make a sound.
Irrial shuddered, clearly uncomfortable with this side of her friend, however necessary. She and the servants gathered by the front door, ready to cross the lawn and disperse into the streets.
'Remember,' Cerris whispered, 'groups of no more than two. Once you're away from the estate, do not run. Just act casually, behave as though you've every right to be where you are.'
'Easy enough for you,' the voice taunted. 'You feel like you're supposed to rightfully own everything anyway.'
It was no more difficult murdering the two gate guards than it had been their sleeping brethren. They knew Cerris-or thought they did-and they expected to see him leaving the house. He approached casually, even offered a friendly smile, and then the younger soldier was crumpling to the earth, clutching uselessly at his slit throat. Stunned, the second man was drawing breath, grasping frantically at his sword, when Cerris drove the dagger up into his chin.
A glance to ensure the street was empty, a wave toward the house, and Irrial and her servants came running. 'You remember where to meet us?' she called in a whisper as he stepped away.
He smiled back at her without slowing. 'Just make sure you're there waiting for me.'
'I'll be there, Cerris,' she whispered to his retreating silhouette. Then, with a smile far more confident than she felt, she sent her servants on their way and marched out into the street-arrogant, stubborn, faithful Rannert at her side. THE ANCESTRAL ESTATE OF DUKE HALMON seemed somehow off-kilter, standing at the far southwestern edge of the aristocratic quarter, and indeed the city entire. Haughty and unapproachable, the first duke of Rahariem had deliberately held his home aloof from the 'lower folk,' and while subsequent generations of the line had softened in their attitudes toward the populace-and vice versa-the notion of moving and rebuilding their home was never seriously considered.
The property was sprawling, several times larger than the Lady Irrial's, but it was not the rolling lawns or statue-bedecked gardens that first drew the attention of passersby. The rest of Rahariem's nobles dwelt in patrician manors-large, luxurious, even imposing, but they were houses nonetheless. The ducal hall, by contrast, was a sturdy keep, dating to the days when various lords and vassal states battled for dominance. The peculiar juxtaposition of a modern and largely ceremonial iron fence surrounding the property, with the looming granite fortress beyond, gave the estate an unreal, fairy-tale feel.
Today the fortress served as a barracks for Cephiran officers and was host to many of their strategic and governmental moots.
Still clad as a Cephiran soldier, Cerris approached the front gate and drew himself upright. Half a dozen guards stood post, and all looked to be taking their duties rather more seriously than the men he'd murdered at the baroness's abode.
'I've a vital message,' he announced to the nearest, handing over the sealed parchment. 'Captain Liveln's eyes only,' he added as the man made as if to break the blot of wax.
'From whom?' the guard demanded. 'There's no seal here.'
'I imagine if he wanted that known, he'd have marked it, wouldn't he?'
The guard swallowed a bitter retort-which apparently wasn't going down easily-and nodded once. 'Deliver this to Captain Liveln,' he instructed one of the others, passing the letter along. A salute, the sound of jogging feet, and then five guards stood and scrutinized Cerris with various degrees of boredom or hostility. He stared fixedly right back, fighting the urge to fidget. If he'd judged the situation wrong, if Captain Liveln didn't react as he anticipated…
'And a great time it is to be considering that, isn't it, O master tactician?'
Cerris clenched his teeth and continued waiting.
Finally, after only a few eons, the messenger returned and whispered in the officer's ear. 'The captain wishes to see you,' he told Cerris. 'Immediately.' An experienced professional, he almost managed to mask his disappointment that he wouldn't be permitted to toss the new arrival out on his rear.
Cerris advanced, refusing even to acknowledge the man, his heart racing. A hundred and one things could still go wrong, and mentally cataloging them all kept him busy, scarcely even noticing the somber stone walls and the occasional bright tapestry he passed along his way. Actually, the artwork seemed remarkably anemic; most likely, the Cephirans had already looted the bulk of it, leaving only these smatterings behind. He stopped only once, to ask directions of a passing servant, and found himself finally before one of any number of identical doors.
A shouted 'Get in here!' punched through the door before the echoes of his first knock had faded. Expression neutral, he did just that, casually but firmly shutting the door behind him.
It was a simple enough chamber, a combination bunk and office. Cot, wardrobe, and armor stand against the wall; desk and chair in the room's center. Doubtless identical to every other officer's quarters in the building.
'I swear, if these people ever had an original thought, they wouldn't know what to do with it. The military mind must be an amazing thing; I hope somebody actually discovers one someday.'
Standing before the desk was a broad-featured woman, perhaps a decade younger than Cerris himself. Her dark hair was chopped short in a careless military cut, and her tunic and leggings suggested a physique that would be the envy of any warrior her age, gender notwithstanding.
At her side hung a heavy, brutal mace. It tugged at Cerris's mind, but he had no attention to spare it. Even as he entered, a ball of wadded-up parchment struck him in the chest. It fell to his feet with a faint crinkling, blossoming open just enough for him to read the words within. Not that he needed to, since he'd written them.
I know about the Kholben Shiar. Let's talk, and maybe your superiors needn't know about it, too.
'You had damn well better,' she growled, 'have a very good explanation for this.'
'I should?' he asked. 'Aren't you the one who should have handed it in when you first found it?'
Her flinch was almost invisible, a mere tightening of the lines at the corners of eyes and lips, but it was enough to tell Cerris he'd struck home. 'I don't need an enlisted man telling me what my responsibilities are!' she hissed at him.
'Look,' he said, raising his hands, palms out, 'I'm not here to make trouble for you. I'm sure we can come to an, ah, equitable arrangement. You keep your toy, I keep my knowledge to myself.'
'First things first: I want to know how you even know about this.'
Here it is. 'I recognized it,' he lied. 'There's more about it that stands out than just the carved figures.' Carefully, slowly, he stepped nearer to her side. 'Look here,' he said, pointing at the mace's head. 'Do you see that?'
Furious, paranoid, suspicious, well trained… And still, for just that fleeting instant, her eyes left their careful appraisal of this mysterious soldier, flickering to the weapon to see whatever it was he'd indicated.
The first swift blow, his bent knuckles against her throat, wasn't lethal. But as her hands rose of their own accord, grasping at her neck even as she gasped for air, Cerris's other hand dropped swiftly to his waist, then outward. The dagger had already drunk of so much blood that night, but clearly it was not sated. Liquid warmth poured over his hand as he shoved and twisted, wiggling the blade up and around beneath Liveln's ribs until it was only the weapon itself that held her upright.
Cerris let the body fall, carrying the dagger with it, for his hands were already reaching to claim another, far deadlier weapon. Beneath his palm rose a flush of heat like the bare skin of a passionate embrace. He felt the familiar twisting, wriggling in both his fist and his mind as the Kholben Shiar assumed the form of a heavy-bladed axe, whispering in a seductive voice as familiar as his own.
Sunder.
And almost inaudibly amid his torrential thoughts, that other voice. 'I'm sure you two will be very happy together.'
His hands wiped clean on Liveln's tunic, Cerris slipped into the hall-closing the door behind him, of course- and strode casually from the fortress. The guards barely glanced at him as he passed, and if any were keen enough of sight and memory to note that he wore a different weapon than he'd had on the way in, none of them thought anything of it. AXE HANGING AT HIS SIDE, Cephiran tabard now wadded up beneath one arm, Cerris stepped through the back door of Rond and Elson's, an innocuous shop at one end of Rahariem's central bazaar. He nodded to several men as he passed, recognizing them from Irrial's household, and entered what was clearly a workroom, filled with a multitude of tools and several half-finished barrels.
