Captain Rodian reported. I'm less benefit than burden to all of the Âreskynna. Let's hope, for the future, that this doesn't affect the alliance with my country."
"Faunier and Malourné are old allies," Chuillyon said, "almost from their founding days. Your status as scapegoat will not alter that. You and the queen are the only ones—"
"Who can't become sea-lorn?" Reine finished bitterly. "Who will never succumb to a mad longing eating our wits and will? All the more reason—more than ever—that I will not leave my husband!"
Chuillyon's mouth opened once more, and Reine sat upright.
"Don't!" she whispered.
He shut his mouth in a frustrated frown. Tristan still bore no expression, but it was obvious he agreed with the advisor. Getting her out of harm's way had probably been his idea.
Someone knocked at the pool chamber's outer door.
Relieved by the interruption, Reine was already up by the time Danyel opened the outer door and leaned in.
"It's Master Bulwark, Highness," he called.
Why had he come? She stepped across the chamber and looked out through the partially opened door. Master Bulwark waited with arms crossed.
"The sage has been returned," he said.
Hope and dread flooded Reine. "You didn't bring her here?"
"I assumed you wished to question her away from the prince," he said quietly. "She is with her companions."
Reine moved into action. "Danyel, stay with the prince. Watch him carefully. Tristan, Chuillyon …"
They were already joining her.
Reine hesitated, looking to the sitting chamber's opening. She'd never left Frey alone so much on a rising tide, especially not the highest of the year. She turned once more to Danyel.
"If the prince wakes, tell him I won't be long … and keep him away from the pool."
Danyel glanced at the pool's rear gate. "What if they come again?"
"Drive them off!" she ordered.
"Reine!" Chuillyon said sharply, and he rarely used anything but her titles in front of others. "Do not jeopardize an older alliance through bitterness!"
"You have your orders," she told Danyel, holding out her hand.
With one curt, sure nod, Danyel handed over the comb with the white metal droplet, though Chuillyon expelled an exasperated sigh. Reine swept out, following Master Bulwark, with Tristan and Chuillyon close behind.
Nothing Wynn Hygeorht said should be trusted, but Reine hoped the sage had discovered something in the texts. They needed any slim advantage before Frey was exposed to something worse than the burden of his heritage.
Sau'ilahk stood among the ashen-faced bodies of only five dwarven warriors. Two had died before any realized he was upon them. The fifth had taken too long to put down. For all his efforts, and the need for expedience, he had barely consumed the sum of one whole life. And the sixth warrior had escaped.
But Sau'ilahk was fixed upon a course, and nothing would turn him.
The placement of new guards meant warning had spread. Others would soon learn he had reappeared. There would be no more peeking through walls, surprising anyone who waited in the hidden room.
A distant bell's clang reverberated through the mountain's passages—over and over.
Sau'ilahk focused hard on the downward passage that lay beyond the hidden room. It was the only place he could remember clearly along the path to the underworld. He blinked through dormancy and stood in the tunnel's head.
Any guards bypassed in the hidden room would be alerted soon enough. He drifted down the tunnel's gradual curve, listening carefully along the way, until he finally spied the ending alcove.
Four armed and armored dwarves stood guard before the lower door.
Sau'ilahk slipped into the tunnel's sidewall. Only his cowl's opening protruded as he watched. If he faced them openly, any inside the domed chamber beyond would hear their shouts. Another alarm would sound, indicating his new location and further cutting into his time to find what he sought. But without at least a glimpse through the door, he had no sight line by which to slip through the floor to the lift's shaft.
His choices were frustratingly inadequate. If he used a servitor for another distraction, not all of the four new guards would come after it or any at all. If he had to fight, it was better to get as far as he could. He fixed upon the door—or rather the sense of open space just beyond. And he tried to remember the one glimpse through its opening he had ever had.
Sau'ilahk blinked again, awaking in the domed chamber, surrounded by six dwarves. Four wore spike-ended circlets around the raised steel collars of their armor.
The nearest shouted a warning and leveled his iron staff in a swing.
Sau'ilahk lashed out as he summoned his servitor.
Hinder those outside the door! Distract them!
The dwarf's staff whipped through him as his own fingers slashed through a helmet and wide face. The dwarf yelped, and Sau'ilahk blinked out.
All it would take was just one reaching the bell rope to warn of his presence. A thrust of incorporeal fingers could put down a human, but it would only weaken a dwarf. He materialized instantly before the bell rope as the other five dwarves spread out, closing from all around.
Sau'ilahk saw his tactic would not work.
Not one had even hesitated as the first slumped against the wall. They were willing to die so that one could get to him. It would take only one to grip the rope as the last fell. Sau'ilahk had to leave this place in silence, no matter what it cost, but he had so little to expend. Barely one life taken, and now he would lose even that. Why had he not reawakened in the underworld?
He raised his arms, robe sleeves sliding down over limbs wrapped in black cloth.
Sau'ilahk began to conjure, more strength draining away.
Wynn followed Balsam until the Stonewalker stopped at the final passage and pointed onward. She rushed on alone with her regained journals clutched in her arms. Shade sprang to all fours, barking excitedly as she lunged forward from the archway. Wynn hurried straight past, looking about the landing for her pack.
Chane was slouched beside their belongings with his eyes closed.
She was surprised to find him still dormant. Bulwark had said night was upon them. Was Chane's hunger becoming too great? Had he slipped into some other kind of unconsciousness?
"Chane?" she said in alarm.
His eyes opened as he sat upright, but he appeared disoriented. "Wynn?"
In relief, she dropped to her knees, dumped the journals, and began pulling everything out of her pack.
"When did you return?" he asked, blinking. "Where did you get those?"
Wynn didn't answer. She didn't know whether the duchess had ever seen the texts or knew of the old journals among them. She wasn't about to find out. Pulling out her tightly folded robe and spare shift, she reached for the pile of journals.
Chane grabbed her wrist. "What have you done?"
"They're mine!" she shot back. "My journals … from the Farlands!"
She jerked free and shoved them in the pack's bottom.
"What if their absence is noticed?" he asked. "At least portions of the texts are taken to the guild each day."
"These journals hold everything that happened to me. Every detail of what I learned … and they're mine. I don't care who finds out, because no one will get them back!"
She began stuffing her belongings on top. Chane craned his head, looking over her and out the archway.