Teragrym waited a moment, scrutinizing Jyrbian, then dismissed him.

Jyrbian was so excited he could barely maintain his poise until he was out of Teragrym’s sight. The reward for such a task should be excellent indeed! As he exited into the hallway, he was beaming so broadly that the female Ogre who was waiting to enter paused in surprise in the doorway.

She watched him until he turned a corner, and hesitated even a moment longer.

“Kaede?”

Teragrym’s voice snapped her back to the present and into the room.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

Kaede bowed and sank to her knees, knowing how Teragrym hated having someone loom over him. “Lord, forgive my unannounced arrival, but I have come to ask a favor.”

“What sort of favor?”

Kaede clasped her hands in her lap to cover her agitation. “I have come to ask your permission to right a wrong that has been done my family.”

Lyrralt paused inside the door of his apartment. He lit the candles with a few words and a flick of his wrist. His rooms were larger than Jyrbian’s but located on the far side of the hallway, so he was without windows.

He had spent his morning walking the cold hallways of the castle, listening in on conversations, joining groups of Ogres to exclaim in dismay at the news. The Keeper could not be awakened. She lay as if dead, but breathing, and no one had been able to rouse her. He had started for Khallayne’s rooms but wound up in his own instead. The Ogre female with whom he’d passed his night after Khallayne pleaded tiredness was gone from the room, leaving not even a trace of scent, less of memory.

He possessed no wall hangings to brighten the dark room. He owned no carpets on his floors to dispel the coldness that emanated from the very bones of the old castle. He preferred things that way. He preferred the severe beauty of the gray stone walls, the stingy light, and he filled his space with beautiful, delicate things instead of expensive ones.

On an ornately carved table against the back wall was a marble water bowl. He lifted it carefully, rinsed his mouth, and spat into a smaller bowl exactly like it. He dampened his ears and eyelids.

Shivering in the cool air, he slipped out of his long robe and replaced the garment with a sleeveless praying robe, then settled before the fire to pray, to ask for guidance, to learn what Hiddukel, God of Wealth and Accumulation, thought of his impending good fortune.

Khallayne was dreaming of magic, of spells so powerful that her mind could barely contain them.

“Khallayne, wake up! Wake up!”

The voice penetrated her consciousness, jarring her awake even as a hand on her shoulder shook her. “Wake up!”

She opened her eyes to the warm, golden sunlight of a fall morning.

Silhouetted in the light, Lyrralt was leaning over her, his face in shadow. “Wake up,” he repeated.

Groggily, she covered her eyes with her hand. What time was it? Had he been there all night, in her apartments? Then she remembered that he hadn’t and why he hadn’t. He had wanted to stay, but she had talked him out of it because she had wanted to distance herself from him.

“Are you awake?”

The question finally got through to her, and she sat up, pulling the down coverlet up over her breasts.

His face, now that she could see it, was a study in displeasure, brow pulled low, eyes narrowed and dark.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“They discovered the Keeper this morning. It’s all over the castle.”

Her heart gave a thump. She fought the fear she felt, remembering the steps she had taken to protect herself, thinking quickly that she must order Lyrralt from her room. Get him as far away, as quickly as possible.

The last thing she had done, before they had slipped away from the Keeper’s apartment the night before, was work a “masking” spell, a kind of camouflaging of her presence. But the essence of Lyrralt, the magical scent that a really good mage could find if he or she knew how, that she had left. Just in case. “So?”

‘They can’t wake her. It’s like she’s dead, but still breathing.”

“Do they suspect magic?”

“Not yet. Everyone seems to feel that it’s an illness, or that she’s simply so old. But they will figure it out, won’t they?”

She relaxed against the pillows, the cover spilling off her shoulders, exposing her lovely skin. “What do you mean?”

His fingers clenched. He longed to drag her from the soft bed and dash her head against the wall! “You’ve done something. Something to lead them to me!”

“Of course I haven’t,” she protested immediately. _ “Why would you even think such a thing?”

He walked to the fireplace and murmured an incantation. Small flames licked up from the embers and rapidly grew to a small, crackling fire. The runes on his shoulder, and the new figures below on his arm, itched. “I have been warned of treachery.”

Khallayne reached for her robe, slipped it on as she climbed out of bed. The silk kimono was cool and soft on her skin and very pleasing to the eye.

Despite his anger, Lyrralt’s gaze was drawn to her, which irritated him even more.

She stretched, reaching for the ceiling. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said lazily. “We’re perfectly safe. The Keeper won’t wake. No one will ever know what we did, except Teragrym. And he will never tell.” She shrugged, watching the way his eyes followed the movement of her breasts under the loosely wrapped robe. “All the others were like this. After I took what I wanted, they slept. Then they died.”

She opened the door of a wardrobe and selected one of the tunics hanging within. “Now all we have to do is wait. After she’s dead, the History is ours to bargain with.”

He was across the room in an instant, his fingers squeezing her upper arm until he could feel the hardness of bone beneath the flesh. “That was a pretty speech, but I’m not convinced. Hiddukel does not lightly offer his counsel! Be warned, if I am suspected of this crime, I will not go to the dungeons alone! And you have more to lose than I.”

Despite the pain, she didn’t wince. He could have pinched the limb off and still she would not have allowed him the satisfaction of seeing her show pain. “But you’re being foolish to think I would risk telling anyone. There is too much to lose. Too much to gain. Be warned yourself, I do not take lightly to threats!”

She stopped and glared at his hand. A moment later, a sharp pain shot up his arm. Lyrralt snatched his hand away and stepped back.

She pushed so close he could feel her hot breath on his face. “Do not touch me so again!”

“My apologies.” He grinned, admiring her in spite of himself, shaking his hand to ease the stinging of it. He executed a mocking little bow and slammed the door loudly as he exited her bedroom.

The morning sun was up over the castle wall, the last of the bags loaded onto the horses, when Khal-layne strode into the courtyard.

Jyrbian paused to watch her as she came down the steps and across the flagstones, leaving Lyrralt to finish checking the saddle and packs on their horses.

“Are we ready?” she asked, tossing her saddlebags across the rump of her gray gelding.

Lyrralt, squatting to check the hooves of his horse, stood up so quickly that the animal shied sideways. His gaze locked with Khallayne’s, his brow furrowing with surprise and anger.

“I’ve been ready since sunrise.” Jyrbian said. “We’ll leave as soon as everyone is here.”

Without taking her eyes from Lyrralt, she asked, “Everyone?”

“You know Brian, don’t you? She’s going, and her sister, Nylora. And Tenaj and those two cousins of hers. I can never remember their names.”