Actually, Grace suspected Larad was not sorry at all to disturb her with important news, and that was one reason she appreciated him. “What is it?”

“There’s something wrong with the runes.”

“You mean there’s something wrong with a specific rune you’re trying to understand?”

He sat at the high table beside her, his dark eyes intent. “No, Your Majesty, I mean with all runes. I began to suspect something was amiss about a month ago. Some of my fellow Runelords were beginning to have difficulty speaking runes they had previously mastered. They would speak a runespell just as they had before, but only a feeble energy would result, or no energy at all. I sent a missive to the Gray Tower, hoping for advice from All-master Oragien, and last week I received his reply. It seems the same troubles have been plaguing the rune-speakers there. Since then, I have performed many experiments, but only today were my misgivings proven beyond doubt.”

“How?” Grace said, her throat tight.

Larad held out his hand. On it was a triangular lump of black stone. One side was rough, the other three smooth and incised with runes. “This is a piece of the runestone, the one that was discovered beneath the keep.”

Shock coursed through Grace. “Why did you do it? Why did you speak the rune of breaking on the runestone?”

“I didn’t, Your Majesty,” Larad said with a rueful look. “This morning, one of the apprentices discovered this piece lying next to the runestone. It broke off on its own. And once I examined the runestone carefully, I saw many fine cracks that had not been there before.”

“But you can bind it again,” Grace said, glad the music drifting down from the gallery masked the rising pitch of her voice. “You can speak the rune of binding and fix it.”

“So I thought, until I tried.” Larad tightened his hand around the broken stone. “Despite all my efforts, I could not bind this piece back to the runestone.”

That was impossible. Larad was a Runelord—a real Runelord, like Travis Wilder. Speaking the rune of binding should not have been beyond him. Only it was.

Grace recalled her earlier conversation with Lursa. “You should talk to the witches. They’ve been having difficulty weaving a new spell. Maybe it’s not just rune magic that’s being affected.”

Larad raised an eyebrow. “If so, that is dark news indeed. I will speak to the witches. Perhaps they have sensed something I have not.”

And I’ll speak to some witches as well, Grace added to herself, resolved to ask Aryn and Lirith about it the next time they contacted her.

Larad begged his leave, and once the Runelord was gone Grace was no longer in the mood for revelry. She bid Melia and Falken and Kel good night, putting on a cheerful face. Even if Master Larad was right—and Grace had no doubt he was— there was no use spoiling the revel for everyone else until they knew more.

She left the great hall, ascended a spiral staircase, and started down the corridor that led to her chamber. The passage was dim, illuminated by only a scant collection of oil lamps, and as she rounded a corner she did not see the servingwoman until she collided with her. The old woman let out a grunt, and something fell to the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Grace said, stumbling back. “I didn’t see you there.”

The other wore a shapeless gray dress and oversized bonnet. She bowed low and muttered fervently, no doubt making an apology, though Grace couldn’t understand a word of it.

“It’s all right,” Grace said. “Really, it was my fault.”

However, the old woman kept ducking her head.

So much for the whole not terrifying the servants thing, Grace thought with a sigh. She glanced down and saw that the object the old woman had dropped had rolled to a stop next to her feet. It was a ball of yarn. Grace bent to pick it up.

“Oh!” she said.

Carefully, she pulled the needle from the tip of her finger. It had been sticking out of the ball of yarn, but she hadn’t seen it in the dim light.

“Well, I suppose that evens the score,” she said with a wry smile.

Grace stuck the needle back into the ball of yarn, then held the ball out. The old woman accepted it in a wrinkled hand. She muttered something unintelligible—still not looking up —then shuffled away down the corridor, her ashen dress blending with the gloom. Grace shrugged, sucked on her bleeding finger, and headed to her chamber.

Two men-at-arms stood outside the door. Though it irked her they were always stationed there, they were one of the concessions she had made to Sir Tarus. The men-at-arms saluted as she approached. Grace gave them a self-conscious nod in return— she still had no idea how she was supposed to greet them, if at all—then slipped into her room and pressed the door shut behind her, sighing at the blissful silence. Maybe the men-at-arms weren’t such a bad idea after all. They could keep King Kel from barging in at odd hours and asking her to dance.

Bone-tired, she shucked off her woolen dress and shrugged on a nightgown, wincing as she did. Though the pain in her right arm never entirely went away, most of the time it was a dull, bearable ache. Tonight, however, despite all the wine she had drunk, it throbbed fiercely.

She held her arm to her chest, gazing at the lone candle burning on the sideboard. Its flame blazed hotly, just like his eyes had, burning into her as he raised his scepter, ready to smite her down. Only at the last moment the sky had broken, and as he looked up she had thrust the sword Fellring through a chink in his armor, up into his chest, cleaving the Pale King’s enchanted iron heart in two.

Fellring had shattered in the act, and Grace’s sword arm had been numb and lifeless for days afterward. Only slowly, over the course of many months, had she regained the use of it, and she knew it would never be the same again. But none of them were; the battles they had fought had changed them forever, and maybe it was all right to have some scars. That way they would never forget what they had done.

Grace blew out the candle and climbed into bed.

It wasn’t long before a dream took her, and an hour later she sat up, staring into the dark, her hair tangled with sweat. She clutched the bedclothes, willing her breathing to slow.

It was only a dream, Grace, she told herself, but it was hard to hear her own thoughts over the pounding in her ears.

It had been a wedding. The dream was so vivid, she could almost see them still: a king dressed all in white, and a queen clad in black. A radiance emanated from him, and he was handsome beyond all other men; a halo of light adorned his tawny head like a crown. She was like night to his day: dark of hair and eye and skin, a mysterious beauty wearing a gown woven of the stuff of shadows. They gazed at one another with a look of love. He took her dusky fingers in his pale hand as the priest—a commanding figure all in gray—spoke the rites of marriage.

Only before the priest could finish the words, a figure strode forward, a gigantic warrior. The people who had gathered to witness the marriage fled screaming, and the priest ran after them. The couple turned to face their foe. The warrior was neither light nor dark, solid nor transparent. He could be seen only by his jagged outlines, for where he was there was nothing at all, and he held a sword forged of nothingness in his hand.

You are the end of everything, the white king said.

The black queen shook her head. No, she said, her dark eyes full of sorrow. He is the beginning of nothing.

The warrior swung his empty sword, and both their heads, light and dark, fell to the ground, their bodies tumbling after.

That was when Grace woke. She climbed from the bed, lit the candle with a coal from the fire, and threw a shawl about her; despite the balmy night she was shivering.