Targrael smiled in the darkness.
Awake again, after too long asleep. She was aware of another mind, folded around her own and watching her. Strong and dark and terrible, a mind that had mastered her before …
Abruptly her attention was forced away from that lurking presence to the point of her own nose. To the slab of smooth, unbroken stone just beyond it.
“I am the last lady highknight, and the best,” she whispered fiercely to the lid of the closed coffin above her.
There had been a time when, yes, she’d been as insane as your average gibbering wizard, but that was past; Targrael knew quite well she was beyond death, and what she’d become.
And she’d found it quite suited her coldly ruthless self.
Death was a curious thing. Neither precious Caladnei nor shiningly heroic Alusair had perished in the ways everyone thought they had-not that she’d found any trace of Caladnei, yet, around the palace. Alusair was a different matter …
Targrael found herself quivering with rage at the mere memory and forced herself once more down into cold calm.
Patience. Stately patience.
I am, after all, Cormyr. Its sole true guardian; the Forest Kingdom and everyone in it depends on me, though they know it not.
Wherefore I tirelessly-her lips curled in scornful amusement at that, for she was either lost in oblivion or awake and unsleeping-lurk in and around Suzail, slaying all who displease me. I decide who shall flourish and rule or fall in the Forest Kingdom. As the years pass and the vigilance of the realm fades and its foes grow darker and darker, I play no small part in hurling back Sembian and Shadovar interests seeking to covertly conquer the realm by their usual means: magically influencing, bribing, or blackmailing various nobles. They’d have succeeded long before, but for me-and that gives me the right, as Cormyr’s most effective protector, to decide just what Cormyr should be and will become.
Three failures, only. Three who’ve resisted me. The intruders from Shadowdale, the wizard Elminster and the wench Storm … Bah. It is to sneer.
Her one attempt to destroy them should have been ease itself but had not gone well. Alusair had suddenly been there, all fierce menace, barring her way with the announcement that the two were under her protection and Targrael would harm them at her own peril.
She’d rightfully sneered at that, of course, but Alusair had taken her by the throat and had done something that had seared her very undeath.
Targrael’s throat pained her still, months later. Her voice had become a hoarse, hissing whisper, and she burst anew into ghostly flames about her throat whenever upset.
So she took bitter care indeed when in the palace, avoiding the ghost of the princess and those two thieves from Shadowdale as much as possible, and doing more watching than slaying.
Cold flames were licking about her throat now, though, as excitement rose icy and fierce within her.
Cormyr must be defended.
Targrael thrust up the lid of the stone coffin she’d been lying in, stretched stiff arms, and drew her sword.
The room around her was dark, empty, and unguarded-nigh forgotten, even at times when the royal court offices all around were bustling. Dusty and little regarded, like too many reminders of the kingdom’s past.
She climbed out of the raised coffin and put its lid back into place.
There. The Tomb of the Loyal Dragon looked as good as new.
She’d long ago tossed out the crumbling bones of the long-dead soldier interred there, and had made it her favorite hiding place. The idiot weaklings who called themselves Purple Dragons and senior courtiers and wizards of war these days hadn’t noticed, of course.
Targrael felt her lip curling. The darkness in her head was giving her orders without speaking, sending her marching off through the darkened passages of the royal court’s upper floors. Stalking slowly at first, blade held close to her chest as she stumbled into walls and closed doors.
She was no clumsy, lurching zombie, but she was seeing much more than dark, empty passages. In her mind were unfolding scenes of a band of hireswords, plundering the royal palace!
A band she was to aid and guard, or at least the man who led it: the young noble Marlin Stormserpent.
He had seized two precious things, and she was to see he kept them and his life. So he could wreak great change upon Cormyr.
She would be part of it. She would have a hand in the destiny of Cormyr.
At last.
She’d not miss her chance again …
“The way ahead is barred, saer,” one of his two surviving hirelings muttered warningly, shifting the gore-dripping sack that rode on his shoulder.
“I am aware of that,” Marlin replied firmly. “Matters have been arranged.”
It had been a long, boring trudge through cold darkness toward a faint glimmer of light.
They were almost at that light, a lantern hanging from an overhead hook in the Old Dwarf’s deepest winecellar. On the other side of the old and massive steel gate that walled off the end of the passage, where the lantern was, stood a row of massive oak casks, each in its own cradle.
His trusted, long-serving “dirty work” accomplice, Verrin, was waiting under that lantern, smirking at him. Just where Verrin was supposed to be.
Marlin stiffened. Not enough for anyone to see, but enough that Thirsty stirred restlessly inside his jerkin. Something was very wrong.
For one thing, the spell-warded steel gate was still down and locked in place. The Spellplague had twisted its wards like so many others, and wisps of wild magic were eddying around its wide-spaced bars as they had done for years, casting eerie glows on everyone’s face.
For another thing, Verrin wasn’t alone.
That “everyone” included a tall man who was standing with Verrin: Marlazander, the head bodyguard of Marlin’s longtime rival, Rothglar Illance.
As Marlin came to an expressionless halt, the chalice in one hand and his drawn sword in the other, his two hirelings with their sacks of severed heads flanking him, Marlazander put one large hand on Verrin’s shoulder, sneered at Marlin, and said gloatingly, “The problem with trusting in hirelings is keeping them bought. Or rather, your problem. Once more it seems Rothglar Illance is more than a little less miserly than Marlin Stormserpent.”
Marlin sighed. “If no more noble.”
He sent Thirsty flying forth again, making the little trill that told his pet to fell all strangers. It swooped through the bars while Verrin and Marlazander were still staring.
The bodyguard hurriedly stepped back, shoving Verrin away to give himself room, and drew steel.
His swing, despite being aided with his startled curse, missed the stirge entirely. Yet Thirsty wasn’t heading for him. It zigged, zagged-and struck, deftly lancing Verrin’s throat.
The man started to topple, clutching at his throat in a vain and stiffening-fingered attempt to stop his lifeblood jetting everywhere. Thirsty was already whirling away, darting between two casks where Marlazander couldn’t hope to reach or follow.
The bodyguard was still cursing and turning, trying to see where the stirge would swoop, when a tall, slender figure stepped out from between another two casks to confront him.
It was female-or had been, when it was alive. The remains of a woman clad in black leather war-harness, bareheaded, her face white with death in some places and fetchingly streaked with mold in others. She held a sword almost carelessly in her hand.
“Another swaggering, foolishly arrogant noble’s pawn,” she murmured, surveying Marlazander the Mighty and letting him feel the weight of a sneer. “They’re almost as annoying as their noble masters. Almost.”
Marlazander sprang at her, slashing at her viciously in one of the best attacks he’d ever learned. It was parried and turned aside with a flick of her blade-as was his next and his next. She danced around him, toying with him like an armsmaster-and when his first fury of increasingly frantic attacks started to falter along with his wind, she disarmed him with casual ease.