Oath of Fealty

17

They hated her with every breath; she could feel that, and yet it did not hurt, not the way it had when she was young. She eased back the power she had exerted, and slowly … staggering a little, some of them … they moved into the doorway, past her, with Valthan’s soldiers.

She reached out, then, and felt for the other magic she knew was built into the place. The tang of the Bloodlord’s cruel power tingled along her senses, disgusting and frightening at once. A whisper eased into her mind: Broken blades, jagged hooks, whimpers, moans, screams … I give you these.

“Ward of Falk,” Dorrin said, aloud. “Ward of Falk against all evil ones—”

Falk is not my master. I have no master.

Dorrin pushed it out of her mind. Disembodied voices could come from anywhere; Liart’s power needed a physical focus. If they had priests of Liart there—well, she had already bound her relatives’ magery. She now believed she could deal with them as well.

The question now was how to manage her relatives until they could be transported to Vérella. Would the Royal Guard be adequate security? Did her family have allies between here and Vérella? And where were the men and older boys? Unfortunately, she had no magical vision that let her see through walls, or find anyone not using magery against her.

At least here and now, the Guard should be enough. When all the prisoners were inside and under guard, she and her escort moved on into the house. The great hall, scene of so many humiliations, looked much the same. She still remembered which of the doorways led where, to kitchens and other offices, to dining rooms and up front stairs or back to the rooms above. She nodded to Valthan, who read again the prince’s order and called all to come forth.

This time it was servants, shuffling warily out of various doorways and edging downstairs to gather in a disorganized mass at the other end of the great hall from the ladies. Verrakai’s household livery on the upper servants, and drab on the others … it had been so long, Dorrin didn’t recognize any of them.

She took a step forward. “I am your new Duke, by order of the crown prince and Council,” she said. “From now on, all orders come from me. Is that clear?”

A murmur, not of resistance but uncertainty.

“If you obey me, no harm will come to you. If you do not, I will consider you conspirators in the treason which brought the Attaint to all in the family, and you will be transported to Vérella to stand trial. What say you?”

“By what right do you treat highborn ladies so?” This from a tall man in the house livery pushing his way forward; the others edged away from him and averted their gaze.

“Who are you?” Dorrin asked, without replying to his question.

“I am His Lordship’s steward,” he said. His expression and voice expressed confidence in his own authority. “Grull Lanatsson is my name, and I am in charge of the household, under His Lordship.”

“Did you not hear?” Dorrin asked. “Haron the traitor is dead. All adult members of the family are under attainder and as they have already tried to attack their Duke—me—and members of the Royal Guard, traveling under royal warrant, they are prisoners, and treated as such. As for you, you may have been the former Duke’s steward, but you are not yet mine. Do you acknowledge me?” Dorrin sensed more movement in the corridor behind the servants, a shifting in the group of them, and another man came to the front, in footman’s livery.

Grull said nothing, scowling as he glanced around the hall, where armed soldiers were obviously on alert. The footman leaned to him and murmured something Dorrin could not hear. He shook his head; the footman stepped back. Then he said, “I would see this so-called order—”

“You have heard it read by an officer of the Royal Guard, a Knight of the Bells,” Dorrin said. “You see the Royal Guard uniforms. Acknowledge me as the rightful Duke, or not, but no more delay.” She could feel, from the far end of the hall, her relatives’ bitter hatred.

He looked around at the other servants, and by his expression did not like what he saw.

“I acknowledge you,” he said, finally.

“You can’t!” said the footman who’d been near him. “You know what he—”

“Be silent, fool!” Grull said.

“Come here,” Dorrin said. “Both you and that footman. What is his name?”

“Coben,” Grull said. He strolled forward, every movement confident. Behind him, Coben followed.

When they were a bare spear-length away, Dorrin halted them with her mage power; they both paled. Grull did not struggle, but the footman’s strained face showed that he was trying to break the spell. She walked closer to them; her personal guard came with her. “Grull, what gods do you serve?”

“Whatever gods my lord commands,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“And what god did your lord command?”

“He—” Grull trembled suddenly, as if with a chill, and the voice Dorrin had heard in her mind spoke with Grull’s mouth. “What do you think, little rabbit? He is my faithful servant.”

“Then he cannot be mine,” Dorrin said. She looked at the footman. “And you? Speak, Coben.”

“You’re not the Duke,” Coben said. “I heard about you; you’re just a runaway, not really a Verrakai, and anyway you’re just an old woman.”

“Do you also follow the Bloodlord?” Dorrin asked.

Coben smiled, showing his teeth, and licked them. “The mightiest of gods is Liart, Lord of Torments. You will never prevail against him—”

“Bind them well,” Dorrin said. “For they have spoken treason and thus fall under a sentence of death, unless the prince commutes it.”

“You cannot kill us,” Grull said, this time in his own voice. “We have done nothing. And you lack the will—you are weak—”

“You tell your Duke she is weak?” Dorrin had her sword in hand before she quite realized it. Beside her, her two escorts had drawn blades when she did. “You were not told, perhaps, that I have been a soldier more than three hands of years. I have killed more men—aye, and women—” That with a glance at the women down the hall. “—than you can count on both hands twice over.” A dark rage rose higher in her mind, urging her to prove Grull wrong, to kill both him and the footman, and that slowly. Her ruby flashed, bright in her mind. She shook her head. “You are not worth the loss of honor,” she said, shoving her sword back into its scabbard. “To trial you will go, and I doubt not the royal hangman will soil his hands with you.”

By then four of the Royal Guards were behind the two, with thongs to bind them. When they had bound the men’s wrists, then their arms to their bodies, Dorrin released her control so they could be led aside, but both lunged toward her, eyes wide and mouths open. Before she could draw her blade, her escort had stepped in front of her, and run them through.

A disturbance broke out somewhere outside—clashing blades, a horse’s squeal, shouts—and three more men pushed through the huddle of servants, waving knives and pokers as they ran toward Dorrin, only to fall to Royal Guard soldiers. Like a terrified herd of sheep, the rest of the servants surged back and forth, unsure which way to run.

Dorrin saw all this with awareness honed by many a battle. Diversion—who would want a diversion?—her gaze fell on her prisoners; her aunt and mother were grinning in triumph. Dorrin strengthened her control of them, and all those prisoners slumped. Phelani uniforms appeared behind the mass of servants; Vossik called over their heads.

“My lord, a stableboy and a gardener’s lad suddenly attacked us, but it’s all under control now.”

“Casualties?” Dorrin asked.

“Captain Selfer’s spare mount, and one of the privates had a gash to the arm.”

The three final attackers lay tumbled on the hall floor; they’d had no real skill and no plan, easy kills for the Royal Guard soldiers now cleaning their blades. So many dead already, when she had hoped to bring peace and security to her new realm’s people. Had they all been Liartians? Dorrin went to Grull’s body—and yes, he wore Liart’s symbol on a chain around his neck. When the guards checked, so did the others.

Dorrin walked around the bodies and toward the huddle of servants. Before she could speak, they all knelt. Dorrin sighed. It must do for now, but she did not want this kind of submission, clearly more fear than anything else. She touched them lightly with magery, and found no more who harbored evil intent. For now, at least.

“Well, then,” she said. “This room will be used for those going to Vérella in the morning. Which of you are the nurserymaids?”

Six women shuffled forward on their knees.

“Get up now—you will have charge of the youngest children. Give this man”—she pointed to one of the Royal Guard—“the names of those ten winters and younger, point them out, and then you will take them to the nursery and keep them there. Supper will be sent up later. Which of you are kitchen staff?”

Others came forward, headed by a stout woman who exclaimed when she saw the nearest dead body. “He’s tooken my best carving knife, that wicked Votik, and him no more than a kennelman! If that’s nicked, I’ll—get me that back, lord Duke. And I don’t doubt them’s my pokers from the kitchen fires!” Her indignation almost made Dorrin laugh, but instead she sent the cook grumbling back to the kitchen, with orders to prepare a meal for the younger children.

Soon, the nurserymaids and younger children were upstairs, far from anything that might happen, Dorrin hoped. Now to disarm the Verrakaien prisoners—for she was sure they would all have weapons of some sort, most likely poisoned.

“The rest of you servants,” Dorrin said, “will change clothes with the prisoners. This will be a brief inconvenience.” The women servants looked at one another; a few grinned and one younger maid, in drab, even giggled, stifling it with her hands when an older woman cuffed her.

“Do any of you know if there are prisoners in the old keep tower?”

Most shook their heads; a few nodded. Dorrin beckoned those to the front: two women and a man.

“What do you know?”

“Us’n heard screams,” one woman said.

“Them guards left,” the man said. “Days agone, that was. But after they dragged in those poor folk from the vill.”

They could give no clear account of when the prisoners had been brought, or how many, or when the guards had left. Dorrin let them go; she must deal with the Verrakaien prisoners first, or it would not be safe to investigate the keep.

She turned to the Verrakaien women and eased off on the control she had forced on them; they opened their eyes and sat up. The women still looked angry, but the children were frightened.

“Now—one at a time, at my direction, when I release your bonds, you will strip to the skin, unloosing your hair if it is bound, and change into the clothes those wear—” She gestured at the servants standing near the inner passage.

Her aunt Jeruvin spat. “You cannot make me change here, in front of them, and wear peasant clothes—”

“I could have you stripped naked and hung by your feet from the tower,” Dorrin said. “I suggest you change, and be quick about it. You are supplicants; your lives are forfeit unless the Crown grants you mercy. You would do well to act humble, however you feel.”

On some of the younger women’s faces, she saw now the dawning realization that this was real—the Order of Attainder existed, and they were indeed in mortal danger. She felt a concerted nudge at her magery, their attempt to break free of the power that bound them. Dorrin said nothing; best if they did not know she even felt it. She knew Falk had lent power as well; Falk had been magelord himself; he knew more of magery than she ever would.

Than you do now, knight of my heart. Her heart skipped a beat, raced, steadied again. What was that? Not Falk himself, surely! A soft internal chuckle, very unlike the harsh laugh of the earlier attack. It is your heritage, your birthright, and you have finally freed it. Dorrin just managed not to shake her head visibly. One thing at a time … get these women into safe custody.

As they undressed, she noted the number of weapons both physical and magical: all of them had more than one dagger, all had amulets and rings, charms hung on necklaces and bracelets. She could feel the magery, as she could detect the poison on the blades.

“It’s a wonder you didn’t kill yourselves, just dressing and undressing,” she said. Her troop gathered the daggers into one basket and left the rest for the time. The women, now in their undershifts, glared at her but said nothing. “Now take down your hair—completely. No braids, no pins.”

She expected trouble, and was not surprised when Jeruvin, unpinning the top coil of braid, suddenly flung a pin at one of the soldiers—a hand long, the two spikes undoubtedly poisoned. Dorrin snatched it from the air by magery and tossed it back; it struck in Jeruvin’s neck, and the woman gasped, staggered, tried to wrench it free, and fell to the floor, writhing.

“You were warned,” Dorrin said. Hate flashed from Jeruvin’s eyes before they glazed in death. Dorrin looked from woman to woman. “You were all warned. Anyone who tries to harm me, any of these troops, or the Royal Guard will die. Now take down your hair.”

A shower of clips, combs, pins, and ornaments clattered to the floor. Most were probably harmless, but Dorrin was taking no chances.

“One at a time, starting with you—” Dorrin pointed to her mother. “Go there, with those soldiers.” Women she had had Selfer choose, experienced enough to be wary and thorough. Two others held a blanket for a semblance of privacy. Behind it, one at a time, the women were stripped naked, then given peasant clothes already searched for hidden weapons.

Furious as they were, the women offered no more resistance. They came from behind the blanket in house livery or drab peasant dress and sat on the floor where they were bidden, watching as Dorrin’s troops carried Jeruvin’s body out of the house, as their clothes and ornaments were examined and separated into piles—dangerous, safe, uncertain.

Dorrin knew they had not been converted from resistance: merely, for the moment, outflanked. She wished again that she’d had a Captain of Falk, Marshal of Gird, or paladin along with her. Selfer came to report.

“Aris’s arm will heal; that blade wasn’t poisoned,” Selfer said. “My horse—well, he’s lame, and like to be lame forever, if he lives.”

“I’m sorry,” Dorrin said. The charger had been Selfer’s first purchase when he became captain.

He shook his head, and went on with his report. “We found none but servants in the outbuildings, but stalls lately occupied are empty: those you seek must have had warning.”

“Or been living in the forest, ready for this, since the battle was lost,” Dorrin said. “My family may be evil, but they were never stupid, and what little mother’s milk we had was flavored with tactics and strategy. Not that it matters, but for the possibility of attack. They may well have had an underground passage; check the outbuildings and stable carefully.”

“Could be one in the house, too, my lord,” Selfer said.

“I know of one, but it leads only to the keep,” Dorrin said. “I’ll show you when we have time. For now, I need to check the keep and release any prisoners.”

“Bring them in here?”

“No—not with my relatives. They should be safe enough over-night in the upper floors; we can take over food and water.”

“My lord,” Valthan said, “you must not go yourself.”

“I must,” Dorrin said. “The danger’s too great for anyone who does not know the traps.”

“If you die,” Valthan said, “will your control of the magelords continue? Or will I be left with prisoners I cannot control?”

“It should continue,” Dorrin said. “When the Knight-Commander bound my magery—when I was a young woman—that binding lasted through his death until the new Knight-Commander released it.”

“We cannot afford to lose you,” Valthan said. “The realm cannot afford to lose you.”

“I am needed only if I do what the prince commanded,” Dorrin said. “Sir Valthan, I have been a soldier too long to risk my life needlessly—or withhold risk where it is needed.”

He gave her a long, puzzled look, then nodded.

“Stay here with the prisoners,” Dorrin said. “I will take an escort of Phelani into the keep; they are experienced with the sorts of dangers that might be found here. I want to do this before dark, and afternoon is waning.”

Selfer had posted guards at the keep entrance; now he told off a hand to be her escort. “I’m coming, too,” he said.

“You are not,” Dorrin said. “If I fall, someone must get word to Valthan, and then to the prince—and someone must burn out the keep.”

“My lord—you know what I saw in Vérella, before Paks redeemed us. I need to be part of this—”

Dorrin turned to him and put a hand on his shoulder; tears gleamed in his eyes; she felt hers burn. “Selfer, in this I must command you. The need is greater—and the task more difficult—where I place you. I know you have courage to face what lies below, but what I need is your determination not to let any evil free. Do you understand?” After a long pause, he nodded. “With Falk’s grace and Gird’s, I will return unharmed, but if I do not, you must do what is necessary. Whatever that may be.”

Before Selfer could answer, she turned to the others. “Touch nothing without my word; this place has as many traps as some of those Rotengre houses. Vossik, you and one other will come with me to the bottom of the stairs. Two on the landing partway down. One halfway down the first flight of steps, to call messages up and down.”

At the foot of the stairs, Dorrin turned right, and twenty strides later paused before opening the door to the blood chamber. She could feel her own pulse pounding. Ridiculous. She was an adult now, not a helpless child. Of course the memories would rise here, of all places, but she had the skills to subdue them. This door had no lock. It needed none. It reeked of blood magery; centuries of fear and anguish had permeated the wood. No one would go there who did not seek what it hid.

“Stay here until I call,” Dorrin told her escort, then touched her ruby, murmured, “Ward of Falk and the High Lord’s grace,” and pushed it open, hanging her lantern on the familiar hook by the door. A soft scuffling sound met her ears. Along the left wall, as in her childhood, cages held small animals … rabbits, kittens that started mewing at once. Eyes gleamed in the lamplight. She ignored them all for the time being, taking a second lantern from a shelf of them, and lighting it. The room was centered with the tables and frames on which the Verrakai bound their victims to practice blood magery. At the far end, another door led to the cells, where human victims might or might not wait in darkness, terrified. To the right, the chambers where, in her childhood, a priest of Liart might be housed if one came to stay.

Those doors were open; those chambers were empty; she reported that to Vossik. Another, smaller, held the instruments, glinting in the light of the second lamp she lighted and set on a ledge. She closed that door, and went to the one at the end, opening it after a prayer for those who had been, and might still be, suffering.

A terrible stench rolled out to meet her, all too familiar from her years of warfare; Dorrin pinched her lips and set the lamp on a ledge. Facing her were three cell doors. Her stomach roiled. She had been locked in the left-hand one, as punishment: days and nights of terror.

She lifted the bar on the first door. Empty. The second … she gagged at the stench. Here someone had died, and recently. As she stepped into the cell, light revealed the carrion beetles scuttling for cover from a corpse too small to be an adult. Tears burned her eyes. Too late … would she always be too late?

In the third cell she heard harsh, uneven breaths. By the lamp’s light, she saw a naked man, curled on the floor, streaked with his own filth. She bent lower; his face had been battered, one eye gouged out. His swollen tongue protruded from cracked lips.

“Falk’s grace,” she whispered. “Give him ease.”

At her voice, the man groaned and stirred.

“Help is here,” she said. She unplugged her water bottle and dripped a few drops on his tongue. “Soon you will be better. I promise.” He shuddered. Backing out of the cell, she called Vossik, who came into the outer room at once. “I need a burial party and someone to carry a wounded man,” she said.

She went back to the wounded man and poured a little more water on his tongue as she waited for the others to arrive. He roused a little, groaned, moved his tongue, and opened his one eye. “Wha—nooo … no more.”

“No more,” Dorrin said. “It’s over.” She dripped more water in his mouth; he swallowed.

“Who—”

“The Duke’s dead,” Dorrin said. The man’s ruined mouth stretched in what might have been a smile. “The prince sent me, to be the new Duke.” She gave him a little more water. He blinked, and she realized that with the lamp behind her, she was only a black shadow. “We’ll get you out of this very soon …”

“Tam—?” Hardly a breath of sound at that.

Dorrin had already realized that the young person in the next cell was probably this man’s brother or son. She dipped her head. “I’m sorry … Tam … died.”

“Gird’s grace,” the man said; his one eye closed.

A squad arrived then, clattering down the stairs and into the dungeon. Dorrin went back out into the main room, explained in a low voice what she’d found.

“Only three cells?”

“In this part of the dungeon, yes. There are twenty on the other side, through the door to the left as you came down the stairs. But this is where Liart’s priests lived, where the most dangerous magery is, so I had to check this myself. You’ll be safe enough now. Clean up the boy’s corpse and lay it on a table upstairs, under a cloth. If his father lives to morning, he’ll want to see it.”

By full dark all the prisoners were upstairs in the keep, munching bread and cheese, their cells left to the rats and beetles. The man from the torture cell clung to life with the help of the cohort’s physician; his son’s body, under an embroidered bed hanging from the main house, lay surrounded by candles with two of the cohort to give an honor watch. Dorrin sent for Sir Valthan to witness what she had found, then told Selfer to supervise their care and the external security while she returned to the house with Valthan, who still needed an accurate list of Verrakai family members.

“Have you eaten, my lord? I know you ate no lunch—”

“No—”

“We have hot rations—”

Of course he would have seen the troops fed—and no doubt from their own supplies. She did need to be alert for her next task, rifling her uncle’s study to find the family rolls. Dorrin nodded, and wolfed down the familiar Company rations, then went back inside through the kitchen entrance, where the head cook was scolding her assistants as they cleaned pots and prepared for the morrow. She asked the head cook’s name.

“Farintod, m’lord,” the cook said. “But I’m called Farin, or just Cook.” Once more, Dorrin probed with her magery but could find no malice, only a combination of annoyance and fear, among the kitchen staff. Perhaps she might eat food they prepared the next day, when their former rulers were gone … but not until then.

In the main hall, Valthan’s lieutenant reported that the prisoners had first refused to eat the simple meal served them, but eventually hunger overcame pride. Now they lay on the floor under the blankets Dorrin had allowed after ensuring that they had no hidden weapons. The glitter of eyes in the lamplight proved they were not asleep, but at least they were down and quiet.

She asked Valthan for the loan of a Royal Guard sergeant.

“I could—”

“No. I will not risk both of us in my uncle’s study. Remember what I told you of it.”

She had been in the Duke’s study only a few times before fleeing Verrakai, but she remembered its location well enough. She felt the inherent magery pressing against her as she neared it, and paused after pushing open the heavy door with the hilt of her sword. Haron’s father had been duke when she left; Haron had the same taste in decor, elaborate and luxurious. The desk, with its blue leather cover tooled and painted with the Verrakai crest and motto. The chair, also covered in heavily padded blue leather, the crest centered in its back.

“Why didn’t you use your hand?” the Royal Guard sergeant said, then added a late “my lord.”

“Here I expect to find more lethal traps and tricks than anywhere else,” Dorrin said, looking the room over carefully. “When I was a child, my great-uncle, the late Haron’s father, set a spell on the door whenever he left, to prevent anyone coming in. It would knock an intruder down. When Haron left for Vérella, he might have set a lethal one. And do you see that chair?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Looks comfortable, doesn’t it? A poisoned spike, spring-loaded, is hidden in that fancy crest. If anyone sits there but the Duke, to whom the secret of disarming the chair has been handed down, it is death. The chair before the desk has traps as well. Touch nothing here—not the doorjamb, not a chair or table or so much as a book—without my direction.”

“That’s—that’s horrible,” the sergeant said.

“Sir Valthan wants to see certain records, but I do not want to risk his life in here,” Dorrin said. Or her own, but she had to do that. “You must do nothing but stand here and witness, until I am sure the room is safe. If I fall, tell Sir Valthan to fire the room. He will not obtain the records the prince wants, but it is too dangerous to send anyone else in, and fire should cleanse it.”

“Burn the—your—body?”

“Yes. Better that than risking more lives. He and I have discussed what to do with the family should that occur.” Dorrin touched Falk’s ruby. “Ward of Falk,” she said, and stepped into the room.

Magery coiled about her, invisible but palpable to her awakened mage-sense. Woven into the blue and gray rug, its patterns picked out in silver threads that drew her eye, urged her to move here, then there, in patterns that would entrap her if she obeyed. She ignored the urging, instead looking around once more—to either side, behind, above, below, probing with her awakened abilities for every trap, every compulsion, every evil design.

The room seemed more silent than it should, the silence oozing out from shelves of books and scrolls, up from the rugs, down from a carved and painted ceiling. Stillness, timelessness—Dorrin shook herself; it was not peace, but yet another protection built into the room, intended to immobilize intruders, and she had forgotten its existence. She stamped on the floor and said, “Your Duke returns! Verrakai hoert’a basinya bakuerta bavanta da akkensaar!” In the ancient language of the password: “Verrakai: not elven, not stone-folk, not air-folk, but mage-man.” A spell and counterspell she’d been told were older than Verrakai House, old as the magelords’ retreat from Old Aare. The stillness receded.

She glanced back at the sergeant, pale-faced and sweating in the doorway. “Just an old spell, don’t worry.”

“It looked like the room was filling with dust.”

“It wasn’t exactly dust,” Dorrin said. She stayed away from the ducal desk and went to the shelves to the right. “I may disappear,” she said over her shoulder. “These shelves are images; they should recede to the real ones beyond, but I might walk through them. I wasn’t taught all the counterspells.” Under her gloved hand, the shelves felt real; she knew better than to grope among the books and scrolls for the touchlock and instead pressed the ducal ring on the most likely shelf. “Tangat Verrakai!” she said sharply.

The shelves vanished, revealing a much larger room with two tables, plain wooden chairs set near them, and more shelves. At the far end, the portrait she remembered hung above a small fireplace; it had terrified her as a small child, a larger-than-life-size image of Aekal Verrakai, the first duke, grim-faced. But she was not a child any longer and found him more repulsive than frightening.

You should fear. Straight into her mind the words came. Without me, you are nothing. Because of me, you were born. Because of me, you will live or die. Fear me.

“You are dead these thousand years,” Dorrin said.

A cold laugh. This power never dies.

“Nor Falk’s power, nor the High Lord’s,” Dorrin said. She drew her sword and laid the sword’s tip on the image’s chest. “It is time this image died, as well as its ghost.” A little pressure, and the tip pierced the surface.

Blood spurted from the image’s chest, ran down her sword blade hissing and smoking. The blade itself flared blue; stinking black smoke curled to either side. Dorrin stared, amazed, for a split second. Blood magery even here? She lent her power to the sword blade, augmenting its innate protection with her own, at the same time drawing the tip across the portrait, ripping it one way, then another. More blood surged out, splashing against her personal shield, hissing … it died, dried. A red mist rose from the wall behind the portrait, but dissipated when Dorrin called again and again on Falk.

Grimacing, she pulled the rags of the portrait free of its frame, realizing as she did that it had been painted on thin leather, not fabric. The frame itself stank of dark magery; she pulled that, too, free, and one side broke open. Instead of solid carved and painted wood, she found it was plaster, molded and painted to look like wood, over a core of bones and bone fragments … of what she did not know and did not want to imagine. On the wall itself, a door, carved with the Verrakai crest and a warning. Dorrin didn’t touch it physically, but once more said, “Tangat Verrakai.”

The door opened, revealing a small vault. Inside, the shattered remains of an urn with a little brownish red powder that vanished as she looked at it, what looked like a wooden box with inlaid patterns, a discolored scroll, and something beyond wrapped in pale leather. Dorrin left the vault open and walked back, nearer the study door.

“Did you see that?” she asked the sergeant.

“No, my lord. Like you said, you walked through a wall of books, it looked like.”

“The room extends beyond. There was magery, and I defeated it.” The man looked pale enough already; she did not want to panic him completely. “There’s a vault in the wall, with an urn, a scroll, various other items. I do not wish to remove these things at the moment, because Sir Valthan really needs the information in the family birth records, and I haven’t found that yet.”

“The scroll?”

“Too old. And it should be a book with pages; I saw it as a child.” She looked around that end of the office, trying to remember the size and color of the volume. As a child, she had thought it huge, but how large was it really? She found two other record books, one with the breeding records of the Verrakai stud and one with a record of harvests for the past twenty-two years, before she found the one she wanted.

Her family had seemed vast when she lived here, but from the records Haron’s plan had been to concentrate power in the family as well as without. Only one of her sisters had survived, and both her brothers had been killed in duels with Haron’s sons. Her father had died of a hunting accident; there was a mark beside his name she did not know. Relief flooded her: he was dead; she did not have to worry about seeing that face ever again. In her own generation, cousin had married cousin—to strengthen the magery, no doubt. Stillbirths … infant deaths … childhood accidents … half these listings marked like her father’s name, whatever it meant. So the gaggle of children upstairs really were all … she’d expected fifty or more.

Yet something about the record book felt wrong. She could easily imagine dishonesty—but why here, in the list of family members, births, marriages, deaths, titles? Was there another record book, hidden somewhere? Or was something hidden here, in this book?

She touched the book with her magery; to her inner sight the pages wavered, as if under water, and a new page appeared, covered densely with a small crabbed script she did not recognize. As she read, she felt the hair rise up on her body: many of those listed as dead—those with the symbol—were not dead but transferred by blood magery to the bodies of others, some Verrakaien and some not. In such disguise, unrecognized, they could go anywhere, work for Verrakai secretly.

Including her father. Not dead, still alive, hidden? At the thought, panic flooded her, the fear she had controlled while in the tower’s dungeon. She had not told the Knight-Commander—she had been ashamed, even now, to admit how much she feared him, and why. Her uncle had been duke and also punished her, but her father—he had worn the Bloodlord’s hood and mask, he had decreed the torment of her pony and torments even more shameful.

She closed the book and went at once to the door. “I have urgent news for Sir Valthan, which my relatives must not overhear. Tell him we need a safe place to confer.”

Dorrin met Valthan in the dairy. Windowless, stone-walled, the dairy felt chill and dank, light from their candle sending tiny dazzles from the water in the channel where butter and milk kept cool. Dorrin laid the book on the small table Valthan’s men had set there. “You found something bad?” Valthan asked.

“Many things,” Dorrin said. “But this is the worst.” She opened the book and pointed to the mark. “These are listed as deaths, with dates and causes listed. But they are not dead. They live … in other bodies.”

“What?”

“I did not know such evil was possible … but with blood magery, and I suppose the help of Liart’s priests, they can transfer the souls and minds of Verrakai into other bodies, to work secretly for that traitor Haron.”

“So … the prince may still be in danger?”

“The prince, yes, but also the realm as a whole. I do not know who the alternate identities are.” Her own father, not safely dead but alive—where was he? Who was he? She shuddered, forcing memory away.

“How do you know this?”

“There is a page visible only by magery,” Dorrin said. “I can try to make it visible to you—” She put out her power again and the page reappeared. “There, do you see it?”

“No,” Valthan said, scowling. “What does it say?”

“It gives the dates these people were transferred to another body, and for a few it gives that identity.”

“What about those others? Are they now in Verrakai bodies?”

“They’re dead,” Dorrin said. The page gave part of the ritual by which the transfer was done; it disgusted her.

“Well … that’s one thing,” Valthan said, staring down at the page, through the page he could not see. “What will happen if I touch this? Will I feel the one I can’t see?” He put out a finger.

“Don’t,” Dorrin said. “I don’t want to risk it. I need a competent scribe, so I can read this page aloud and send a copy to the prince, but though I have literate men among my cohort, none are skilled at dictation. Do you have a scribe with you?”

He shook his head. “I’m the only one. If you trust me.”

“Of course,” Dorrin said.

“I mean, I might be one of those Verrakai put in someone’s body. I might be about to kill you.”

“We can find out,” Dorrin said. She read out the phrase that supposedly forced the transferred Verrakai to reveal themselves.

“What was that?” Valthan said.

“Proof you’re not a Verrakai,” Dorrin said. “Let’s get this done—time’s passing.”

Valthan wrote to her dictation; then Dorrin copied his copy, which matched her memory.

“Do not let my relatives know you have this,” Dorrin said. “They might find a way to destroy it, if they suspected its existence. It must go to the prince’s own hand.”

“A courier?”

Dorrin considered. “Do you have a man to spare? Considering how many prisoners you have and the Verrakai yet at large?”

“Not really,” Valthan admitted. “But I expect to meet another troop on the way.”

“I still worry that attack on a single courier would be easier than on a troop. If you send one, warn him to stop nowhere but at a grange of Gird—not for water or food or rest.”

When they returned to the great hall, the guard had changed to Phelani; Valthan’s were out in the stable, readying horses and wagons for the morning’s departure. They would sleep there, in relative safety, to be rested for the next day’s travel. Dorrin went to the front entrance and murmured the command word that swung the great doors wide. Sweet cold air flowed in, smelling of early spring, the first faint fragrance of healthy growth. She wanted to walk out into the darkness and never come back. She’d done it once; her escape saved her life and sanity.

And she had come back, unwilling, to save those who would not thank her, the innocent among her bitter and resentful family. In her mind she saw the view that darkness hid—the fields, the trees beyond, the view that should have been as dear and familiar as anything in the world. Instead, longing for the Duke’s Stronghold stabbed her, the familiar inner and outer courts, sunrise seen from the parapet, that dinner table with Kieri at its head and Arcolin and Cracolnya across from her. Her eyes stung with unshed tears.

Would she ever feel this was home? A safe place, a comfortable place?

She stared at the gloom until her eyes dried, then turned and went inside.

Before dawn, Dorrin and Sir Valthan ate breakfast in the dining room of the main house, still from rations they’d brought, and Dorrin wrote out another report for the prince, on the conditions she’d found in the keep.

“You’ll have to take the tower down,” Valthan said. “If it’s been the center of their evil that long—”

“I know,” Dorrin said. She knew, but she felt a reluctance to destroy a work so old, the center of Verrakai House. As if he sensed that reluctance, Valthan put his hand on her arm.

“My lord Duke, I’m serious. They will have built it with blood and bone: it cannot be cleansed. It must be destroyed.”

“And will be,” Dorrin said. “When I have carried out the prince’s commands to find those under Order of Attainder and send them to Vérella. If I spend the weeks it will take to knock the tower down, stone by stone, they will get away.”

“But—”

“I will burn out the entire inside, leave it an empty husk,” Dorrin said. “That should hold the evil at bay awhile, while I do as the prince wished. Later, I can demolish it.”

He nodded. “That sounds well enough.” He sighed. “I do not envy you your tasks, my lord.”

“Nor do I envy you your journey to Vérella with my poisonous relatives.” She pushed back from the table. “I will renew my spells blocking their magery and hope those hold until you reach Vérella. Should you suspect they are regaining their magery, kill them at once. Remember they have powers you’ve never faced; just one of them held four motionless, including the Marshal-Judicar of Gird.”

In the main reception hall, lamps and candles were alight; the women and girls stood in one huddle and the boys in another. Some glared at her, defiant; others cringed. Either expression might be a lie. Dorrin hooked her thumbs in her belt and looked them over.

“Remember my warnings,” she said. “The Royal Guard has orders to kill you if you offer any resistance or attempt to use your magery, should my bindings fail.” For a moment her mother looked triumphant, but Dorrin smiled, putting into it all the Verrakai arrogance, and her mother’s eyes fell. “I do not think they will,” Dorrin said. “And to make certain—” She released the power again, first damping their powers, and then a glamour, making them docile, at least for a time.

“Time to go,” Sir Valthan said. The Royal Guard urged them out the front entrance. The older women and those with child were put in a supply wagon. The others would walk. They did not complain, but set off down the lane.