"I think this can safely be considered a failing mark in your graduation exercise."

Amara felt her mouth curve into a smile, despite the circumstances. "We have to escape."

Fidelias tried to smile. The effort split his lip some more, and fresh blood welled. "Extra credit-but I'm afraid you won't get the chance to collect on it. These people know what they're doing."

Amara tried to move, but she couldn't struggle up out of the earth. She barely succeeded in freeing her arms enough to move them-and even so, they were thickly encrusted with dirt. "Cirrus," she whispered, sending her thoughts out, toward her fury. "Cirrus. Come pull me out."

Nothing happened.

She tried again. And again. Her wind fury never responded.

"The dirt," she said, finally, and closed her eyes. "Earth to counter air. Cirrus can't hear me."

"Yes," Fidelias confirmed. "Nor can Etan or Vamma hear me." He stretched his toes toward the ground, but could not reach. Then he banged his foot against the iron bars of his cage.

"Then we'll have to think our way out."

Fidelias closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. Then he said, gently, "We've lost, Amara. Checkmate."

The words hit Amara like hammers. Cold. Hard. Simple. She swallowed and felt more tears rising, but blinked them away with a flash of anger. No. She was a Cursor. Even if she was to die, she'd not give the enemies of the Crown the satisfaction of seeing her tears. She thought for a fleeting moment of her home, the small apartment back in the capital, of her family, not so far away, in Parcia by the sea. More tears threatened.

She took up her memories, one by one, and shut them away into a dark, quiet place in her mind. She put everything in there. Her dreams. Her hopes for the future. The friends she'd made at the Academy. Then she shut them away and opened her eyes again, clear of tears.

"What do they want?" she asked Fidelias.

Her teacher shook his head. "I'm not sure. This isn't a smart move for them. Even with these precautions, if something went wrong, a Cursor could slip away and be gone as long as he was still alive."

The flap of the tent flew open, and Odiana walked through it, smiling, her skirts swirling in the drifting dust the daylight revealed. "Well then," she said. "We'll just have to remedy that."

Aldrik came in behind her, his huge form blocking out the light completely for a moment, and a pair of legionares followed him. Aldrick pointed at the cage, and the two went to it, slipped the hafts of their spears through rings at its base, and lifted it, between them, carrying it outside.

Fidelias shot Aldrick a hard look and then licked his lips, turning to Amara. "Don't be proud, girl," he told her, as the guards started carrying him out. "You haven't lost as long as you're alive."

Then he was gone.

"Where are you taking him?" Amara demanded. She swept her eyes from Odiana to Aldrick and tried not to let her voice shake.

Aldrick drew his sword and said, "The old man isn't necessary." He went outside the tent.

A moment later, there was a sound not unlike a knife sinking into a melon. Amara heard Fidelias let out a slow, breathless cry, as though he had tried to hold it in, keep from giving it a voice, and been unable to do so. Then there was a rustling thump, something heavy falling against the bars of the cage.

"Bury it," Aldrick said. Then he came back into the tent again, sword in hand.

The blade shone scarlet with blood.

Amara could only stare at the blade, at her teacher's blood. Something about it would not register on her mind. It simply would not accept the fact of Fidelias's death. The plan should have protected them. It should have gotten them close and away safely again. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. It had never happened like that at the Academy.

She tried to stop the tears from coming, to push Fidelias's face into the dark place in her mind with all the other things she cared about. They only flooded over her again, bursting free, and as they did, the tears came with them. Amara did not feel clever anymore, or dangerous, or well trained. She felt cold. And dirty. And tired. And very, very alone.

Odiana let out a soft sound of distress and came to Amara's side. She knelt down with a white kerchief in her hand and reached out to dab at Amara's tears. Her fingers were gentle, soft. "You're making clean spots, love," the woman said, her voice gentle.

Then she smiled as, with her other hand, she crushed fresh earth against Amara's eyes.

Amara let out a cry and thrust out a hand to defend herself, but she wasn't able to stop the water witch. She swept at her burning eyes with her dirt-crusted hands, but it did her little good. Her fear and sorrow turned itself into furious anger, and she started screaming. She screamed every imprecation she could at them, incoherent, and she sobbed into the earth,

making muddy tears that burned her eyes. She thrashed her arms and struggled, useless against the grip of the ground she was buried in.

And in answer, there was only silence.

Amara's anger faded, taking with it whatever strength she had left. She shook with sobs that she tried to hold in, that she tried to keep hidden from them. She couldn't. Shame made her face burn, and she knew that she was trembling, from cold and from terror.

She started blinking her eyes again, slowly gaining back her vision-and as she did, she saw Odiana standing over her, just out of arm's reach, smiling, her dark eyes glittering. She took a step, and with one dainty, bare foot, she kicked more dust into Amara's eyes. Amara twisted and turned her head away, avoiding it, and shot the woman a hard glare. Odiana hissed and drew her foot back to kick again, but Aldrick's voice rumbled across the tent first.

"Love. That's enough."

The watercrafter flashed Amara a venomous look and retreated from her, to the back of Aldrick's stool, where she rested her hands on his shoulders in a slow caress, eyes on Amara the entire while. The warrior sat with his sword across his lap. He ran a cloth along its length and then tossed the rag onto the earth. It was stained with blood.

"I'll make this simple," Aldrick said. "I'm going to ask you questions. Answer them truthfully, and I'll let you live. Lie to me or refuse to answer, and you'll wind up like the old man." He looked up, his expression entirely without emotion, and focused on Amara. "Do you understand?"

Amara swallowed. She nodded her head, once.

"Good. You've been in the palace recently. The First Lord was so impressed with the way you handled yourself during the fires last winter, he asked you to visit him. You were taken to his personal chambers, and spoke with him. Is that true?"

She nodded again.

"How many guards are stationed in his inner chambers."

Amara stared at the man, her eyes widening. "What?"

Aldrick looked up at her. He stared for a long and silent moment. "How many guards are stationed in the First Lord's inner chambers?"

Amara let out a shaking breath. "I can't tell you that. You know I can't."

Odiana's fingers tightened on Aldrick's shoulders. "She's lying, love. She just doesn't want to tell you."

Amara licked her lips, and then spat mud and dirt onto the floor. There

was only one reason to be asking questions about the inner defenses of the palace. Someone wanted to take direct action against the First Lord. Someone wanted Gaius dead.

She swallowed and bowed her head. She had to stall them, somehow. Stall for time. For the opportunity to find a way to escape-or failing that, to kill herself before she could reveal the information.

She quailed at that thought. Could she do that? Was she strong enough? Before, she would always have thought she was. Before she had been taken, captured, imprisoned. Before she had listened to Fidelias die.