The hall grew more raucous with every passing course and passed flagon of wine. Soon her court will be too drunk to remember who she picked.
A flicker of movement caught her eye, not below, but across, on the other side of the gallery, on the balcony opposite her own. It was shadowed as well, seemingly empty but for two faces at the edge of the light. She squinted and raised a hand, covering the chandeliers, allowing her eyes to adjust for the darkness the figures stood in.
One had the bearing of a soldier, straight-backed and trim, a hand resting on his hip where Sorasa could just see the hilt of a fine sword. His cloak was black, left open to show a doublet of purple velvet patterned like scales. His face was bowed, his focus on the high table, showing only the glint of dark red hair. The other was a priest, hooded in crimson. Judging by his colors, he was a dedicant of Syrek. The god of destruction and creation, conquest and peace. A patron of the kingdom of Galland, whose rulers supposed themselves conquerors and creators.
Neither man took any notice of her, distracted as the rest of the palace by the mystery about to unfold. They filled her with an icy touch of dread and gut instinct. They didn’t speak, though the soldier shifted, and his fingers clenched and unclenched on his sword hilt. Impatient. Not like the priest, who was a statue in scarlet, his face bone-white beneath his hood.
The dedicant orders serve their gods and their high priests, not kings or queens. He listens for another, gathering word to be passed on, Sorasa surmised, looking over the priest again. But the soldier? Who does he serve?
He did not have the bearing of a noble. He was not a knight or a great lord, and no diplomat would spend a feast hidden away. But he wasn’t a palace guard either, not in those clothes, without armor or the lion emblazoned on his chest.
She kept her eyes on him as she moved, careful in the shadows, her steps muffled by the rich carpet along the gallery floor. Perhaps he is a spy, she thought. An assassin from the Amhara, or from another guild. Her eyes dragged over him again. He was tall and lean, with wiry muscles standing out at his neck, the kind earned hard, through necessity. He could be a simple cutthroat, hired in some gutter. A mad dog set loose.
Her concentration snapped away at a commotion below, three figures striding between the long banquet tables, set shoulder to shoulder. Two she recognized.
So they found their squire.
The Queen waved her knights off, allowing the three to approach her table. Sorasa wished she could hear their plea, absurd as it would be. Dom the walking storm cloud, Corayne and her flickering courage. “Your Majesty, we need your help to defeat an army of demons led by my mad uncle. Yes, I’m the only one who can stop him. Yes, I’m a seventeen-year-old girl. Yes, I’m perfectly serious.”
But Erida did not turn them away. Instead the Queen beckoned, her face gentle and open, so they could speak privately of the Ward’s fate. Tell her of the corpses on the hill, Sorasa thought, remembering her blade as it passed through them. Tell her of the slaughter. Tell her of your scars, Domacridhan.
“Domacridhan.”
The soldier hissed, the sound carrying down the gallery. His voice was venom.
Sorasa pressed back against a column, folding herself into the shadows.
The soldier was glaring down at the Elder, and then at Corayne, before raising his face to the light. His eyes, black and familiar, seemed to glint red, a trick of the chandeliers.
Bits of thread joined in her mind, weaving a picture and a realization. Reality slotted together like plates in a good suit of armor.
Every instinct Sorasa Sarn had ever earned lit on fire, scorching her with warning.
The first, the strongest, screamed.
RUN.
“Look at his face, Ronin,” the soldier murmured to the priest, who did not move. He is no priest, at least not to any god of the Ward. “I thought Elders were supposed to heal.”
“They do. When cut by weapons of the Ward,” Red Ronin replied. The wizard folded his hands into his robes. “But a Spindleblade? The weapons of the Ashlands, of Asunder, blessed by What Waits? Those wounds are not so easily closed. It’s why the Elders remain in their enclaves, cowering, even when the prince survived to tell the tale of us. They see what we can do. They fear us more than any mortal army upon the Ward.”
Sorasa did not dare another step closer. Her hands worked beneath her skirt, pulling out a small dagger. She cut quietly along the sides of her gown, giving herself more room to move.
Run her instincts howled again. She could already feel the palace closing in, stone and glass, silk and wine. Fuck the Elder and the girl and the squire. Fuck the Ward.