I sat on the wall staring at thin gray clouds, strange to me like everything else in this dark city. They striped the heavens like giant claws drawn across flesh, and the pink of twilight bled between them.

The guards below me had, by now, become accustomed to where I sat perched on the wall. I hadn’t been able to get back to the trapdoor in the chamber closet, and I’d had to take a chance on getting back in through my window since the door was locked. I had almost made it to the ledge when the guards spotted me. I immediately sat down on the wall, making it appear that it was my destination and I had just come from my window. Their shouts hadn’t deterred me, and once they were assured escape wasn’t part of my plan, they tolerated my teetering place of refuge.

In truth, I didn’t want to go back inside. I told myself I needed air to clear the smoke and sulfur from my nostrils. It seemed to cling to every pore of my body, sickly and pungent. There was something about the strange men down in the caverns that left me dizzy and weak.

I remembered Walther saying I was the strongest of us.

I didn’t feel strong, and if I was, I didn’t want to be strong any longer. I wanted out. I’d had enough. I wanted Terravin. I wanted Pauline and Berdi and fish stew. I wanted anything but this. I wanted my dreams back. I wanted Rafe to be a farmer and Walther to be—

My chest jumped, and I choked back whatever was trying to shake loose.

Something is looming.

And now, with these strange erudite men in the cavern, it seemed certain.

I felt the loose pieces floating just out of my grasp—the Song of Venda, the Chancellor and Royal Scholar hiding books and sending a bounty hunter to kill me without benefit of trial. And then there was the kavah on my shoulder that refused to fade away. Something had been stirring long before I ran on my wedding day.

I remembered the wind that day I prepared for the wedding. Cold gusts beating against the citadelle, warning whispers winding down drafty halls. It was in the air even then. The truths of the world wish to be known. But it was far more than I had believed it to be. The before and after of my life cleaved in two that day, in ways I could never have imagined. My head ached with questions.

I closed my eyes, searching for the gift that I had only just been getting a sense of when I crossed the Cam Lanteux. Dihara had warned me that gifts that weren’t fed shriveled and died, but it was hard to feed anything here. Still, I kept my eyes closed and searched for that place of knowing. I forced my hands to relax at my sides, forced the tightness from my shoulders, focused on the light behind my eyelids, and heard Dihara again.… It is the language of knowing, child. Trust the strength within you.

I felt myself drifting to something familiar, heard the swish of grass in the meadow, the gurgle of a river, caught the scent of meadow clover, felt the wind lift my hair, and then I heard a song, quiet and distant, as delicate as a midnight breeze. A voice I desperately needed to hear. Pauline. I heard Pauline saying remembrances. I lifted my voice with hers and sang the words from the Holy Text of the girl Morrighan as she crossed the wilderness.

Another step, my sisters,

My brothers,

My love.

The way is long, but we have each other.

Another mile,

Another tomorrow,

The path is cruel, but we are strong.

I pressed two fingers against my lips, held them there to make the moment stretch as wide as the universe, and lifted them to the heavens. “And so shall it be,” I said softly, “for evermore.”

When I opened my eyes, I saw a small group gathered below me listening. Two of them were girls only a little younger than myself, and they searched the sky where I had set my prayers free, their expressions earnest. I looked up again too, scanning the heavens, and wondered if my words were already lost among the stars.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

PAULINE

Three days and two notes later, Gwyneth still hadn’t received a response from the Chancellor. She had convinced me that, while I didn’t like or trust either the Chancellor or the Royal Scholar after their treatment of Lia, that also made them the perfect ones for Gwyneth to seek out. They would be the most likely to have secrets about her and, more important, be interested in information about her. It was the unknown players that we had to worry about, and at the current moment, that included just about everyone.

“What difference does it make who we can or can’t trust besides the king?”

“Because someone tried to slit Lia’s throat when she was in Terravin.”

I had sat there in disbelief when Gwyneth told me. Lia had explained the injury on her throat as a stumble down the stairs while she was carrying an armload of firewood. It grieved me, how much Lia had protected me from during those days just after Mikael had died. I was so wrapped up in my own misery, I hadn’t been there for her. This cast everything in a new light. Traitors were always brought back for trial, and certainly the king’s daughter above all would receive that small amount of justice. Someone wanted her dead without benefit of even a court hearing. I looked upon the whole court and cabinet now with new eyes.

Gwyneth’s third note to the Chancellor, sent early this morning, was answered immediately with an agreement to meet midafternoon. In this note she said she had news of Princess Arabella.

I sat in a dark corner of the pub where no one would notice me, though at this hour, the pub was empty except for two patrons on the far side of the room. My hood shadowed my face, and every last wisp of my blond hair was carefully tucked out of sight. I faced the door and slowly sipped a mug of warm broth. Gwyneth sat at a well-lit table in the middle of the room. I was only to reveal myself if she gave me a signal and we had to resort to our second plan—me confronting the Chancellor. I was certain she wouldn’t signal. She was dismayed that I had come along at all, but I would have it no other way. She accused me of not trusting her, and maybe the revelation that she had once been a spy did give me pause, but mostly I was afraid to let a single moment slip past when I might be able to help Lia.