Dragons she'd been seeing for as long as she could remember-the veterans who showed off their war marks proudly on feast days.
She, too, had been wounded standing up for Cormyr.
The step, tugged a little sideways to free it from its pegs, came up readily enough. Out came the bundle, and she stripped on the stairs in excited haste, shoving her glossy nightgown in with the clothes she wasn't going to use. Tugging on breeches, a worn and stained jerkin, and a hooded half-cloak, Alusair replaced the step and scampered on down the stairs.
Not to the bottom, where she was sure to be seen by stablehands or one of the guards. No, she'd long ago noticed that her stair passed an open end of the hayloft. It took but a moment to reach up, swinging and kicking in midair to bring her legs up over the edge then around a riser. With that post securely wedged into the backs of her knees, she could twist and claw the rest of herself up to join them.
The loft was low, long, and straight, like an attic. Mice squeaked and scampered through the hay as she crawled swiftly along through it, but they didn't bother her. The length of the hayloft could take her right out of the royal stalls into the next part of the stables, above the horses of equerries, envoys, and senior courtiers, to a third area reserved for the mounts of visiting royalty and dignitaries. She knew none were visiting Suzail just now, which meant there'd be neither stablehands nor guards, and all would be in darkness. Right next to the sprawling Royal Gardens, which she knew like her own morning face in rhe mirror, leaving her with an easy way to slip out of the Palace and back in again later.
Guards patrolled the Royal Gardens, but Alusair knew where they'd be. Moreover, they were watching for undesirables trying to sneak in, not get out. So long as her mother forbade the lopping of boughs off the mrimmon trees to quell any wisp of a chance that there'd ever be a paucity of mrimmon jelly on the royal cheese platters, there'd be several easy ways over the garden walls for a fairly light and agile princess who didn't mind undignified acrobatics.
Two strides away from the still-bouncing bough in her wake, Alusair was the very image of a weary, head- down underservant, trudging home late and in much need of a crust and a tankard of warm soup.
'Not a bad actor, our little spitfire princess,' Wizard of War Baerent Orninspur said to his fellow mage.
Nodding, Wizard of War Mrask Tallowthond replied, 'Almost as if she's done this a time or two before.'
They indulged in a shared chuckle and fell into step behind the princess, keeping to the shadows on the harbor side of the Promenade-the side they were almost certain Alusair would soon be seeking.
Both wizards were tall, thin, young men who would not have looked out of place in armor, but Baerent was the one with the flashy good looks that caught feminine eyes wherever he went. Less handsome Mrask, lacking such easy charm, took refuge behind a moustache and a sharp tongue.
'Least she entertains us on these little jaunts,' Baerenr said. 'Where d'you think she's bound for, this time? Another night of drinking and flirting?'
Mrask shook his head. 'Too purposeful, and too much restless haste in her chambers, earlier. She's bound on some secret little mission or other and excited about it.' He jerked his head. 'There she goes now.'
The weary little servant had crossed the broad Promenade, dodging lamplit coaches and the ever-numerous rhrongs of citizenry walking with handcarts and sling-satchels and lit pipes, to reach the mouth of a side street.
The two war wizards walked faster, trying to get closer to see where she went ere the corner between them hid het going through a door, ducking down an alley, or sprinting up a stair to some upstair abode.
Tiny locks of her hair rode in their belt pouches, so they could use tracing magic if they had to, but Obarskyrs tended to go strolling weighed down with magical gewgaws. If Alusair felt their trace, her revealing behavior would change-even before things started getting unpleasant for Mrask Tallowthond and Baerent Orninspur.
As it happened, Mrask got to the corner a stride ahead of Baerent. He was in time to fling out a hand to keep his colleague back out of sight. 'The spitfire gets adventurous! She's headed into the Touch!'
'The Moontouch?' Baerent stood thunderstruck and could not resist the temptation to step around Mrask's hand and reach a spot where he could see for himself.
He had training enough to step back before dropping his jaw and staring disbelievingly at the side of Mrask's head. Mrask hadn't looked away from the princess since reaching the corner and wasn't about to do so now.
There was no way either mage could be mistaken. One of Suzail's finer pleasure-houses, Daransa's Moontouch was situated above several haughty shops that sold gowns, gloves, hats, and lace adornments to women who could afford ruinous overcharging. There were two public ways into the Touch, both outside stairs that led nowhere else. The princess was on a landing at the top of the more public stair right now, speaking with a mountainous door guard-and no doubt having a hard time convincing him that she should be allowed past.
Just what a Princess of Cormyr could be seeking in luxuriously furnished rooms where highcoin lasses lived and worked was something neither war wizard wanted to speculate about. Not when it was their task to ascertain for certain what she was up to and report back same to the Royal Magician of Cormyr.
'She's going in,' Mrask said. 'Do we-?'
'No,' Baerent said. 'She's not a dullard, and she knows my face. She won't think two war wizards just happened to want to slake theit lusts at the very time she's visiting the Touch. We won't just learn nothing; we mighr well get our faces scratched half off and that door guard set upon us.'
'Just for a start,' Mrask agreed. 'More importantly, she'll know we were set to watch over her, our usefulness in doing so would be ended-and Old Vangey will not be pleased.'
'Tluin,' Baerent agreed thoughtfully as he stepped behind Mrask to cast a scrying spell so as to watch and listen to the princess.
'Done,' he said a moment later. 'Your rum.'
They traded places, Baerent now watching the closed door of the Moontouch and the impassive door guard standing against it with arms folded, staring down at all the folk of Suzail hurrying past.
Mrask worked the same scrying spell Baerent had, nodded to show his readiness, and the two war wizards found a little stretch of building wall to lean against and start their spying.
Only to stiffen in astonishment. Their spells had been cast perfectly and were working well-but something was stopping them, right at the closed door of the Moontouch.
Not one but two war wizard scryings, utterly blocked.
Doust Sulwood liked to be calm and quiet, so these surges of lich-fear were unsettling him more than a little. Yet he was neither stupid nor distracted, and he wasted no time in staring sternly into the eyes of the nearest Jhessail, who was moving her fingers in the swift gestures of a spell. Doust unleashed a command with all the holy power of Tymora he could muster: 'Fall!'
Pennae's dagger was already in her hand. She thrust it under the curve of the same Jhessail's bodice, so the wizard's fall would plunge her right onto it. Fingers still spellweaving and eyes wild, Jhessail crumpled, crying, 'No! '
Pennae whipped her blade away as swiftly as any racing lightning bolt. The helpless mage crashed to the floor unbloodied. In the same motion, Pennae whirled to menace the other Jhessail in the same way. Semoor was already shouting the same command.
The second Jhessail swept the dagger aside with her forearm, giving Pennae a crooked smile, then sagged at Tier knees, as if starting to fall.
'Not fooled,' Islif said from right behind her, clamping iron-hard fingers on borh of the mage's elbows and yanking them back to touch each other-as she brought one knee firmly up into the wizard's back. 'Jhess couldn't withstand that holy magic, so you're not Jhess!'
Lifting the false Jhessail by the elbows and using her knee to pivot her captive, Islif swung the now-struggling wizard in front of her like a shield.
'Behind me, everyone!' she said, her eyes hard as she watched the lich grandly babble the last words of an incantation.
The impostor in her grasp tried to hiss out an incantation, but Florin was ready. His belt flask was in his hand, and whenever her lips opened, he squirted water into her mouth, hard, drowning her words in helpless choking coughs.
Then, in a flood of crawling emerald fire, the lich's spell washed over them all.
