blood so thick.
Without thinking, Silverdun reached with his left hand and lashed out with witchfire, the simplest bit of Elements he could muster. He hoped, at best, to blind his attacker momentarily with a flash of flame.
Instead, the narrow stairwell exploded with heat and light. The man in front of him was incinerated. He fell, twisting and smoking, in front of Silverdun.
Silverdun turned and looked down. The watchmen's leader hesitated on the landing below him, his sword at the ready. Silverdun let the re well up in him again, but there was none. He'd used it all in that one burst. Impossible. Using every bit of essence in his body in an instant ought to have killed him.
The pain from his wrist finally figured out how to reach his mind and he gasped in agony. He stumbled, fell, tried to stand. A fist connected with his skull and he dropped, unable to move. He was still awake, but his arms and legs wouldn't respond. There was quite a lot of swearing; Annwni had interesting swears, thought Silverdun.
In mounted combat, it is preferable to shoot the rider out of the saddle. Sometimes, however, it is easier to put your arrow in the horse, and just as effective.
-CmdrTae Filarete, Observations on Battle
.la had her maid Ecara dress her in a simple gown; today she fancied herself a free-spirited girl, waiting-maid to a Duchess, perhaps, or a guildsman's daughter. Regardless of how she felt about Lord Tanen, he had certainly taught her many things, and one of them was how to fit in just about anywhere. It didn't matter if she didn't know a thing about the kind of woman she was pretending to be. It all came to her as she went along. She watched the dance of the colored threads that spread among those around her and simply danced among them.
Life in Lord Everess's household was both more and less pleasant than she might have imagined. Everess was rarely at home, and that was fine with Sela; she found the man's company ever less pleasant the more she knew him. But she was lonely. For so long she'd been used to her fellow residents at Copperine House. They were strange and damaged, but they were known. Her only regular company was Ecara, and Ecara wanted only to please her, and so had begun to grate on Sela's nerves.
After that first night at Blackstone House, she'd assumed that her new life was starting, finally. The air smelled of possibility as she rode in the open carriage back to Lord Everess's apartments. But that had been days ago. And in the interim, she'd heard nothing except for Everess's assurances that she ought to enjoy the peace and quiet because it wouldn't last.
To occupy herself, she thought about the ways in which she could kill Lord Everess using only the objects readily to hand in the apartments. He was so fat and soft that there were a plenitude of options. The quickest way: silver filigree letter-opener plunged deep into the eye socket. Instantaneous. The most painful: tie him down in the parlor, start a nice fire, heat the poker just the perfect shade of red. Eyeballs, then tongue, then anus. She had learned that one when she was thirteen. And then there was the way that she'd killed Milla. And the doctor.
Oh, Milla. But she wasn't real. No, Milla wasn't real. The doctor wasn't real. It was all pretend. All pretend.
Take a deep breath. Don't think. Good girls don't think: They respond.
Anyway. She much preferred Paet to Everess, and wished that she could live with him instead; he was simple and straightforward. He had known pain, deep pain, and that connected them by a thin black thread, even if Paet didn't realize it. She'd asked Everess whether she could move in with Paet, and Everess had laughed as though she'd told a funny joke.
It was all so confusing sometimes.
And Silverdun. Oh, my.
At Copperine House there had been a very wealthy actress named Starlight, who'd been the recipient of a bad Ageless treatment. She never aged, true, but her mind was lost in time, and she never seemed to know what day it was. In one of her more lucid moments, she'd talked to Sela about love. Love was what made everything else worthwhile, she said. Passion, romance. To hold and to be held by a strong, handsome man, to be enveloped in him: That was the best thing in life.
Sela hadn't had the faintest idea what Starlight had been talking about. She knew about love, of course. She saw the threads of love spun between others; those threads were bright, bright colors: red and orange and gold, sometimes fiery, sometimes only glowing. But Sela had never experienced that sort of love herself. The only person she'd ever loved had been Milla. And that had been something different altogether.
When she came downstairs, Paet was waiting for her in the parlor. Lord Everess was nowhere to be seen.
'I have a task for you,' he said.
'Oh, thank you,' said Sela.
Lord Tanen has a gift for Sela. She is ten years old and cannot remember ever
