Shadowmarch

small space. She couldn’t see his eyes. “Killed…”

“Shaso, I know you didn’t do it! It was Selia, Anissa’s maid. She’s . . she’s some kind of witch, a shape- changer. She turned into… oh, merciful Zoria, some… some thing! I saw it!”

“Help me up.” His voice was rough with disuse. “For the love of all the gods, girl, help me up.” She did her best, tugging on his arm as he struggled to get to his feet. She babbled out the night’s story to him, not certain if he could even understand her in his sick and weary state. The chains clanked and he slumped back down, defeated by their weight. “Where are the keys for these?' she asked.

Shaso pointed. “On that board on the wall.” It was taking him a long time to say each word. “I do not know which key fits these shackles. They have scarcely ever been taken off.”

Briony s eyes filled with tears as she hurried to the board. She could see no difference between any of the dozen rings so she brought them all, weight that pulled her arms down straight at her sides as she hurried back to the cell. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She began to fumble through the keys. She had to lean close as she tried each in the lock of his shackles. The old man’s stench reminded her of the thing in Anissa’s chamber, but at least it was a more natural odor. “You didn’t do it, so why didn’t you tell me? What happened between you and Kendrick?”

He was silent. First one, then the second of the shackles opened with a click of sprung iron. She could not help feeling the wet wounds they had made on his wrists as she helped him to stand. He was smeared up and down with blood—but then, so was she.

Shaso wavered, then managed to stand erect. He held out his hands, struggling for balance. “I did tell you that I did not kill your brother. I cannot speak of any more than that,” he said at last.

Briony loosed a small shriek of frustration. “What do you mean? I told you, I know who murdered Kendrick. Don’t you understand? Now you must tell me why you let us imprison you when it wasn’t your fault!”

He shook his head wearily. “My oath prevented me. It still prevents me.” “No,” she said, “I will not allow your stubbornness to…”

The door of the stronghold creaked open and the guard she had dispatched appeared in the doorway. He wore a distracted expression and his hands were pressed against his stomach as though he cradled something small and precious. He took a step into the chamber then stumbled and fell onto his face. In her anger and confusion it took Briony a moment to realize that he was not getting up, another instant to notice the dark pool spreading beneath him.

“Your master of arms is still the perfect knight, isn’t he?' Hendon Tolly stepped out of the stairwell and into the room. He was dressed as though for a funeral, but smiling like a child who had just been given a sweet. “A Xandian savage who would actually die to preserve his honor.” Three more men filed into the room behind him, all wearing the Tollys’ livery, all with drawn swords. “That is what makes my life easy, you know—all these fools willing to die for honor.”

“I have found out who killed my brother,” Briony said, startled and frightened. “I did not believe you had anything to do with it. Why have you killed this guard? And why do you come before me in this threatening way?” She drew herself up to her full height. “Did you have something to do with it?” She didn’t believe she could make Hendon Tolly hesitate about harming the reigning princess, but she might at least cause his minions to have second thoughts.

“Yes, you really might have made a queen in time,” Tolly said. “But you are green, girl-child, green. You have come here without guards. You have left a trail of confusion and bloody deeds behind you all across the castle tonight. The story I will tell will explain it all—but not to your credit.”

“Traitor,” rumbled Shaso. He slumped back against the wall, his strength apparently at an end. “It was… you and your brother who caused all this.”

“Some of it, yes.” Hendon Tolly laughed. “And you, old man, like a drunkard wandering in front of a heavy coach, did not get out of my way. And now you will become the official murderer of the princess as well as of Prince Kendrick.”

“What are you babbling about?” Briony demanded, hoping that Tolly would speak long enough for her to think of something, or for someone to come and save her. “Have you lost your mind?” But no one would come, she knew that. It was why he had stabbed the guard and let him die in front of her, as an illustration of her helplessness. The youngest Tolly was a cat who liked to sport with cornered prey, and this was a quality of sport he had been waiting for his entire life.

“Briony, little Briony.” He shook his head like a doting uncle. “So angry with my brother Gailon because he wanted to marry you and turn you into a respectable woman instead of the headstrong little trollop your father allowed you to be. Such a monster, you thought him. But in truth, he was the only thing that stood between my brother Caradon and I and our plans for Southmarch. Which is why he had to die.”

“You… you killed Gailon?”

“Of course. He opposed our contacts with the Autarch from the first— he even came to argue with Kendrick about it on the night your brother died. Caiadon and I had contacted Kendrick separately, you see, because Gailon would not do it, and we had promised him that the Autarch would help him free your father in return for a few small concessions about the sovereignty of certain southern nations. Kendrick had decided to take up our ally in Xis on his generous offer, you see.”

“My brother would never do that!”

“Ah, but he did, or at least he agreed to do so. His murder ruined what would have been a very useful bargain, at least for Caradon and myself. And for the Autarch, too, I suppose.” He shook his head. “It is still a puzzlement to me—I can make no sense out of this Devonisian servant girl and her place in things at all.”

Briony was about to ask him another question, just to keep him talking— she was far too stunned and terrified at the moment to absorb much of what Hendon Tolly was saying—but he raised his hand to silence her, then nodded at his guards.

“Enough,” he said. “Kill them quickly. We still have to find that miserable little doctor.” “You’ll never get away with it!”

Tolly laughed with genuine pleasure. “Of course we will. You Eddons, you talk of your sacred bond and the love of the people, but the world does not spin that way, however much you would like to believe it so. Your faithful subjects will forget you within months if not days. You see, someone will have to protect Anissa’s newborn child— the last heir. It is a boy, by the by. The midwife is with her even now. Poor Anissa is much confused by the night’s events, but I will explain them to her anon.” He smiled again, mockingly cheerful. “By then you will be dead at Shaso’s hand, a tragic echo of your brother’s fate, and Shaso will be dead by mine, or so everyone will hear. Then once we have found and killed that fat physician, there will be no other story except ours. The Tollys will reluctantly take the infant monarch under their protection. My brother will rule at Summerfield Court and I will rule here— although Caradon doesn’t know that yet.” He actually made a small bow, as though he had done her a service. “You see, that is the secret of history, little Briony—who tells the last story.”

Praise the gods, Chaven has escaped them, she thought. At least for the moment. Her heart was beating so fast it seemed to drive the air out of her lungs. It was little enough to hope for—that sometime after her death, someone at least would know the truth, that the Tollys’ story would not be the only tale of these days.

Hendon Tolly snapped his fingers. The three guards moved forward, pikes out, pushing her back toward Shaso In this last moment she could only think blindly of meaningless things—Barrick frowning over some petty irritation, Sister Utta drawing a careful circle on a scrap of parchment, the radiant smile of Zona in an old book— then a black shape flew past her shoulder and smashed into the face of the nearest guard, who pitched over backward, knocking down one of his fellows. A hand yanked Briony backward, then something bright as a broken sun flew across the room and bounced off the wall, spattering blazing light across the guards and Hendon Tolly, who shouted in pain and surprise as flames sprang up on his heavy black clothes.

Shaso was gasping like a dying man from the effort of throwing first his chain, then the brazier. As he pulled her toward the back of the stronghold, Briony knew they had only postponed death. There was nowhere to go, and the surprise assault had not been enough: already Tolly and his two remaining guards were batting out the flames, although one of the soldiers was screeching in pain.

As she staggered backward, she looked in anguish at the empty rack where the pikes were usually kept, where on any other night but this odd combination of siege and festival some might have been found, then Shaso tugged her into the last cell and slammed the door behind them.

“Hold it closed,” the old man wheezed. “Just for… a moment.”