“That’s-that comparison’s ridiculous!” Basil sputtered. “I’m a verbeeg. I don’t have any morals!”
“My point exactly,” Tavis replied. “Once I recover the weapon, you will stop at nothing to steal it away.”
“There would be no need to steal it,” Basil answered. “I have no interest in becoming any sort of emperor.”
“Then what do you get?”
A hungry light flickered to life in Basil’s eyes. “Knowledge,” he answered. “Sky Cleaver has the power to cut to the heart of any matter.”
“I should have known,” Tavis snorted. “Never, Basil. Not if the giants were pouring through the gates and I was the last warrior alive to defend the queen.”
“Really?” The verbeeg’s lip curled into an oddly affable sneer. “It may be the only way to learn Kaedlaw’s true paternity.”
Tavis stepped forward until he was standing chin-to-chest with the verbeeg. “Basil, you should know better than to try extorting me,” he warned. “You may be a friend, but even you cannot stand between me and my sworn duty.”
The runecaster’s sneer vanished. He looked over the parapets and fixed his eyes on the white plain, where the purple twilight shadows were inexorably sliding toward Wynn Castle. “I had to try. You know that.”
“No, I don’t, Basil,” Tavis replied. “Some things are unpardonable, even for verbeegs.”
Tavis stepped back and rubbed his boot sole across the floor, wiping away a small swatch of Basil’s privacy rune. The entire circle evaporated, as did the symbol at its heart.
Tavis heard his guards crying out in astonishment. He scowled, unable to imagine that a vanishing rune would cause such a reaction, and turned to find the soldiers standing on the opposite side of the tower. They were pointing toward the inner ward, where an eagle-shaped cloud of purple gloom was spiraling down from the twilight sky.
“What is it?” The sergeant glanced back at Tavis. “Is Hiatea herself coming to see the queen’s child?”
“I doubt it.” Tavis started across the roof. “Sound the alarm-and get your men to the keep!”
The sergeant shoved his warriors into the stair turret.
The murky eagle lowered a pair of great, taloned feet and swept low over Wynn Keep, beating its huge wings to bring itself to a halt. A tremendous wind buffeted the inner ward, raising a thunderous clatter as cobblestones and other debris sailed into the walls. The bird settled to the ground, concealing its lower body behind the high ramparts of the inner curtain. It stretched its wings to its sides, and the feathers curled back upon themselves to create a pair of armlike limbs. The raptor’s deep breast broadened into a wide, manlike chest, and the feathers on its neck became a fringe of long dark hair.
“Diancastra watch over us!” Basil hissed, his flat feet slapping the roof behind Tavis. “And may Hiatea save the queen, for we never will!”
The last of the shadow bird’s feathers vanished, then a pair of ears sprouted behind its temples. The hooked beak retracted into a long aquiline nose, and the murky creature was suddenly an impossibly huge giant. The colossus stood taller than Wynn Keep itself. His shoulders were as broad as the corner towers, and his biceps larger than their stair turrets. He wore a cloak of purple twilight, with a sash of starlight shimmering across one shoulder. Upon his head sat a crown of black silver beset with rubies and sapphires darker than the night.
The giant’s face was as swarthy as his attire, with teeth the hue of robin eggs, gleaming damson eyes, and skin so richly purple it was almost black. Save for the silhouette of his square-cropped beard and a sliver of moonlight glinting off his brow, little else could be seen of the intruder’s features. The colossus seemed more an apparition of the dusk than a living, breathing being, and Tavis knew that his wife’s true enemy had shown himself at last: the Titan of Twilight.
9
On the head of the spear danced a silver flame, a flame fueled not by burning oil or blazing pitch, but by the queen’s ardent devotion. When she felt the cold floor shudder beneath her knees, that flame sputtered and dwindled to a cinereal flicker. Through the shuttered window came the muffled and distant voices of shouting men. The floor trembled again. The spear shaft rattled in its sconce, and the pearly faith flame winked out altogether. The queen’s thoughts reeled inside her mind. She found herself plummeting through a vast, abyssal void. She continued to fall, her head spinning ever faster, until Kaedlaw growled in the darkness.
The rumble caught Brianna like a rope. Her thoughts stopped swirling, and she was suddenly, completely there, kneeling in the small cold temple, listening to her son grumble on the altar before her. The queen reached out, blindly feeling her way along the stone platform until she located her fur-swaddled child. She pulled him out of his wrappings and tucked him beneath her cloak, then called for Avner.
A squeal rang off the stone walls as the door’s iron hinges grated open. The young scout stepped into the doorway, filling the small chamber with the shimmering yellow glow of his candle.
“Yes, Brianna?” He reached her side with a single step. “What did you learn?”
“Nothing. I was interrupted.” The queen held her hand out to him. Even kneeling, her arm was at the height of Avner’s chest. “But it doesn’t matter. I know who fathered my child. Tavis is the one who can’t see straight.”
A troubled look flashed across Avner’s face. “Milady, I should…” He hesitated, then slipped an arm beneath her elbow. “Well, you should know Tavis isn’t the only one.”
Brianna did not rise. “What do you mean by that? Surely, you haven’t betrayed me as well?”
“Of course not, Majesty!” The young scout’s jaw dropped in a show of indignation. “I was speaking of Raeyadfourne. He didn’t find the prince handsome, either.”
Brianna studied Avner’s face. The young scout’s difficult childhood had made a master liar of him, and she found it more difficult to read his hidden feelings than those of her most devious earls. Had he really been thinking of the chieftain, or had he also seen the strange face she had glimpsed in the mines?
“I fail to see what Raeyadfourne’s reaction has to do with my husband’s.” Through the closed window came the muffled trumpet of an alarm horn. The ’kin were attacking sooner than expected, but Brianna was far from concerned. Reinforcements would arrive long before her enemies could breach Wynn Castle’s thick walls. “Raeyadfourne is my enemy. Tavis is the father of my child-whether he admits to it or not.”
“I know-but you shouldn’t be so hard on the lord scout,” Avner said. “Firbolgs see Kaedlaw differently than humans.”
“My point exactly.” Brianna rose to her feet, relieved that the young scout was only trying to defend Tavis. She had already ascribed the incident in the mine to a delusion and had no wish to second-guess herself now. “People see what they expect. If Tavis sees a monster in his child’s face, it is because he trusts the firbolg seer more than he trusts me. I have not decided whether that is treason to his queen, but it is certainly betrayal to his wife.”
Through the temple door echoed the tramp of boots, stomping up the curving stairwell that connected the tiny chamber to the rest of the keep. From outside the small window came the snap of firing crossbows and the sound of shouting voices.
Avner frowned. “That sounds like it’s coming from the inner curtain.” He set his candle on the altar, then stepped to the shuttered window. “I’d better see what’s happening.”
“It can’t be the firbolgs,” Brianna said. “We would’ve heard the siege-”
“Don’t open the shutter!” The soldier’s voice came from the stairwell. “He’ll grab the queen!”
Brianna spun around to find a fully armored garrison guard clambering into view. In his hands, he held a cocked and loaded crossbow, which he was pointing across the temple at the small window.
“Who will grab me?” Brianna lifted her spell satchel off the altar. “We’re thirty feet off the ground! Even storm giants aren’t that tall.”
“The fiend is!” The guard climbed into the doorway. Behind him followed a long line of his fellow warriors. “The giants must’ve called him. He’s walking ’round the keep, looking in-”
