right now. We don’t have time for pride fights!”
“If you’re looking for the new king,” Coriano said, “he’s in the throne room. Back through the treasury hall and straight up the main stair four flights. The first door on the right will take you to the promenade hall, and you just follow the flags to the throne room itself. He’s got the entire contents of the treasury up there on my advice, so I could set my trap and he could work on his pillar in peace.”
Miranda’s hands began to shake. “You’re letting him work on the Pillar? Do you have any idea what that could mean?”
“No,” Coriano said, “and neither do you. Does it matter?”
“Of course, it matters!” Miranda’s voice echoed through the empty cavern. “You were there in the clearing. You should know better than most that the man has nothing but contempt for the spirits! If he gets that Pillar, there won’t be a spirit in the world that can stand against him, and every spirit he conquers will go as mad as that sandstorm. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
Coriano raised his white blade and brought the red-wrapped hilt to his lips. “The only spirit I care about is Dunea,” he whispered, “my River of White Snow, and all she cares about is beating him.” He pointed the tip of his sword at the hilt of the Heart of War poking over Josef’s back. “Everything else is meaningless.”
Miranda growled, but Josef stepped in front of her, his enormous back and the great sword strapped across it blocking everything else from view. The swordsman looked over his shoulder, and Miranda’s blood went thin at the look in his eyes. Even when he had waded out into the sea of soldiers with nothing but a stick of building material, he hadn’t looked as large or as deadly as he did now.
“Nico,” he said. “Protect Eli and the girl.” He turned back to face Coriano. “This is my fight.”
A cold hand grabbed Miranda’s and she looked down to find Nico dragging her out of the treasury.
“We’ll meet you upstairs,” Eli said, jogging after the women. “Don’t lose.”
Josef didn’t answer, but Miranda saw him grin as he turned to face Coriano, the beam brandished before him. Coriano raised his white sword in greeting as the enormous treasury door drifted shut, obscuring them from view.
“We can’t just leave him!” Miranda shouted, fighting Nico’s grip. “Shouldn’t we help? We could beat Coriano and go upstairs together!”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Eli grabbed her shoulders and spun her around. “Do you think Josef’s my servant? That I can just order him around?” He was breathing hard now, and his face was more serious than she had ever seen it. “ ‘Do not postulate where you do not understand,’ ” he sneered, his voice warped into a biting mimicry of her own. “Maybe it’s time you listened to your own advice, Spiritualist. Josef Liechten travels with me by his own choice. When he says ‘This is my fight,’ that’s what it means. His fight, not ours to interfere with because it doesn’t match what we want to do.”
“But he’s your friend!” Miranda shouted. “You can’t just leave him to die! Coriano would have had him last time if Renaud hadn’t released the storm. What makes you think he’ll survive?”
“He won’t lose.” The absolute surety in Nico’s voice struck Miranda like a hammer. The girl looked up at the Spiritualist, her enormous black coat twitching around her calm, pale face. “Josef’s the strongest swordsman in the world,” she said. “He won’t lose to someone like Coriano and his arrogant white sword.”
Miranda stared blankly, trying to think of an answer to that, but Nico was already gone, picking her way through the groaning soldiers and toward the stairs. Eli shot Miranda a look that dared her to say something more and started after the girl. Miranda took one last, long look at the treasury door. Then, with a heavy sigh, she turned and followed the other two through the ruined hall, past the splinters of the tiny servants’ door where Josef had made their entrance, and up the broad main stair that led back to the upper levels of the palace.
After getting lost twice, they found the door that opened into the throne room’s approach. The long hall had changed dramatically since Miranda and Marion had pushed their way through the crowd that had gathered to see Renaud ages ago. Black mourning banners hung from the vaulted ceiling in place of the Mellinorian flags, and the sconces on the walls burned low behind black shades. The edge of the newly risen moon was visible through the high windows, but the watery glass and high, swift clouds distorted into ghostly shadows what light the moon shed, leaving the lofty hall as gloomy as a cemetery forest. Eli, Miranda, and Nico crept along the wall, scurrying from fat stone pillar to fat stone pillar, but it soon became obvious that such precaution was unnecessary. The promenade hall was empty.
“Where is everyone?” Miranda said, stepping out into the dim light.
“Probably still fighting the fire,” Eli said, cocking an eyebrow at Nico. “I really hope you didn’t underestimate the situation. Henrith won’t thank us for getting his throne back if the castle burns down.”
“It won’t.” Nico glided silently through the gloom. “That furnace wasn’t smart enough to manage anything as spectacular as burning down an entire castle.”
“Comforting words indeed,” Miranda said, shaking her head. “Come on. The throne room is this way.”
They half walked, half ran the length of the long promenade. The golden doors to the throne room loomed large, glowing silver in the dim moonlight, and, as they discovered when they reached them, locked tight.
“Not even locked,” Eli said, running his hands over as much of the ornate gold work as he could reach. “The doors themselves have been sealed somehow.” He got down on his knees and tried to peer underneath, but the doors were set flush with the marble floor, without so much as a hair crack to look through.
“Nico,” Eli said, stepping back. “If you would be so kind.”
Nico nodded and shook her hands free of her bulky sleeves. Bracing her boots against the slippery marble, she slammed her palms against the metal and started to push. The doors groaned under the pressure and began to bow inward. Cracks sprouted in the carved gold, growing in cobwebby spirals as Nico pushed harder. With a soft, peeling crack, large sections of the gold began to flake off, revealing the dark metal beneath. The door squealed, and the marble under Nico’s feet began to crack under the pressure, but the iron core of the doors beneath the soft gold did not budge. Nico gritted her teeth and pushed harder still, growling under her breath. The stone supports around the doors began to creak. Grit fell from the ceiling. Small showers of dust at first and then fist-sized bits of stone started coming down like hail.
“That’s enough!” Eli shouted, ducking the falling rocks. “You’re going to bring the ceiling down on our heads!”
Nico stepped back, panting. The doors, though mangled and dented with two Nico-hand-shaped craters, remained defiantly shut. Miranda bent down and picked up one of the larger flakes of gold leaf from the debris scattered across the floor. “The great, golden doors of Mellinor,” she said and handed the piece to Eli. “Just a gilded fake.”
“Gold is an impractical material for making doors, anyway.” Eli crumpled the gold foil and deftly slipped it into his pocket. “Well,” he said, “I wanted to be quick about this, but I guess there’s no choice.”
Nico stepped aside, and Eli took her place in the marble crater that had been smooth floor a minute before. He laid his hands on the dented metal and began whispering in the gentle tone Miranda had labeled his spirit sweet-talking voice. He was barely two words in when he jerked back, clutching his hand as if he’d been burned.
“We have a problem,” he announced. “I can’t talk to the doors.”
“What’s wrong?” Miranda picked her way through the rubble toward him.
Eli gazed grimly up at the twisted metal, shaking his hands vigorously. “They’re terrified. So terrified, in fact, I’m surprised they’re still standing.”
Miranda looked at Nico, but Eli shook his head. “Not her. Demon fear is different, vindictive. This is enslaver work. Renaud’s scared them shut.”
Miranda raised her eyebrows skeptically and brushed her hands against the doors. As soon as her fingers made contact, white-hot pain shot up her arm. It went through skin, muscle, and bone and straight to the core of her spirit, and it was all she could do not to burst into tears. Her hands jerked away of their own accord, taking shelter in the cool, smooth cloth of her skirt. The burning remained, however, and with it an echo of terror so great that it made her legs watery. In the moment she touched the doors, one iron-clad command had overshadowed everything. It rang through the metal, greater than the fear and heavier than the pain, an unbreakable order: Don’t move.
“That bastard.” Miranda looked up at Eli, her face pale with fury. “We have to stop him. I don’t care if he’s after Gregorn’s Pillar or not. Anyone who would do this to a spirit can’t be allowed to live.”
