you find such a time, in all your hopefully long life. I cannot give in to my whims, for I long ago swore an oath to the Dragon, and I will keep it, or my life is nothing. I have specific orders regarding you, from the king’s own lips.”
“More lies,” Narantha hissed furiously at her, between sobbing breaths. “You’ve had no time to speak with the king! I’ve watched you, every instant since my rising-just as you have watched me! I doubt very much that the Dragon crystal-chats with his lordlings in the heart of the night; I should think the queen would have something to say about that!”
Still holding her wrists, Tessaril said, “Your doubts, I fear, are unfounded. The king himself was here last night.”
“Oh, I suppose he just stepped out of the heart of a spell, sat on the side of your bed, and discussed affairs of state, yes?”
“I don’t recall him sitting,” Tessaril replied, “but we talked, yes. About you, among many, many other things. His Majesty anticipated your displeasure.”
She let go of Narantha, stepped back, and drew something out of her bodice, proferring it between two fingers: a finger of much-folded parchment.
Narantha stared up at the Lady Lord of Eveningstar, then at the parchment-and snatched it, unfolding it with hands that trembled in haste.
Dearest Narantha, Lady Crownsilver:
Life is a series of hardships and hard choices for us all. This is one of yours. Every Cormyrean, noble or common-born, owes absolute loyalty to the Dragon Throne. You are to obey Lord Tessaril Winter as if she were me. Your spirit does you credit, but every noble must learn that obedience is worth far more to the realm and to its people, as well as to its sovereign. I pray you make me proud.
It was signed “Azoun, Fourth of that Name.”
Narantha bit her lip.
“You know what it says?”
Tessaril nodded. “I watched him write it.”
Narantha read it again, holding it almost tenderly in one hand while her other balled into a trembling fist. Then she smote the arm of her chair, again and again, weeping.
This time, when Tessaril’s arms went around her, she buried herself in that warm, soft comfort, and clung to it.
“Not much longer now,” Florin said.
“Good,” Jhessail sighed. “I’m tired, and I’m cold, and sitting here in the dark watching lightning bolts that snap just often enough to keep me from dozing off doesn’t strike me as glorious adventure.”
“You’re not sitting in the dark,” Pennae said. “One lantern’s enough. The gods don’t pour lamp oil down out of the skies, know you.”
“Hrast! There goes my seventeenth scheme for riches,” Semoor said. “Seen any ghosts yet, anyone? They call it ‘the Haunted Halls,’ look you!”
“Cleric-to-be of Lathander,” Martess said, “still your tongue. Or I’ll do so for you.”
“That should be fun.”
“Oho,” Islif told the ceiling, “Semoor Wolftooth is about to have an adventure. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
Narantha read the royal letter for the thirty-sixth time. This time, when she refolded it carefully, slipped it back into her bodice, and raised her eyes to the ever-watchful Tessaril, she found amusement in the Lady Lord of Eveningstar’s gaze.
“There are no hidden words there, I fear,” Tessaril said, “and no lurking spell. It won’t change what it says, no matter how often you read it.”
Narantha sighed, then shook her head as if she could wish away all lords, towers, wizards, and commanding kings. “I… I just want to ride free,” she said mournfully. “To burst out of this kind confinement. To ride with the Swords, and see adventures-”
“From a safe distance?”
“I-yes, from a safe distance, though that’s cowardly of me, I suppose, and unworthy. I-hrast it, Lady Lord Tessaril, I am weary up to here with sitting cooped up in a lord’s tower, surrounded by an everpresent escort of Purple Dragons and war wizards!”
“Of course. Have some more of this superb cheese-and the zzar? — and look into the fire.”
The flames of the hearthfire danced strangely, shaping themselves into a scene of armed and armored horsemen riding along a road, a purposeful line of men all garbed alike, who rode under banners that swirled and flapped just like the Crownsilver banners did, when her father rode out to “Those are your family banners,” Tessaril said.
Narantha’s head jerked up. “You’re reading my mind? ”
“I don’t have to, when your face softens so, remembering. No, the cleverness of my spell is confined to shaping flames.”
“So just how is it that you managed to show me my father riding somewhere, if you plucked it not from my mind?”
“I saw it in my scrying crystal, when you last sought yon garderobe,” Tessaril replied. “Your father is a-riding with all his men-at-arms, right now.”
“Riding under arms? Where?”
“Here. Straight up to Eveningstar-rather angrily, I fear-to bring you home. Though even if he rides right through the night, he won’t be here until well after the sun rises again.”
Narantha stared at the Lady Lord of Eveningstar, aghast-then launched herself out of her chair with a snarl, storming across the room with her hands out like claws.
Tessaril sat unmoved, only the slightest trace of a smile twitching the corner of her lips. She went on smiling as her magic caught her seething captive steps away from her, spanked Narantha Crownsilver soundly with unseen hands, and hurled the sobbingly furious young noblewoman off to bed.
The Lady Lord of Eveningstar went on sitting in her chair, listening to the crashes of things being broken on the far side of that closed and spellbound door, and her smile turned sad.
“Gods above, child,” she murmured. “You are so much as I was, when your age, that I almost want to defy Azoun. Almost.”
As they squeezed through the rusty bars, there was a fair amount of crowding, and Semoor’s boot brushed one edge of the heaped weapons.
Whereupon a mouth appeared on the battered and bare metal shield atop the pile, and said in a flat, deep voice like a Purple Dragon giving stern orders: “Beware! These were carried in by those who will never carry them out again!”
Standing tense in the silence that followed those ringing words, the Swords watched the mouth fade away again. And waited.
And waited.
Nothing else happened, as their held breaths stretched. It was Semoor who first grinned, shrugged, and asked, “So, can I take yon shield now? And go through the weapons for whatever I like the look of?”
“No,” Pennae snapped. “You don’t really need them, and you could be spreading some fell curse or other. If Agannor or Bey-they’ve the best armor-wants to use the shield as we go out, to stand like a wall while the rest of us go past in a crouch, fine, but I’d throw it right back in here after, if ’twere me. I trust none of it.”
The Swords of Eveningstar were giving each other grim looks.
“I might have laughed at that warning, when we came in here,” Agannor said, “but not now.”
They moved on, Pennae tarrying to sprinkle a fingerwidth line of sand across the passage, from the third of four identical sacks tied to her belt.
“I saw you doing that earlier,” Doust said with a frown. “Why?”
The thief finished her pouring. “To show us, on our next visit, if anything has come slithering around these passages since we left. To check on our intrusions, say.”
Doust made a face. “Ah.”
Blowing out the lone lantern, the Swords went out into Starwater Gorge, low and fast and as quietly as possible.
