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The tunnel deposited Carolle across the vacant alley from the queen’s marble behemoth of a wardrobe and directly into the guards’ line of sight. “Steady,” Carolle whispered to herself, feeling the armed sentries’ eyes on her.
“I don’t know about you, Weathers,” one robust guard said to the other, “but I could use a drink.” True to Thackeray’s word, they vacated the entrance.
Carolle waited until they rounded the corner of the next alley and she hurried inside. Built over three city blocks, the monarchy’s wardrobe had been laid out in aisles of actual wardrobes and relics beneath the hundred-foot ceiling. Amid the smell of old fabric and wood, enchanted pedestals held up smaller mementos and cast yellow light down the blue-and-white carpeted paths. Thackeray had told her each aisle contained one year of the ruler’s life.
Overwhelmed by the size, Carolle spun on the carpets, wondering where Ameera’s life began. Selecting an aisle, she struck off, scouting for an indication of where in time she stood.
A tapestry hung between two antique banner posts. In dark thread, King Clyde signed a treaty with the antler-helmeted Barundal tribe, which he infamously betrayed later. Green thread dated the event: 646.
Carolle dashed to the next aisle. No signs to guide her there, she ran on another seventeen years.
Sprinting down the aisle for either year 628 or year 664, she came upon a steel and glass case. Double sleeves of green and blue relayed the queen mother’s Patevian roots while the white needlework of fleurs-de-lis foretold the bride’s new loyalties to the empire. “Six sixty-four,” Carolle said.
The grand wedding display preserved all of the royals’ garb behind glass, even those of the queen’s twins from a previous marriage. No relic too large, the bridal carriage had been parked at the end of the case. Magnificent, but the wrong year for Carolle.
Racing forward in time, she counted off the years to the queen’s coronation. “Six eighty-one,” she whispered. “Six eighty-two.”
The silver-laden coronation carriage sat halfway through the year. Carolle dropped her pack next to it and removed her mask. She wiped her clammy face on her gray grogram cloak, then stripped it off, too. Time to see if Thackeray’s friends had been successful.
Across the aisle, Carolle opened a creaking whitewood wardrobe and released the stench of urine overwhelming the nobleman’s bath powder. Beneath several dresses of Queen Ameera’s attendants, the elder Lord Gaines lay bound, soiled, and unconscious. She hauled him out onto the carpets. The fall woke him, setting him into a squirming tantrum. He tried to scream through his gag.
The fire in his eyes reignited hers. She grinned down on her captive. “How did you get here?” she asked. “Is that what you’re wondering? How dare this Patevian stand here while you’re restrained? Is that it?” She opened the worked leather case of darts on her belt. “Well, maybe those people you like to stand on, Lord Gaines, aren’t as weak or as invisible as you treat them. Impressed, I am, if I’m honest. I didn’t realize the real power of Trône d’Argent was held by the help.”
Carolle jabbed one of the poisoned quills into Lord Gaines’s arm. “What it is, Lord Gaines, I’m supposed to be asking if you’re part of the Filii Cinere.”
The man froze, terrified, which was more justification than her animosity required.
“Truth is, I don’t much care. Probably because your son tried to kill me. I can’t imagine a good man could rear a son who’d do a thing like that. Can you?”
The whites of the man’s eyes remained exposed as she propped him up against the wardrobe. “Now, don’t worry about the poison. It won’t kill you. It shouldn’t.” She gripped his jerkin in her fists.
Struggling with his dead weight, Carolle almost cursed herself for leaving Thackeray’s heirloom behind. She eventually managed to get the man propped up against one of the enchanted pedestals holding a gaudy garnet brooch. The pedestal’s light should make him easier to spot from both ends of the aisle. After retrieving her mask of King Vendral, she set it over his face. His eyes protested behind it.
Their stratagem had called for her to lie in wait inside the carriage with her blowpipe at the ready. However, seeing it now, Carolle decided to alter the plan. Envisioning the possibility of getting trapped inside made her skin crawl. She’d much prefer the tops of the wardrobes.
Tossing her pack up, she climbed the carriage and leaped over. Nice and deep, the back-to-back wardrobes of the two aisles gave her enough room to lie in wait.
Carolle loaded a dart, removed the short sword from her pack, and flattened herself. Silent as a snake in water, she waited.
Within minutes, her patience waned. It had to be close to midnight. The letter said they had to arrive by then to save Lord Gaines. Perhaps she had misjudged the relationship between the father and son.
“Down here,” a man’s voice whispered.
The dundun returned to Carolle’s chest. Easing the pipe into place, she lay low. Pins and needles ran along her arms. For Rodinger, for Carolle Ysbryd, she focused.
Chester appeared first, concealed in his Filii Cinere garb. He knelt by Lord Gaines. “He’s alive.” Then he pocketed the sparkling garnet brooch.
“Pick him up,” Gaines ordered from behind his mask, approaching with more caution. He avoided getting too close to the wardrobes as though he suspected someone would jump out of one at any moment. Carolle ducked until he said, “Whoever that man was, he wasn’t part of our coterie.”
Debating between her two targets, Carolle’s mind recommended brawny Chester, but acrid anger demanded Gaines.
Chester’s broad shoulders rose with Lord Gaines. Carolle inhaled deeply and put her mouth to the pipe. A puff sent Gaines’s hand to his shoulder. He moaned and collapsed. Chester dropped Lord Gaines and immediately looked to the carriage.
Carolle loaded another dart, aimed, and blew. It plinked into Chester’s mask. He ripped it off. His deep-set eyes found her. Chester dashed to the carriage and climbed. Her next dart missed when he leaped to the tops of the wardrobes.
Rising with the short sword in hand, Carolle faced her would-be killer. Chester’s posture stiffened. “You?” He drew two daggers. So much for his bringing his bloody mace. He charged. An anger to match her own bellowed out with his yell.
She ducked one swipe and leaped back from another. Regaining some ground with a low kick and an upward slash, Carolle attempted to force him back to the edge.
Chester searched behind himself and hunkered down. Perhaps he wasn’t as dumb as she believed. His daggers blocked her thrusts, one after another. He confidently shuffled close. Little by little, Carolle gave ground until she reached her pack and refused to give more.
Flipping the dagger in his right hand, Chester grinned. “One less flea,” he said, and threw the blade.
She dodged it, but not his tackle. The impact knocked the sword from her hand and the air from her lungs. His hands clamped down on her throat. Choking, she pressed her head away from his sneer.
“I know the truth of you. Just another whore like your ‘mam.’ Screwing people to get your coin.” He punched her.
She tasted the iron in her blood. Black flecks bordered her vision. She’d been there before. Oddly, the thought comforted her. Her right hand went to the dart case on her belt, but Chester pinned it under his knee. She quit fighting to free her arm and hunted with the other. Her fingers found her pack and something hard. All the strength she could muster smashed the dwarven stone against Chester’s skull.
He fell over the edge, but caught her arm and jerked. Carolle’s back hit the carpets hard. She forced herself up and scrambled onto her feet.
Blood trickled from Chester’s ear. He raised her short sword in his hand. “You cannot win. Your kind never wins.” Grimacing at the blood that came away on his hand, he swayed. Carolle kicked at his sword arm but missed when he collapsed with his hand to his ear.
Stretching against the wardrobe, Carolle found the blowpipe. She dropped a dart inside. Seething anger lured her closer to Lucille’s suitor. Her fingers pinched her last dart. She tiptoed around him toward the short sword. In a fluid lunge, she drove the dart into his arm and stole the blade.
Now for her vengeance. While Grand Duke Cartwright had misled Rodinger, Gaines had brought her into this mess in the first place. Carolle tore off Gaines’s mask. “You cost me everything! You wrecked my life!”
His green eyes struggled to stay open. “I . . . I tried to save you, Carolle.” His gaze went to her raised sword. “I did! I promise . . . I told them the wrong ship, didn’t I?”
Her blade lowered to her side but rose again. “You gave your goon the order to kill me, Barimor Gaines.”
Gaines sobbed. “I know. I am sorry.” He croaked and whimpered.
Uncomfortable with the display, Carolle refused to believe his words to be anything more than an attempt to save himself. “You could have fought them! I would have stood with you.” She pointed the tip of the short sword at Chester. “That twpsyn would have stood with you.”
“I wouldn’t help that idiot, bitch!” Chester said, attempting to rise from the floor. His poisoned body fought against him. Carolle mercilessly heeled his ribs, dropping him flat to the carpets. The edge of her sword met the sweat on his throat. It slid deeply across his neck with little hesitation. Blood streamed into the expensive carpets.
Her mind consumed by rage, she knelt next to Gaines.
“Carolle . . . Carolle . . . please. Run! We didn’t come into your trap alone.”
At the west end of the aisle, five Filii Cinere waited with their weapons ready. Six more masks watched from the east. Carolle rose, ready to climb the carriage again, but flinched when Gbad’Wu said, “Neither did she.”
Atop the wardrobes, the monk raised her spear into the air. Sylvester’s barn owl soared over and screeched. Panicked shouts erupted from the east end of the aisle, where a purple haze enveloped the six men. They choked on the spell and fell.
Appearing out of the air near Lord Gaines, Elanis raced forward and slung a pouch westward at the Filii Cinere. “Na kamen i da odite!” Powder burst from the pouch in a pink cloud. Before it reached its target, however, the cloud parted and disappeared.
Standing with the Filii Cinere, a brunette woman in rags lowered her arms. Arcs of fire leaped between her hands.
“Shite!” Elanis said. “They’ve collared a magus!” She ran past Carolle. “Go! Run!”
Gbad’Wu kept pace atop the wardrobes as they raced toward the dissipating purple haze. Green-scaled creatures crawled out from beneath the gray cloaks. Goblins? The spell had turned the men into goblins? The grand diviner thwacked one in the head with his silver staff before noticing Carolle and Elanis dashing at him.
An explosion flung Carolle forward to the carpets. She rolled over and grabbed her sword. Ten feet away, fire climbed the wardrobes. Flames consumed Gaines, his father, and the body of Chester Fellows. “No!” she yelled.
Whizzes, whistles, and bone-shaking booms got Carolle on her feet again. A basket of unused fireworks spread the blaze, showering the aisle in white sparks.
Uncannily calm now, Elanis said, “They’ve collared a magus, Grand Diviner.”
Squinting down on her, Sylvester thought and whacked another goblin with his staff. “Very well. I’ll deal with it. Gather these for the queen’s inquisition.”
Carolle kicked away one of the pik-sized goblins. She had no interest in an inquisition. Her vengeance had been stolen from her. “There are five Filii Cinere over by there.”
Sylvester’s frosty glare stalled her. “The monk shall see to them.” He grabbed Carolle’s arm and shoved her back into the acrid stench of his spell hanging in the air. “Do not let them bite you. They’re venomous in this form.”
The grand diviner drifted down the smoking aisle where the magus splayed her fingers at Omelet. Lightning scattered around the owl until she flew out of sight. Sylvester opened a tiny compartment in his staff, held it out, and mumbled something. Wind stirred his robes before the flames died.
Something crunched behind Carolle. A goblin crumpled under the Filii Cinere’s mace in Elanis’s hands. “The spell wears off,” Elanis said. “Are you going to help? There are three more somewhere.”
Kicking at the cloaks, Carolle watched the magi and ground her teeth. Someone had to pay. This was her fight! She wouldn’t sit it out.
Beyond the posturing magi, a spear jabbed at the men in gray cloaks. Carolle hared off. Elanis called after her, but Carolle didn’t slow her pace down year 683. Veering away from the sparks of the magi battle, she let her fury boil over.
Gbad’Wu had felled two of the Filii Cinere. The blunt end of her spear cracked into a mask’s nose. Crying out, the gray-cloaked woman fell. She cried louder when Gbad’Wu dodged an arcing sword and thrust her spear into the woman’s knee. With a quick leap, the monk unmasked another Filii Cinere. She landed hard on his calf.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Carolle pattered back down 682 behind the Filii Cinere magus. Trapped by an unseen force, a rainbow of colorful gases swirled between the magus and Sylvester. The magi had warded themselves well enough that lightning struck only their surroundings.
Carolle crept closer at first, but purple flares blinded her the more she saw of the battle. For Rodinger, for herself, she sprinted down the singed carpets.
“Carolle, no!” Gbad’Wu yelled.
The magus turned as Carolle leaped, her sword poised. Without mercy, the blade stabbed through the magus’s belly. Carolle wrenched her sword free.
Wide-eyed, the magus gurgled. A girl. Just a girl. Starved. Frail, like Braith. Mathanas’s forgiving smile crossed the magus’s lips briefly. She fell forward.
Confused at first, the grand diviner dismissed the spells the girl’s fallen wards had loosed. He cautiously approached and rolled the magus over.
Standing away from the death in the girl’s eyes, Carolle shuddered. She dropped her blade. Gbad’Wu picked it up. “She was innocent,” the monk said. “The one who put that collar around her throat forced her to fight us.”
“Untenable, yes,” Sylvester said, kneeling at the girl’s side. “You saved her the pain of healing, however.” Carolle watched in a daze as he closed her eyelids. Sylvester removed the band of leather from around her throat. “Though her strength would have compensated for the challenge of rehabilitation.” He rubbed the florid marks on the girl’s arms. “The Speaker carved wards into her skin. Clever.”
His owl screeched from the wardrobe above him. The grand diviner put his fingertip to his lips and regarded the girl. “Wait, yes. Yes, you’re correct. Nettles. Dana Nettles. She’s one of ours.” He throttled his staff and used it to stand. “They have their nasty fingers in my Tower!”
Elanis murmured a lamentation behind him. “Well, someone help me find the last two goblins. Then we shall set our traps for the traitors.”
“Think, Mage Kimball!” the grand diviner shouted. He clicked his tongue, which compelled Omelet to flight. “Omelet can hunt the goblins. There’s a Speaker nearby. A Speaker I intend to question.” He slid open another groove in his staff, pressed the collar against it, and shouted, “Oclinar festia’na!”
His words hurled the coronation carriage into the air. It crashed down a few years over, jolting Carolle back into the moment. The spell bored through the aisles, flinging furniture and gowns until a man stood in the clearing. Gbad’Wu’s outstretched arm forced Carolle from his line of sight. The monk and Elanis set off to flank the Speaker. Sylvester strode directly toward him.
Carolle ran. Dana Nettles’s eyes haunted her. She fled through the years and escaped the spellcasters’ rumbling battle. Outside, she nearly tripped, stumbling to a sudden halt.
Soldiers raised their shields and readied their broadswords. Pikemen completed the ends of the arc, sealing off her escape. Queen Ameera moved a fleur-de-lis shield edged in shock crystals aside. “We do not see her,” she announced. Resuming a stance at attention, the soldiers pretended to see only the entrance. The queen came to her, jowls raised, fan choked closed. Carolle avoided the queen’s fury with a curtsy, which felt strange in armor, almost insincere.
“Spirit,” the queen said, her voice sharp, “why have you selected my wardrobe for your trap?”
Muddled, Carolle answered, “Thackeray said—” Too late to take it back, she carried on, “He said you had the power to make it disappear. To make the scandal disappear, Your Majesty.”
Unreadable, the queen studied her. “I see. In his wisdom, did he honestly believe he could bribe my guards without my knowledge?”
“Please,” Carolle said. “He—we only wanted justice for Rodinger.”
Queen Ameera raised her voice. “What precisely do you think I have been doing? While we have followed every thread attached to the Filii Cinere—no matter how miniscule—you have actively concealed them from us!”
Carolle crossed her arms over her midriff to still her shaking. “I’m sorry.”
Flowing gracefully around Carolle toward the entrance, the queen asked, “Have they detained the traitors, Gbad’Wu?”
“Oui, Your Majesty,” the monk answered. Carolle didn’t turn to face Gbad’Wu. “Sylvester and Elanis have subdued the Speaker. They question him now.”
“Speaker?” Queen Ameera asked. Her gown rustled as she raced to the entrance. The guards rushed after her. Carolle swam through them to avoid Gbad’Wu but didn’t get far.
“I won’t ask again,” Gbad’Wu called out to her.
Pained by the hammering question left in all of this madness and that Gbad’Wu still believed her worth saving, Carolle fought to maintain her poise. She wiped her nose and shuddered at the possibility Lucille may have betrayed her. “I understand. And I’m sorry.” Carolle walked on.
Lucille couldn’t be involved. She wouldn’t betray her like this. And yet Carolle had to be certain. “I’ve got to see the dragon.”
