Kal was halfway up the dungeon stairs when a rumble shook the walls.
“Earthquake!” someone yelled.
Not again! Kal flowed with the crowd as they pushed up the spiral staircase as one. On the ground floor the guards scattered across the foyer. Kal headed up the grand staircase, trying to recall where the emperor’s chambers were. On the second floor a large group of guards joined him, all talking at once about a witch and her magic.
“What’s happening?” Kal asked.
A guard beside him answered. “The Tennish witch destroyed the emperor’s dining room—blew out all the windows. She’s got him trapped there.”
“She shook the earth,” said another.
“Called forth her shadir,” said a third. “It took form.”
Kal shivered. He hadn’t seen a shadir take form since the war.
As they rounded the landing halfway between the second and third floors, a woman’s scream snaked down to them.
Inolah. Kal spilled off the landing with the guards and ran toward a set of towering gold-leaf doors, one of which was open. The guards stood ten deep before the doors; there must have been five dozen, all looking in. Over the helmets and bald heads, Kal saw a massive dark shape pass by the doorway.
Not merely a shadir, but a great. Gods help them all.
“My child is in there! My Ferro!”
Kal’s gaze found Inolah a good twenty paces down the hall. Two guards were holding her arms. She fought to pull away, straining toward the dining room, her stomach great with child. Behind her, pressed against the wall, Kal recognized a much older Prince Ulrik, bald head covered in black henna tracings. A barrier of guards boxed them in.
A general approached the pack of guards, who all began talking at once. “Report!”
“A shadir has the emperor!”
“Prince Ferro floated away!”
“A witch is killing the emperor!”
“She set the mountain on fire!”
“The emperor is a mantic!”
“Silence!” the general yelled. “One at a time. Where is the emperor?”
“In the dining room. The shadir has him.”
“Prince Ferro?”
“Floated away, General. Through a hole the witch blasted in the wall.”
“Which wall?”
“The east wall, sir.”
The general’s scowl landed on Kal’s stolen uniform. “Commander! Take ten men and find Prince Ferro. Captain!” He faced another guard. “Get those men back and open that second door.”
Kal took the opportunity his uniform provided and walked toward what he thought must be the east hallway. If he could get Ferro, Inolah might leave with him. “Ho, up!” he yelled. “Who is with me?”
A gaggle of men surged around him.
“Too many!” he yelled. “Castle men, step forward!”
Nine men did so. “Good enough,” Kal said. “I’m a city man. What’s on the east side of the dining room?”
“The drawing room, which leads to the royal ballroom, then the guard’s chamber,” a guard said.
“Does each have its own entrance?”
“No, sir. The rooms open into one another.”
“Lead the way,” Kal said. “Hopefully we’ll come upon the prince from the opposite end.”
The man took off, Kal right behind. They passed through the Igote guard’s chamber to the royal ballroom, and there they met Prince Ferro.
The boy was indeed floating. Not in a menacing way. His arms and legs were wrapped around . . . something, as if he was being carried by an invisible man. A shadir, no doubt. Like his older brother, henna tracings covered Prince Ferro’s shaved head. Rurekan royalty and their bizarre customs.
“Witchcraft!” a guard on Kal’s right shouted.
The guard on Kal’s left pulled his sword.
“Hold!” Kal raised his hands and took two steps forward. “Prince Ferro, I come on behalf of your mother.”
The prince wriggled, his arms stretched toward Kal. “I want my mother.”
“Stay with me,” a voice whispered.
Kal went down on one knee, held out his arms. “I will take you to her.”
The boy floated back a step. The carpet wrinkled on the floor beneath.
“Who holds you, boy?” Kal asked.
“Ko-ach. He’s taking me to Mother.”
“Qoatch is the witch’s eunuch,” a guard said.
Not a shadir, then. Good. “Leave the room, all of you!” Kal yelled, standing. “Wait for me outside the doors.”
“But, sir—”
Kal waved them back. “Out! Now! Keep the doors shut so he can’t escape. Open them only when I say.”
The men scrambled out of the room. The door shut.
Kal turned back to Prince Ferro and spoke softly. “I speak to the man holding the prince. My name is Sir Kalenek Veroth. I am shield to Sâr Wilek Hadar of Armania, brother to the empress and this boy’s uncle. When they refused to let me see the empress, I stole a guard’s uniform.” Kal pulled off his helmet to reveal his hair. “If escape is the empress’s goal, I will assist her.”
“There is little time,” a man’s voice said. “The mountain has ruptured. My Great Lady and her shadir will see that it destroys the city.”
Such foreboding words sent a thrill of fear through Kal. A mantic conjuring spells of that scale would fall into a haze soon enough, but she could do immense damage before then, especially with no one to fight her. “Give the boy to me and return to your lady. I’ll get the empress and her children to safety.”
Silence stretched between them. Ferro wiggled in those invisible arms.
Distant breaking glass made Ferro float several steps back toward the drawing room.
“Your lady needs you,” Kal said.
Ferro slowly sank to the ground until he was standing on his own feet. He ran into Kal’s arms.
“Tell the empress to go quickly,” the eunuch said. “We will follow, but do not wait for us.”
Not a problem. “I’ll tell her.”
Footsteps scuffed the floor, fading. Kal reached out and felt the place where he thought the man had been standing. “I guess he’s gone.”
“He went back to the mantic witch,” Ferro said. “She made me fly.”
Kal shivered and replaced his helmet, tucking his hair out of sight. “Did she?”
“All the way to the ceiling. Are you really from Armania?”
Kal took hold of the boy’s shoulders. “Listen to me, Prince Ferro. Your mother and brother are being held outside the emperor’s dining room. What I said is true. I’m from Armania. I’m an old friend of your mother’s, and I want to help. What is the quickest way out of the castle without being seen?”
“Through the wall tunnels. We can get to them from the library. It’s not far from Father’s dining room.”
“Excellent, Your Highness,” Kal said. “Say nothing of our plan. I will suggest the guards move you and your mother to the library to keep you safe from the mantic. Once we are there, I’ll attack the guards. When we’re fighting, you must lead everyone to the secret door. Can you do this?”
“Sure I can. I know just how to—”
“We must hurry, Your Highness. Shall I carry you or would you rather walk?”
“I can walk. I’m almost a man, so my father says.”
“He is right to say so. You’ve been very brave.”
Ferro beamed and tugged Kal by the hand toward the door. “I want to see my mother now.”
“I live to serve.” Kal approached the doors and banged with his fist. “It’s the commander. Open up.”
The doors opened to a wall of wide-eyed guards.
Kal shoved through, pulling Ferro along. “I’m taking the boy to his mother.”
“But the emperor said—”
“The emperor would want him far from the mantic witch.” Kal walked on. Bootsteps pattered after him. No one argued.
Back in the main hall the number of guards seemed to have doubled. Kal made it through half the men before anyone noticed who he was walking with.
“He’s got Prince Ferro!” said one.
Surprisingly, no one tried to take the boy. The crowd parted, and he and Prince Ferro walked easily up to the guards surrounding Inolah and Ulrik.
“Ferro!” Inolah pushed through the guards and embraced her son.
Glad of the helmet, Kal hoped she would not recognize his voice when he said, “The emperor wants his family away from the mantic. We’re to move them to the library, where they’ll be safe until the witch is captured.”
The guards seized Inolah, Ulrik, and Ferro by the arms and dragged them down the hallway and through another set of gold-leaf doors.
Kal passed into the library and raised his hands to stop any other Igote from entering. “The emperor said there were rebels in the castle who were trying to help the empress escape,” he said. “They’ll say anything to get into this room. Guard this door from the outside, and keep the rebels away at all costs.”
“Yes, Commander,” a guard said, and he pulled the doors shut.
Hopefully that would buy them some time. Kal examined the doors. No way to lock them. He would have to move quickly.