‘We’re not fighting folk,’ Spil said firmly.He sat in one of the two high-backed chairs opposite the window, his face lined with worry while he watched Harwick, who sat in the other.The strongman held a hatchet across his knees.A round shield rested against the wall, near to his hand.He stared at the door, but did not seem to see it.Llewyn had observed the same hard expression on Harwick’s face the few times his past had come up in conversation, only to be quickly elided.
‘By rights, we should be in some far-flung hamlet, putting on a show to half-drunk farmers,’ Spil went on.He touched Harwick on the forearm.The strongman did not seem to notice.‘We’re not fighting folk,’ he said again, more softly this time, as though to reassure himself.
‘It’ll be all right, Siwan,’ Damon said, pausing in his pacing by the door to flash her a smile and a salute with Ynyr’s sword.The boy acted like two days of practice had made him the hero of a romance.And such was his talent on the stage that Llewyn almost believed him.‘They won’t need us, honestly.I wager Ifan and his fighters already have the prince’s army on the run.’
‘Ifan didn’t seem so confident—’ Siwan was interrupted by a sudden shout from beyond the doorway, much louder than the clamour through the window.
Llewyn stepped in front of the door and motioned for Damon to move behind him.‘Quietly,’ he murmured, and levelled his ghostwood blade.At a motion of his will it flattened and sharpened, its edge keener than any steel.
The fighting still sounded distant, through the window.What is this, then?An opportunist, caught in the act of stealing from hismaster in the chaos of battle?Or an assassin, slipped through the castle’s defences to strike some hidden blow?
Silence held but for the creak of Harwick’s chair as he stood, took up a position beside Damon, and tested the weight of his hatchet.
‘Wait,’ Siwan hissed.She darted forward; Llewyn’s hand shot out, ready to stop her, until he saw the paper in her hand.She flattened the spellpaper against the door, studied it for a moment, then made a single stroke with the strange cylindrical pen Fola had left her.The paper burst into silver flame—silent, thankfully.The lines of fire stretched out across the door, then faded, leaving no visible sign that anything had changed.
‘I thought that was the right one,’ Siwan muttered, then reached for the other two papers.‘Bleed it, did I mix—?’
Another shout from the hallway.Siwan backed away from the door.The spellpapers rustled in trembling hands.
‘Which one made the vines?’Llewyn snapped.
She looked at him, then at the runes Fola had written.‘I…’
A blow shook the door on its hinges.‘A-ha!’a woman’s voice called from outside.‘That weasel wasn’t lying after all.’
‘Your butchery of the castle servants makes a mockery of our order,’ said a second voice—a man’s, uptight and condescending.It drew closer.‘Well?Sealed by magic, is it?Break it down.’
Another blow.The wood splintered, but held—thanks, Llewyn was certain, to Fola’s spell.There was no telling how much it could endure.
Damon levelled his sword at the door.Fool of a boy.Llewyn grabbed him by the shirt and pushed him back.‘Go!Get her out of here!’
Damon opened his mouth to protest, met Llewyn’s eye, and nodded.
‘Come, Siwan,’ he said.‘To the rooftop.’
Llewyn watched long enough to see Siwan bend through the window.He could almost feel her fear, thrumming in the ghostwood of his blade, from the fragment that held a part of both their souls.He turned back to the door.Planted his feet.From old habits, not yet forgotten after almost a decade, he reached to his belt and pockets for an onyx, an anatase.Nothing, of course.And useless to him, even if he carried them, without the Grey Lady’s power.
Her ring hung heavy in his pocket.Taunting him.Reminding him that he had been powerful, once.Power he had sacrificed—to save Siwan, to save himself.Power that might have saved them both, this day.
He had made his choices.They had brought him here.And they had been his, for the first time since his mother had led him out of their little house in the woods and pale, rough-skinned men had taken him away.
A blade carved into the door, its tip bursting a jagged gap in the wood.It was wrenched free and fell again with a burst of splinters.
‘I’d thought to outrun it all,’ Harwick murmured.‘But if it comes, it comes.’
‘Go with them,’ Llewyn said.
The strongman shook his head.‘There are at least two, Llewyn.I remember well enough how to do this, I think.’
Spil set his jaw.He seized Harwick around the waist, spun him, kissed him.‘You’re a circus performer, you idiot, not a hero,’ he snarled.‘Don’t forget that.’
Harwick nodded, smiled, kissed him back, and watched as he followed Siwan through the window.
‘We’ve been lucky, you and I,’ Harwick said.‘To know some peace.’
Llewyn could only nod at that.Peace had been Afanan’s gift to him.Now, he would give it, insofar as he could, to Siwan, to Damon, to Spil—to Harwick, if he could manage it.
A third blow from the blade shattered the door in half.Twisted splinters of wood clattered to the floor.A woman, as broad as the doorway—broader, even, than Harwick—stepped over the ruin.Tongues of flame like blazing horns surrounded the crown of her head.She wore a white tabard trimmed in red and gold over iron chain mail—raw iron, if Llewyn had to guess, as was her blade, if it had carved through Fola’s magic so easily.Her boots and the fringe of her tabard were soiled with brown, reeking muck.The woman surveyed the room with a bemused smile.
