Dart heard the hard smile behind Mistress Naff’s next words. “The trap is set. There will be no escape. For any of them. It will end here.”
Tylar climbed the stairs of the center tower. They approached the High Wing. He led the way with Kathryn at his side. Eylan followed with Gerrod and Rogger. Krevan and Corram guarded their rear.
The only sound was the tread of their own steps. Even the cries of battle in the gardens had disappeared, swallowed by the heavy stone. All that interrupted their footsteps was the occasional hollow rumble of thunder.
Where were the folk of the keep?
Surely not all had been corrupted into beasts.
Yet not a single person moved in the halls. The entire keep had become a crypt, haunted and empty. Torches hissed in sconces and braziers crackled. The castillion seemed to be holding its breath, waiting.
The tension dragged their steps. Each crack of thunder stopped them until it echoed away. They had slowly traversed the lower halls from the southeast tower. In the lower holds, they discovered sections of the floor had fallen away, into the river below.
“Our flippercraft must have ripped through some of the castillion’s old underpinnings as it crashed through here,” Rogger had said, peering down into the river. The waters below had churned and roiled with the storm.
But such damage was slight compared to the true blow struck here.
The corruption of a god, the heart of an entire realm.
Tylar stared upward, toward the High Wing.
They climbed another four flights, moving in silence. None dared speak. Tylar rounded the last bend in the stair. The main double doors to the High Wing were not only unguarded, they lay open.
He stopped, suspicious.
They waited, listening for any sign of an ambush.
All that was heard was the rumble of thunder.
Tylar met Kathryn’s eyes. He sheathed his ordinary blade and slid free Rivenscryr. The snick of metal sounded loud on the stair.
He stepped around the bend, hugging the wall, his blade held ready.
He moved up one step, then another.
The rest followed.
In this steady manner, they climbed to the top of the stairs. Tylar tried his best to scan the hall beyond the open doors. Like all the halls, the High Wing appeared deserted. Had Chrism fled?
This worry drove Tylar over the threshold and into the great hall.
Windows lined one side, doors the other. Halfway down the hallway, the central brazier still glowed in the dimness. The crack of a log in the great furnace startled Tylar. It sounded like the break of a bone. A sound he knew too well.
He pushed farther into the hall.
Nothing.
He waved the others to check the closest rooms. All the doors were open, as if they had been left ajar in a mad rush to escape. Kathryn and Gerrod tried the first chamber. Eylan and Rogger the next. Tylar led Krevan and Corram to the third.
Kathryn and Gerrod were already returning. “Empty,” whispered Kathryn, wearing a deep frown of worry.
Rogger appeared at his door. He waved. “Come see this.”
Tylar, Kathryn, and Gerrod followed the thief into the chamber. The air in the room smelled of burned rye and something sickly sweet, like honey gone bad.
Eylan waited for them in the back bedchamber. A figure lay atop the bed, arms folded over the rise of an ample belly. He looked to be in gentle repose, eyes closed. His chest rose and fell evenly. A brazier smoldered in one corner, the source of the room’s reek.
“Master Pliny, one of Chrism’s Hands,” Rogger introduced.
“He won’t wake,” Eylan said.
“Spellcast,” Gerrod said. “Thralled by black Grace.”
A stern voice interrupted them. “Another lies in the same state in the next room,” Krevan said.
They backed out to the main hall.
“Apparently Chrism spared his Hands from the ilking,” Rogger said. “I guess he’s too lazy to train new ones. Good Hands are hard to find.”
The other rooms were quickly checked. Two other Hands were discovered enthralled and slumbering.
“Mistress Naff is still missing,” Gerrod said. He stared around at the others.
All had heard Dart’s accounting of the ceremony in the myrrwood, the chosen few. The remainder of the castillion had not been spared. Chrism must have blood fed the keep staff and guards in secret, drafting all in some hidden manner. Perhaps in wine, perhaps in food. Afterward, they all went about their duties unaware that at a moment’s call all would be lost: their forms, their minds, their humanity.
Tylar felt no real sympathy for those who went willingly to the torch, but so many others had had no choice. He stared up and down the hall. Even the Hands had become puppets.
Everyone gathered again in the hall.
There was only one room left to be searched.
The golden doors to Chrism’s chambers stood closed, lit by the glow of the brazier before them.
Tylar stepped forward, flanked by Krevan and Kathryn. He clutched the Godsword in hand, fingers squeezing the throbbing hilt. The blade seemed to eat the light coming off the brazier and shone brighter for it.
He reached a hand toward the doors’ latch.
Their surface was plated in gold. If locked, it would take time to chop their way inside. Perhaps the closed doors were a ruse. To distract them, while Chrism made his true escape.
Tylar’s fingers touched the latch and the twin doors fell open on their own, swinging inside.
A lone figure stood at the threshold.
She was stunning, slim of waist, generous of curve and breast, auburn hair trailing in lazy curves over one shoulder and down to midback. She leaned slightly to one side, a palm resting on a hip, an inviting glint to her eyes.
“The godslayer,” she whispered, her lips, rouged red and full, barely moving. “Welcome to the High Wing.”
Tylar froze, transfixed-not so much by her beauty, but her nakedness. She stood unabashed, her nipples bared. Below her throat, no hair marred her smooth white skin.
But it was not unmarked.
Centered on her chest, a black handprint stood out starkly.
A twin to his own.
“They must be warned,” Delia insisted.
“I can send a cadre of knights,” a cloaked figure said, “but that would strip our defenses. I was ordered to keep you all under guard.”
Dart listened to the exchange from the shadow of the downed ship. She had related what she’d overheard in the High Wing, of a trap being set, but nothing was being done. Nothing but talking. Her fists balled up.
She glanced back out into the rain.
She spotted one hope to break this deadlock. She turned to Laurelle. “Can you distract those others?” She waved to Delia and the clutch of bantering knights.
Laurelle stirred, her brows frowned. “Why? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to strike for the castillion.”
Laurelle’s eyes widened. “Are you mad? What about what Ser Tylar said? To keep you and the sword apart?”
“There are two daemons up there.” Dart remembered the kiss she had witnessed in the Eldergardens between Mistress Naff and Chrism. She remembered the smoky darkness that linked the pair’s lips. “The godslayer will need more than one strike. I’m the only one who can help him.”
Laurelle wrung her hands, but she nodded, her eyes firming with the plan. “I’ll do my best here. But how are you going to get there?”
She reached and hugged Laurelle tight. “Pupp is not the only dog here.” With those words, she set off into the rain.
Laurelle waited a moment, then headed in the opposite direction.
Dart rushed through the pelting rain. It stung now like bee stings, whipped by the winds. But she pushed on. She reached her only hope.
“Tracker Lorr,” she said.
The wyldman seemed unsurprised by her sudden appearance but confused for the reason behind it. “Child?”
She spoke in a rush. “Can your hound carry me to the castillion? I heard before… when you came… that he could smell Castellan Vail.”