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  No guards patrolled here, he knew. In the rumors that spilled from the tower like rain off the Bastion’s slate roof, it was said that no guards needed to. They’d caught a pair of tyros in the tower once, not quite two years before. The pair of them had been just past beardless, and apparently deciding that breaking into one of the secret libraries of the prince’s mages would be a faster path to glory than completing the pledge of service they’d signed.

  Where Prince High Chanist avoided the excess of wealth and trappings that could easily have come with the title, it was known that he did have a passion for antiquities, spell-touched and otherwise. Books and scrolls predating the history of the Ilmar filled his vaults, it was said. Volumes of lore that had come from the Imperial capital of Ulannor Mor itself before the end.

  The pair were caught easily enough. And though Chriani knew as well as they how harsh a punishment Chanist could have been meted out for their treason, the prince had simply sent the two scurrying out through the gates at dawn, in full view of the garrison and the residents of the keep and the gathering crowd in the market court. The job that the sorcerous wards of the tower had done to them was deemed punishment enough, it seemed, as well as acting as the more-important deterrent for the next troupe of fools who might think to try the same game.

  Their hair might have grown back by now, Chriani thought. If it ever grew back at all.

  He closed his eyes, made the moonsign. Slowly, he pressed to the floor, heard no sound. But where he looked, he saw the footsteps again, just beside him. Closer together where she’d stopped at the head of the stairs as he had, listening. Then she was moving again, Chriani following to the corridor’s end and westward as it turned along the tower’s north flank. Between the shelves on both sides, uniform ranks of blank doors were mercifully shut, Chriani glancing behind him at regular intervals, but there was no sign that he was anything but alone.

  And then where the corridor turned south to again mimic the run of the prince’s court below, he saw the footsteps slow. Ahead, the corner opened to a wide side-hall whose shadows cloaked a sealed set of dark iron doors. The footsteps approached, ended there.

  He felt his mind pull at the image he wished he hadn’t recalled, the two tyros charred black from head to foot. Shocked and deafened, hairless and naked where they ran like rabbits from the courtyard, the shadows of eyebrows and scant beards seared into their skin like clown’s paint.

  In the light that spilled into the side-hall from behind him, his silhouette was a deeper shadow against the blank lines of the portal, unbroken except for a single keyhole. He approached especially slowly, made the moonsign again, knew that it wouldn’t do any good. Without getting anywhere close to touching, he sighted through the keyhole, saw light on the other side.

  He’d picked a dweomer-trapped lock once. Only once, a child’s device. Barien had set him to it, a key-locked notebook sent by some Elalantar half-cousin, a gift to Lauresa that the warrior had managed to intercept and bring to his quarters one night. Just for practice, he’d said. Chriani had missed on the first attempt and felt a pulse of stinging force slam up through his arm and turn all his fingers blue. Barien’s laughter had helped him find his focus to succeed on the second try, but he’d had to wear gloves for a week.

  He brought the picks out, felt for calm. Like before, he made his way within the lock by touch, feeling the same mechanism as on Lauresa’s door and all the others. A security oversight that he was certain the prince high wasn’t aware of. Someone should mention it to him, he thought numbly.

  He heard the echo of Barien’s laughter in his memory again, didn’t know why it chilled him suddenly.

  He couldn’t make the moonsign but he thought it furiously as he twisted the picks and pushed. He heard the faint click, felt the door press in just slightly under the weight of his fingers. And then, with a rush of cold insight, Chriani realized that though he’d been assuming so far that it was Lauresa beyond the door, he had precious little real reason to think that. The princess had gone missing from her chamber, then someone had gone barefoot from that chamber to the tower in the dead of night, but there were a hundred explanations that could tie those two things together, few of them optimistic.

  He wished for his bow as he drew the shortsword silently, clumsily, no time to adjust the scabbard that was still clubbing at him with every step. Even after as many years as he’d tried, Barien had never succeeded in making Chriani anywhere near as dangerous in close combat as he was on the archery range. Watching the grizzled veteran on the training grounds had taught Chriani how to at least look menacing, though, and he went for that as he kicked through the door. Part of him wanted the element of surprise, part of him fearing whatever power the dark iron might still have in it, hoping that the leather of his boots would at least dull the pain.

  But where he stormed in, there was nothing but the metal-echo slam of the door against the stone wall behind it, louder than he would have wanted if he ever tried that particular maneuver again. In three glances, Chriani took in the scene before him, two arms to the chamber, angled to each side around the doorway that opened up where they met. To the left, some kind of council table, black wood somehow even darker than the night outside the windows that framed it, no one there. To the right, a scriptorium of some sort, shelves stacked high with bound volumes and scrolls. No, a map room. Charts hanging from the walls to match several spread on another table, this one tall for standing, no chairs to flank it.

  The Princess Lauresa was on the far side of that table, turned to him. Her too-familiar face caught the light of a single candle burning there, a flicker of fear and surprise in her expression that melted to anger in a single fleeting instant.

  “How dare you?”

  Chriani blinked. Nodded to her because he realized he’d forgotten to.

  “Highness…”

  “Speak when your words are requested,” she hissed. “If this brash entrance is precursor to assault in a stolen uniform of my father’s guard, give me the name of your next of kin and do your very best.” In her hand, a dagger flashed suddenly, Chriani not seeing it before. “Otherwise, look to that insignia you wear and remind yourself whom you take your orders from.”

  She didn’t recognize him.

  Three years since she’d last spoken to him, four years before that when they’d spent almost every day at each other’s side. But in the princess’s tone now, there was an imperiousness that he didn’t think he’d ever heard before. Not in her, at any rate. The stepmother’s voice, he thought, but the princess seemed to have little difficulty wearing it.

  “Highness, you have my apologies…”

  “I do not recall asking for apology, tyro.” She took two steps toward him, the dagger up in a two-handed posture, defensive, her eyes locked to his. She was in blue, he saw, a simple robe belted at the waist, dropping down to bare feet. Her hair was tied in two strands, hanging almost to the small of her back. At her throat, a pendant of lapis hung from gold chain.

  “I was sent to watch you. Barien ordered…”

  “Leave this chamber on the instant and I might see fit to keep this insubordination to myself.”

  And even against the chill in her voice, Chriani found himself locked to her gaze. Hoping to find some sense of the past in those eyes, he realized. Some hint that she still knew him, even through the anger. A thing he hadn’t felt for so long now.

  Instead, he saw the tip of the blade, dead steady. He felt his own anger twist deep in his gut, tried to fight it but already knew it was too late.

  “Highness…”

  “You are testing my patience, tyro.”

  “Highness, the alarm is sounded.”

  And in her look, Chriani caught a sudden uncertainty.

  “What of the alarm?” she said, her voice the same but something changed in her manner where she watched him.

  “The alarm is sounded,” he said again because he didn’t know what else to say. He felt the dark emotion in him already slamm
ing down around his ability to think, had to focus to find the words. “The Bastion is locked down, and the Princess Lauresa is not in her chamber. I am here for you.”

  She hadn’t recognized him. He felt the anger flare around that, spread like the hiss of flame across kindling stoked from dying embers.

  “I am on orders from Barien, who is your warden,” Chriani said. He took a step closer to her, made sure to keep the required five paces between them. Of all the guards of the garrison, he’d been the exception to that rule once, a long time ago now. He brought his own blade level with hers.

  “Highness, I am a warrior of the guard and adjutant to your warden, and on his orders, I am here to escort you to your chambers and ensure your safety there.”

  “You sword belt is on backwards and upside down, warrior of the guard.”

  Chriani glanced down despite himself, felt the scabbard prod his leg again where he saw she was right. He felt an unfamiliar burning in his cheeks.

  “You will accompany me, highness. I have my orders.”

  “You will get out…”

  The princess faltered. Chriani saw the flick of her eyes, the gleam of blue catching the light as he twisted to follow her gaze. He’d left the dark door open behind him. In the faint light of the corridor, his eyes caught the ripple of shadow that meant movement in the distance. Footsteps, almost silent.

  “You fool,” she whispered.

  Chriani wasn’t listening, sheathing his sword with effort as he turned for the door, made to call out to whoever was racing toward them. No idea what he was supposed to say, but he was fairly certain that begging for mercy would be a large part of it.

  Then the princess was moving behind him, one hand across his mouth even as the other brought the dagger up, close to his throat as she dragged him back. Chriani was startled, as much at being grabbed at all as he was at the strength in her arm. As he stumbled back, though, he felt instinct override any uncertainty. Her blade was a hand’s-width from him, more than enough space to go for her wrist. No room to get a decent strike in with the other hand, but her flank was vulnerable and in easy reach, or the soft muscle of her thigh, one sharp blow that would drop her.

  But even through the instinct, through all the memory of all the hand-to-hand training he’d done at Barien’s side, he knew he couldn’t do it.

  No idea what any of this was about, but he couldn’t hurt her. Not anymore.

  He went for the dagger, though. No point in having his throat slit, by accident or otherwise. But even as his hand clamped around her wrist, Lauresa sang.

  Close to his ear, barely a whisper, her voice unleashed a sudden pulse of blood and uncertainty that pounded in his head. A twisting cascade of sound slipped through him like wind through the bare branches of winter trees. He didn’t understand the words, didn’t know the melody, but it hit him hard.

  It was the voice he remembered, all the imperious tone gone like swiftly shed armor. The echo of a childhood he’d been trying to not look back to anymore.

  At the doorway, the first figures pushed in, but they weren’t the robed stewards he’d expected, fists spouting fire and lightning like every carefully retold tale of the tower had warned. It was the regular garrison, attack dogs released first, balisters dropping in the doorway behind them. But even as they did, the gleam of the guttering candle twisted, a sudden fountain of darkness erupting. Across the room, a roiling wall of black eclipsed the light like a silent storm, Chriani frozen for the moment it took Lauresa to pull her hand from his mouth, breathe a single word into his ear.

  “Move…”

  Where his wrist was still around her dagger hand, she pulled him, the clamor of voice and movement loud beyond the shadow. Chriani heard the familiar shunt of crossbow fire, four bolts spraying past them, fired blindly. He heard the dogs fall back with an uncertain yelping, the sudden fall of unnatural black a thing they wouldn’t enter.

  Two strides beyond the table, tall windows loomed, black-framed and locked tight. The princess was still singing, Chriani realized, not noticing her start again.

  Then he blinked, and the one window she dragged him towards wasn’t locked after all, Lauresa kicking it open somehow as she leaped to the ledge. Chriani’s momentum pulled him up behind her even as he clutched at the frame, trying to slow himself, but her hands were tight in his tunic now, no time to break her grip as she pushed off. His hold on the window not enough to support them both, his weight tipping into hers.

  He felt her arms go around him. She was singing, still.

  He forced himself to look down. He saw his own death beckon from dark stone below.

  A frozen moment of time.

  He felt the freezing wind of the sea below the city against his face, felt his feet slip from the ledge to empty air. Then they were falling, the Bastion outwall a dark blur below them.

  He felt the urge to shout, not from fear but from anger at what he knew Barien would call a fool’s death when they found his body. A stupid way to die, he thought. The princess he’d been charged to protect, dead beside him. All the questions that would be asked. All the answers he would have liked to have heard himself.

  He felt her body against his, her hands at his neck and the small of his back. Her face was close, Lauresa shorter than him by three hands but pushed up against him as they twisted, still upright somehow. Their legs would shatter first, he knew, an endless moment of pain to herald the shock that would ultimately kill them.

  A frozen moment of time. He felt her breath trace his cheek, the song still spilling from her in a whisper.

  And without knowing he’d even done it, Chriani found himself kissing her. His mouth pressed soft to hers as he drank in the song, felt it fade with the sharp intake of her breath.

  He changed his mind suddenly. This was a good way to die.

  And then, even as he recognized the timeless stretching of that last moment, he became dimly aware that the moment was somehow stretching even further than it should be. His mouth was still locked to Lauresa’s, her lips impossibly soft against his, and as he hung onto that sensation, he realized that in his being able to be aware of that sensation, he was somehow still alive and kissing the princess long after they should both be dead.

  He risked opening his eyes, saw the stone of the walls slipping past at what seemed like a remarkably slow pace. He felt the impact as they landed, a sharp jolt in his knees that made him stumble, but no more than he would have expected from a badly timed jump over the orchard wall. The orchard was off-limits to all but the prince’s family and invited guests, so he’d done his fair share of badly timed jumps in and out of it when he was younger, generally one step ahead of the dogs that patrolled there in summer.

  Where he staggered back against cold stone, Lauresa was still in his arms, shorter than him now, the embrace broken where they both found their footing. She stared at him with a look that was partly surprise and partly something else he couldn’t name. He could feel his heart pounding hard as he leaned down to kiss her again.

  The princess hit him, then, a backhand blow coming so fast that even he didn’t see it. Chriani felt the imprint of knuckles and rings rising on his cheek where his head snapped back and took a moment to right itself. She flexed her fingers, didn’t seem to feel it. In her look, the surprise and whatever else it had been was gone.

  “Move,” she said again, then she was running, racing eastward along the dark outwall above the training grounds. Where Chriani followed, he could hear voices from above, didn’t have to look to know that the garrison would be at the window, searching for the bodies that weren’t there. Dimly, he wondered where the guards were who should already have been racing to intercept them where they stood, regular patrols walking the Bastion perimeter beneath the lights of the prince’s quarter above. Then he remembered the alarm, the garrison mustered inside the Bastion, perhaps. He didn’t have time to wonder why.

  Lauresa slowed suddenly, dark shutters ahead that were unlocked somehow where she pulled them
open. From behind them came the sound of something hitting the stones, light swelling as the guards above tossed evenlamps down to the wall, but the princess had already dragged them both back inside, running left down a corridor Chriani didn’t recognize. Somewhere in the depths of the kitchens, he guessed, dark for the night.

  A hundred paces down the corridor, Chriani heard movement ahead of them, tugging at Lauresa’s sleeve where he pointed. She pushed a window open quickly, a narrow ledge beyond, her hand locked to Chriani’s again as she hauled him out. Through darkened glass, he saw figures pounding past as she led him carefully into shadow, the Darkmoon obscured where it had already dropped beyond the western walls, the light of the Clearmoon in the opposite sky thankfully dim through low cloud.

  All around, the keep was coming alive, a storm of light and voices carrying where evenlamps burned on all the outer walls now. And where he recognized the light of the stables across from them, Chriani managed to orient himself, realizing where they were even as he saw Lauresa stop, peering up to the underside of the tower. Her balcony loomed above her where she clutched the corner of the Bastion wall.

  “Climb,” she said, and then she was gone, hands and bare feet clinging to rough stone as she ascended. Chriani kicked his boots off, stuffed them clumsily inside his jacket as he followed her. He found purchase easily in the weathered walls, but even at his best speed, Lauresa hit the balcony well ahead of him, climbing up and over with an unnatural grace. As he pulled himself after her, his scabbard scraped stone, still pushing the wrong way.