The sudden realization that with Lady Olina gone, the due would deal instead with him, brought a rush of cold sweat dribbling down his sides.
The same realization came to the due.
"LUKAS!"
The satchel fell from limp fingers. Fear froze him to the spot. Lukas watched his death approach, unable to move, unable to protest. Then some instinct of self-preservation broke through the paralysis, and with a shriek of terror he started to run.
He didn't know where he was running to. He just knew he had to escape. Plunging into the dark recesses at the base of the inner tower, he searched for sanctuary and found only the narrow, spiral stairs leading up four stories to the roof. A mistake. He should never have come inside.
Too late to go back.
Whimpering, all he could do was climb.
His face tear-streaked, his tunic tattered, Gerek came through the gate in time to see Lukas run into the tower with his papa following close behind. Hitching his quiver and the one arrow he'd saved over his shoulder, he darted forward.
"Gerek!"
"I'm okay, Jany," he yelled toward the edge of the court and his suddenly hysterical nurse. He could hear her crying and babbling his name, and it made him feel bad, but he had to help his papa.
From the top of the tower, there was nowhere to run. On the one side, the mountain fell away from the tower's base, adding even greater distance to the ground. On the other, there was only the court with its border of upturned faces.
From the stairwell came the sound of leather slapping stone. The due was nearly on him. Lukas cringed back against the battlements.
Annice pushed past a babbling group of servers, too astounded by the return of their due—of both their dues—to notice a pair of exhausted bards. Supporting much of Stasya's weight, as well as her own, she sank gratefully into a sunny doorway where the wood and dark stone had collected all the heat of the morning.
"S'cold, Nees," Stasya murmured, red-rimmed eyes still squinted nearly shut after so long in darkness. "Still no k-kigh."
"That's because you're with me. Remember?" Annice settled the other woman more comfortably in the bend of her elbow and with her free hand worked the stopper out of a jug she'd picked up as they made their way through the deserted kitchens. "Here, drink some more of this." Glancing up at the tower where Lukas had become momentarily visible as he looked down into the court, she added softly, "When this is settled. I'll go far enough away that the kigh will come and you can Sing the news to the captain."
"No." Stasya shoved her face into the curve of Annice's neck. Too long with the dark and the cold. Too long with no kigh. If she tried to Sing, and failed, she'd know for sure her voice was gone. Better not to know. Better not to Sing.
Annice heard the subtext under Stasya's denial and tightened her hold. With her own voice uncertain, it was the only comfort she had to give.
Too angry to remember that cornered rats would fight, Pjerin charged out onto the top of the tower and was slammed sideways to the stone.
Lukas cursed and stumbled back. The due had been moving too fast and a kick intended to smash into his temple had hit only the solid flesh of his upper arm. It wouldn't be enough. It wouldn't be nearly enough. His advantage gone, Lukas began to babble. "Your Grace, I can explain. It wasn't me, it was…"
Pjerin shook off the blow, lurched to his feet, and lunged, growling wordlessly. The two men crashed back against the battlements and Pjerin's hands closed around the steward's throat.
Crouched at the top of the stairs, Gerek readied his bow and his single arrow.
Gasping for breath, unable to break the due's hold, Lukas jabbed his knuckles again and again into the bleeding scar below Pjerin's left shoulder.
Muscles began to spasm and howling with as much frustration as pain, Pjerin stumbled back, his left arm falling useless to his side.
For an instant, Lukas stood alone, silhouetted against the sky. Gerek took a deep breath, held it as he'd been taught, and released the string. The arrow flew wide, rang against the stone, and rumbled over the edge, falling end over end into the court below.
Both men wheeled to track its path.
Lukas saw one final chance to survive. Diving for the stairs, he grabbed up the boy and held him, kicking and shrieking against his chest as he scuffled back to the edge of the roof.
The sight and sound of Gerek's danger pulled Pjerin from his frenzy and gasping for breath he took a step forward.
"No farther," Lukas warned, shifting his grip and swinging the child out over the drop.
Gerek screamed and fought harder to be free.
"Gerek, be still!" Pjerin commanded, muscles knotting with the effort to remain where he was.
Twisting his small body around to face his father, Gerek hiccuped and went limp.
"Good boy."
"Papa…"
"Shh, everything's going to be all right." Pjerin lifted his gaze to Lukas' face. "Lukas knows that if he drops you, he'll go off right after you. That if he hurts you, he'll wish he'd never been born."
The steward's lips twitched up in a hideous parody of a smile. "What difference would that make? You're going to kill me anyway."
"Let him go, Lukas."
"Grant me safe passage out of the keep. Give me your word I can go free."
Pjerin nodded and although every instinct said to rush forward, he stepped back. "Without Olina," he said quietly, "you're nothing."
Nothing. When he'd been so close to having it all. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that Pjerin a'Stasiek should have everything and Lukas a'Tynek nothing. Not power, not wealth, not even a child. His only daughter had been taken from him, destroyed by the kigh. No second chance for his child. No one to pull her to safety. Blinded by tears of self-pity, Lukas heaved Gerek roughly up onto the stone and let go.
"PAPA!" With too much of his body still dangling over the court, Gerek slipped backward.
"GEREK!" Pjerin dove, right arm desperately reaching, but he arrived at the edge half a heartbeat too late.
Below, a dozen voices shrieked and a dozen people surged uselessly toward the tower.
Surrounded by stone, with no earth to hear her Song, Annice heaved her body around, threw open the door, and plunged inside. "Sing, Stasya!" she cried as she put thick walls between her influence and Gerek's only chance.
Eyes locked on the falling child, Stasya staggered to her feet. No time to think of what she was doing. No time for fear.
She Sang.
And the kigh answered.
Long pale fingers clutched at Gerek's arms and legs until the child was hidden to bardic sight behind a surging mass of slender bodies. As he continued to plunge screaming toward the stones of the court, the air below him grew translucent, then opaque.
A handbreadth from the ground he stopped, held by Stasya's Song. Tears streaming down her face, she Sang a gratitude just in time for the kigh to loose the sobbing boy into the comfort of his nurse's embrace.
The wind howled about the walls of the keep as each of the kigh swirled joyously around Stasya's head. They pulled her hair and tugged at her clothes and one even went so far as to poke an ethereal finger up her nose. Then, en masse, they rose to circle the tower.
His heart having stopped as Gerek fell and started again as he was saved, Pjerin leaned into the rush of air and breathed a prayer of thanks to every god the Circle contained. He couldn't see the kigh, but he'd heard Stasya's Song and understood what had to have happened. His son was safe. Nothing else mattered.
"No! Get away! Help me!" Whites wreathing his eyes, Lukas frantically worked his right hand in the sign against the kigh. The wind roared around him. His left arm flailed at the air and he stumbled from one side of the roof to the other in an attempt to escape the invisible demons he knew were there. He lurched against the battlements, overbalanced, and began to topple. "Your Grace! Save me!"