Thirteen

In which there is a flashback, and Daer's plan does not go to plan.

Dawncaster burst into the prince’s chambers, out of breath, and clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle a desperate cry when she saw a bodies lying limply on the floor. Too late. God help her, she was too late.

“Daystar?” she called frantically, running to the nearest body. She didn’t recognize the man - he was masked and dressed in dark clothing, and the other was Houndwalker, the Damantian ambassador. He lay on the floor limply, and she saw no outer sign of a wound on him, but she could find no pulse on him.

Dawncaster glanced up at the large bed and saw the covers twisted and slight marks of blood across the sheets.

“Princess Emberlace?” she ran into the other room, flicking on the energy light and scanning the room quickly. The bed had not been slept in, but the wardrobe doors hung open, and clothes were strewn on the floor. Dawncaster turned back to the other room and saw the wardrobe there in similar condition.

Daystar’s nightshirt drew her attention. It lay in a heap on the floor, covered in blood, with a cut across the waist of it. She dropped the garment with a strangled cry, trying not to imagine the wound that would have been under that shirt. That much blood suggested a near-fatal stab wound to the gut.

So why wasn’t Daystar here? The Damantian ambassador was dead but still warm, and even the assassin lying on the floor hadn’t gone entirely cold yet. If Daystar was wounded and they were hiding him, why would they stop to remove his shirt?.

She turned back to the bed and shifted through the sheets. If Daystar had been stabbed on the bed in his sleep, there would be more blood here, either from the attack itself, perhaps Emberlace to staunch up the flow of blood, or from when Daystar was moved from the bed.

The guards outside, dead. Dawncaster eyed the door. Two assassins in here, dead. Daystar must have fought, then. So there would be blood on the floor. He and Emberlace had run afterwords, so it was likely that the blood on the shirt wasn’t Daystar’s, and that thought reassured her.

But the Damantian ambassador? She poked at the man’s limp body until it rolled over, looking for any sign of a blow and found nothing. How was Ravenglen involved in this?

Even as the thought of him, the baron himself strode into the room, surveying it with an uneducated arrogance she did not like.

“Talia, darling, are you-” he cut off abruptly as he saw Dawncaster.

“Where is Emberlace?” he demanded immediately.

“I’ve no idea,” Dawncaster replied, watching the baron cautiously. “She’s not in any of the rooms near here.”

“I suppose the prince is dead, then?” Ravenglen inquired.

Dawncaster drew back at the casual note in his voice and glanced down at the bloody shirt.

“I’ve no idea,” she said again. “I haven’t seen him either.”

He advanced on her suddenly with such rage in his face that Dawncaster’s stomach dropped as she drew away.

“Where have they gone?” he growled, bearing down on her, teeth grinding.

“I’ve no idea,” Dawncaster told him, her voice carefully steady.

He struck her across the face, and she lifted a hand to her stinging cheek. The look in the baron’s eyes suggested he expected her to be cowed, and she drew herself up, lifting her chin indignantly.

“How dare you interrogate me like a common criminal,” she snapped, seething. “I came here because I heard that something might happen to the prince tonight, and I thought to warn him. It appears my warning was not needed, but I am surprised the prince’s father-in-law is so callous towards his daughter’s husband, seeing as it appears he was nearly killed.”

“Daystar was in the way,” Ravenglen spat. “I did what I had to do to remove him. The king is already dead, and so long as Daystar does not return, it matters not to me.”

Dawncaster stared at him, carefully veiling her emotions behind her quiet, imperious face, the expression long practiced. Daystar dead, wounded, disinherited and running? She knew the court well enough. If they let him live, they would shame him first, ensure he could never return to his position. She was fond of the prince, hoped to be his queen one day. Ravenglen’s plan was clear enough now: marry Emberlace to the prince, kill what was left of the royal family, leaving her as queen - a queen he could control. She knew there was more to the annex. What was the difficulty in giving up a kingdom when you knew another would fall in your lap within a few months.

If Emberlace did take the throne, Dawncaster swore she would make that - woman’s - life hell.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said softly to the baron as she swept past him, eager to be free of the room. The barons were desperate for war. Few knew it, but Dawncaster’s own father had not been fit to rule for nigh on two years. He stayed sequestered, Dawncaster the de facto leader of her barony. She alone of the baronies stood openly against the war with the dragons. Fairisle wanted to support her, but feared blockade by its neighbors. That left Daystar as her best - and most powerful - ally. He was the voice of reason among the barons. How long had his steady had held the barons in check? And the young man didn’t even know his power. He thought the barons deferred to Felstar, but Felstar was nothing compared to Daystar. His knowledge of them, his control of them, the way he’d remained neutral, balancing them against each other.

The barons did not know it, Dawncaster thought, clutching nervously at her skirt, but without Daystar, they would destroy themselves. Their armies would attack the dragons, and they would be destroyed.

If the kingdom was to survive, it would need a new leader waiting in the wings, someone to step in as soon as the baron’s campaign failed and sweep up the power, parlay with the dragons and appease their wroth, and stabilize the kingdom under one force of power. Dawncaster hastened back to Far Haven Tower and began organizing her people.

***

Loud cries from beyond the camp drew Jonathan and Daer’s attention, and they turned to see a bedraggled party of servants and nobles limping into the camp from the direction of the burning castle. Clothes singed, covered in soot, they leaned on each other in fearful desperation.

“You must take us to Ebon Reach!” one of the noblemen gasped, grabbing Barning by the front of his robes. “These creatures have all gone mad! The king must do something!”

The castle began to collapse in on itself, rumbling loudly as it caved slowly towards the ground, the earth trembling as the stones shuddered against it. Several of the surviving women screamed, and the dragons swept low overhead, buffeting the caravan with the wind of their wings.

They made room for the refugees around the fire, and Daer joined them, helping Emberlace with the bandages as they treated cuts and burns. The wind bore the scent of the burning castle towards them, and a haze of smoke and dust gathered in the air, smelling of fire and death. Most of the nobles remained too shocked to speak, and those who did muttered wrathfully, clenching their fists and swearing vengeance. Only five had escaped, along with a slightly larger number of frightened house servants, who clung together, staring at the carnage with wide eyes. Barning assured them all that they were headed for Ebon Reach already; they would get there safely.

The nobles complained loudly at having to lie on the ground to sleep, and Daer was a long time into the first watch before they quieted. Emberlace sat beside him, back to the fire, staring out into the night, where the castles burned like stars on the ground across the distant landscape.

“That’s no warning attack,” Daer muttered.

Emberlace glanced at him out of the side of her eye and turned back to her silent contemplation of the night.

“Are we back to not speaking?” he asked a little bitterly.

“No.” The word seemed forced out of her. “It’s just a habit.”

“Do I know you?”

She turned to face him, face half-lit by the fire. “I hope so.”

“I’m not sure,” Daer admitted. “We haven’t really known each other long, and you’ve changed a lot since I met you. How-” he winced painfully, “how much of it was an act?”

“What do you mean?”

“The way you acted, like you were in love with me. Was all that just to get close to me, lull me into a false sense of security?”

“Only at first.”

“So it was,” Daer sighed, dropping his face into his hands.

“No,” Emberlace protested. “I thought I would have to pretend, but…it wasn’t long before it was honest.” She put a hand on his arm, gripping his sleeve when he looked away from her. “I really did fall for you, and from the first week, I don’t think I could have laid a finger on you to hurt you.”

He let her tug him closer and leaned his head against hers. “I just don’t know if you are the person I thought I knew.”

“Is anyone? You weren’t who I thought I would meet. I don’t see that we have to come apart because someone wasn’t what we expected.”

Daer turned and looked into her earnest eyes, once against struck by her strength and adaptability. “You know, for being raised in a tower, you turned out very well.”

Emberlace’s eyes darkened, and she looked away. “Sometimes I wonder.”

“You’re managing.”

“Managing?” Emberlace coughed a laugh. “I fell in love with my target, and ran away with him, and then you lose your mind and go into some almost-vegetable state for two days, and now we’re sellswords in the middle of a spice caravan headed back to the the worst possible place for us to be. Managing? I’m in shock, Daystar. I’m not sure I’ve really felt much of anything since we left Ebon Reach. And we can’t go back.”

“There’s no where else to go, not with the dragons attacking like this.”

“I can’t go back,” Emberlace shook her head frantically, pulling back away from him and standing to walk a little ways away, hugging herself.

“You’re afraid of your father?” Daer asked.

“I’m terrified. If he sees me, recognizes me…I can’t go back. I’d die before I went back to a life like that.”

Daer stood and gently put his hands on her shoulders. “I won’t let that happen to you.”

“What can you do, Daystar? What can you really do? Can you stop my father from taking me back?”

“I’ll protect you, I promise.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Daer stepped back, hurt by her sharp tone. “You think I’d just let him take you back, knowing the way he’s treated you?”

“You’d try to stop him, I know, and he’d kill you. Do you really want me to bear that?”

“Emberlace, he’s not going to find you again.”

“He always finds me.” Her eyes were hunted, and she flinched when he tried to touch her again. “I just want to walk away from all of it and never see it again.” Tears brimmed up in her eyes. “I’m sick of trying to be strong. All I want anymore is to have a moment of weakness that isn’t exploited.”

“We’re royalty. Or were. We don’t get those kinds of benefits.”

“We could leave.” Emberlace looked at him hopefully. “We could ride away, and no one would know where we’d gone or where to find us, and we could find some sort of new life to live, far away from all of…this.”

“Where would we go?” Daer asked, gesturing weakly. “What would we do? Do we really have anything that we could start a new life with?”

“I just don’t want to die all over again,” Emberlace whispered.

“You won’t. Do you think it will go any better with me if the barons find me there? We’ll stay hidden, out of sight. No one will find us, and as soon as this is all over, we can find somewhere else to go, alright?”

“Why not just go now?”

Daer sighed. “Because the kingdom could potentially become a very bad place very quickly, and whether I want to be found or not, I have some information that could be helpful.”

“So you’re going to make sure that we’re found,” Emberlace said, a little bitterly.

“No, I’m going to make sure that what I know is found. I’ll see if I can find someone who knows what to do with the information I stored on the writerpads, or at least sneak them into a place where they can be found.”

“Then we go?”

“As soon as it’s safe, we’ll go.”

Emberlace slipped into his arms, leaning against him, and Daer hugged her back warmly, knowing they were only delaying all of the difficulties. Emberlace was right; Ebon Reach was a dangerous place for them right now, but then so was the rest of the kingdom. He would take a short time in Ebon Reach to transfer his data back into an accessible place in the library and forge some kind of history and new identity for them. Then they could vanish into the kingdom, unknown, and unlocked for.

***

The road to Ebon Reach was clogged with people. Nobles and guild masters trudged afoot with the few peasants, eating the same dirt that billowed through the air and settled in hair and clothing. The people working in the fields watched them go casually, for all appearances unconcerned by the plight of the refugees, though they sometimes came to the roadside to offer water.

Daer leaned on the pommel of his saddle as the horse trudged placidly along the road and watched the impassive reactions of the local farmers. He could hardly blame them for their unfeeling reaction - after all, for them, the loss of nobles meant nothing more than fewer taxes to pay.

A shout from up ahead halted the column, and the people shuffled and pushed against each other as the train ground to a halt. Daer stood up in his stirrups, trying to see through the dust, and reined his horse out away from the road.

Somewhere up ahead, horsemen blocked the road, and Daer pulled his horse back into the column. Whoever was stopping the column probably had some kind of authority from Ebon Reach, and he had no desire to encounter such people. Slipping out of the saddle, he took his horse by the bridle and bit and wove his way through the press of people to find Emberlace.

“What’s happening?” she asked, leaning down off her horse.

“Someone’s stopped the column. They’re probably trying to get some idea of who is here so that the city can prepare for the influx of people.”

Emberlace nodded and dismounted herself, the two of them putting their horses between themselves and the edge of the column and keeping their heads down as riders flanked the road.

“There they are!”

Daer looked around and saw two riders headed for him. Panic stirred in his gut, and he quickly put his head down, pulling his horse back with him while he tried to get away while seeming to make room for the riders.

They headed straight for him anyway, leaving him with no place to go in the press of bodies. Daer tried pushing Emberlace out of sight, but the side of a wagon was in the way, and she was left hanging onto his arm, staring at the riders that now surrounded them. Daer tucked his head down over Emberlace, holding her close so that she could hide her face in his cloak, both of them hoping they looked innocuous.

“What’s your name?” one of the riders demanded, poking against Daer’s shoulder with his lance.

“Daer, sir,” Daer replied, still trying to keep his face hidden.

The rider came closer, his horse casting a shadow over them, and grabbed Daer by the hair, yanking his head up and tilting his face back.

“It’s them,” the rider said shortly, letting go.

Daer dropped and scrambled away under the wagon, Emberlace close behind him. They came up on the other side and began pushing their way through the people, ignoring the indignant cries. Daer grabbed Emberlace’s hand and glanced over his shoulder, seeing the riders clearing the crowd easily before them as they chased the couple.

They reached the edge of the road and broke into a full run, hooves thundering behind them as the riders inevitably caught up. As the horses pulled in front of them, Daer skidded to a halt, drawing his sword. The riders wordlessly surrounded them, lances leveled, and Daer let his sword drop slowly, realizing there was no escape. Emberlace pressed back against him, and he drew her protectively close, finding the captain of the riders and glaring at him.

“What do you mean by this,” he demanded. “We were released by the Lord Baron of Deepnight himself.”

None of the riders spoke to him; one dismounted, unwinding a rope. Daer lifted his sword again, and Emberlace tensed.

“You will not take us without a fight.”

The tip of a lance pricked at the back of his neck, and Daer froze, eyes still on the man with the rope.

“If you want to live, you will cooperate,” the captain of the riders told him grimly.

Emberlace looked up at him in fear, and Daer hung his head, brushing his forehead against hers.

“I’m sorry. We should have run when you suggested it.”

“Keep that in mind the next time we get the chance to run,” she told him softly, eying the rider approaching them.

“Where are you taking us?” Daer asked. “And on whose orders?”

“To Ebon Reach, by the order of King Ravenglen.”

Emberlace let out a soft, frightened sound and slumped against Daystar before turning viciously and slamming past the riders, light on her feet, dodging easily until she was outside of the circle and fleeing again, back toward the road and the crowd where she could lose herself among the people, or make it to the river.

Two riders broke off from the group and ran her down. Daer winced as one brought the hilt of his sword down on her head and caught her before she fell, yanking her up over the saddle bow, where she hung limply, hair spilling towards the ground. Daer moved towards her, and the riders grabbed him, pulling his arms behind his back and tying them there as he struggled.

“Let her go!”

“She’s not hurt, boy,” the captain growled. “You’ll be with her when she wakes up. Now be calm, unless you want a blow to the head yourself?”

Daer yanked against the men holding him again, suddenly angry, the sight of a limp and unconscious Emberlace raising a fury in him to resist. “Can’t you just let us go in peace?” he demanded angrily.

A sharp blow to the head was his only reply, and the world went blurry, then black.