past the men. She wanted this to be over. The sooner, the better.
As she picked her way through the charnel pit, Josey searched out the dimensions of the cavern and any possible exits. Chalky rock formations studded the ceiling in several places. While the left-hand wall was relatively straight, the wall to her right curved away. Deep shadows swathed the area beyond.
Hubert came up beside her. His face was paler than before and covered in sweat. She nodded forward, and he moved ahead while she held the lantern’s light on him. A faint sound whispered in the dark. Josey turned and spied something emerging from around the bend of the wall. A person. Invisible hands closed around her windpipe. She lifted the lantern higher. Broad, coarse features came into focus. Scuffed boots and a shabby coat. Could it be…?
Josey rushed over to Hubert as he raised his sword and put a hand on his arm. “Master Hirsch?”
With a rasping sigh, the adept staggered into the light. His coat was covered in rock dust. He had lost his hat. Dirt matted his hair, and his left eye was swollen shut.
Josey pushed past Hubert. “Where are the others? Captain Drathan? His men?”
The adept shook his head as he shuffled closer. “Gone. Your Majesty.” His voice creaked with the strain of saying even that much.
Josey froze. Something was wrong. The adept’s gait was choppy and slow, which was to be expected. He looked like the entire city had fallen on his head. His shoulders were bent forward like an old man’s, but there was a strange cast to his eyes.
Josey handed Hubert the lantern, which he took with his bad arm. “A tragedy, Master Hirsch. But thank the heavens you survived.”
A stale odor emanated from the adept’s clothes as he staggered up to her. Josey lifted her arm in an embrace. His breath was hot on her neck as she pulled him close.
When you’re faced with danger, don’t wait for an opening. Strike hard and fast, because you won’t get a second chance.
Josey punched upward. The adept went rigid against her. She staggered into Hubert, who hissed through his teeth as he caught her. The adept swayed, his features running like melted wax as he clawed at the glowing stiletto lodged in his throat. Josey looked into eyes turned jet black, and panic seized her limbs. But the assassin collapsed on the uneven floor. Gasping and mewling, it retreated to the wall, where it stopped, no longer resembling Hirsch at all. It had shrunken to a rail-thin frame wrapped in glistening gray-black flesh, with tiny ears close against a hairless scalp, a flat nose with a single nostril, and gaping jaws filled with curved fangs.
Hubert pulled Josey away. “How did you know?”
She released the breath she had held pent-up inside her. “Master Hirsch never called me by my title. And the smell. He reeked of death.”
As Hubert started to turn away, he fell to his knees in front of Josey. She thought he had tripped until she saw the dark stain spreading across the back of his jacket. A large boot lashed out of the darkness to kick the lord chancellor to the ground.
Josey backed away as Major Volek loomed before her, his face half in shadow. The illuminated half was as grim and gray as the stone of the cavern. He had donned a tabard over his armor. Its deep crimson cloth was almost black in the dim light, the golden circle emblazoned on the breast shimmering like a sullied halo. A spasm seized Josey’s chest. We’ve been a pack of fools.
Volek said nothing, but the truth stared at her from his eyes, mirror-smooth orbs devoid of emotion. His sword, dripping with Hubert’s blood, swung toward her. Josey retreated faster.
“This was all a trap,” she said. “Does the prelate know?”
The major approached with measured steps. Josey looked around for something, anything, she could use as a weapon. Her knife, still stuck in the jerking assassin, was on the other side of the chamber. There were no rocks in sight larger than a robin’s egg.
“How much is Innocence paying you?”
She flinched as her back touched the wall. There was nowhere to go. Her mind devised a dozen stratagems and rejected them all. She needed a weapon. She needed Caim. This is your fault, damn you, Caim. You left me and you left our baby. Rage poured through her, mixing with the terror. She had to fight.
“I won’t insult you by offering money. I just want to know the truth before I die.”
He stopped a pace away from her. “It isn’t a matter of money.”
“What then, Major? What gift or favor is worth the life of your empress?”
Volek’s cheek muscles twitched. “You are not my empress! The True Church is the only authority in this world. You’re just a petty despot dragging this country into the sewer.”
She clenched her fists. “I am the lawful heir of Emperor Leonel.
I-”
“You are a harlot and a usurper!”
“And you will be a murderer, Major.” Josey looked around for something to help. But there was nothing. She was alone. “Is that how you want to be remembered? As a common criminal?”
“I will be the greatest patriot in history.” Flecks of spittle clung to his lips as he raised his weapon. “You have betrayed the Faith and your countrymen. And for that you shall di-”
A flash of incandescent brilliance filled the cavern an instant before the floor tilted under Josey’s feet. She shielded her eyes and fought to stay on her feet as a colossal roar battered her ears. The major stooped over her, his sword swinging back. Then he was gone, swept aside by a barrage of crashing boulders.
When the earthquake stilled, Josey coughed and waved her hands to clear the air before her eyes. There was no sight of the major beneath the landslide of stone and gravel. A vast hole gaped in the far cavern wall. Hirsch stood on the other side, lowering his hands as he leaned on Captain Drathan. The two of them looked like hell, but she’d never been happier to see anyone.
Then Josey remembered Hubert. Peering through the pall, she lurched across the rubble-strewn floor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Caim’s knees slammed into the floor as he and the shadow warrior landed in another corridor inside the ducal palace. He rolled away and put his back to the wall. Quick glances in both directions indicated he was alone.
The shadow warrior was dead.
Caim scooted over and lifted the helmet’s visor. In the long, narrow features underneath he could see a vague resemblance to the witch. And to his mother. But the dusky skin paled before his eyes, becoming thin like old paper. Shadows flitted in the hollows of the warrior’s eyes, deepening as his body melted away, the armor crumbling into flakes, until only a patch of greasy ash remained. Caim got up. A handful of shadows wriggled up his arms, their touch cooling the burning cuts.
The corridor arrived at another intersection. To either side were smaller hallways, but Caim ignored them for the set of wide double doors in front of him. Heavy oak with hinges set into the frame. If they were barred, it would take a team of men with a battering ram to break through. Caim didn’t have a team anymore, and he was short on siege weapons. But he had something else.
The sword pulsed as he pointed it at the portals. Before he could form the command, the shadows poured down his arms and along the length of the blade, and flew at the doors. They washed across the wooden panels in a great black wave. Holes appeared in the wood; brass handles and hinges fell to the floor with heavy bangs.
The black sword nearly yanked Caim off his feet. He dug in his heels, and the blade’s hum rose to a whine. All right. Just this once .
The pull lessened for a moment. Taking that for acquiescence, and wondering at his own sanity for trying to reason with the thing, Caim allowed himself to be led through the doors.
Eerie cold enveloped him as he stepped across the entryway. His breath misted in the frigid air. The walls of the octagonal great hall were buttressed with thick wooden pilasters at each corner, rising to a vaulted timber ceiling. In the center was a wooden throne. Caim assumed the man in fine regalia sitting in the chair was the duke- the late duke, for he was clearly dead. Dozens of bodies lay around the throne, male and female, all headless. Caim had seen many awful things in his lifetime, things that had made him doubt the inherent goodness of mankind, but
