CHAPTER ONE

Pelemere, the Central Kingdoms

I shbel.”

She didn’t stir, so deeply asleep that Maximilian’s murmur and his soft hand shaking her shoulder could not wake her.

“Ishbel!”

She moaned softly, and tried to roll away from his touch.

Maximilian leaned closer to her, put both hands on her shoulders, half lifted her up, and gave her another, more substantial, shake.

“Ishbel, wake up!” he hissed.

Her eyes flew open.

“Shush,” he said, his voice low. “It is all right, there is no immediate danger, but we need to leave now.”

He left her sitting, confused and blinking, as he fetched some thick felt and fur clothes from a nearby chest.

“Here,” he said, “put these on. It is freezing outside—there has been a late, bitter snowfall—and we have a fair distance to ride.”

“Maxel? What…”

He sat down by her side again. “We can’t stay here, Ishbel. We barely got out of the great hall today without being tossed in Sirus’ dungeons. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but we can’t be here for it. We need to be far away before this palace and city awakes.”

“But…” Ishbel was still so sleepily confused she simply could not think. She’d been exhausted by the time they’d gone to bed last night, and ill both with the baby and the events of the day. She looked about their bedchamber.

It was still deep night.

“It is about six hours before dawn, Ishbel,” Maximilian said.

“Where will we go?”

“I found somewhere on my way to Pelemere. It will do for the time being, but we need to get back to Escator as fast as we can. The Central Kingdoms are far too dangerous for me and for you now. Are you awake? Yes? Good. Now, use the bathroom—the gods alone know when next you’ll have the chance—get dressed and we shall leave.”

Maximilian sat on the bed, waiting for Ishbel, thinking that he felt as ill as Ishbel looked.

It had been an absolutely hellish day.

They had been lucky to have escaped Sirus’ dungeons, and only the fact that no one could find any poison on either Maximilian or Ishbel had saved them.

Sirus was still convinced, however, that one or the other had murdered Allemorte. Furthermore, he was now absolutely certain that Ishbel was in league with the Outlanders, and that the Outlanders—for whatever reason—were planning further murderous attacks, if not a full-scale invasion, within his kingdom.

Whatever chance there had been for peace between the Outlands and Pelemere and its neighbors was now completely gone.

Maximilian rubbed a hand over tired eyes. He’d spent the two hours before he’d woken Ishbel with Garth, Egalion, and Lixel, arranging for them, as well as the Emerald Guard, to melt away into the night in ones and twos and to reassemble at a spot a suitable distance, and in suitable seclusion, from Pelemere.

Sirus might have his guard on high alert, but the Emerald Guard were almost as attuned to the darkness as Maximilian was himself—they had all come from the Veins—and would be able to slip past Sirus’

guards without too much trouble. Maximilian thanked whichever gods watched over him that he’d brought only a relatively small retinue from Escator, and not a column of hundreds. That would have been impossible to sneak out of Pelemere.

Maximilian looked up. Ishbel had returned. Silently Maximilian helped her into the clothes he’d selected: thick felt underclothes and shirt, furred trousers, vest and hooded coat, and a heavy cloak.

Ishbel was a tall woman, but she looked lost beneath all the layers.

Maximilian tied the cloak around her shoulders. He needed to talk to Ishbel badly, but because of the turmoil of the day they had not yet discussed anything that had happened. Maximilian needed to confront Ishbel about the ring (why hadn’t he had the courage to do this weeks ago?), and about why murder seemed to be trailing her every step.

Did it have anything to do with Elcho Falling? Was this part of the disaster that was eventually going to necessitate Elcho Falling’s reawakening?

But for now, Maximilian felt tired and ill, and Ishbel looked even worse, and they were in mortal danger unless they could leave this palace and this city now.

Talk would need to wait.

They had gloves with them, but for the moment they kept their hands free so that Maximilian could hold one of hers in a firm grip, their fingers interlaced. Ishbel thought an observer might think it a result of affection, but in reality Maximilian needed close contact with her so that he could cloak her in his almost supernatural ability to move unseen through the dark.

Ishbel remembered how he’d managed to stand utterly unobserved in her chamber for hours, watching her. Now she, too, enjoyed the same degree of disguise and it made her wonder about him, about the depths within him she had not yet bothered to plumb and, again, why it might be that the Great Serpent wanted so badly for her to be married to this man.

Sirus had stationed guards, not directly outside their apartment but at the junction of the corridor that connected their apartment wing with the main part of the palace. This was the only means possible by which to leave their apartments, the windows being far too high from which to jump, and so Sirus had not needed to place guards closer.

The guards were awake and alert: Sirus had no doubt considered the possibility that Maximilian and Ishbel might try to escape. As they neared the guards, creeping along the wall, Maximilian’s hand tightened briefly about Ishbel’s, and he pulled her a little closer to him.

She felt a peculiar sensation creep over her: a heavy chill, oppressive, and yet humid. Ishbel’s chest constricted, and she had to struggle to draw in a breath.

Maximilian stopped, watching her.

Ishbel struggled for a moment or two—not merely to breathe, but to do so quietly—then felt her chest relax somewhat, and her breath come easier.

Maximilian felt her relax, and he gave her a small nod and squeezed her hand again.

Then he led her past the guards.

Ishbel swore that two of them turned and looked at them directly. One of them blinked, but then he looked away again, while the other guard’s eyes slid over them without pausing.

The cold grew denser, and Ishbel’s shoulders sagged with its weight.

Again Maximilian’s hand tightened about hers, but then the next step they were past the guards and about a corner, and, for the moment, were safe.

For an hour they crept through the palace and then the streets of the city. Ishbel’s heart hammered in her chest, not merely with the constant fear of discovery, but also with the weight of Maximilian’s oppressive concealment. She yearned for the spaces beyond the city, for any space, for anything that might give her relief from the pressure.

By the time they neared the city gates Ishbel was stumbling with fatigue. Maximilian had tried to pick her up, but Ishbel resisted. She murmured at him irritably, then blinked. They were standing outside the gates.

How had that happened?

“Maxel?”

“I am almost as weary as you, Ishbel. Come. Not far to go now.”

“Where? Where? Gods, Maxel…”

“This way.” Again he took her by the hand and led her along a path by the city walls, north, then along a path that branched off to the northeast.

A period of time later—to Ishbel it felt as if half the night had passed, but she was sure Maximilian would claim the distance could have been measured in the space of a few minutes—they entered a small grove of trees.

A man stepped forward—Egalion.

“Maximilian! Thank the gods! We’d almost given up hope.”

“We still have a way to go yet, Egalion,” Maximilian said. “Do you have the horses?”

Egalion nodded behind him, and one of the Emerald Guard—Ishbel noted with some rancor that he looked as fresh as if he’d managed an entire night’s sleep in a feather bed—led forward two saddled horses.

Maximilian looked at the horses, then at Ishbel.

“I’ll carry Ishbel with me,” Maximilian said to Egalion. “She’s too tired to sit a horse by herself.”

Ishbel wanted to protest, but Maximilian was right. She’d fall the instant they left her to balance herself, and the next moment Maximilian had mounted one of the horses, and Egalion was lifting her up to him, and Ishbel could finally succumb to the cold heaviness and lean against Maximilian, and sleep.