The Road to Hell

Chapter Forty-Five

May 3

Andrin leaned against the ship’s rail, hair flying in the wind as she and Howan watched the glorious fireworks display overhead. The dark waters of the Ylani Straits were a mirror reflecting back the explosions of light and color. The sharp crack and rumbling boom, followed by the staccato crackle of secondary explosions, rolled across the black water like the voices of the very gods lifted in celebration. They’d stopped Arcana!

The Voice message announcing the recapture of Fort Ghartoun, Hell’s Gate, and the portal to Mahritha had reached Tajvana two days ago. All of Sharona was still awaiting confirmation that Fort Brithik had been retaken, as well, but no one in the entire multiverse seemed to doubt it had been done by now.

She hugged the joy of it to herself, just as she hugged all her good fortune from these past few days. She’d needed that good fortune, every drop of it. She’d faced so very much, these last months: terror, horror, anguish, numb grief, cold rage…so many emotions foreign to her life, she ought to have been exhausted.

But the fireworks sparkled in the night sky as brightly as Andrin’s happiness, which knew no bounds, tonight. She knew they still faced danger and pain, but for now, for these few moments, she let herself simply be happy. She felt almost giddy, like a child at Spring Coming. Sharona was safe, Chava Busar had failed to destroy her life in his quest for power, and she’d married a man whose love for her was so deep she knew already she would never taste the bottom of it.

Each day, each hour they spent together, Andrin realized she’d joined lives with a man as worthy of her respect and love as her father was. For all that he was a reserved and quiet man, he deliberately drew her sense of humor into the open, made her smile and laugh more than she ever had in her life. He sought her opinions and found them sound, agreeing with her a surprising percentage of the time. When they didn’t agree, he said so…and made his case in calm, measured tones, although she could sense the temper that sometimes boiled beneath the surface.

She glimpsed it, now and again, when some officious twit said or did something that pushed the limits of his patience. He’d come close to losing control of that temper at the last crossing of the swords, so to speak, with Prince Weeva. His Highness would smart for months to come under the sting of Howan Fai’s cold-voiced opinion, which had endeared him to her all the more. Andrin detested that particular son of Chava so deeply it was nearly pathological.

She put him deliberately out of her mind. She’d much rather think about her husband-his sense of humor, his respect for her opinions, the strength of his own convictions, his soul-shaking tenderness.…

She didn’t know if this was love or some other emotion, since she’d never felt this way before, but whatever it was, she wanted more of it. And she wanted an excuse to slip away to their cabin and share a little more of that delicious intimacy. She sighed. It had been dark for barely half an hour, and she was only too aware of the eyebrows that would rise if she suggested retiring to bed this early. She nearly giggled aloud, shocked by her own indecent thoughts.

There’d be time enough for that, later.

For now, she leaned against the rail, watched the fireworks, stroked Finena’s glossy white feathers with absent fingertips, and stole occasional glances at her husband. Their child was growing well. Not a hint of a belly showed yet, though Doctor Morlinhus warned her that even at her height, a bump was to be expected in the next couple of weeks. The dreams had faded as the child grew, but Howan Fai was slipping her away to safety, she hoped.

Let it be so, she prayed silently. To that prayer, she added, And please, let me hold onto this happiness, let me hold onto this wondrous man you’ve given me. Grant me this much, at least: a chance to spend my whole life with him, for him to spend his whole life with me. There’s so much we can do, together, to protect the people of our worlds. Grant us the time to do that work together.

Howan Fai turned to peer into her eyes, sensing a change in her mood. He gave her arm a reassuring squeeze and lifted his chin slightly in inquiry.

She was afraid to say it, for fear that once uttered, some malevolent demon would hear the words and smash them to pieces. So she merely smiled and said, “It’s nothing.”

She sensed that he understood her reluctance to speak, that he knew at least some of what she’d been feeling so strongly and concurred with her decision not to voice it aloud. Of course, that might simply have been a caution that was instilled into every man, woman, and child born of Eniath, particularly its aristocracy and royal family. With neighbors like Chava Busar, not voicing certain thoughts had become an ingrained and necessary habit.

But tonight, those fears and worries were far away and dim. Tonight, the stars were brilliant, the sea and sky were a glorious riot of bursting colors, and joy filled the air. Millions of people stood along the shoreline, on the housetops, in the windows of shops and tall buildings. Every single one of those millions of people shouted and rang bells and set off long chains of fire-poppers. The noise came rolling across the water like a solid wave of sound, filled with bursting happiness.

It wouldn’t last, she knew; but for tonight, at least, the worlds that had sprung from Sharona-and all the people in them-were safe from the threat of Arcana. That simple, profound truth moved her nearly to tears. She gripped the railing as her yacht moved slowly and softly through the darkness, past the crowd of boats bobbing on the water where even more Sharonians celebrated the halting of the Arcanan menace.

She smiled as the Peregrine slipped through the dark, color-splashed water, with her security men nearby, her hawk on her arm, and her heart full nearly to bursting with happiness and hope for their future. She turned to tell Howan Fai how very happy she was-

And the Glimpse struck.

* * *

Zindel chan Calirath wandered across the long stone balcony overlooking the Ylani Straits, ostensibly to obtain another glass of wine after draining his first one in toasts to the newly married couple: MP Kinlafia and Voice Yanamar. His real motive was the view. This portion of the balcony gave a better view of the western end of the Straits, where they led into the Imbral Sea and eventually down past Imbral’s Blade and out to the Mbisi Sea. The Straits and the harbors on either side were filled with boats of every size in a confusing jumble that was lit every few seconds by the strobing light of fireworks.

None of that mattered. The Peregrine’s profile was etched into his memory. He’d learned a deep appreciation of the sailing master’s craft aboard that trim, lovely little ship. She was moving under sail, tonight, creeping softly, silently through the crowded harbor, toward the open channel at the center of the Straits. Her escort destroyers steamed fore and aft-under power at slow speed to follow the rules of the road that granted sailing vessels right of way-as if they’d merely happened to be transiting the Ylani Straits at the same time as Peregrine instead of following careful, Voice-coordinated transit orders. A convenient port call at Larakesh had held them at the ready, and now they were immediately at hand to defend the Peregrine if anyone dared threaten her.

Zindel had wandered along the length of the balcony several times already, this evening, careful to spend just as much time gazing out across other vantage points. He didn’t want observers to notice his keen interest in the ship moving so slowly toward the deep channel. The fireworks offered the perfect cover under which the Peregrine could run, taking his daughter to a place where she and her husband could learn one another in greater privacy. It was difficult enough for ordinary newlyweds to learn how to live together. For an imperial heiress, the job was ten times harder.

Still, he couldn’t help worrying. So he strolled the balcony, watching the Peregrine make her way towards the open sea. He wondered again if he’d made the correct decision, sending her on the yacht, rather than the Windtreader. The Windtreader was harder to attack, certainly, but part of his intention had been secrecy. It would have alerted most of Tajvana, had the Windtreader steamed out in the middle of the victory celebration.

So he’d arranged for Andrin and Howan Fai to take the sailing yacht, instead, relying on the brand new engines installed in her hull, the Imperial security team onboard, and her destroyer escort. She might be a romantic little ship, but she carried a genuinely nasty sting for anyone foolish enough to attack her, and the two destroyers could blow anything short of a major warship completely out of the water. And for the possibility of major warships, two armored cruisers were waiting to add themselves to the escort once they were safely out into the Mbisi.

The Peregrine, which had nearly cleared the tangle of small craft clogging the harbor, carried a marine detail, in addition to a full squad of Imperia Guardsmen, but he still couldn’t help worrying. I shouldn’t have let her go, he found himself thinking as he gripped the stone balustrade. This is stupid! he snarled at himself a moment later. You’re being an overprotective father. She’s a woman grown, married, now. She has enough firepower around her to take out half a city. And there hasn’t been so much as a whisper of trouble out of Chava, let alone anyone else.

When he caught himself worrying his lower lip with his teeth, he took several deep, slow, calming breaths. He was being paranoid. Chava Busar had behaved with extreme prudence and every outward appearance of unhappy acceptance. Security had been watching him, his sons, his wives and daughters, his supporters, and his high-ranking security officials, every second of every day and night. They’d even been watching the officers of Chava Busar’s so-called “imperial police,” who constituted a private army under the Uromathian Emperor’s control.

A spate of cheering prompted him to glance down at the broad flagstone terrace just below his balcony. This portion of the palace had been built along the slope of a hill which had been terraced with a series of gardens, staircases, and open flagstone pavements where garden parties were held throughout Tajvana’s long social season. The palace’s gaslights had been dimmed for the firework display, but more than enough light spilled across the terrace from open doorways and windows to reveal the identities of the revelers below.

Various members of his Privy Council chatted with one another and their families, pausing now and again to cheer a particularly spectacular burst of fireworks, and musicians played. The bright sounds of military marches, the patriotic tunes of every nation on Sharona, and celebratory hymns of thanksgiving and joyous praise for the deities which watched over them splashed across the terrace and eddied out into the night, and temple bells tolled solemn jubilation in the distance. All of Tajvana was filled with joy, tonight.

Zindel spotted First Councilor Taje, head bent in conversation with Darcel Kinlafia. Kinlafia wasn’t a member of his Privy Council, but his new bride was. Alazon Kinlafia had been reinstated as Privy Voice and was radiant tonight. Zindel approved of that match, very much, and a faint smile touched his mouth. From the reports he’d been receiving, Kinlafia had weathered the transition from survey crew Voice to Imperial Parliament MP with great success.

He’d been selected to several important committees in the House of Talents, including Foreign Relations and Budget, and he was vice-chair of both the War Caucus and the Talent Mobilization Board. That sort of authority was rare for a novice politician, but he owed it only partially to his fame as the sole surviving member of the Chalgyn Consortium crew and the Voice who’d relayed Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr’s last Voice transmission. It turned out-to Kinlafia’s own surprise, Zindel suspected-that he had very good political instincts even without his wife’s guidance, and his fellow MPs had quickly realized he was smart, thoughtful, and well-informed on the critical issues not only of the war but of conditions in the border universes, as well.

And he was using that stature to keep the House of Talents focused on creating the structures they’d need to recruit and train Sharona’s Talented citizens to assist with the war. Whether at home or at the battlefront, Talents would be essential to Sharona’s war effort, indeed, to Sharona’s survival. Darcel Kinlafia understood that. It was a great relief to have him in the House of Talents, advocating and browbeating and persuading his fellow Talents to do the hard work necessary to prepare Sharona’s Talented citizens for war.

Servants wended their way through the crowd, carrying trays of beverages and sweets. One of those servants caught his attention. The young woman was familiar to him, but he couldn’t quite place her. A frown touched his mouth as he tried to recall who she was-

And the Glimpse struck.

He staggered, nearly collapsing under the shock. Fire! There was fire everywhere. A blazing inferno blowing the room behind him to hell. His whole body was engulfed in flame and there was no time, it was right on top of them…

“VARENA!”

His wife jerked around as he began to run.

“Zindel-?”

“The girls! Get the girls!”

His wife blanched and whirled. Armsmen were running toward her. Razial was beside her mother. But he couldn’t see Anbessa.

“Telfor!”

Telfor chan Garatz, Chief of Imperial Security, had already scooped Razial out of her chair. He jerked around at Zindel’s shout.

“Get my family off this balcony! Not through the room!”

“Yes, Sire!”

Chan Garatz was already moving…moving so quickly he didn’t notice that the emperor was headed the opposite direction.

Headed directly into the room he’d ordered his armsmen to avoid.

“’Bessa!” Zindel chan Calirath thundered, his mind full of fire and blast, his body already screaming protest of the agony he knew was to come. He should have been paralyzed, should have been lost in the crushing power of his Death Glimpse, but his Talent had always been powerful. Now, like his son at Fort Salby, he was in fugue state. He Saw the world about him, Saw the future, Saw the agony, Saw his daughter’s death, Saw his own, Saw the slim possibility that Anbessa might live, and he threaded the needle between those futures-all of them potential; each of them in that moment as real as any other-and raced towards her.

“Daddy?” she looked up at the sound of his voice, and even in fugue state, his heart spasmed with terror.

She was standing in front of a tray of chocolates. In the room. Oh, gods…

“’Bessa! Run!” he shouted. “Get to the balcony! Now!”

She dropped the candy and ran towards him, but his own armsmen had realized which way he was headed. Two of them hurled themselves at him, desperate to tackle him and drag him bodily to safety, but he was in fugue state. He Saw them coming, knew exactly where they’d be, where their hands would be, and he went through them like smoke, smelling the fire, racing to embrace it. He was at the door, through the door, and Anbessa was six feet from him and running hard when he saw the terrible flash of light. It started at the back of the room. The table of candies exploded. The whole back of the room exploded.

The blast cracked open the room’s gas lines and the entire enormous salon ignited. The guards who’d tried to stop him vanished into a boiling inferno, flame belched through the room, and Anbessa was still three steps away. The blast front roared over him, and he reached into it, closed his hand around her outstretched fingers. Heat crisped all around them, and Zindel chan Calirath pulled with all his massive, bull-shouldered strength, all the desperate power of a father who would not lose another child. He spun, his baby girl somehow in his arms, and hurled his daughter through the air, threw her violently forward, a living javelin.

The second explosion blew out the doors.

And part of the wall. It picked him up, hurled him back toward the balcony like a toy, swept everything off the balcony. It blew out the stone railing and hurled all of them out and down in a blazing ruin of flame.

* * *

Andrin gripped the ship’s railing. The Glimpse struck her like a club and she fought to see details. It was like seeing two different events through one set of eyes. She saw the Grand Palace, cracked open, fiercely ablaze. Papa! she screamed in silent horror, watching the flames engulf her father, watching the explosion sweep him off the broken balcony like a shattered doll. But there was fire all around her, as well, fire above her, fire and black water, deep and terrible and her lungs were bursting, but she couldn’t breathe for the flames and terrible black water that was dragging her down while hell blew up around her-

“Get off the ship!” she croaked.

“What?” Howan Fai asked, staring at her.

“Off the ship! A Glimpse-just now-I was in the water. There was fire everywhere, all around, I couldn’t breathe, oh, God-”

She saw two things simultaneously.

Men in black, form-fitting clothing. They charged across the deck, converging on her. And a massive explosion behind them. An explosion that sent fire belching into the night from the heart of Tajvana. The Grand Palace had blown open. Fire belched out of it.

“PAPA!” she screamed.

Gunfire erupted-

— and she plunged over the rail. Was shoved over the rail. Finena launched from her wrist. The falcon screamed. Andrin screamed as she fell. As she plunged down the long, long hull. Toward the cold, black water of the sea.

And then the vicious shock of impact smashed through her.

The water was hard as stone. She’d turned instinctively to protect her belly and her side struck brutally. The cold shocked her whole body, and then she was under the water, down in the terrible black depths. Her gown was pulling her even deeper and she fought its weight. Ripped at the buttons, the seams. She couldn’t fight free of it. Her lungs were bursting. Panic throbbed through her. Gripped her throat. Stabbed through her, knife-sharp with every pulse of her wildly racing heart.

Someone had her wrist. She flailed wildly. Hands pulled her from behind. Then the heavy weight of her gown ripped away. She felt suddenly light as goose down and she kicked frantically. Swam madly up-hoped she was swimming up, not deeper into the endless black water. She was suddenly propelled upwards by the strong grip of whoever had torn off her heavy dress. Her lungs were on fire. She couldn’t stand it. Had to gulp now-

Her head broke water.

She sucked down air-huge, shuddering lungfuls of it-and Howan Fai was beside her, face lit by the exploding fireworks overhead as they were jostled in the wake of the passing ships. Her yacht was already fifty yards ahead of them and pulling away steadily as the wind in her sails and the current in the straits carried her forward. The first destroyer was even farther away, out in the main channel; she couldn’t even spot the other one in the dark waters, but she could breathe-she could breathe! — and Howan Fai was with her. They hadn’t-

A sparkle of light erupted on Peregrine’s decks. Gunfire! Those men in black swarmed across the yacht. Fighting Andrin’s armsmen. Fighting Imperial Security. Fighting the Marines her father had stationed aboard. Andrin drew breath to cry out for help-

Peregrine exploded.

The whole yacht blew apart. Flaming debris arced high through the air, hurled violently across the water, came flying down in a lethal rain.

“Breathe!” Howan Fai shouted.

She gulped air-and her husband dragged her under. He swam frantically down, as frantically as they’d just swum up. The water lit up, bright as daylight, and saltwater burned her barely slitted eyes even as she tried to make out the dark shapes sharing the cold waters.

A shockwave tumbled them through the water. Something massive slammed down past her, plunging its way toward the bottom, and the water blazed above them.

Great sheets of flame spread far and wide overhead, and Howan Fai swam hard sideways, towing her frantically toward the darkness. She started to kick that same direction, and for the first time in her life, Andrin was grateful she was large and strong, with more power in her body than grace. She swam with a single-minded determination toward the dark water beyond the flames, and when she reached it, she swam madly up, lungs nearly bursting yet again.

When her head broke water a second time, she sucked down air in gasping, painful shudders. Oh, Triad, help us, please…She searched wildly, trying to find Howan Fai again. Then he was beside her, gulping down air, as well, treading water at her side. She gripped his hand, gripped hard, trembling and crying as the emotional and physical shocks hit her.

Beyond them, the sea was an inferno. The fuel gushing from Peregrine’s ruptured hull spilled across the surface of the water, turning the waves into a raging sheet of flame. The yacht was nothing but wreckage. She’d broken in half and the two halves were sinking, still fiercely ablaze. Andrin heard people screaming in the flames, heard the engine-throb of the destroyer closest to them.

She was opening her mouth to scream for help when Howan Fai covered her lips with his hand and shook his head urgently. He nodded with his head and she saw another boat-one with a haze above it, visible only when it rose on the very crest of a wave and instantly gone again when it slid into a trough. A smaller craft than Peregrin, it sat rocking in the waves less than thirty feet from them.

It was a pleasure boat, one of the new power cruisers rich men liked to speed in, racing across harbors and bays, kicking up spray behind them in gleeful abandon.

This boat wasn’t kicking up spray. It sat silent and dark, ominous in the black water. Then she heard the voices. Men’s voices. Low, rapid, speaking in a language she recognized as the Othmaliz dialect of Shurkhali. What they said riveted her entire attention.

“-no one could’ve lived through that,” an angry voice snarled. “Gods damn it! How could those fools have bungled the job so badly? It was a cinch! Board in the darkness, snatch that cutcha, and dump her over the rail. Aruncas knows the fishes are hungry, and I Masked this job, neat as anything. We should’ve been halfway across the Straits before the bomb blew. But no, they botched it! That was a godsdamned gun battle, raging up there, before it blew apart!”

Another voice, no less appalled, said, “The Seneschal will be furious. His Eminence wanted that-what was your word, cutcha? — to vanish. Swallowed by the waves and never recovered!”

“Dead is dead,” the Masker chuckled nastily, “and that frigging explosion won’t leave much in the way of identifiable bodies! But if they can’t trot out every tall fisher girl up and down the Ylani as the missing heiress for the next decade, that’s the Seneschal’s problem, not ours. We did our part. Let’s finish this.”

A large form blocked Andrin’s view of the boat for a moment and then slid on by.

“Good enough,” said one of the Bergahldians.

“Fine,” replied the Masker. “Get us out of here before those fucking destroyers decide to strafe every boat within a thousand yards.”

“I thought they couldn’t see us,” said a third voice showing a little more fear.

“They’ll see us just fine if you let a stray bullet hit me. Finish Calling your hungry little friends, and we can get out of here,” said the Masker.

“I’d really rather we got to shore first.”

“Do it!” snarled the Bergahldian.

The boat didn’t race away. That would have attracted too much attention. Instead, it chuffed slowly away under low power while the destroyers raked the flaming wreckage with searchlights, looking for survivors. Andrin realized quite abruptly that she was nearly naked in freezing cold water. She’d begun to shiver while listening to those murderous ghouls and those shivers were rapidly turning into shudders.

“Swim, Andrin,” Howan Fai said grimly beside her. “It will help keep us warm until we’re close enough for someone to hear us or see us.”

She nodded. Then she reached across the dark water and touched his face. “You saved my life. Again and again, tonight.” There was more salt in her eyes than the sea could account for. “Oh, Triad! Howan, Daddy and Mama and the girls…” She was crying, fighting desperately for control, but the pain was tearing her in half. “I’m not ready to be Empress! Not like this!” she cried.

Howan Fai hooked one arm around her and churned the water with his legs to hold them both up. The strength of his arms and his ease in the water calmed her even before he started speaking, and Finena, circling in the air above, invisible in the darkness, cried out her fury. Andrin had almost forgotten her falcon.

“Sister of White Fire,” her husband said in a stern voice, “you’re strong enough to do anything. To endure anything. You’re Talented enough to protect your life and my life and this whole world we love. If not for your Glimpse, we would both be dead. Your warning gave me time to act. To throw you over the rail before those murderers could reach you. If you can save us from a plot this well orchestrated, Andrin, you can do anything you must!”

His voice was fierce. His eyes, lit by the fires raging across the water, were as hot as the flames that had nearly killed them both, and that fierceness steadied her. She was still shaking, but the hysterics were draining away and what was left was merely the shudders of icy water and reaction.

“I’m c-cold, Howan,” she chattered. “Let’s s-swim.”

This time, it was his grin that was fierce.

“That’s the woman I love. Swim with me, Andrin. We have but a little way to go.” He pointed to the closer of the two destroyers, which had left the deep channel in the center of the Straits to search for survivors. She heard shouts as sailors from both ships lowered lifeboats and she saw searchlights sweeping across the flaming ruin of her beautiful yacht. She wouldn’t think, yet, about the people who’d died aboard that yacht. Her servants, her security men, her crew…

She started to swim.

It seemed such a short distance, but it was a long, brutal swim in the cold water, with her body shuddering and her teeth chattering. They swam five yards beyond the edge of the burning fuel, having to skirt debris floating in the dark water. Some of that debris had been human and she closed her eyes and kept swimming, trying to blot out the numb horror of what she was seeing.

She swam slowly, exhausted as the adrenalin rush wore off, and Howan Fai matched her pace stroke for stroke.

“Keep going,” he encouraged her. “Almost there.”

They watched another lifeboat hit the water and push off. Its crew had lit rescue torches, looking frantically for survivors. The flames were so fierce the lifeboats couldn’t even get close to the sinking wreckage and she heard them, faintly, calling out across the wreckage and the crackling of the flames.

“Hello! Hello! Can anyone hear me?”

She and Howan Fai were too far away, yet, to be heard above the secondary explosions that ripped periodically through the yacht’s broken hull. Mixed in with those hopeful shouts were curses, raging and frantic as men swore in savage tones. She could even hear what sounded like weeping. She’d never heard grown men cry, before. They’re crying for me, she realized through her numb weariness. Her lungs hurt from the gasping breaths she pulled down, trying to force her flagging body forward.

One of the lifeboats began moving toward them. It was skirting the wreckage, trying to get at the debris from another direction. They didn’t expect to find anyone out here, this far from the ship, but their maneuver brought them unknowingly closer to Andrin and Howan Fai. She gritted her teeth and kept swimming. If they could just get a little closer, so the men in the lifeboat could hear them shout above the noise of the burning yacht…

Something bumped Andrin’s leg.

Something large. Something rough as sandpaper. Something alive. Then a fin broke water, a big fin. And a tail fin appeared, as well, nearly fifteen feet away from her. Andrin froze in place, water rising around her.

“S-shark!” she gasped. “Oh, Merciful Triads-Howan-sharks! I wasn’t supposed to drown here! They wanted me eaten alive!”

The fins sped up and knifed past her. A chunk of debris-human debris-floating ten feet away vanished into the black water. Howan Fai watched in wide-eyed horror. Then he shouted with all his strength.

“HELP!” The bellow raced across the black water.

Andrin shrieked as more fins appeared in the water. “Help! Sharks!”

Someone shouted. A man stood up in the lifeboat. A light caught them full in the eyes. The man standing in the boat was lifting something. Throwing something. Right at them. A life ring smacked down beside them. They lunged for it, grabbed hold as still more fins cut through the water. Some of those fins were far larger than others, and she sensed a mad swirl of violence all about her.

The instant they gripped the life ring, the men in the lifeboat hauled on the rope, and Andrin and Howan Fai shot forward through the water. Something big grazed her kicking legs again. Scraped it raw. Something else brushed against her and rolled pushing her hard. She screamed-

— and then something was under her, heaving, sending her hurtling up like an elevator. Whatever it was literally threw her over the lifeboat’s side, into the startled arms of one of the sailors. The man’s arms closed instinctively as her hurtling weight knocked him flat. She landed on top of him, and an instant later, Howan Fai was beside her, coughing and shaking.

Andrin sprawled across the bottom of the boat, across bits and pieces of several men, shuddering violently with cold and terror. Her leg bled where the shark had hit her the second time, but she shoved herself up on an elbow, staring back out at the water. The searchlights picked out more and more sharks teaming the strait, yet something else was out there too. Massive fins were ripped down under the waves not to emerge.

Andrin clung tight to the gunwale watching the sea battle. Something towed a corpse in Imperial Guard uniform and lifted it with surprising gentleness-once, twice, and three times until the searchers overcame their shock enough to pull it onboard.

A black and white orca’s face with a rough scar over the left eyespot examined her for a long solemn moment before twisting back towards the maddened swarm of shark fins. Whatever the Order of Bergahl’s Talent had done, the cetaceans were aware and fighting.

She heard a blur of voices as the boat rocked violently under her.

Then someone had a blanket wrapped around her. She allowed herself to be lifted again, turned and propped against a shoulder. Someone pressed a metal rim to her lips, exhorting her to sip, to swallow whatever was in the flask he held, and she gulped down fiery liquid. The whiskey tore down her throat and left her coughing and wheezing, but it warmed her up and steadied her down.

The blur of voices resolved into the sound of men weeping in wild relief. Someone was saying, over and over, “Oh, thank the Triads, Shalana’s mercy, oh, thank the Triads…” and someone else was cursing in rough tones that she slowly realized were an expression of shock and a release of stress too deep to endure. Someone else was shouting through a megaphone. “We’ve got her! We’ve found the Crown Princess! She’s alive, we’ve got her safe, she’s all right and the Crown Prince Consort is with her…”

Andrin found herself looking up into the face of the sailor she leaned against. He was just a common seaman, a rough-faced, ordinary sailor in his early forties, from the look of him, but there were tears in his eyes and on his weathered cheeks, and he held a whiskey flask.

“Need another swallow?” he asked gently.

She nodded.

He had to hold the flask to her lips, again, and she swallowed another deep gulp, shuddering as it ripped down her throat and tore into her belly. But it helped ease the painful shudders The cold of the water, the cold of physical exhaustion, the cold of deep and desperate terror had left her shaking so violently, she couldn’t even control her own arms and legs.

The sailor brushed wet hair off her face with a gesture so tender it brought tears to her own eyes. He pulled the blanket more closely around her shoulders and urged her to sip the whiskey again.

“Thank you,” she croaked out, voice little more than a hoarse rasp. “Oh, Triads, thank you so much…” She was dissolving into tears again, sobbing and shaking as the terror caught her in its teeth. Howan Fai leaned against her, wrapped in his own blanket. He held her awkwardly, made gentle hushing sounds, rocked her slightly while she clung to him and cried helplessly.

When the hysteria had finally run its course, she knew a long moment of stinging shame for having broken down in front of all these people, still working to clear the wreckage and find whoever else might have survived. But a gentle touch and the tears streaking down Howan Fai’s own face told her she was more than entitled to a little bawling. She sighed softly; then lifted her face.

The expression of the sailor still holding the bottle had twisted with anguish as he watched his crown princess and consort weep, and she gave him a tremulous smile.

“Thanks,” she whispered. “Ever so much.”

For some reason, those words and that shaky little smile caused a fresh rush of tears to well up in his eyes. “You’re welcome, Your Grand Highness,” he choked out.

She turned her head and looked around to find every man in the lifeboat watching her. She managed another smile, then turned again to Howan Fai. His blanket was slipping, his cold-numbed fingers having difficulty holding it one-handed. His jacket was gone. He must have wrenched it off on the way down, when he’d jumped overboard with her. He was still wearing the sheath he’d worn since the day of their wedding, but the knife was missing.

He must have used it to cut away her gown, she realized slowly. No wonder he’d managed to rip it off her back so quickly. Then he’d lost the knife, somewhere in the wild confusion when the ship had blown up. He cradled another whiskey flask in his hands, and his shoulders drooped in exhaustion, but his eyes shone fiercely, fixed on her. They might be huddled in the bottom of the lifeboat, shaken out of their wits, but they were still alive and still together.

The rush of love she felt for the quiet, courageous man she’d married filled her heart to bursting, and then, suddenly, there in that crowded lifeboat, a wall went down. That turbulent tide of love lifted her, reached out, opened what she realized must be the marriage bond Darcel and Alazon had described to her. But how? Howan Fai wasn’t Talented! They couldn’t forge a marriage bond, yet they had. They had! And as her emotion swept across him, through the bond they now shared, the look in his eyes shifted, gentled…and somehow blazed more fiercely than ever.

Until now, she realized, she’d only tried to love Howan Fai. She’d liked him immensely, enjoyed his company, been enthralled by his touch in the night. But not until this moment, crouched nearly naked in the bottom of a lifeboat, wrapped in a blanket and leaning against him…not until now had she truly realized how much she’d come to love the man she’d married.

“You are my heart,” she whispered fiercely, gently, deeply. “I’ll need you forever.”

A moment later, she was in his arms, shuddering against his shoulder. He choked out her name again and again, his heart slamming against her ear, his lips buried in her wet, tangled hair. When the shudders had finally run their course, again, he touched her face with wondering fingertips; then he kissed her lips, very gently.

“I may be your heart,” he whispered, “but you are my soul, Andrin.”

She clung to him, needing the quiet strength of him more than she’d ever needed anything in her life, and he braced himself carefully against the gunwale beside her, then pulled her down to rest against his shoulder. She leaned into him, longing to simply sit in the safe haven of his arm forever, yet she couldn’t. She knew she couldn’t, for the cruel echoes of her Glimpse were still upon her. She didn’t want to face what came next-more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life, she wanted not to face it-but she was a Calirath, heir to the Winged Crown of Ternathia and the throne of Sharona.

She bit her lip, then faced the sailors who’d pulled them from the water.

“Does anyone know if my parents are alive?” she asked in a shaky voice. “The Grand Palace exploded just before my Prince jumped overboard with me.”

She watched shock wash across their faces. They’d been so desperately focused on the search for her, they’d forgotten about the explosion at the Grand Palace. She could all but hear the next thought reflected on their faces: We might be guarding the Empress…

Firelight from the burning fuel revealed the shift from shock to hard, grim determination.

“Get us back to the Striker,” the petty officer in the prow barked. “Move, damn it!”

The oarsmen bent over the shafts of their oars, and they shot across the black water like a sculling boat in a regatta. Andrin had never imagined such a heavy boat could move so quickly without steam, but then the destroyer’s hull rose above them like a steel cliff, blotting out the stars. Their helmsman brought them alongside with the polished efficiency that was the Imperial Navy’s hallmark, and then the falls from the davits were being hooked on. A steam winch clanked, and the lifeboat rose smoothly, water running from its keel to the water below as it rose to deck level while Andrin clung to Howan Fai, exhausted and so deeply afraid she could hardly breathe.

When they reached the deck, the captain, himself, helped her out of the boat while Howan Fai steadied her. She clutched the blanket around her as the captain said, “Vothan be praised, Your Grand Highness! Let’s get you both someplace safe and warm.”

Someone else turned up-a grizzled Marine chief armsman, with four enlisted men at his back. There was a heavy Halanch and Welnahr revolver at the noncom’s side, all four of his men carried both revolvers and slide-action shotguns, and their faces were grim, their expressions harsh in the light of Peregrine’s fires. They fell in about her and Howan Fai as the captain escorted them across the swarming deck. They passed sailors who stood rigidly at attention, faces wet, but eyes shining as she passed, and she tried hard to smile at them.

They were met part way across the deck by another officer, running to meet them. He carried a surgeon’s bag, and several medical assistants were right behind him with stretchers. The moment the ship’s surgeon touched her, Andrin knew she was safe, in the hands of a master healer. A wondrous rush of warmth and strength washed through her, and then she was lifted up, carefully, and placed on one of the stretchers.

“I can walk,” she protested.

“So you can,” the surgeon nodded, sounding her pulse, “but I won’t be letting you, so just rest quietly, Your Grand Highness. We’ll have you in sick bay and feeling better in no time.”

She didn’t want to let go of Howan Fai’s hand, but the surgeon ordered him onto the other stretcher after the briefest touch on his shoulder. The stretcher bearers lifted them, and she suddenly realized they were taking her away and the captain wasn’t coming with them.

“Wait!” she cried. “Captain, I need to tell you something! Urgently!”

He was at her side in an instant, even as the surgeon sent another flood of healing energy into her, inducing drowsiness.

“We heard two men on a cabin cruiser out there,” Andrin said, gripping the captain’s hand. “While we were in the water. They’d planned this whole monstrous thing. They might still be out there. They have a Masker and”-her mouth twisted-“someone who Calls sharks.”

The captain’s face flared with sudden blazing interest.

“You know who did this, Your Highness? Was it agents from Arcana?”

She shook her head, wishing it were so, but Arcanans didn’t have Talents and they didn’t speak Shurkhali.

“No,” she said in a hoarse rasp. “It was the Seneschal.” Her voice went harsh with hatred. “We heard his filthy hirelings talking about it, not thirty feet away. He sent men to board the Peregrine in the dark to throw me over the rail to the sharks. They meant to make certain I was dead before the bomb went off-they probably didn’t know the yacht had so much fuel aboard and they were afraid I might have survived the explosion somehow-but I had a Glimpse just seconds before they attacked. We saw men swarm up over the rail and come running at us across the deck, right before Howan Fai threw me over the rail. My armsmen and Marines were shooting back in a gun battle as we went overboard.”

The captain turned from Andrin to Howan Fai then spoke roughly, “Your Grand Highness, you have my gratitude and deepest respect.” He saluted Howan Fai, sharply.

“Thank you, Captain. But if not for Andrin’s Glimpse, the Seneschal’s plan would have worked and I’d be dead, along with all the rest.”

Water started to stream down Andrin’s face again-the inhaled ocean water stung her eyes and nose now that she had time to notice it-but her tears more than that. Raw fury clawed at her throat.

“That evil man has to be found, has to be punished! His people blew up the yacht, killed my staff, my armsmen. And Lazima!” She remembered her personal armsman turning to face the running dark figures, the revolver spitting flame in his hand, the way he’d stepped directly between her and the threat. “Did chan Zindico-? Has Lazima chan Zindico been found? I don’t remember having time to tell him. He was right there not two steps away from us. No, no, he wasn’t in the water. One of them threw something at us in the Glimpse and he moved into it. He couldn’t have jumped, or if he had he would have already been bleeding, and the sharks-”

She froze, her throat closing in anguish for just a moment, but then something went through her-something hard, and deadly, and icy cold, and her voice went hard as flint.

“That bastard arranged all this. My yacht, my servants, my armsmen, and, and-The palace! I saw it burning too. Are my sisters…?” She turned to look towards the coastline where orange firelight flickered too brightly on the spot where the Tajvana Palace should have shone with festival lighting.

She was sobbing again, as grief and fear lashed through her. She was responsible for those deaths. She’d been the target. The target to destroy. It hurt so deeply, she couldn’t breathe against it, but that freezing tide of lethal fury bore her up, turned her quivering sinews to iron and her will to steel.

“Find them!” she rasped. “Find them and arrest them!”

“Your Grand Highness,” the captain gripped her shoulders, peering down into fiery gray eyes which streamed with tears and flashed with fury, “my Voice will flash that message to every law enforcement agency, every military base on Sharona. Those bastards will go down. I swear by Vothan, they will go down. Tonight. There’s no hole deep enough to hide them, not anywhere on Sharona.”

“Thank you, Captain,” she whispered.

Then she turned her gaze helplessly to stare at the burning palace on the shore and that terrible, supporting rage flickered and she sagged as the agony whipped through her again. The surgeon’s hands touched her, urging her to lie flat, and the moment his hands touched her, the terrible pain in her heart eased away, grew dim, disappeared. He was murmuring softly to her.

“Rest, now, Your Grand Highness, close your eyes, yes, that’s right, we’ve got you safe, hush, now. Breathe softly…softly…light as down feathers from a gosling…”

Her eyes closed over unutterable weariness.

Andrin’s last thought was a plea to Shalana. Have mercy, Lady, please. Let my parents and sisters be alive. Please, I can’t bear this burden alone…

Then even that disappeared.

* * *

Relatha Kindare had come a long way from Estafel and the servants’ quarters at Hawkwing Palace. Trainee Healer. Those two words meant more to her than anything ever had in her life, and she had the crown princess to thank for it. Not only had she been accepted into the training program at the legendary Tajvana Healing Academy, one of the Imperial Healers had volunteered to give her extra tutelage in his spare time.

But for tonight, she was just Relatha the servant, again, by choice. She’d wanted to be part of the celebration at the Grand Palace, and gods knew the Grand Palace staff needed all the help they could get! Since she was already well-known and thoroughly vetted by Security, it had been relatively easy to be added to the duty roster for the evening.

So here she was, in the midst of the glittering assemblage on the stone terrace, carrying a tray of drinks, enjoying the fireworks, and surreptitiously stealing glances at the Ylani Straits. She hadn’t learned until just a few minutes ago that the crown princess and her husband were leaving Tajvana for a few weeks of long delayed honeymoon.

If she looked sharp, she could just pick out the dark silhouette of the royal yacht slipping out of the harbor, to be joined by the destroyers waiting in mid-channel, and her eyes went watery. Such a good man, she’d found. Relatha had gone nearly out of her mind thinking about Andrin in the hands of one of Chava Busar’s unholy brood. During her work at the clinic attached to the school, she’d heard horror tales of girls who’d come in for medical help and emotional counseling after running afoul of the Uromathian emperor’s sons. The thought of any of them with Crown Princess Andrin had made Relatha’s blood run cold.

She was just passing Mister Kinlafia and his bride, the Privy Voice, who were talking to First Councilor Taje about some piece of legislation, when shouts erupted on the balcony above the terrace. Relatha jerked her gaze up to see the emperor running toward the Palace, shouting at the empress to get off the balcony.

She froze, unable to breathe, even, when Security started to run, as well, converging on the Imperial family. The emperor was shouting for Anbessa, but Relatha didn’t see the youngest Imperial Grand Princess anywhere on the long marble balcony. She raked her gaze along the whole, immense length of it-the marble balustrade ran for at least fifty or sixty feet along the open doors of the Grand Imperial Salon-but there was no sign of Anbessa anywhere.

Relatha gripped her tray of wineglasses hard enough to hurt when Security lifted the Empress Varena and Grand Princess Razial over the side of the balcony rail, lowering them to the armsmen below. What was wrong, up there? Why hadn’t they just retreated into the safety of the Grand Imperial Salon? Was there a crazed gunman in the salon? Surely not-Security would’ve been on top of him long before this and there hadn’t been a single gunshot. But if everyone else was running away from the salon, why was the emperor running into it-?

The empress touched the terrace first, followed an instant later by Razial. More Calirath armsmen were vaulting the rail, jumping down to close in around the empress and her daughter. They were shouting at everyone to get back, away from the building, and Relatha stumbled backward, her hands unsteady on the tray. She needed someplace to set it down as more people crowded back, away from the palace walls, but her eyes were locked on the emperor as he slid between two or his armsman like an eel and disappeared through one of the Grand Imperial Salon’s dozens of doors.

The armsmen charged after him. She could hear them calling his name, but the emperor’s voice rose over theirs like thunder, shouting at Anbessa. The girl must be inside the Salon, Relatha realized, and craned her head, trying to see as more people crowded around her, partially blocking her view-

The Salon exploded.

Relatha screamed. She dropped the tray as the whole, long room filled with fire. The Salon was a raging inferno-an inferno licking out to envelop the Emperor of Sharona and his armsmen. There was fire everywhere-only fire, roaring and hissing like one of the Arcanans’ dragons-and then a small, familiar figure arrowed out of the furnace, thrown high into the air. She cartwheeled out above the crowd, her gown smoking and trailing cinders.

“It’s Anbessa!” someone screamed, even as a heavier, far more massive body came charging out of that flaming hell.

And then there was a second explosion.

The blast front picked up that heavier body and flung it out across the night in a corona of fire.

Dozens of people were reaching up, trying to catch the grand princess as she fell, but Relatha’s gaze tracked that second, heavier body. She knew exactly where he’d come down, and she started to run, shoving her way through the stunned crowd, even as the Salon blew apart in a third massive explosion.

Flame and death belched out into the night, an overpressure of sound and debris roared across the terrace at treetop height, and the entire balcony came down.

Chunks of marble slammed down into the crowd, and Zindel chan Calirath plunged down like a boulder as shocked spectators screamed and scattered. He crashed into the elegant little tables set with crystal and candles, punchbowls and wine and fancy pastries. He smashed down across them. Slid through them. Tumbled and rolled sickeningly off the end. Vanished into a large flowerbed filled with trees and shrubbery and flowers.

Panic-stricken people slammed into Relatha. Heavy bodies almost knocked her down, and she cursed and shoved people aside. She ran frantically forward, toward the spot where the emperor had fallen. More of the balustrade crashed down around them, sending people running in wild terror, but Relatha Kindare didn’t care. She fought her way to him. She hurled overturned tables out of the way, climbed across tumbled chairs, heaved burning debris aside with her bare hands as she searched frantically through the shrubbery.

There!

He lay at a grotesque angle, and he was frightfully still. Horribly still. No! she cried in denial, and dropped to her knees, nerved herself to search. Her fingers shook as she reached for his wrist.…

A pulse! She sobbed aloud just once. Then she closed her eyes, concentrated…and whimpered.

There was pain everywhere. Pain from broken bones-dozens of broken bones. Some of those breaks lay near major arteries, too close for her to dare to move him, even though his pulse was thready, fast, and weak. Shock was dropping his blood pressure, far too quickly, and she concentrated hard. Energy flowed through her body, down through her heart, where she filled it with as much love and strength as she could muster.

She sent that healing flood through her arms, out through her hands, and her life force merged with his. She absorbed some of his shock, reeled under the wave of agony that crashed through her, and her hands shook as it threatened to suck her under. But she refused to yield. She fought the darkness aside, sent more of her life force into him. Her training told her to stop-screamed that she must stop! She was pouring too much of herself into him, spending her own life force like fire, emptying herself into a cold, dark void of death. She knew that…and she didn’t care. He was the Emperor, her Emperor. She would die before she let him go, and she turned her back on her teachers’ warnings. She emptied herself against his pain and the savage injuries of his broken body.

And it wasn’t enough.

She could feel him slipping away, under her fingers.

“NO!” She screamed at him, but her voice emerged as little more than a hoarse, rasping whisper. Tears blinded her. “Don’t you dare go!”

She moved by raw instinct now and lunged for his feet. She jerked off his shoes, jammed both hands hard against the balls of his feet, locked what her instructors had called the “wellsprings of life” in the soles of his feet. Energy centers there drew energy in and let energy flow out. When death came, her instructors had said, a person’s energy bled away to nothing through those wellsprings.

“You may not leave!” she screamed at him, her voice stronger, and his soul hesitated, trapped by her hands and her will. “We need you,” she cried. “We need you too desperately to let you go! Oh, goddess…Shalana, give me strength, we need him. Please, Your Majesty, stay with us…”

A terrible spasm went through him. Then he started to shudder, violently. The shuddering lasted for several terrifying seconds. Then he relaxed with such suddenness, such totality, she thought for a moment he’d died, after all. She drew breath to howl in anguish, when a low, deep groan tore from him. He tried to move under her hands, and pain flared, cruelly. He cried out in agony.

“Don’t move!” she cried. “You have broken bones!” She didn’t dare release her grip on the wellspring points, but he was trying to move, trying to thrash around.

“Anbessa…” The name tore from him, raw with anguish.

She searched the terrace with a frantic gaze, trying to find someone-anyone-in an Imperial Security uniform. There were so many people running in panic-stricken horror, she could see nothing but total confusion. But then a face she recognized resolved itself from the wild melee and she screamed out a name.

“DARCEL!”

Darcel Kinlafia jerked around, yanked out of his efforts to help the dozens of injured, sort out the panic, by the sound of his name. The scream cut through the chaos and the confusion with an impossible clarity. He knew he couldn’t possibly have heard it through the chaos and the bedlam, but he didn’t need to hear it with his ears, for he Heard it with every fiber of his Talent and he wheeled, eyes searching for its source.

“Down here, Master Kinlafia!” Relatha Kindare shrieked. “Help me!”

His gaze dropped to the flowerbed. It focused on her-then on the shape she crouched over, in that flowerbed-and his face turned paper-white in the ghastly light of the burning palace. He charged forward, tossing aside tables, chairs, and people with equal abandon, and Alazon was right behind him.

“Find a healer!” Relatha gasped, as he slid to his knees beside her. “Please! I can barely keep him stable, I’m just a student, oh, Goddess, I’m so scared…”

Both Voices went glassy-eyed. It took her gibbering mind a long, horrified moment to realize they were sending out a broadband distress call. She tried to feel grateful, tried to hope someone would Hear in time, but the battle to force the emperor to live consumed her and despair tore at her as she felt him slipping away once more.

The Privy Voice came out of “send mode” first and her eyes focused on Relatha once more, huge and dark in her ashen face, glittering reflections of savage firelight.

“What can I do?!”

“Don’t let him move, don’t let him thrash around. He’s got broken bones. If he moves, he’ll tear things open, inside. And he’s asking for Anbessa.”

“Alazon,” Kinlafia said.

“Got it,” she replied immediately, and set a light hand on Relatha’s shoulder. “I’ll find out how the Grand Princess is. Darcel will stay with you.”

She disappeared into the wild confusion, but her husband stayed close by Relatha’s side, searching, for injuries. The emperor’s arm had a ghastly break, a compound fracture pumping blood, and Kinlafia’s face blanched even whiter. He ripped off the capelets of his formal court dress and used a strip torn from them to tie a tourniquet around the Emperor’s right arm. A jagged splinter of bone had torn through flesh and skin and sleeve. There was blood everywhere, so much blood…

“More cloth strips,” Relatha said, her hands still clamped like death on the soles of the emperor’s feet. “And something for splints.”

Kinlafia tore more strips from his capelets. His explorer’s good sense kept his nerves steady and the emergency medical training which went with it told his hands what to do, and Relatha held tight to Zindel’s life force, trusting him to staunch the wounds while she refused to let her emperor slip away.

Kinlafia bound Zindel’s right arm to his chest so he couldn’t move it, then smashed a tumbled chair to bits for splints to secure the shattered arm more securely. Then another chair went to pieces as he splinted the emperor’s right thigh and left calf.

He’d just finished that when several uniformed armsmen came running from another part of the terrace, and Relatha heard fire alarm bells clanging as fire wagons fought their way through the victory celebration crowds, trying to reach the burning Grand Palace. A ponderous crash marked the collapse of the Grand Imperial Salon, and she flinched as a fresh shockwave of heat, flame, and smoke belched across them. Cinders rained down like hailstones.

Every one of the armsmen had a gun in his hand.

“Get away from His Majesty!” one of them barked, and another reached down to snatch the emperor’s shoulders, but-

“NO!” Relatha screamed.

“Don’t move him!” Kinlafia snarled. “You’ll kill him if you move him!”

“The fire-”

“He’s got broken bones!” Relatha shouted over the roar of the fire. “They’ll slice open arteries if you snatch him up like that. I’m training as a Healer; I can sense the damage in there. He’s barely holding onto life, just from the physical shock. If I move my focus off the wellspring points, he’ll die! He needs pain medication, emergency surgery. God’s mercy, where’s the Imperial Surgeon? Any surgeon, any healer?”

Alazon Yanamar-Kinlafia shoved her way through the guards with kicks and curses.

“Let me through!” When she finally broke through the cordon they’d thrown around His Majesty, she dropped to her knees beside Relatha. “Dr. Sathron’s on his way from the palace clinic. He’s nearly here. I’ve called for a whole trauma team and an ambulance. Is he conscious?”

“Barely.”

The Privy Voice leaned across to speak directly into her ear. “Will it help him or hurt him to let him know Anbessa is alive?”

Relatha bit her lip and blinked helpless tears. He might be holding onto life just long enough to know his child was safe and would let go of the struggle and die if they told him. Or he might be reassured enough to ease the strain of terror and guilt, easing the stress on his laboring body, now that he no longer needed to fear for her life. She didn’t know, wasn’t trained, didn’t have enough experience.

“I don’t know!”

When she tried to explain, someone-Security Minister chan Garatz himself, she realized suddenly-spoke decisively.

“Tell him!”

“Yes,” Kinlafia agreed. “It’s sheer hell, never to know.”

He wasn’t talking about the emperor and Anbessa. He was talking about Shaylar, Relatha realized with a sudden surge of pity and compassion, even through the chaos and the fight to save the emperor’s life. When she saw the pain etched into his face, burning in his eyes, she nodded.

“Yes. Tell him.”

She braced herself for the worst.

“Zindel!” Alazon crouched low over him, speaking directly into his ear. “Zindel, it’s Alazon. Anbessa is safe. I’ve seen her, talked to her. She’s alive. She’ll be all right. Can you hear me? You saved her, Zindel, she’s going to be fine. Please, Your Majesty, don’t give up, ’Bessa needs her father, she needs you. We all need you. Dr. Sathron’s on the way. He’s nearly here. He’ll give you something to take away the pain. Just hold on a little longer, please.”

Tears ran down her lovely face, and a moan escaped the emperor. Then the heavy head moved, in the tiniest of nods, and Relatha felt the surge in his life force as he gathered reserves of strength from his massive, powerful body. He dug in, hung grimly onto life, defying the pain of torn tissue, shattered bone, and burns.

Relatha sobbed aloud in relief, and then someone else was shouting and shoving the guards aside. Dr. Sathron had arrived and other healers rushed across the flagstones behind him. The ambulance had arrived. Stretcher-bearers came running behind the Emergency Medicine Talents rushing toward the emperor.

“Move back, please,” Dr. Sathron said crisply, “give us room to work.” He glanced at Relatha, saw where her hands were, and blanched. “Shalana’s mercy, child,” he whispered.

Then the others were there and a trained medic slipped her hands under Relatha’s, taking over for her. Relatha gabbled out, “There’s a break in his right femur, a bad one, right beside the big artery. I can Feel it. We didn’t dare move him. Master Kinlafia splinted it and his arm…”

The medic met and held her gaze.

“It’s all right, girl,” the EMT said. “It’s all right. Back out now, child, and let me take it. Your quick thinking saved his life-not many students remember the wellspring points-but move back now. Let us work, love. You can rest. We’ve got him.”

Relatha sighed, relaxing her concentration, felt the other woman’s fully trained Talent take up the load she’d supported for an eternity. She sagged back, sitting on her heels, head reeling, and then tried to stand and move out of the medical team’s way.

She couldn’t. She tried again and made it half way, then staggered and went down, her head swimming and her muscles water. But Kinlafia caught her. He murmured something-something she couldn’t hear through the tumult around her-and then he was helping her totter unsteadily out of the way. He supported her on one side and his wife took her arm on the other while they guided her faltering footsteps across the wide terrace.

The firefighters arrived, at last, bells clanging and horses snorting. Men were scrambling down, connecting hoses to the Palace’s water supply, yanking open the valves and racing with long hoses toward the blaze. Water shot upward in massive jets as the hoses filled and sprayed it into the raging inferno.

Men with ladders scrambled up to reach windows on the rooms not yet burning, trying to contain the blaze before it spread to the rest of the immense structure, and streams of people were evacuating, carrying out art treasures, government records, anything they could salvage.

Watching the destruction of such a beautiful place made Relatha sick inside, and she wondered, numb with agony, how many people had been killed in the explosion. Servants she knew, maybe even her own mother and cousins, and all those Guardsmen who’d been on the balcony and in the Grand Imperial Salon. And there must have been many others in the corridors surrounding the Salon. How many of them had been injured? Perhaps crippled for life? Heavy chunks of the balcony had smashed down into the crowd out here, as well. People could have been badly injured by that falling debris.

By the time they reached the stairs leading down the hillside toward the street she was shaking so badly she could barely stand. She didn’t know where the two Voices were leading her and she didn’t much care, so long as it was away from the horror behind them.

“Who could have done such a thing?” Kinlafia asked in a voice harsh with horror. “Surely not even Chava Busar would have conceived of something this foul!”

“You think not?” Alazon snarled. “You don’t know him the way I do, Darcel. He’s evil! Chava Busar is interested in just one thing-Chava Busar! He’ll stop at nothing, he’ll-”

Her voice chopped off. She stopped dead in her tracks. Stared out across the dark waters of the Ylani Straits. Horror twisted across her face. Relatha followed her gaze…

A ship was ablaze, out there. Pieces of a ship. Fuel burned in a sheet of flame that danced insanely across the waves. Two hulking destroyers flanked the sinking wreckage.

“Oh, dear God…” Alazon whispered. “That’s Peregrine.”

A whimper broke from Relatha’s throat.

It couldn’t be real. She couldn’t bear for it to be real. But how could anyone have lived through that? The yacht had been blown to pieces. Kinlafia was cursing. Endlessly. Brutally. With words so foul, Relatha blanched. Some of them, she’d never even heard, before. Relatha turned stunned eyes toward him, saw the wreckage of grief and agony in his face, and wanted to comfort him. But she couldn’t. Her throat was locked tight. She couldn’t breathe past it.

Then she was falling. Collapsing like a house of cards. Sobs ripped through her. The burning ship and the dark water and Darcel Kinlafia’s voice gyred insanely around her, slid and whirled in crazed circles like a cork caught in a whirlpool. She couldn’t bear it. She found herself sitting on the cold stone steps, huddled in Alazon’s arms, and both of them were crying.

Kinlafia crouched beside them, one arm around each. Relatha heard another massive crash inside the burning palace. Firefighters were shouting. More fire bells were clanging as additional fire wagons and crews arrived. It was all dim and distant and strange. When a fire crew hauling hoses charged up the steps toward them, Kinlafia lifted Relatha in his arms and simply carried her out of the way while Alazon hurried after them.

They stepped out into the garden that sloped its way down the hillside, and Kinlafia set her down carefully. He actually went to one knee so that she was sitting down when he let go, rather than standing. She clutched his hand tightly.

“Thank you,” she choked out.

“For carrying you?”

She shook her head. “I’m just a servant…”

“Just a servant?” he echoed sharply. His hands tightened on hers, painfully. “Don’t you dare say that!”

She gaped up at him, stunned.

“By the Triads, you saved the Emperor’s life! You’re a Talented Healer, girl, powerfully Talented. Even if you’re only a student, you knew exactly what to do. And you did it. Most of us were running in blind panic. But you kept your wits. Shalana’s mercy, girl, if you hadn’t…”

He shuddered. Then he brushed wet hair back from her face, pulled loose long strands caught in her mouth.

“People call me a hero,” he whispered hoarsely. “All I really did was sit in perfect safety at the portal and receive a message. But you…” He touched her cheek. “You ran forward, right toward the explosion, with debris falling all around you.” He tipped up her chin, made her meet his eyes. “There’s only one real hero on this hillside and I’m looking at her.”

“But-”

Alazon hushed her. “He’s right, Relatha. It is Relatha, isn’t it? Your name?”

She nodded, astonished a member of the Privy Council knew her name.

“Relatha,” Alazon laid one hand against her cheek, “all of Sharona owes you a tremendous debt. One we can’t possibly repay-”

And then she broke off suddenly and whipped around to stare at the blazing debris in the dark waters of the Straits.

“Andrin!” The shriek tore loose, high and wild and…exultant?

“She’s alive! Andrin’s alive!” The Voice was laughing, weeping, gabbling in wild excitement. “That was the captain’s Voice. The Captain of the HMS Striker. The ship’s Voice just contacted me. The Striker’s crew pulled her out of the water. It was the Prince Consort! He saved them both! Howan Fai threw her overboard. Dragged her overboard, just minutes before the Peregrine blew up. Vothan’s mercy, he jumped off the ship with her!”

Kinlafia let out a crowing, triumphant whoop and grabbed Alazon and kissed her. Grabbed Relatha and hugged her. He was all but dancing in place, nearly jumping out of his skin in his own wild relief.

“My Gods,” he gasped, “how in Vothan’s holy name did he know?”

“Andrin had a Glimpse!” Alazon’s eyes blazed with incandescent joy. “She knew the ship was going to blow up. She was choking it out to him when a boarding party rushed at them, trying to snatch her.”

Relatha gasped.

“The Prince jumped overboard with her in the middle of a gun battle. Oh, Darcel, they’re alive, both of them!”

“But-” Relatha said in confusion, “but Her Grand Highness should have drowned! Her gown must have weighed close to sixty pounds! I know it did! I’ve helped her dress, before.”

Alazon grinned hugely. “It’s sixty pounds at the bottom of the Strait now! Howan Fai cut it off her back, in the water. With his sheath knife. He’s carried it everywhere since the wedding. They were pulled from the water by a search party in a lifeboat. They’re safely aboard the Striker. That one,” she pointed to the destroyer on their left, bathed in the lurid red flames from the burning fuel and the wreckage of Peregrine. The destroyer on the right was mostly obscured by the thick black smoke boiling up from the fire.

Numb shock vanished. Relatha started to cry again. But this time, oh, gods, this time, her heart was wild with joy, not grief.

“We have to find Empress Varena,” Alazon said, dragging Relatha to her feet. “We can’t tell the Emperor yet, not till his life’s out of danger, but we have to tell the Empress and Razial and Anbessa. We have to tell all of Sharona. The Crown Princess is alive!”

They were the sweetest words ever spoken.