She was away a long time, that spring.

 The world was troubled; the Gifted were at their zenith, and strange unruly power rolled through human hearts and human souls. And many of those who had power had restraint with it, and wisdom, and care. But some...ah, there were always some who did not, and sometimes magick and madness ran together, and overran all in their path.

 There was much for the Phoenix to do when she left the mountains, burning again, blazing with a strength that came not from muscles or from magic, but from the simple support of kith and kin. There was always greed and cruelty in the world; new monsters born with each fool's dreaming, new monsters born in human form and shape.

 Her legend resounded through the land that spring. Among the snowdrops, mothers told their children of the Phoenix, who walked through the Scanran Sorcerer's web of enchantment to behead him with a single blow; of the invisible killer revealed under the firebird's purity; of the army that crumbled under her dazzling skill.

 And in the mountains, ah, in the mountains, the hunters drew closer, and closer, and laid their trap with the utmost care, waiting until the Phoenix was in the far Yamani Islands, and striking down a tyrant-

 And they struck.

~*~

"Stop."

 She looked like some figure from legend; slim and tall with her long blade drawn back and one foot forward. Her weight was even on her spread feet; Yvenia was glad now of the thick hide of her boots and warm furs she wore for they might serve as scant armour against the razor claws that scraped against the ground as the hounds turned.

 Mithros, Lady, Shurri Shang-Shield, help me now. I am your own; help me against these horrors.

 And horrors they were. They had been darting shadows before, revealing only pieces of what they were. But now she saw them, still and lingering before her. Twice the size of a wolf, with thick muscles running under fur that was short and shimmering blackly as poison on the lips of a maid, but long and messy along those sturdy long legs with two inches of wickedly honed claw glinting from their feet.

 But what struck her most was their eyes, a wide bright red, as though stained glass had been filled with water and held to sunlight. And horribly, awfully intelligent.

 It was as though there were people sat behind those eyes.

 "I won't let you," she said, pleased at how strong her voice was. Her stomach was a sphere of ice, her skin chilled. She had long learned to deal with fear, and though this was fear beyond all, fear to break the gods themselves, she fought it fiercely. "You can't have her."

 Behind them, the unicorn's head swung to her, and dipped, as if in a bow. So white, white of surrender, white of a shroud, Yvenia thought with a pity for such a lovely victim.

 A low, rumbling growl broke from one creature's throat, and the others took it up.

 "Stay back, child," she said to the little girl concealed in the shadows, never turning her head. "Don't move, whatever happens, do you understand?"

 Silence, bar the snarl which was growing louder and higher, scraping along her ears.

 Yvenia tightened her grip on the knife. The one on the left was closest; that one first, but watch for the one furthest away, her back would be facing that-

 "Do you understand?" she snapped loudly.

 "Yes," the trembling answer came back.

 Her stare was fixed on the hounds, and she had to exert every inch of self-control not to turn and flee. "You shan't have her," she told them, for the first time in many years feeling sweat trickle icily down her back. "Not unless you kill me too."

 The snarl broke into a howl, searing the air, and the closest hound pounced.

~*~

 Kel felt goosebumps roll over her skin in wave after wave as the howl sliced through the still air.

 "Mithros!" Raoul swore, and urged his horse into a gallop. "Pick up the pace, men, we'll miss this blasted hunt!" His last words weren't meant to be heard, but they flitted back to her all the same. "And his Highness will have my guts for garters, and my stomach for a souvenir."

 Peachblossom's hooves pounded on the road, part of the rolling thunder as the Own sped up, sending up trails of dirt that looked like diamond dust in the moonlight.

 The howl came again, and Kel shuddered. She'd never heard anything like it, not in all her time on the trail with Raoul, not in wolf-song or eagle-cries. It was unearthly, and bloodthirsty, and terrible.

 She thought she would never experience anything like that short, hurried flight again, with the moonlight cutting the world into black and white, the shadows lurking thorny and twisted beneath the trees, and the howl vibrating in her blood and in her bones. She felt as though she rode into the jaws of death, waiting to snap closed over her.

 I shouldn't be this afraid, she thought, but saw the same fear frozen on those around her.

 I shouldn't be this afraid - but I am.

 And then they reached the village, and Kel could scarcely take in what she saw.

 The unicorn, with black blood trickling down her heaving sides, dripping from long gashes - rearing, kicking, her horn slashing through the air like a golden scimitar. Her eyes spilling fire, eyes of sunlight, eyes of a falling star, eyes old and cold and secret as the moon; her mane fell like silk curtains rippling in a breeze, and no sound at all escaped her.

 A rotting, sickly-sweet scent hit her nostrils, and Kel nearly choked as her stomach churned. She knew their orders were to observe - only to observe - but at the sight of the hounds, dreadful, dark to the unicorn's light, she wanted to hurl herself into that desperate dog-fight and help, despite the rabid terror chattering inside her.

 In front of her, she could hear Raoul taking choking, vast breaths, and his head was turned in the direction of the hounds, the hounds that darted in and out, scant blurs, claws flashing; causing fresh streams of blood to gush down the unicorn's sides. "Mithros take us all," she heard him say to Buri, who was stroking her trembling mount with an equally shaking hand. "This is their hunt? They expect us to sit and watch this?"

 "I'm afraid," she heard the Rider say in a low voice that the men and women behind wouldn't hear. "Gods, Raoul...they're monsters. I feel like I'm facing every Stormwing on earth...I've never felt any fear like this."

 "It's magical all right," he agreed. The big knight's shoulders were hunched, and there was no missing the grimness in his voice. "Perhaps we should interfere. You read those predictions - if that creature dies, this place will be cursed."

 Buri chuckled shakily. "Flimsy excuse, Goldenlake. We both know you believe in curses like I believe in intelligent recruits."

 Raoul shook his head. "I don't like this. I don't like this at all."

 Then Kel saw something else. She had missed it before; the unicorn and the hounds would distract anyone - but beside the unicorn, laced with cuts and bruises was something scarcely recognisable as human. Kel felt her eyes widen.

 "Sir!" she croaked.

 Raoul's face, pallid and taut, turned to her. "Squire?"

 "There's a person in there!" she said, gesturing to the figure that stumbled. Her heart leapt. "Sir!"

 "That decides it," Raoul growled. Kel didn't know whether to be relived or terrified. "Off the horses, people, we're joining the fun."

 "M'lord?" The stout voice was Flyndan's, and though Kel knew he was no coward, she wasn't surprised to see the beads of sweat on his face. Those creatures weren't normal. "Our orders were to observe. The King-"

 "There's a person in amongst that mass," the knight snapped back. "I don't like it any more than you, Flyn, but I don't want to stand by and watch that get murdered. The King will no doubt have great fun thinking up a punishment for me. I'm sure there's some spinster he can seat me with at the next banquet."

 That raised faint grins as men dragged weapons from saddlebags, and from scabbards. Most had spears; Kel could see why - she wouldn't want those creatures any closer than they had to be.

 "Can they be killed?" she heard Buri mutter. "These are no ordinary dogs."

 "I don't know," Raoul said tightly, "let's find out."

 He organised the men into groups of four or five and flatly ordered them to stay together. Healers and anyone Gifted were ordered to stay back, and throw what magick they safely could into the fight. Kel was thrust in with Dom; even he had lost his good-humour, and was staring at the scene with wide and dark eyes.

 "Go," Raoul snapped, and led his group into the fray.

 Kel swallowed hard, and followed.

~*~

Ryan didn't know where he was running. He didn't have anywhere to run to now. Before, there had always been street-haunts, and dark holes to hide in. Now he was stuck in this palace, not street any more, but not noble either. Stuck in between, and no one gave a damn.

 He'd never asked to be Gifted - he'd not asked for anything that had happened over the past months, but happen it had, and trapped him here.

 He paused, and looked around him. Why had he come here? Here of all places, the shrine of the woman responsible for this.

 The Goddess's temple was lovely, a place of light and air, filled with arching windows that let in the bright moon to flush the marble with holy radiance, and turn the silver statue to a mass of blinding light. There were flowers and gifts at her feet, and for a moment he was tempted to kick them to pieces.

 "Can ye hear me?" he demanded angrily. "Or are ye off wreckin' lives again?"

 "Still rude, I see," a cool voice said, and he spun to see her stood there. A simple woman, with a cascade of dark inky hair swaying about her, and eyes green as luck, green as the grass on a grave. The Goddess raised one slender eyebrow, and her scarlet mouth half-smiled. "You don't change, Ryan Talver."

 "Nor do you," he snapped back. "How could you let them men die?"

 "I?" She shook her head, and leaned against one of the marble walls. There was a radiant beauty to her that no mortal could ever had, but if Ryan had a mirror then, he would have been shocked at how similar his face was to hers. "Men's lives are spun, Ryan Talver. They are spun, and they are measured, and they are cut. We do not decide when or how men die."

 She paused, and waved a hand. "Except for the occasional smiting," she added reflectively, "though that does tend to be Mithros. He's so tetchy these days."

   "Tetchy?" Fury flared up in Ryan, hot and sharp as boiling water. "You could a' saved them men, you could. Lives are just some game to you, ain't they?"

 The Lady shrugged. "So you believe. Child, you're always so angry about the world. It's a great waste; you were not born to throw tantrums."

 The grey eyes were doused by the unholy blue fire that flooded his irises. "No? Then why was I born? I ain't done nothin'. I can't do nothin'. I should a' helped them men, an' all I could do was see 'em die!"

 A touch of pity came into the cold face. "Ah, child, it's a hard lesson and one your friend knows well. You can't save every man, and you can't save every soul. But has raging and ranting and crying out how unfair it is changed a thing?"

 He glared, but the words were a subtle barb. "No," he muttered.

 "Has it made you feel any better?" the Lady said.

 Ryan shook his head.

 "Then perhaps it isn't the solution, child." She cupped her hands, and blew into them softly. A sparkling mist drifted from her lips, and swelled like an expanding balloon. "You were born for more than anger. There will be little peace in your life, and perhaps in time you will learn to treasure it when it comes. But as you will. You want something you can fight?"

 "I don't want to be helpless," he said glumly. "I thought...I thought this Gift would stop that."

 "Very well," she said, and threw the hazy sphere into the air. Ryan blinked, and stepped back uneasily as it grew and flattened until it was a screen. "If you want a task, chosen - I will grant you one, though it gives me only sorrow."

 Colours began to fill it, like fireworks bursting into fiery bloom. Settling, and clearing, until it was a picture. Ryan didn't know the place; it was as though all the moisture had been long drained from it, leaving a cracked and charred ground littered with craters like giants' footsteps, and stubs of trees. Among the shiny black earth, he caught glimpses of yellow, ivory-smooth chunks that looked like-

 "Bones," the Goddess supplied placidly. "It looks like a dragon's crèche, doesn't it?"

 The devastation was immense. It stretched for miles; Ryan could see nothing but the scorched terrain, rolling on and on to the horizon. And there - down there were tiny ant-like figures, picking their way through the mess.

 "What is it?" he whispered, unable to drag his eyes from the scene.

 "The remnants of a war, Ryan Talver. Of a mortal war, when Chaos and Order clashed, and man slew man, and man slew beast, and man slew all that stood in his way."

 "The Immortals War?" he asked.

 The Goddess shook her head, though he only caught the gesture in the corner of his eye. "No. This was long before your time, Ryan Talver. It had many names, but few history books will ever mention it for it was a war between few people, though many stood by and did naught. It is, I believe, a cause of great shame to those who know. The historians call it the Ashes. The mages call it the Folly. And the common people - when they knew, they called it the War of the Phoenix."

 On that magical window to the past, time began to roll back; great gouts of light and fire appeared, and where they flashed, the land became green and fresh again, and he saw glimpses of people - of creatures on that plain.

 "It began," she said quietly, "with this."

 And Ryan saw the strangest sight; bounding over the ground, moving like a shooting star diving through the heavens, a unicorn. And behind her...four slinking, slithering shapes, quick as nightfall in the desert. And the shadows grew closer and closer to that fleeing, fleeting shape - so close they would merge-

 And arrows raced through the air, arrows set alight, arrows glowing with Gifted fires, a horde, a mass that struck the hounds and felled them while the unicorn streaked on through the night.

 "What was that?" he breathed, staring as the scene fizzled out, and only the charred land remained.

 "They call it the Hunt, child. It comes once in seven decades, and fool men must always try to save the unicorn. Ah, either way, they face grief. The Hunt is an evil revenge, dreamed by an evil man, and like all things Immortal, its price is high. If the unicorn dies, there shall be no joy in that place until the next Hunt, when she is reborn."

 Ryan stared at the Goddess's smooth oval face. "An' if she don't?"

 "Then an innocent must die. And they will die in the same violence that unicorn would have; perhaps worse. Those creatures take the shape of hounds, but they can be any creature they choose - and tonight, only three of them run."

 Her eyes were brilliant as emeralds, and seemed almost sad.

 "Where's t'other?" he said, almost afraid to ask.

 She gestured to the blackened earth. "Beneath there, child. The unicorn did not die, but an innocent did, for those men with their arrows caught a hound, and subdued it under reams of spells that killed many promising, if misguided, sorcerers. Magick was so much stronger then, child.  They turned that beast against an innocent who sought them for their crimes, and the two fought long and hard; and that innocent died most terribly, though she wounded the hound almost to death. But it has had many long years to heal, and that land has had long years to heal."

 Her fingers moved in an odd, complex pattern, and the scene shifted.

 Ryan stared. He knew that place. He knew it far, far too well. And he had known that it had only stood for some three hundred years, after earthquakes, and wars, and the whims of various despots. The capital had moved all over the country since Jonathan the First's reign, but...

 "Five hundred years wields much change," she murmured, "but the Phoenix's Bane has neither moved nor changed. It will wake soon, child."

 His skin seemed to have gone icy cold, and the numbness spread through his bones. "Goddess..." he said.

 "I cannot help you against that," she answered sadly. "It is not my creation, and it is beyond my power."

 He was looking at the castle.

~*~

 Kel was never entirely sure what happened afterwards. She remembered only fearsome moments of that fight; the supernatural swiftness of those hounds, the hot-coal flash of their eyes, the stink of their breath - once, the swipe of their claws across her legs as she stabbed at shadows with her spear, and tried to control the panic raging inside her.

 Men fell, and voices cried out in the night; she was knocked to her knees once, and hauled up by a bloody Dom, who had his spear in his left hand because his right hung useless. She remembered the brush of heavy fur on her hand as she thrust her weapon wildly at the gleam of teeth, remembered the clacking sound of jaws snapping.

 Vaguely, orders had made their way into her mind, her knight master shouting over the howling, and the growling and the shrieks. There had been only confusion and too many shadows; and the night had seemed to grow dimmer when the unicorn fled like the crest of a wave soaring out to the shore.

 And just when Kel thought that she would collapse form sheer exhaustion, the hounds were gone, and only the Own were left. She stumbled back, limping and wary, but back to find that though too many, far too many were wounded and battered, no one was dead - and that slender, surely foolhardy figure they had risked their lives for was laid on the ground.

 "Mithros," Raoul groaned, slick with blood. His armour had been ripped clean through as though it were paper, and there were deep gouges on his arms and legs. "Our healers will be working overtime."

 "With all respect, m'lord," one of the nearby men said slightly feverishly from a huddled heap on the ground, "you shouldn't have kept getting in the way of their claws."

 There was tired, near-hysterical laughter. It wasn't at all funny, but Kel knew it was some kind of dumb luck they had survived. They had been lucky; lucky there were so many of them, lucky the hounds had spent more time trying to reach the unicorn than attacking them.

 "If there's anyone unscathed or Gifted who isn't a healer," Raoul raised his voice, so all of them could hear, "or at least, anyone without any limbs hanging off, some torches would be useful."

 "I'll go," Kel said tiredly, standing up and testing her leg. It's only a little blood, she told herself. You've had worse than this. "I'm only a bit scratched."

 She heard Dom's snort of disbelief and hissed a soft 'shut up' at him.

 It really wasn't too bad, she decided, hobbling off towards the horses which someone with a piece of sense had tied up by the row of shuttered houses . As she passed, she saw people peeping from the doors, people confused and bewildered. And no wonder; who expected this on a night - they must have heard the howling, and the fight...

 A noise broke into her ears. A soft, repeated sound that she knew at once. Someone crying.

 "Hello?" she said quietly, hand going to the dagger she carried in her belt. "Anyone there?"

 There was a scuffling noise, and something - someone crawled out of the shadows. A little girl, sniffling and wiping at her nose with a ragged sleeve. "Where's Eve?" she said, looking up at Kel with scared and wide eyes. "Where'd Eve go?"

 "Is Eve your mother?" Kel asked gently.

 The child shook her head. "She's a...a Shang-Stormwing. She seen the unicorn and she went to fight." The child burst into noisy tears, and around her, Kel noticed doors swinging open and people stepping out; most of them holding pickaxes, or cleavers, the closest they could get to weapons. "An', an', an'...she didn't come b-back!"

 A Shang? Well, that explained the unknown fighter.

 "She's all right," Kel told her, starting to crouch down so she was at the child's height, and stopping as her leg screamed in protest. "Just a bit hurt-"

 "Kyrie!" A man came running towards them, and swept the child up. "Kyrie, what are you doing out here? Why weren't you in bed!" He was a bear of a man, almost as big as Raoul, but there was only gentleness in the way he held the girl, and more relief than anger in his voice. "I thought you'd stopped sneaking out at night!"

 "Sorry Da," the child sniffed. "I just wanted to talk to the Stormwing..."

 "Kyrie, I've told you she's dangerous!" he said angrily. "Look what she brought with her, eh?"

 Kel felt obliged to defend the unknown Stormwing. "That wasn't her." The man's deep-set eyes turned to her. He couldn't have been much older than forty, but his face was deeply lined.

 "And who might you be, m'lady?" he asked courteously, obviously noticing the badge of the Own. "Are you of Fief Goldenlake? You wear their colours." His gaze jumped to her leg, and concern crossed his face. "And you're wounded - we've healers who'll help you. It was you fighting those...things?"

 Kel smiled faintly. "It was the King's Own. We've a good many injured, and if you could send healers and some torches to the courtyard, Sir Raoul would be glad of it." She paused. "I'm not of Goldenlake though. I'm his squire."

 The man blinked. "You must be the female squire then," he said slowly. There was neither approval nor disapproval in his voice until he shrugged. "Well, good luck to you, m'lady. I'll send over some healers and some food. It's the least we can do."

 She thanked him, and returned to the Own for a long night of healing and explanations.

~*~

Morning found Pip loitering in one of the palace practice yards, and warming up her arms and legs with a staff. She kept her mind focused on the moves, whipping the weapon back and forth, behind her, around her sides, under her arms. It was almost a dance, though far deadlier than any made to music.

 "You're very good."

 The voice snapped her from the pattern, and she stopped, warming pain on her muscles and perspiration gleaming on her forehead. Her breath fogged a little in the crisp morning air; Corus had woken to find a late frost had struck and scattered itself across the lawns.

 She met the dark, cool eyes of Davir sin Porphyros, and nodded curtly.

 "...for a woman," he added, and the challenge curled like a tiger's tail in that deliciously dark voice.

 Pip smiled tightly, more than pain warming her now. "Oh? You're very outspoken - for a dog."

 "The noblewoman stings!" he drawled, and whipped off the dark leather gloves he was wearing. "Shall I hurl this in your face and demand satisfaction, lady?"

 "If you want satisfaction," she murmured sweetly, slamming the end of the staff into the packed and frozen earth, "you'd best try the court ladies. They're far better versed than I. But if you want a good fight - I'm your woman."

 "My lady," he said, and she thought a flicker of humour leapt in his eyes, though it didn't show at all on the proud mouth.

 "I'm no lady, Kyrios Davir." Pip lazily pulled a few strays wisps of hair into place, and pretended not to notice his raised eyebrows at the title.

 "I take it you saw my arrival yesterday."

 Pip laughed, and threw his own words in his face. "We are equals - and if I am to be a lady, you may as well be a knight, though you show little chivalry." Her green eyes danced with devilment. "It's rather refreshing."

 "Refreshing?" His teeth gleamed white against the bronze skin. "Not, I believe, how most see it."

 "I'm not most. And do you want to fight, Kyrios, or shall we just throw words about?"

 "I'd much rather throw you about," he purred, and nodded to the staff. "Weapons? Or hand-to-hand?"

 Pip narrowed her eyes. "I didn't know Carthaki nobles fought that way."

 His smile became lop-sided. "Emperor Ozorne was not overly fond of my family. He stripped us of our title and hurled us into the gutter. I learned to fight, lady, because I would rather lose my chivalry than my life. Rules can survive being broken. People cannot."

 There was a storm simmering low in his voice, and Pip thought she could glimpse threads of lightning streaking through his eyes.

 "Luckily," he said, with a one-shouldered shrug, "my cousin managed to miss the streak of raving insanity that Ozorne had in such abundance, and restored the title." His face suggested further questions would not be a good idea.

 "Hand-to-hand it is, then," she said.

 The Carthaki nodded. He didn't move like anyone she had ever seen - there was a long, slinking grace to his movements, and if he had been a creature, Pip could all too easily see him stalking through a jungle with black fur and a lashing tail. "I will, of course, be stronger. A handicap?"

 "We're not playing by chivalry," she told him curtly. "Nearly everyone I fight is going to be stronger."

 He held up his hands. "As you will, my lady."

 They took up the stance opposite each other, two metres apart; Pip left her hands by her sides, but kept her weight slightly on her front foot, ready to attack, or to duck quickly if she had to. Steady, she told herself, keeping her breathing even as her mind slid into that intense focus she always needed when sparring with the Shang Masters.

 Black eyes met green, night clashing with spring, and he moved.

 Fast, she thought, blocking the punch with one hand, and sliding her body out of the way of the swift kick that followed. Fast-

 He feinted right and she caught the quick upper cut aimed at her, though it threw her back a little. His face was set, grim - as if he weren't fighting her, but some other demon.

Fast and dishonourable.

 Good, she decided savagely. She didn't have to go easy on him. Pip stepped back, letting him throw the hard punches and the lightning swift kicks at her. Easy to block, after the longs hours of training, and the long years of stealthily drinking up all things Shang. She held back, testing just how good he was.

Then she stepped into his punch, making sure it slid past her ear and kicked his feet out from under him.

 She was startled when the Carthaki caught her wrist on the way down, and threw her. Air rushed past, and she was rolling up on to her feet, a little frost glinting in her hair, turning in time to glimpse the kick flying at her-

 (Damn me, her mind whispered, he's been Shang-trained)

 And easily throw him past her, using his own momentum to make sure he hit the ground very hard indeed. She followed, and seeing him turning and ready to kick up at her, borrowed a move that was not at all Shang, but pure acrobatics, and jumped into a hand-spring that launched her over the startled Davir, to land gracefully on his other side and easily the deflect the wild punch.

 He managed to get up, but Pip knocked him back to his knees, and before he could react, sent her hand slicing down to his neck in a crippling, maybe even killing chop-

 She stopped a centimetre short, and met the eyes that held no fear at all, only cold defiance.

 I could have killed you then, she thought, as the pair of them stayed frozen, breath fogging on the chilly air, jade and black stares locked and silent. She had to wonder what he saw in her eyes.

 Then his teeth bared slowly, a challenge drawing itself up in his expression, and he drawled, "You missed."

 Pip gaped at his audacity...then started to laugh. And after a moment, the Carthaki joined in, a low rolling laugh that was as charming as his manner was obnoxious.

 "Are you always this arrogant?" she asked, giving him a hand up.

 He brushed dirt and frost from his tousled hair, and gave her a bright feral grin. "Of course. I take my words back, my lady - you are good enough to be Shang."

 She glanced at the proud face, devoid of anything but that watchful amusement. "So were you?" she said, questioning.

 "I was noble," he said mildly. "But my time in the streets was - informative. As long as I kept my mouth shut, no one noticed the accent, or indeed, anything but the dirt." There was a strange look on his face. "I was trained - briefly - by the same master who taught the Stormwing."

 "The Stormwing? I've not heard of her."

 His expression grew bleak, his eyes colder. "She's more infamous than famous. Not...a compassionate lady, the Stormwing. She was cold as a child, and she's frozen now. Ozorne...showed her family not even the shred of mercy he showed mine."

 She had no answer to that.

 "Tell me, my lady..." he said, leaning on the fence of the court with a small grimace - so that fall had hurt him . "The Princess Kalasin....is not what I expected."

 She restrained herself from remarking that neither was he, but instead, gave the statement serious consideration. "Did you know she had her heart set on being the first female page?"

 He blinked his hooded eyes, though otherwise not a flicker revealed his thoughts. "No, though it doesn't surprise me. She's quite the tigress in those repulsive gauzes. One can only pity the enemy if she laid her hands on some plate armour and a battle-axe."

 Pip smiled tightly. "Well, her father talked her out of it. He promised other...concessions. Some choice in her husband, for example." She couldn't help but sympathise with the Princess. She herself had come so close to being thrust into the noble's mould; look pretty, speak elegantly, marry well. "But then his majesty began bargaining with Ozorne, and it turned out Kalasin had no choice at all. And she was forced to watch Roald progressing down the road she had wanted."

 Davir was listening attentively, his great dark fox-sharp eyes concentrated on her. "She's not even met my Emperor. I'll admit he can be a right royal pain," she grinned at the pun, "but for all that, he's a good friend."

 "I think...it's more the idea she hates than the man," Pip said slowly. "She's more like the King than anyone will ever say. And well - there's some who say she's got a streak of Duke Roger's old rebellion in her."

 "Ah." The nobleman was silent for a few moments, and she could see him turning what she had said over and over. "There's fire in her soul. We have a word for it - k'shaia. It's the same word as royalty."

"It's certainly fitting," she agreed. "Will the Court be graced with your presence tomorrow, Kyrios Davir? After all, I believe the ball is being held in your...honour."

 The long eyelashes drooped to shield his eyes, and she knew he had caught the gentle barb. "Perhaps. If you will agree to grace it too, lady warrior. After all - " His smile flashed. "We outcasts must stick together and you, Lady Phillippa ha Minch, are as improper as I."

 She started at her name, but he only chuckled.

 "Oh yes...I have heard the whispers about this lovely brazen lady who deplores fools, and therefore the Court. I have heard the whispers of her Shang training, and the strange - yet true, I believe - tale of her taming a hurrok. I have heard much about you, Lady Phillippa. I wonder...how much is true?"

 She met his gaze boldly. "Truth is what you make it."

 "Sharply said! Well then, shall we make it your presence tomorrow, and the first dance?" He winked, and Pip was startled to realise she liked this curious, outspoken stranger. "After all...that should ruffle a few of those feathers that they pay so much for."

 "The first dance," she conceded, "and a rematch in three days time - this time with weapons, Kyrios."

 The lean man stood straight, and nodded. "Very well. But I am Davir to you, Lady."

 She raised her eyebrows. "Then I'm Pip."

 "Pip? A seed, yes?" He threw a last parting shot at her. "And who knows what you will grow to be?"

And she was left on the practice court to wait for the Shang. But his earlier words had put an idea, a curious idea into her head, and they rolled about her mind in soft, insistent echo.

 And if I...if I kept my mouth shut, who would know I was noble? she thought Who would know I was anything but a Shang apprentice?

 They say the darkness did not end that night.

 For three days and three nights, the Phoenix and the Hound fought. The firebird, and the shadowdog, fighting while good men stood by and did nothing. While the skies were seared by a mage's rage as he struggled to escape the bonds that held him, and kept him from his love.

 Three days, and three nights, as the clock counts, but by the count of a loving heart, centuries. The common people cowered, and whispered hope to their children, though the children heard only fear. The rich watched, and kept secret their shame. The mighty averted their eyes...

 And the Phoenix fell.

 Not a mage's rage, or a mage's love could raise her from the ashes. She sank into the longest sleep, and her foe into a deep slumber, but a slumber from which it would one day wake.

 They say the mage went mad, and turned the land into a cratered mass, that his tears burned like acid and his voice screamed in thunder.

 They say he swore that good men would never stand by and watch evil again.

 They say he changed the world...

 But maybe what they don't say is more important.

~*~

Phillippa ha Minch was unusually thoughtful as she made her way through the palace corridors to her Shang lesson. Had Neal of Queenscove been there, he would have warned anyone away at the sight of that hard emerald glimmer eyes, and promptly taken himself to some quiet and safe place.

 Her thoughts were swirling like a carousel gone crazy, focused around those hauntingly brief words.

 They banned nobles from Shang. Everyone knew that. The Wildcat had murmured it was something to do with what she had called the War of the Phoenix, and the Horse had just given a shrug of his broad shoulders and remained mysteriously quiet.

 But suppose no one knew she was a noble. If she hid her face, and said not a word, what would give her away?

 Stupid, she told herself with a shake of her head. Just building castles in the sky. All right, perhaps you've had some of the training, and perhaps you love it, but noble is noble. They won't bend the rules for anyone! You'd need the Horse and the Wildcat to agree - they'd have to, they'd know it was you if no one else did - and they wouldn't.

 It was when she was passing the Chapel that she saw someone kneeling inside, and stopped dead in her tracks. She recognised the coal-dark head, and the hands on the door that were pale and shaking.

 The Chamber of the Ordeal. She'd heard tales to curdle the blood in your veins, and send children shrieking to their mothers. No one had died in many years, but still, Pip knew the tales and had always thought it was a godsforsaken piece of evil.

 Pip could never forget or forgive the bruised, terrified eyes of her brother when he crawled out. He'd got to his feet, and he'd smiled at them all with a wondrous pride, but that second when the door had swung noiselessly and he had stumbled out, that second of utter anguish in his eyes....it was burned on her mind. Even now, it brought a shadow across his face, same as it did to her father, and her cousins, and her uncles.

 They said the ha Minches had molten iron for blood, and diamond for bones, but the Chamber made even the Ironmen mere flesh and blood. And now - she wondered at the boy kneeling there, head bowed and locked in some dark reverie.

 Silent as a cat on a midnight prowl, she slid inside, and tiptoed down between the pews of the Chapel until she was behind the figure. Close enough to hear the gasping breaths he was taking, close enough to note the fine tremors running through his frame.

 There was sweat beading the back of the Prince's neck, sending his hair curly at the base, and she could see the tautness in his shoulders. And Pip was grateful she couldn't see his face.

 "Roald?" she said softly, but the Prince didn't move.

 Ah, that door was only wood and iron, but somehow, it exuded evil. The ultimate judge they called it. Without care, without compassion...but sometimes, Pip thought grimly, a judge needed compassion. Sometimes, crime could be justified. The thief who stole because he would die without food. The woman who killed her husband because he beat her. The man who slaughtered only because he was ordered to.

 Evil thing! she thought, and took hold of Roald's arms. His expression was clear to her now, and it was filled with horror. His eyes wide, a turbulent navy wash, and his mouth slack. She tugged.

 Nothing. It was as though he was stone.

 It was the Chamber doing this, she had no doubt. His Ordeal would be in the Mid-Winter, scarce six months, and perhaps it was giving him an early taste.

 "Let go," she hissed at it. "He's not yours yet!"

 She pulled at the Prince's hands again, and again nothing happened.

 "Let go!" she snapped, and turned to bang her fists on the door-

 The world vanished.

~*~

 "Well, you're looking better, Squire," Raoul said with a tired grin as Kel brought some water over. "I suppose you've heard the news?"

 Kel nodded, and sat down, suppressing a groan as her over-exerted muscles complained. Everyone was feeling the after-effects on last night's fight, though the village healers had done an amazing job curing the dozens of cuts and gouges. "A section of the mine collapsed. Luckily, no one was inside."

 "The headmen is not terribly pleased with us," Buri said dryly. The stocky woman was fletching arrows, and there was a sharpness to her movements that warned Kel she was perhaps not in the best of moods. "In fact, I think the sooner we're gone the better."

 Raoul snorted. "Surely he doesn't believe those...astrologers' absurdities?" His black eyes snapped with irritation. "I refuse to believe that letting that unicorn escape means this place will be cursed for the next seventy years. It's coincidence."

 Buri raised an eyebrow. "Tell that to him, Sir Commander. From a distance would be best."

 "It can't be that bad," Kel protested, glancing over to where a cluster of villagers were evidently discussing the cave-in. "If we've brought such bad luck, why didn't his daughter die? And we rescued the Stormwing, didn't we?"

 "Ah yes," Raoul said heavily. "The Stormwing. About as popular here as I'm going to be with the King when we get back. The headmen demanded we take the 'harridan' away with us when we go, and he did hint that the sooner we leave, the happier he'll be."

 "And," Buri said darkly, cursing as she snapped an arrow, "he inferred that should any 'innocent' here die, as per the prediction, those pickaxes may not be striking rock. Not a happy man, I think."

 She glanced at the faces of the commanders. "I think it's his wife."

 Two pairs of dark eyes flicked to her. "Squire?" Raoul asked.

 "I've been talking to some of the villagers," she explained, lowering her voice, "and I overheard some of the women talking about her. I get the impression she's...not entirely there. Did you notice the bruises the headmen had, sir? And the child?"

 The knight nodded. "I thought they were injuries from the mine." His mouth twisted in a sour smile. "And sometimes it is safer not to ask. We can move out today...except for the Shang girl. Still unconscious, and no wonder."

 They had all heard the healer's report; the woman had been stunned that anyone could be alive with such injuries. None especially severe - but so many. The girl had seemed to have a mesh of cuts laid over her skin, and it had taken the healers hours just to clean away all the blood caking her.

 "The Riders are all fit to travel," Buri said, glancing over to where the young men and women were joking with the Own. "Nothing worse than scratches, sprains and one broken wrist in Evin Larse's case, though he says he can ride."

 "And can he?"

 The woman gave her flashing, savage grin. "Evin managed to run away from an enraged husband with a fractured shin. I'd say he'll be all right."

 A guffaw escaped Raoul. Evin Larse's exploits were well-known among the military; Kel had heard he was an excellent commander, with just one fatal weakness. Like an Achilles Heel, Neal had once said dryly, only higher up.

 "I think it best if we leave," he said thoughtfully. "We're clearly not welcome here, and gods know there's resentment enough against the King and all his minions at the moment - did you hear about that case in Genlith where sixteen commoners were thrown out?"

 Buri's lips drew back in something that was not a smile. At that moment, she looked enough like an angry tiger for Kel to pity anyone fool enough to vex her. "I heard."

 "And his Highness - as ever - is complaining of our absence." A frown marred the knight's face. "We'd be more use against those Scanran raiders up north, but he wants us back to impress the ambassadors."

 "More fripperies," Buri said. The two shared a look of mutual disgust. "I always seem to get cornered by the idiots."

 "At least you're small enough to hide," Raoul grumbled. "Short of sitting under the table, I'm stuck."

 "And the one time he did that," a passing Dom, his arm bandaged, said cheerfully, "the King decreed that all the tables should be moved to one side to make the dancing space bigger. M'lord had to pretend he'd dropped his plate."

 "Though you did drop a glass of red wine on the King, didn't you?" Flyn added with a wry grin. "Told him you were so revolted at the sight of alcohol you just couldn't bear to touch it."

 Raoul coughed, and Kel was amused to see him unsuccessfully trying to hide a smug smile. "Well, if he will wear white..."

 "Mind you," Flyn growled, his sharp face somewhat agitated, "we spent the next three weeks on the dirtiest jobs his Highness could find. In the fiefs with the most desperate women you've ever seen."

 "They were after me," the knight said dryly. "They had to be desperate, eh?" he sighed, and glanced around. "All right, Flyn...call a meeting of all the squadron leaders. I'll tell them we can make our way - slowly - back to the palace."

 "Pity." Buri had a wistful look on her face as she gazed at the green land, flourishing in the last clutches of summer. The town was small, but prettily built and well-kept; children dodged among the packs and tents of the soldiers. "Now the Yamanis are there, they'll be throwing more balls than a troupe of jugglers. And I'm almost positive Thayet will find me some over-confident idiot to dance with."

 "Just tread on their feet," Raoul advised. "That's what I do."

 The Rider glanced at him, and her lips quirk. "I'm not quite as heavy as you."

 "Wear spurs," the knight said dryly.

~*~

 Blood.

 Blood and marble, crimson spilling down the exquisite statues of the throne room, slithering over the floor like flickering vines.

 Pip turned around slowly, her heart ducking into her stomach for a frightening moment. She stood, half-hidden behind a pillar. Goddess! What on earth...

 The King, with his head thrown back, his crown bouncing in a circle of gold down the steps of the throne, an arrow through his heart. And the Queen, her skirts splayed about her in emerald glory, her throat laid bare to a blade's cut.

 Goddess...

 Nausea churned in Pip's stomach, and she swallowed hard. And looked about the rest of the room, all silent and all still, and all swathed in scarlet like a nightmare brought to life. People she knew, flung back like discarded dolls, pinned by arrows, sliced by weapons, and all so motionless in that horrific hush.

 And she heard a soft laugh, and her head snapped to the doors of the hall and the figure that cast a long shadow, framed within them.

 He stepped forward with an easy and careless confidence; the stride of an emperor, the stride of a man for whom power was only a weapon, not a responsibility. His face was handsome, and artfully painted with the exotic golds and blacks of Carthak.

 She had never met Emperor Ozorne, but she had seen his portrait, and surely this panther of a man could only be he.

 He picked up the crown, and threw it up casually. "Born to rule," he mocked coolly, and caught the circlet, his eyes dark and vicious. Not looking at her. No, not looking at her at all.

 Pip turned her head to see the boy kneeling at the foot of the throne, his head in his hands, pale as the first snowfall. Then he looked up, his profile visible to her, staring disbelieving at the mess and the man.

 "This is what you will bring," Ozorne hissed ferociously. "Failure! A boy who doesn't even know his own heart and yet expects to sway others'? How can you rule? You are not your father! Your choices will be wrong, and you will send them all to their deaths. "

 "And you were such a resounding success, I suppose?" Pip heard herself say, as she stepped out of her hiding place. "You're not Ozorne. He's long dead. The Wildmage put paid to him."

 "You think evil dies?" The Emperor's gaze fixed her, and in it she saw the gloomy night, the sheen of blood, the reflection of her own fears. "Fool girl. Men are always greedy, men are always weak."

 Pip stared, fascinated by the conviction in his - its - voice. "What are you?" Then she remembered why she was here - how she had come to be here. "You're the Chamber, aren't you? Somehow. All this is - you. Playing games."

 The Emperor threw back his head and laughed. It was an enticing sound, full of velvet darkness. "You think this is a game, mortal girl? Very well, let us talk about games. After all, aren't you playing at being Shang? Do you think you are good enough to pass as one of them?"

 Pip said nothing, but doubt wavered in her.

 "Dreaming your useless dreams," he mocked, and slowly the face was changing and it was no longer Ozorne who stood before her, but the Shang Horse. "You! A noble! Good for nothing, not even good enough to be wed and bred!"

 "That's not true!" Roald's defiant voice burst into the silence. He was on his feet, hands clenched by his sides. He glared, and the sapphire eyes were stormy. "You don't know anything! She's better than any of those - idiots out there."

 The thing's head snapped so fast it would have broken a mortal's neck. "And you...the weak Prince. Ah, I can see what lies in your heart. And it's what lies on this floor, Prince. All you will bring this realm is blood."

 "No!" Roald stepped forward, and though Pip saw his breath hiss in at the sight of his sister, her raven's hair fanned across the floor, he stood firm. "Maybe I'm not my father. But I will never be Ozorne. And maybe I am weak...but no one will know. I will do my duty."

 The Horse stared from one to the other, and then it melted, and before them stood a young man with an empty smile and the simple black robe of a mage. Long hair framed a gaunt face; his bones pushed against his skin as though his skeleton yearned to burst free of his flesh. But his eyes burned hellishly, burning with what seemed to Pip like grief, and his mouth was full and shaped for mirth.

 "We shall see when you face your Ordeal," he said, and there was a warning in the words. "And you...girl - you are no knight. Why did you seek to wake me? The Shang do not pass my doors."

 Pip shook her head. "I...was trying to help my friend."

 The man glanced from one to the other. "A royal and a rebel, and both of you seeking to escape. How interesting. You, royal...I have not tested you yet." His eyes, a stunning shade of orange, flicked to Pip. "And you...intriguing, certainly intriguing. There is a hunger in you I have not seen in...many years. I saw it last in my lifetime."

 "Did you make this?" Roald asked in his quiet voice. The defiance had died in his eyes, and he was the quiet prince she knew again.

 "I created the Chamber, yes. Things were - different then." The man gave a harsh laugh. "Until then, there was no need for a Chamber. But then...the Phoenix waged war, and too many good men forgot chivalry and stood by while she died."

 He wasn't so terribly old, Pip thought, surely not more than his early thirties, but heavy lines stretched out from the corners of his eyes.

 "You have the same thirst in you," he told her. The grief in his expression flared, sharp as lightning. "Ah, she was beautiful, my Shang Phoenix, beautiful beyond belief."

 How sweet of him, Pip thought.

 The mage looked at her. "You aren't."

 She mustered a smile. "Well, excuse me, but I'm not the one who spent the last few centuries being a room."

 "But...still...there is the same fire in you." His eyelashes drooped. "In the end...it burnt her up. And that last time, she remained ash. I will not judge you either way, girl. I cannot decide your future. But I will warn you - it is a terrible thing, this craving you have, this dream. But to realise it may be more terrible still."

 He brought his hands together in a gesture that was almost prayer. "I weary of this. Many ordeals await you - and this, Prince, will not be the worst of them. If you cannot survive the Ordeal without help...you are not fit to rule."

 He pulled his hands apart sharply, and Pip found herself leaning on the door of the Chamber, all the strength drained from her limbs. She rested her forehead against the wood for a moment, just a moment.

 Behind her, she heard Roald scramble to his feet before gentle hands closed on her waist. "Pip?" His voice was shaky. "Are you all right?"

 "Peachy," she muttered, pushing herself away from the door, and stumbling before the Prince steadied her. "Does that happen every time you - touch that thing?"

 "The visions...yes," he admitted ruefully, consternation evident on his face. He was avoiding her eyes, and something in the way he said it told her that Roald had been here more than once. "An interview with its creator - no. I didn't even know it was a mage who made it."

 "I wonder what he was talking about?" she said thoughtfully. "The Phoenix? I've never heard of a Shang with that name. He was..."

 "Mad?" Roald suggested. "Disturbing? Unflattering?"

 "Fascinating," Pip said firmly. "Maybe there's something in the library.... I could go and look- my lesson! I'll be late for my lesson!"

 The Prince looked at her. "Shang training?"

 "Yes..." And she caught her breath, and wondered if he would say anything. The Chamber had seen straight to her heart, and picked at her doubt like opening old wounds. But Davir's words had triggered something in her, and the Chamber had only spoken her deepest desire aloud.

 The blue eyes were steadfast on hers. "I hear you beat Kally's bodyguard."

"You hear right."

 "Pip..." He shrugged, and flushed slightly. "I've heard the Wildcat say you're good enough to be Shang. But - they don't let nobles in."

 "Five hundred years ago," she said in her low clear voice, "women weren't allowed to be Shang. Thirty years ago, women couldn't be knights. Fifteen years ago, commoners couldn't fight. All of those have changed, Roald. Why not this too?"

 He looked at her, and something she couldn't decipher at all crept into his eyes. "Why not?" he echoed, and smiled.

 She hurried away, her mind made up. She would do it. Tell them today. And as she strode into the room, the two Shang awaiting her, Pip took a deep breath.

 "You look a bit flustered," the Wildcat said. "Been fighting Carthaki again?"

 The Horse's grin said he approved.

 "Yes," Pip said. "And I've got something to tell you."

 "Sounds ominous," the woman said, seating herself on the floor.

 Her skin had gone cold. "Maybe it is," she said, and then the words fell out in a rush. "I want to be Shang."

 The Phoenix, deep in the longest sleep of all; a legend lost to the world.

 And as the days rolled on, and the shadows stretched far and dark and wide across the world, the legend was forgotten. Truth became hearsay, and hearsay became myth. Myth became fairy tale, and only children ever knew a fragment of what the Phoenix had once been to a troubled world.

Except to one man.

 They called him mad, and called him empty, and called him a thousand names that he never heard. In the harsh jagged depths of his grief, he heard only the echoes of her voice, and the lingering memory of her touch.

 How her eyes blazed in the feather-edges of his dreams, how bright she burned now her light had been doused. Until the end of his days, he would seek to put right all that had been wrong in a world that had let her die.

 He made the Chamber, and one day, walked into it to leave the strength of his soul in it forever, judging and choosing. Its foundations sat strong, upon the grave of the woman he had loved. Upon the prison of the beast that had killed her.

 Through all the long years, he shaped and pruned the men who would change the way humankind lived. Rooted low in the Chamber's heart, he tested them, and destroyed those unworthy. He saw the misty coils of the future yet to wind out, and sought to change the horrors in it.

 He never dreamed that one day, the Phoenix might rise again, shrieking from the ashes of her last, glorious battle. In his life of wanton tragedy, there was no more room for hope.

 And he certainly never dreamed that her murderer might as well.

~*~

 Ryan made himself walk quite calmly from the Goddess's temple, and through the courtyard up to the start of the winding flights of steps that led onto the battlements. His heart was pounding madly, as though a herd of elephants stampeded within it.

 Several of the guards watched him surreptitiously, and took the grim line of the boy's mouth and the distant eyes as outrage at being caught thieving the day before. One or two hefted their weapons, and thought of the companions they had lost to a harpy's brutality. But none dared touch the thief for fear of waking the magick that seemed to ripple so close to the surface nowadays.

"Out of my way, boy!" a voice ordered, and a slender girl elbowed him out of her path. "Wretched peasants-"

 "I'm no peasant," Ryan snarled, and caught the girl's arm as she strode past. "An' you ain't got no manners."

 Oh hell, he thought as he recognised the lovely face before him, with its wide-set sapphire eyes that glimmered like the sea in summer, and the full if sulky lips, and the gravity-defying clothing.

 Her eyebrows snapped together, and there was raw fury, primal as a storm swirling, that gathered in the fetching face until-

 Her anger faded, and thoughtfulness replaced it. "I know you," Princess Kalasin said. "You're that mage - that boy that Father sent Numair to find. Ryan something."

 "Talver," he informed her, then reluctantly tacked on, "your highness."

 Well-kept hands planted on her hips. "I've heard you used to be a thief."

 "I did." Ryan watched her carefully; he'd heard the Princess was rather volatile these days. He didn't want to be on the receiving end of a royal's temper. But his tongue, as ever, freed the words before his mind could mention that maybe they weren't such a good idea. "I heard you used to be a lady."

 A hand connected with his face and snapped his head sideways.

 "How dare you?" she demanded hotly as Ryan rubbed at the stinging heat on his cheek. Gods above, the girl knew how to hit! "Do you know the price for insulting me?"

 "Is it the same as the price for-" The thief managed to cut the words off before he finished the sentence and really land himself thigh high in trouble. "Ain't they told you I ain't got no manners either?" he asked dryly. "That's some strength you've got there, your highness. But if ye don't mind, I'm busy now. I've somethin' to see."

 "Something to steal, more like," she muttered. A careful, considering look slid onto her face and Ryan didn't like it all. "I could call the guards. You shouldn't even be talking to me."

 He gave her a big, false grin and hoped she'd take the hint. Ryan had had to get used to nobles, living in the palace, but for the most part he didn't like them and he certainly didn't trust them. They were tolerable, if only because so many were so slipshod about locking their rooms and concealing their expensive possessions - unbeknownst to many, Ryan was running a small and yet successful enterprise fencing jewellery for various resentful servants - but he liked almost none of them. "I'll stop then."

 He gave her a mock bow, flourishing his hands elaborately, and turned to walk away.

 "Boy!"

 With a groan, he swung back round to find her eyes gemstone-bright, pulsar bright, and fixed on him intently. "Girl!" he said chirpily. "Are ye goin' to hassle me all day?"

 She glanced meaningfully at the guards.

 "Your highness," he said through gritted teeth. His head was full of the Goddess's words, blinded by the visions he had seen, the ethereal beauty of the unicorn and the charred remains of the war. He tried for politeness, something about as natural to Ryan as pink ringlets. "I do have errands t'run, ye know, without ye botherin' me."

 She smoothed back her hair in a motion calculated to entice. It didn't fool the thief; he'd lived for years with Hana Alhaz, a woman both well-versed in and well-endowed with the arts of seduction.

 It was a beginner's trick, she'd told him. Draw their attention to your face, to your movement, to the promise of where their hands might be later.

 "Most peasants would be honoured to speak with the Crown Princess," she remarked.

Peasant. He'd thought things would be different here, but the world was still chopped in half by a gold-minted line. The rich, and the poor. They lived in their smooth stone castles and elegant houses while people less lucky than him rotted away, husks left to die in the street.

"I'm sure ye'll forgive me if I don't swoon an' grovel," remarked Ryan coldly. "I ain't most peasants. Now if ye'll excuse me, I've got fields to hoe."

 Her manner dropped, and she actually reached out to grab his wrist. "Wait. I…"

 There was almost nervousness in her eyes, and her grip was a little too tight to be merely casual. Despite himself, Ryan was beginning to be intrigued. "Princess, do ye want somethin'?"

 "A favour," she allowed, releasing him. But she still edgily fiddled with her necklace. "That's all."

 What could a princess possibly want from him? "Go on," he said warily.

 She shook her head. "Not here." A quick, subtle gesture to the guards. "This is strictly...personal."

 This is going to get me into trouble, Ryan mentally translated. I shouldn't even be listening to this - I should know better. Don't get messed up with the nobility, they don't understand commoners, they just want to use us. I should just go now.

 But somehow, he found himself being guided away from the battlements and downstairs, into one of the wide corridor until the Princess yanked opened a door and unceremoniously thrust him inside it.

 It was a closet. Stacks of sheets, pristine and white filled shelves that stretched upwards.

 "Uh…" He wavered over whether he should say it or not, and decided that his life was not worth this. "Princess, this is an airing cupboard."

 "Bravo," she said tersely. "Now-"

 He interrupted, despite the flash of irritation that was familiar as an old friend on her features. "I don't think you understand. If someone walks in, this is goin' to look...bad. I'm not too sure on the rules for consortin' with royalty, but it seems to me that it ain't usually done in cupboards."

 A mischievous glitter appeared in her eyes. "More consorting goes on in cupboards than you know, boy, but don't worry."

 "If someone finds us," he interrupted anxiously.

 "No one will walk in," she proclaimed with utter confidence, and a little flick of her head. "And if they do, worry not, I'll just say you accosted me and they'll cut your head right off before you have a chance to babble."

 A pause, and he eyed her deadpan face and then said cautiously. "Were that a joke?"

For a moment, he thought a smile would crack across her face, but she restrained herself, though soft, darting lights leapt in her eyes. So she had a sense of humour. Maybe she was salvageable.

"Didn't they ever teach you to speak properly?" she flicked back, covering that glimpse of humanity with raw scorn.

 Too late, though. He saw it was a cover now, and it baffled him utterly - why would she want to pretend to be one of those useless court creatures? All they did was fritter away the time with gossip, and spend money endlessly on whatever fashion rolled through the land. Sometimes it actually pained him to see how they wasted wealth, these people who had so much of it and not for any worthy reason, but simply because they were born to it.

 It made him so angry sometimes.

When he remembered the endless nights that tumbled on like windblown leaves, heaping up. The alligator snap of the cold, times when the wind ate right into his bones like some great hungry beast and took everything he was away, until he was only a nameless creature lost in cold, cold, c-c-c-cold.

 When he remembered the bodies he'd passed by, skin over starvation, eyes opened because no one cared enough to close them. Not even him. Huge blotches spreading as they rotted soft and slow as their humanity surely had.

 All for the wrong parents. All for lack of a little coin.

 "I speak how I want," he retorted, that old wound of injustice rising again as though the scab had been knocked from it. "Maybe I ain't got your pretty phrasin' and maybe I ain't wearin' silks to drop the jaw and raise the..." He paused, as he caught the warning pursing of her lips and rethought his words. "...blood. But I do somethin' with my life. Can you say that...Princess?"

 She tipped her head and opened her mouth, with a dangerous flash zagging clear across the crystal cobalt of her eyes. Ryan only stared back, refusing to be intimidated, though some part of him chattered that this was madness - this was folly, challenging the child of a king, a girl who could have him killed with a word if so she wished.

 And her shoulders sagged.

 "No," Kalasin said very quietly. "No, I can't say that at all."

~*~

 Beneath the Chamber of the Ordeal, in a room far below the earth and encased in layers of spells and stone, in a tomb made from nothing earthly, buried alive and buried deep...

It stirred.

 It felt the life begin to flow sluggishly within it like the paths of ducklings over water. The enchanted darkness had been long and powerful, the inexorable drag of a whirlpool that had kept it sunk in sleep. The weight of all the years had pinned it down and kept it from the hunt.

But now...something had changed. Something had weakened.

 Something of the magick that held it under sway had been removed. Only a smallest fraction, but like the flake of snow that begins the avalanche, it was enough.

 Oh yes...the Hunt.

 It shut its eyes, and breathed in shallowly. In its ears, war tumbled like dice across a wooden floor. The great gamble, the dance between death and glory. It remembered those endless days too well, of struggling with a woman who had met and matched it at every turn, with the sleek slide and slice of her limbs, the grace in her feet. It remembered shifting from shape to shape - man to beast to immortal, yet none fit to best the Phoenix.

 It had awaited its death eagerly in the end, wishing to be free of its curse. And then treachery had weakened the woman - and she had died beneath its hands, because though it was a monster wishing to be a man, it was still a monster.

 Always a monster.

 It  had slaughtered the woman with eyes of sunlight, hair that swayed like fire. It had turned to flee, to return to the place of shadows before the Hunt began again, and the unicorn burst forth from the night like a falling star, like a dying wish. To wait for the Hunt, until it could give chase once again.

 It had turned - and magick had caught it. Only one man's magick, but this man had clung with all the fervour and grief in his fractured heart, and the monster, already exhausted, could no longer fight.

 It had been defeated by magick, forced into the icy grip of sleep near to death. Meant never to wake, held down by the steel justice of a broken man. For centuries, it had struggled uselessly against this cruel fate, separated from its pack, a hound alone in eternal twilight.

 But the magick was weakened...

 And it was awake.

 It thrust upwards with its arms, and the lid flew upwards from the tomb to crash against the ground and shatter. Out it stepped, a strange shapeless thing that slipped from form to form as if undecided. A hand was human; the head horned, the other arm a tentacle...

 It was awake.

 And soon it would be free.

~*~

 Ryan blinked, startled by the Princess's admission.

"I'm a trophy. All everyone wants me to do is sit around and wait to be married off. I'm just a thing - a little token of my father's alliances."

 "From what I hear," he remarked cautiously, "you chose it that way."

 She lifted a slender shoulder. "I wanted to be a page. I wanted to be something different - something useful. But darling Daddy thought his little girl might scare off the suitors if she could hold her own with a weapon."

 And now, thought Ryan, his little girl scares off suitors with silk and seduction.

 "So I thought..." A small sigh, that shivered the silks and made the thief hastily avert his eyes. "If he wanted to be more ladylike - I would. I'd dazzle his whole damn court. I'd make light chatter and jest, and I'd dance, and I'd gossip. And that would be it."

He understood something of why she had done it now, a beautiful sharp revenge. Almost obedience. Almost.

 "I even enjoyed it for a while." Her smile was tight and grim, and ugly thing to spoil the splendour of her face. "Oh, it was so satisfying to see Daddy's face go that fantastic shade of aubergine that means he's somewhere between a stroke and a heart attack. I'd laugh myself sick."

 She looked right at him then, and he saw something of what she might have been - a fresh, sweet loveliness that opened up like blossom in her face. It wasn't as striking as the harsh beauty she had made with cosmetics and clothes, yet Ryan found it more appealing.

 "And then I'd cry myself to sleep."

 "Look..." He cleared his throat, hoping she wouldn't start crying. He couldn't cope with crying women. "I'm sorry ye're not happy. Well," he added, his suicidal honesty perking up. "I'm not that sorry, 'cause at least ye can be miserable in style, but what's any of this got to do with me?"

 A flush climbed her cheeks, rosy as dawn under a rising red sun. "I...need your help."

 "Do ye now?" Ryan didn't like the twitch of her fingers, or the rigidity of her stance. It screamed of trouble. And he didn't have time to be standing around making polite conversation! "With what?"

 "Promise to help me first," she demanded. "Or else I'll let slip just who it is who took Lady Sasura's black opal drops - and all about your little deals with the servants. You should be more careful who you choose to deal with, boy - some of them have more faces than a bagful of dice."

 How had she...? Dumbstruck, he gazed at her triumphant face - yet still noticed the beads of sweat at her temples.

 "All right," he said glumly. She probably wanted something nicked. Or maybe a magical trick - nobles liked them, though she was supposed to be Gifted herself. "What do you want?"

 Her body sagged, as though a huge strain had dissolved from her bones. "Teach me to steal."

 Oh, gods.
 
~*~

Strange place, the Carthaki thought, and trailed his hand idly over the polished stone. Strange, charming place.

He had spent the day wandering it, until he had found what he sought. It would have been easier had he a guide, but a guide would never have let him do what he had. Take what he had. He patted his pocket thoughtfully.

 This was dangerous. But if what he had been told was correct...it was necessary.

Davir sin Porphyros sighed, and leaned his head against the cool stone for a moment. This palace was sculpted through every inch, a curious mix of practicality and art in its sturdy, stark ramparts and ornate, gilded ballrooms. And utterly alien to him.

 His old life had been mud, mostly. Mud. Cold. Poverty. Almost the first thing he remembered was the smooth paste of mud on his fingers as he helped his parents scrabble in the dirt for their belongings. They had been hurled from their home, out into the barren sludge of the Carthaki monsoon. His mother, her silks stained as she searched futilely for her jewellery, lips bleeding from where she had been hit by the soldiers. His father, dragging her from her knees in the mud and trying to comfort her.

 Those days had been harsh, one painful lesson after another. He'd been a thief, a liar, even an assassin for a short time, until he was sent to kill a child. He hadn't been able to do it, but the girl with him had, and the terrified blankness in that child's eyes haunted him still, in the iron grip of night.

 The Shang Stormwing had lost her mercy before ever he arrived.

 He'd learned much from her. But most of all, he had learned to treasure his humanity and keep it burning inside his heart.  How hard he had to try sometimes to keep that little fire burning. Sometimes, enraged at the unfairness of his life, he'd wanted to rip and tear at the world.

 Yvenia would have welcomed his company. That last time he had seen her was still cut sharp on his memory, fresh and acrid as the smell of paint.

 "Turn away then," she said in her gravely, arctic voice. The long sheet of silver hair had shone like the blade she held in her hand, idly turning it in the light. Above all, he remembered her hair, so feminine and delicate against the severe lines of her face and body. "Don't you want revenge, Davir? Don't you remember how they ripped apart your family, and drove your mother to her death? I was there while the breath rattled from her. She had nothing to live for. The Emperor took that all away."

 "And the Emperor will die for it," he had flung back. "But not his servants, or his relatives, or anyone you happen to hear mention his name. The man is a tyrant, Eve. He rules with fear, with whips and swords. Of course people bless his name when they speak! They curse it when they pray."

 "Fear." She spat on the ground. "That to fear!"

 There was ice wrapped around Eve's soul, and always had been. He'd walked away from her and her dream of revenge that day. Left her black, mirroring eyes behind him, her crooked and pitiless smile too. Yet however far he ran, some memory of her always lingered, to remind him of what he could become if he let the cruelty and the indifference of the world wear him down.

 It was what, in a way, had brought him to this door, of all others.

 He raised his hand and knocked sharply.

There was no answer, and he only sighed. A pity; a pity that the one creature he had met in the palace with the gall and the wit to challenge him had vanished like morning mist.

 "Are you looking for Pip?"

 He turned sharply at the voice, hesitant and muted. There was a girl stood there; a little girl, he thought at first, before he looked more closely and saw it was only the tentative way she held herself. There was the pale glimmer of fear in her eyes, looking ever for the threat. She wore a noble's exquisitely cut clothes, but wore them uneasily, and her words had a Northern twang.

 "Indeed," he answered. "I don't believe we have met."

 He swept a polished bow, and flashed her what he hoped was reassuring smile, although Kaddar had told him all his smiles looked like he was two meals away from cannibalism.

 "I saw you last night," the girl confided, not returning his smile. "With the Princess. I don't think you're meant to treat royalty that way."

 Another royalist. Dear oh dear. "True. I should not have been so gentle."

 She gaped, the fear blooming up in her too-thin face like poison flowers. Blast. He hadn't meant to terrorise her.

 Her eyes were a curious colour, the unsullied gold of crocuses. This must be one of the mages he had heard of. One of the servants had told him of the strange pair; the outlandish thief and his shy golden shadow.

 "Andrea," he said thoughtfully. "You must be Andrea. Let me reassure you I shall not sling you over my shoulder." And because he couldn't help himself, he lowered his lashes a little to stare smokily at her with the faintest of faint smiles. "Unless that is your...desire."

 The girl did smile then, very hesitantly as if she found him odd. "No, thank you. I suppose they've told you about us. Or at least about Ryan."

 "Something of it, yes," he agreed, eyeing this willow-slender girl. Fearsome. Unnatural. Fierce. Those were the words he had heard murmured, but none of those seemed to suit this butter-soft child. "I was expecting someone..."

 "Taller?"

 "More monstrous," he said dryly.

 She shrugged a little. "That's Ryan's territory. I'm just here to look after him." Shadows passed across her face like black moths. "He saved me from - oh, but you don't want to hear about that."

 Actually, I think you don't want to tell me, noted Davir silently, but he didn't pry. He had heard the strange story of that pair, and he had no urge to hear it again. Too many wanton tragedies in life to note every last one.

 "Pip's gone to see the Shang Masters, I think," she continued in her chiming voice. "She's...not like the other nobles. They don't like Ryan and I very much."

 "I have the feeling they don't like me much either," he said wryly. "Some fool slapped me with a glove today, and actually seemed surprised when I knocked him down."

 She seemed to be struggling with laughter. "He was challenging you to a formal duel. It's how they do it here."

 Oh. Maybe that was why every other noble suddenly found pressing matters elsewhere when he tried to talk to them. Washing their hair, indeed!

 "Are you really the Princess's bodyguard?"

 He sighed. The infuriating Princess, who had already managed to elude him this evening. No one had seen her at all. "Unfortunately. I've barely met her - or at least, I've met her in barely anything - and already I wish I'd volunteered for easier duty. Say, testing out the Iron Maiden."

She chuckled, and it sent the light bending and snaking over the fall of golden hair.

 "Perhaps you can help me..." He would have preferred the razor company of Phillippa ha Minch but this girl was one of the few people who would pass the time of day with him. "I require the services of a soothsayer - but I have no idea where you keep them stashed."

 "A fortune teller?" A frown, and she looked him up and down. "You don't seem the superstitious type."

 He gave her a tight smile. Not as insipid as she seemed then, but the truth was too risky to reveal. "I like to know what the future holds. It's always best to be prepared."

Yes. He needed to be prepared for what was to come.

Unconsciously, he touched his pocket again, the pocket that held a nail from the door of the Chamber.

~*~

The world dawned in on her slowly, the darkness drawing back like two grey curtains. With awareness came the nudge and nip of pain, of one solid ache that throbbed with the rhythm of her heartbeat.

 If she'd let herself, she would have cried out.

 But she was Yvenia, the Shang Stormwing, and her screams had stopped long ago. Never would the world see her bowed and broken again. Never, never, never...

 Her fists clenched, a tiny knot of tightness in her sore body. The memories of that desperate night came back to her - the flickering grace of the unicorn, shining out like holy fire in the darkness against the hungry claws and vicious teeth of the hounds.

Had the unicorn escaped? She didn't know why it should bother her - why she had even walked into that fight - but she had, and it did.

 Yvenia sat bolt upright, ignoring the screams of her muscles. Pain was nothing. It was nothing at all, only a cruel trick of the world to keep her from revenge.

 "Who are you?" she demanded loudly.

 The healer in the tent, working with a mortar and pestle, yelped at the sight of her. "Lie down at once!" he ordered. "You'll pull out all my stitching."

 She growled impatiently and swung her legs from the pallet onto the floor. For a moment, dizzying waves ebbed through her body, but she gritted her teeth and forced them back. Control - there was nothing discipline would not defeat.

 The idiot man was actually trying to push her back into the bed.

 "Get your hands off me," she snapped and dealt him a glancing blow. She heard something tear, and felt the sutures in her arms snap. The warmth of blood trickled sluggishly down her arm.

 He crumpled onto his knees. A glancing blow from Yvenia was like being hit with a sackful of bricks. "Your wounds!" he protested. "My lady Shang, you are not healed-"

 "Physician, heal thyself," she advised coolly, and swept - or rather, lurched - from the tent.

~*~

 "I'm sorry," said Hakuin, staring at her as if she had just announced her intention to strip and dance a naked mambo. "I think I misheard you. Did you just say you want to be Shang?"

 Pip took a deep breath. The two Shang were watching her closely, the Wildcat tapping on hand on her thigh, her grey eyes narrowed. "I did."

 "Pip, in a word - no." He nodded his head once, as if that was the end of it. The black eyes were firm, the shock faded from them. "You know Shang doesn't let nobles in. It's against the rules."

 "Rules are made to be broken," she retorted stubbornly, panic fluttering in her chest, She had been so sure they would at least consider it.

 "So are limbs, if the council finds out," the Horse told her. His mouth was drawn in a tight line. "I'm sorry, but it's impossible."

 The Wildcat spoke for the first time, her face utterly unreadable. "She knows that, Hakuin. Our girl's no fool. Why are you asking, Pip?"

 She met the steadfast grey eyes straight on. Listen, she pleaded, at least hear me out. "Could I be good enough?"

 The woman stared back levelly, her hands coiled at her sides. Then her mouth relaxed, and she sighed. "Yes. Yes, you could be."

 "Eda!" protested the Horse.

 "She's a right to know, Hakuin." The woman pointed a finger at him. "And a right to ask. I remember a young lad who was told 'no' by the Kestrel. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but that boy ran away from home and followed the Kestrel halfway across the country, getting set upon by bandits and beggars until the poor man gave in to stop you being murdered on the road."

 A faint flush was streaking up Hakuin's cheeks. He shifted uneasily.

 "That was different!"

 "How?" There was definite amusement in the Wildcat's gravely voice. "You were good enough too. You didn't take no for an answer."

 "I'm common as muck," the man said pointedly. "Nobles cannot be Shang - it's our law, simple as that. We live a hard life, a cold life and we can't walk off back to our castles when we get tired of it."

 Pip snorted. "Yeah, your life's so hard teaching pages in the morning."

  The Wildcat let out a sharp laugh. "True, girl."

 "Eda, you cannot be considering this," Hakuin snapped. His plump lips were pursed. "The Shang Circle will be furious!"

 The Wildcat's grey eyes narrowed. "Let them be. The girl's good enough, Hakuin, we can both see that. She's been fighting since she was born and she's a natural. She's learned arts we haven't from the pages and squires, and from that street-lad who's so determined to kick everyone into shape."

 "I'm not arguing that she's good enough," the Yamani said. "I'm arguing that they'll cut our heads off if they find out. I'm arguing that everything in our law and history forbids it."

 "Not...everything," the Wildcat said slowly. "Not at all."

 Eda Bell was fighting her corner. Pip could only feel relief, and a churning excitement in the pit of her stomach. If they could bring the Horse round - if, if!

 "What do you mean?" He frowned, as confused as Pip.

 She dragged her hand through the tight silver curls. "It's a little known secret outside the Shang circle." She coughed delicately. "Unless you happen to be married to one of them, of course."

 "What is?" demanded the Horse.

 "Shang used to accept nobles."

 "It did!" squeaked Pip, thrilled. "When?"

 "It was centuries ago. Five hundred years, to be exact, before any of us were even a glint in a courtesan's eye. Until then, nobles were accepted into Shang as readily as commoners. Times were different then, you have to understand. The kingdom was in turmoil - Immortals ran rife in the land, and the Gift was still new and largely unknown. The countries had different names and different borders; two kings were fighting for control of what are now Tortall and Scanra. It was a bitter war that had raged for some fifteen years and they were looking for any edge to win."

 "I've never heard any of this," murmured the Horse, his eyes wide.

 "There was a lot of support from the nobles for a man called Justinian- he promised tracts of land to his supporters and virtually unquestioned feudal law. He would have made slaves of the commoners without a second thought. His cruelty was notorious, particularly to mages - in a land where magic was new, Justinian distrusted and feared it. Most of the common people were behind Faeleon, a Southerner who'd been a fisherman until Justinian ravaged his village and took his wife for a concubine. Faeleon was a cold man - Iceblood, they called him in the Shang scrolls - but he was a mercilessly fair man. He was a vastly powerful mage, and an excellent tactician."

 "Eda," Hakuin said impatiently, "this is all very interesting - but what on earth has it got to do with anything?"

 "Youngsters," muttered the woman. "You're all so impatient. Sit down and be silent, lad, or I'll bounce you off the walls until you can't tell up from down."

 She sounded as if she meant it. Hakuin sat.

 "The Shang were uncertain who to support, and it was becoming clear they would need to make a choice soon. Neither Justinian or Faeleon wanted Shang running loose who might decide to support their enemy. The circle met many times to try and resolve the issue; support was swinging towards Faeleon anyway, though many of the nobles stood for Justinian, when the decision was taken from them."

 Pip felt an uneasy flicker in her stomach, It seemed to her almost as if she had heard this story before. In her ears, she thought she heard voices arguing, voices with every accent possible - some rough and ready, some cultured. Some Northern, some Southern, all Shang.

 What must it have been like to be Shang then? Balanced on a knife edge, knowing one slip meant blood spilt, scarlet on metal.

 "The most powerful Shang at the time, and the most powerful ever, came forward." The Wildcat had a faintly dreamy look in her eyes. Pip had the feeling she at least would have liked to live in those edgy, tumultuous times. "The Phoenix."

 "Never heard of her." Hakuin gazed up from where he sat cross-legged, a challenge in the set line of his jaw. "Except..." His brows drew together. "The Kestrel used to call Corus the 'Firebird bane'."

 Eda nodded. "He was right to. Few have heard of her, but she was a legend in her time, a woman who changed the world in a thousand small ways. She was loved as much as she was hated and utterly fearless. Well, she decided for the circle."

 "How?" breathed Pip, fascinated.

 The Wildcat smiled winsomely. "She fell in love with Faeleon. And he with her; he issued an edict protecting all the Shang from attack. And immediately, Justinian declared war on them if they did not choose to support him. And we've never taken kindly to orders. The Shang voted - narrowly - with Faeleon, and the war was stepped up on both sides.

 "Justinian was furious. But now it was apparent that Faeleon had a weak point, and it was the Phoenix. Justinian found some of the Shang nobles who were unhappy with the circle's choice. They betrayed the Phoneix, leading her into a trap where Justinian unleashed a monster on her, and helping it defeat her. She died, and Faeleon's heart went from the fight. Justinian took the throne, and the time known as the Age of Shadows began. Shang banned nobles, and sent those who remained into exile. The rest, as they say, is history."

 Hakuin let out a low whistle. "So that's why. The circle has held a grudge for five hundred years?"

 "That's about the shape of it," confirmed the Wildcat gruffly. "Still think we should keep her out? Myself, I think it's time we gave nobles a chance again. Pip's no traitor; there's no Justinian to steal the throne."

 "I don't know..." said the Horse hesitantly. He looked steadily at Pip for a long moment, his face tense and stern. "Is this really what you want, Pip? Are you prepared to give up your life for Shang?"

 "Yes," she answered without even thinking. Gods, yes!

 "You know she's got the talent," put in Eda Bell helpfully, a little smile quirking up the corners of her mouth. She winked at Pip.

 "I know she's good enough." His black eyes scrutinised her closely. "We just have to make her so good that not even the Circle can refuse her."

 Pip couldn't contain the grin that broke over her face. He was agreeing - he really was. She could make something of herself, gods, she'd free herself of this life of idleness and fripperies. She could make a difference.

 "If they hear we're training her though..." he continued thoughtfully.

The Wildcat spread her hands, her words edged with wicked delight. "A mask."

 "What?" Pip said, startled.

 The Horse nodded. "That'll do. Yes - a mysterious apprentice, plucked from the streets of Corus. Horrifically shy - but too talented to ignore. They'll swallow that. And of course, it will work in our favour when it comes to the Ordeal. You have to defeat three of us to be inducted into the Shang Order, Pip. But if you're a noble, none of them will fight you. Your face will give you away for starters, but the mask will solve that. And get rid of that cultured voice."

 "Or alternatively," the Wildcat said, prowling round Pip, "you'll have to be mute."

 "That would be better," the Horse agreed.

 "You'll help me?" Pip said incredulously. It was happening - she could hardly believe it. Oh, she knew there would long months of training ahead, there would be difficulty and days she would detest the ache of muscles and the strain of waiting...but she didn't care.

 They looked at each other, then the Horse grinned. "You've potential to be better than both of us," he said decisively. "Maybe even an Immortal. Eda's right; your birth shouldn't keep you out."

 Pip shrieked with delight and hugged both of them. The Wildcat looked slightly taken aback - she wasn't one for affection - but there was a pleased smile on her face. "You realise, of course," she remarked dryly, "training's up to eight hours now."

 "I don't care!" Pip said joyfully, her eyes sparkling. "I'm going to be Shang!"

 She shaped the world in fire.

 And she was undone by desire.

 Love was her weakness, she would think later when she was the Phoenix again, soaring above the world in a trail of lightning and scented smoke. When she was no longer the woman, but the legend. Love was her weakness, and because of it, she was betrayed.

All her life, she dedicated herself to her calling, and gave her life for others, piece by piece. Every wound was a part of her soul doled out in trade for people nameless, faceless, voiceless.

 She gave them a name. A face. A voice. All of them hers - she gave them someone to pray to, more tangible than the distant, dreamy gods. More tender than the metal chop of kings and commanders.

 The Phoenix was the possession of everyone; their legend, their hope when times were hopeless and life unbearably cruel, their unspoken promise of deliverance. They blessed her name, and never saw the tears she wept sometimes, deep in the shadows of her soul.

 She gave up everything to be the Phoenix.

 Everything.

 The Phoenix was the possession of everyone - and had not a single possession of her own.

 Until him.

 Until the day when she stumbled upon a lone man, bleeding heavily and almost dead in the slippery sludge of a river bank. Under the willows, where the waters ran slow and the rushes grew thick. He was only a man, with one eye swollen shut, and bruises purpling the length of his body. A fallen king.

 She had meant to move on, to sear new paths of light in a murky era, but she stopped for one dying man. She took him to her camp, and tended him there through his feverish spring nights, and the fresh promise of the days. And when he asked her name, she did not speak of the legend, but of the girl who had been born in the mountains, of the truth that had been long banished under the thrill and glory of her myth.

 He did not love the legend, but the truth.

 Love is weakness, love is wondrous,  love is a cross we all bear. It is our holy symbol and holy self; our deepest wish and darkest desire, our phoenix blazing in the cold black night, shining out bright - and doomed to perish.

  He loved her, and destroyed them both.

~*~

"No." Ryan said it flatly, and meant it. "I ain't teachin' you to steal. D'you know how much trouble I can get into?"

 Princess Kalasin flashed him a confident, cool smile. "You'll be in more trouble when all those nobles find out where their jewellery's been going."

 "Blackmail's an ugly phrase," he hinted. "But 'I'll tell your pa' is an uglier one."

 She crossed her arms, but not before he'd seen the scuttle of spidery pain through her eyes. "Who will he believe - his own daughter, or some thief?"

 She had a point there. Most nobles might be thick as two short planks, but they were also thick as thieves. Ryan had no urge to be seeing the business end of an axe. Still, he wasn't going to give in that easily.

 "It's dangerous."

 She flicked her fingers. "That's life. I would have thought you, of all people, would have known that."

 Ryan gritted his teeth. She had him by the...throat, and she knew it from the little sparkle in the sapphire depths of her eyes.

 "It's illegal."

 "Didn't seem to bother you."

 "It's morally wrong," he tried for desperately, but as his own halo was not so much tarnished as non-existent, that one didn't hold up too well to the princess's single disgusted look. "All right, all right! I'll teach ye-"

 Her smile was softer this time. "Good."

"-but ye do what I say, when I say," he finished sharply. "Agreed?"

 That famously sulky mouth curled up a tiny bit at his tone, and for a horrible moment, Ryan thought she would refuse. "Very well," she said at last. "If you really feel it necessary. Is it that dangerous?"

 Did she live in a castle in the clouds? Disbelieving, Ryan pulled back the sleeves of his shirt to show her the marks that laced his arms. Some thin, some thick, ranging from a clean shiny pink to a poisonous purple, they latticed his arms like a cage of scars. The cage he had lived in all his life, until magic had broken the bars.

 "What...?" she breathed. There was horror and shock in her voice, in the  way she flinched back. "Who did that?"

 He shrugged. "Dunno. Lots of people. These ain't anythin' special. Just got 'em from fights, an' brawls - couple of them were a warnin' when I fleeced someone too important." He looked straight at her. The petal-pale skin was white now, except for two spots of crimson colour on her cheeks. "This is what you're goin' into. I'll do my best to look after ye, but I can't promise to - 'specially not if ye talk to street people the way ye talk to me. Ye'll last ten minutes, and nine of those minutes will be spent flat on your back."

 She gawped at him. Probably no one had talked to the Princess that way in years. He could tell she was about to say something cutting, before her gaze flicked once more to the mess of his arms, and she nodded.

 "What do I need to do?" she asked.

~*~

 It was a white piece of wood, thin as her fingernails and the same pearly white. A blank screen, with two holes for eyes and rudiments of human features. This was who she would be now, this was what her future was.

 Faceless. Voiceless. Nameless.

 Not even Shang, but learning. Learning every day, and here was one of the hardest lessons. If she wanted this, it would be secret. It would be silent; there would be no one to share this with, because she would only be a mystery clad in white wood. Her friends could not know; her family certainly could not.

 She would have to give up herself for Shang.

 "What do you think?" asked the Horse mildly, from where he was warming up with a staff. It spun blindingly fast in his hands, a whir of wood that moved about his body. "You'll find it difficult at first, obviously - it restricts your vision, but bigger gaps might mean someone recognises you."

 "We'll work on that, though," put in the Wildcat with a neat, feral grin. The woman was leaning against the wall in her harmless old lady pose, from which she could drive her fist through someone's throat.

 Pip turned the mask over in her hands. It wasn't the ornamented craft of the Court masquerades - it was nothing but a slightly shaped piece of wood that was rough to the touch with slapdash paintwork. But that was all it needed to be.

 "How will it stay on?" she asked, frowning down at it. There were no strings, nor even any holes for them - it would just fall right off.

 "We've had it magicked," confessed the Wildcat with a small flick of her head. The woman had disappeared for an hour or so, and returned with the mask.

 Pip knew Eda Bell was wary of the Gift, and knew what a concession it was for the Wildcat. Magic, she had said once, was the poison of Shang. It made the fastest kick, the most powerful punch useless. It denied everything Shang were.

 "Thank you," she said softly.

 The woman only nodded. "Before you put it on - some rules. While you wear it, you aren't Lady Phillippa ha Minch. You aren't anyone but our mute, reserved student. So when you wear that mask, you don't speak. You don't make a sound, girl. I know it's harsh, but if we're found out...well, let's say I've seen the Shang Circle in full fury, and they could make a flock of angry Stormwings look harmless as a bunch of schoolgirls plaiting each others' hair."

 "I take it they wax wroth rather well then," murmured Pip dryly.

 Hakuin flicked up a dark eyebrow. "The only thing they wax is the floor, with anyone who displeases them."

 "I understand," Pip told them, looking from face to face. "I promise - not a word."

 "Shrieks of pain are allowable," the Wildcat threw in. "Even knights squeal like stuck pigs when their elbows are being twisted behind their heads."

 "Oh, wonderful," she said under her breath.

 And again, she was looking at the mask. It seemed such a small thing to change so much.

 Slowly, Pip lifted it to her face, and felt the cool tickle of magick about the lines of her face as the mask settled. The edges of her world curved into darkness; suddenly the Horse was gone from her vision, obliterated by the blinker effect of the mask.

 Her back prickled - gods, she was so easy to attack now. Half her vision was gone, and it panicked her. All these last weeks, she had become accustomed to using her peripheral view to see the first signs of an attack. It was like having her thumbs chopped off.

 She turned her head to see the Wildcat watching her.

 "Unnerving, isn't it?" The Shang straightened, pushing her wiry body away from the wall. "You don't realise how much you rely on sight until you lose it."

 "You did something similar once, didn't you, Eda?" commented the Horse. Pip whipped her head round to see him. Even though neither of them had made a move towards her, she felt vulnerable.

 "I did," the Shang confirmed. "It was decades ago though, and I don't know how you know about it, my lad, because I certainly didn't tell you."

 The Horse's cheerful grin beamed out. "Word gets around. Especially word of the Wildcat in orange ruffles."

 "It was a disguise," she muttered. "Even wildcats put their claws away to lure in the mice."

 Hakuin guffawed. "Say what you like, Eda. I heard what you did to that poor man."

 "Enough," the Shang ordered, though Pip was much amused to see her mentor shift uneasily from foot or foot. "If you want to gossip, Shang Horse, put on a dress, flutter a fan and join the Court. We're here to train our student, not discuss my social graces."

 He took the sledgehammer hint. "And train her we will."

 The staff spun again.

 "No more tender treatment," the Yamani said, and there was no smile at on his face. She was so fixed, alarmed at the thought that they considered the last weeks tender, that she never noticed his eyes dart behind her.

 But she certainly noticed when the Wildcat kicked her, and she was fighting to stay upright.

 Amidst the flurry of blocks and blows, she thought she heard his rueful voice rising over the chaos.

 "The real work starts here."

~*~

 "...and this is the Hall of Stars," finished Andrea somewhat weakly, careful to keep well out of Kyrios Davir's reach.

 It was a lovely room, a vast circular place that lay open to the blue arch of the sky, cut from silky marbles and gleaming mica. The hallowed silence of a temple filled it, and gazing up at the heavens so serene and so distant, she felt something of just how small and trivial she truly was. She just wished it would affect Davir sin Porphyros that way. And silence him.

 "Pretty name," remarked her companion in that lilting accent. "Pretty decorations. Does it serve a purpose, or is it just another sop to your King's ever-expanding ego?"

 He was rude. He was abominably rude.

"The astrologers watch heaven from here."

 A small and assured smile curled across his mouth with a wicked little tilt at the corner of his mouth that only suggested what that stare, dragging over her like the brush of black velvet, demanded. "Only watch?"

 "They can hardly go there," she snapped, wishing she had never agreed to help him. Maybe Ryan was right; charity might give you a peaceful glow, but greed would give you peace and quiet.

 He gazed up thoughtfully at the sweeping sky. "My dear, if you've never been taken to heaven, I'll happily oblige."

The cheek of the man! ""How charming," she said primly, trying not to blush under the feline mockery in his face. He was doing it to embarrass her, she was sure. "Any more thinly veiled suggestions you'd like to make?"

 Andrea was starting to hate that little knowing arch of his eyebrows. His voice was cool, except for the purr of promise that caught on the ends of every words. "Well, if we speak of thin veils, I certainly have a suggestion for those..."

 Equal rage and mortification wrestled in her mind. It was on purpose! The wretched man could see he was making her uncomfortable. "I don't have to listen to this, you know!"

 "Had enough pillow talk, have we?" he drawled. "Finally - I thought you'd flirt all day."

 Andrea mouthed furiously. And to think she'd thought Ryan was bad - next to Davir, he was saintly as they came. "Don't be so - so disgusting!"

 Those shadow-soft eyes swept her from head to foot until she was aware of every mark on her skin, every hair out of place and had to fight an urge to shrink into a corner. He wasn't a handsome man - nothing to the clean chiselled looks of Roald, or Faleron's boy-next-door appeal - but he was arresting.

 His face was all feline curves and angles, from the narrow, bladed eyes above the swell of his cheekbones The line of his jaw was utterly stubborn, and his curving smile made midnight promises his stare said he might or might not keep. It was proud face, maybe a cruel face if it hadn't always been lit with his odd sardonic humour that flashed in the lift of an eyebrow, the flick of his fingers, the playful arch of his voice.

 And he carried himself with complete confidence.

 It was something in the way she moved, Andi thought, that made her afraid to walk too close. The lazy, long steps, his head high and ever studying the world, drinking it in as if it were a fine vintage.

 It seemed to her that saunter could just as easily become a strike.

 "Disgusting?" he murmured at last. "My apology if I offended you, Andrea. I was only playing. Perhaps Tortallan games are not as - informal as those in the Carthaki court."

 "I wouldn't know," she answered quietly. "I'm no noble."

 He looked at her, and then laughed, yet gently. She wouldn't have suspected there was anything gentle about him.

 "Am I so amusing?"

 "Not at all." One shoulder lifted in a half-shrug. "I'm just no palace peacock myself, but I learned their ways fast when my Emperor took me in. I learned - and I lived. Carthak is a dangerous place to be noble at the moment, especially if you are an imperialist. There are many factions who would have my cousin's power for their own."

 "You..." She stared at him. But he was so assured. "You're not noble?"

 He slanted a conspiratorial glance at her. "I was born noble. The Emperor flung my family to the wolves when my father defied him. I'm just another grubby urchin really. Donations welcome."

 "You?"

 "Me," he confirmed. "I'm afraid I grew up without any respect for authority. And you are so delightful to tease..."

 But he acted so...

 Well, she thought, Ryan can be just as churlish and obstinate, and Numair can be more lordly than anyone you'd care to name - and neither of them are noble. "It's just hard to believe."

 "It's true." His voice was dispassionate, but something close to fury darted in his eyes. "My mother saw her own daughter hung, and she went to her grave hearing the trapdoor drop, and the rope squeal. My father followed not long after. I was lucky."

 Just as quickly, that flicker was gone and his sure smile was gleaming.

 "I...I'm sorry."

 He gave her a distinct leer. "How sorry?" Under her withering stare, Davir only grinned unrepentantly. "Do calm down, you'll strain something."

 "You're straining my patience," she muttered. "Can't you turn it off?"

 "Oh, I'd much rather turn you on," he flicked, and held up his hands when she turned on him. "I'll stop. Probably. I have no designs on your body, my dear and deadly mage. Now take me to this astrologer, and we shall say no more about it."

 "Promise?" she said suspiciously.

 "On my honour. Or possibly something that exists - on my life."

 She sighed. Despite herself, she was starting to like him. "Just try to be polite to Prava Mavres. He didn't like Numair visiting him, never mind me and Ryan. I don't know how he'll react to you."

 The impressive door on the other side of the room was the entrance the Court soothsayer's quarters. It looked like a battering ram wouldn't knock it down, plated with iron and copper runes. Davir gave it a single unmoved look, and then pounded on it with his fist.

~*~

 "What are you doing?" The arch of the Stormwing's voice was razor sharp, the high keen of bees in summer swelter. "Little girl, that is not the correct way to punch."

 Kel fiercely resisted the urge to belt the woman  in the shins. It wasn't nice to beat up the wounded, and besides, the wretched woman would probably just get up and criticise her technique. As she had criticised everyone and everything in the camp, until even the placid Dom was looking distinctly frazzled.

 They were camping for a day or two in a sly bid by Raoul and Buri to avoid the trappings of Court life. The horses were tied up, coats gleaming from the not-so-tender ministrations of Leraint who was muttering darkly about some Court girl waiting for him. Fires crackled, sending gouts of smoke up into the blasting blue of the sky, and the smell of cooking meat arose.

 "What a pity," Kel answered evenly, bending to pick up her glaive, admiring the brief wheel of sunlight over the blade, "It is how I was taught."

 "Then you were taught wrongly."

 Kel pressed her lips together tightly, and unleashed a little of her anger into swing of her weapon. "It has served me well enough."

 From the corner of her eyes, she saw the woman look down that sharp nose that dominated her face like a beak. "Have you ever faced a Shang-trained warrior, girl?"

 Kel stopped short, and slammed the butt of the glaive onto the hard ground. "Stop calling me girl. My name is Keladry. Squire Keladry, to be exact." Her voice was polite; she was pleased with that because the Stormwing danced on her nerves like a troop of morris men. "Lady Stormwing, I will glad to listen to your advice, but so far there has been none."

 The black eyes glittered like the moon fracturing upon water. How strong that face was, yet sharply lined about her eyes and mouth for all that the woman could not have been older than Dom. "Words will not teach you what a good thrashing will."

 "If I want that pleasure, I'll join the flagellants," she replied smoothly, picking up the glaive again to begin the light, even dance that so fascinated the men of the Own. Several had shyly asked where they might find glaives, and a teacher. She hadn't the heart to tell them it was primarily a woman's weapon and the blacksmith back in the palace had several orders placed with him.

 She was surprised to see a small smile on the woman's face.

For a while, there was soft silence, the humdrum of the camp fading into the background on Kel's senses until the swish and sweep of the blade was all her world. How she loved the smooth way her muscles moved; not for the little, rhythmic steps of the balls and soirees - here was her dance, cut in steel and stealth.

 "I have not seen your weapon before," the woman said at last.

 Still standing like a stubborn mule, Kel noted, despite the healer's best flapping and fussing. The Stormwing refused to sit and heal like a good patient; instead, she had pointed out how uneven the stitching was, and how she expected her cast to be a pristine white, not this stained, beaten linen...

 "It's from the Yamani Isles."

 "I'm sure." The woman stalked forward, ignoring her limp as if it was a brief inconvenience. "I have not been there. I have no wish to meet another tyrannical emperor."

 Her voice was harsh, catching on the last word.

 Kel slowed, sweat trickling down her back from the gentle exertion. Despite her vow to keep as far away from this icy woman as possible, she was intrigued. Upon learning just who their guest was, Raoul and Buri had both muttered words under their breath that would have shocked a priest, and promptly spent most of their time either out of the camp, conferring in their tents, or training the men well away from the Shang's eye.

 "The Yamani Emperor is not a tyrant," she said mildly. "His justice is...ruthless, and he is a man to watch your words around, but he is not Ozorne."

 "Ozorne!" The Stormwing spat on the parched ground. "I would dance on his grave, if I knew where it lay. I wish him ten thousand years of screaming agony in the Black God's arms, and my only regret is that another killed him."

 Kel was shocked at the outburst. Every line in the Shang's body was taut as straining rope.

 "I'm sorry for whatever he did," she said quietly, her hazel eyes a tad baffled by this vicious creature.

 "Did?" The strange, silvery hair was flung back like dozens of whips. "He burned my family alive. He would have burned me too, if a Shang had not had more mercy than the people I lived with all my life. They watched me burning, but he alone acted. Your 'sorrow' is nothing to me, little girl - your sorrow will not bring back my parents or my sister, your sorrow is nothing!"

 All the same, Kel wanted to say, her heart filled with stinging pity, I am sorry. I am sorry that the Emperor made you so bitter. Had he known his cruelty would live for all these years in you, he would probably have laughed in delight. How sad...how sad that you cannot see how monstrous you have let your grief become.

Yes, the Emperor had a fine revenge when the hatred was born in you. Even now, he touches us.

 Maybe she would have said it too, had not the frantic hoofbeats crashed in her ears. Not the sedate trot of scouts returning safe, this was the urgent, uncontrolled gallop of a messenger. Dust lifted, whirled, and choked her vision until it cleared.

 Flyn was on his feet; men had stopped their tasks to stare at the white-faced girl who swayed astride her mount. Blood drizzled down from her lips, a slick red trail.

 "In the village," she gasped out, her hands trembled violently on the reins. Her horse danced on its feet, colt-skittish. She swayed again, and Kel saw her hands going slack on the rope.

 Quickly, the squire moved to grab the reins, a fraction too late as the horse kicked, and the Rider toppled to the earth, a limp pallid huddle. Only now did Kel see the strange weapon that protruded from her back, in the centre of a puckered ring of leather that seemed to be smoking.

 Flyn was beside the woman, motioning for the healer to be fetched. He nodded at Kel who at last had the reins secure, and was using all her strength to hold down the nervous horse.

 "Anella," he said gently, looking into the Rider's glassy eyes. "Can you hear me?"

 "Don't be such an idiot, sir," croaked the woman, more blood spilling from her mouth with each word. Buri came flying out from her tent, papers scattered in her wake. "I'm shot, not deaf. Sir, you have to go to them - Raoul, and half the first...they were ambushed in the village. A mile east. Monsters. I don't know what. Things that spat metal and fire..."

 Raoul, thought Kel instantly. The Own and the Riders, trapped! She had to go - but she couldn't let go of the horse in case it began kicking again. What if it trampled Anella?

 "Go, Flyn," the rough voice of Commander Buri ordered as she knelt by Anella, stroking the woman's cropped red hair with a steady hand. Her face and words did not match at all; the jollity was forced. "Anella, what did I tell you about fights?"

 "Stay out of them, sir." The Rider smiled faintly. "Commander Buri, ma'am, sorry I was stupid enough to...to..."

 "Don't worry about it," ordered Buri gruffly, distress plain on her stout face. "You've told us now. You need to rest - that lad of yours is waiting back in Corus, Mithros knows he needs a good woman to keep him on the straight and narrow..." She stepped aside as the healer hurried up, bag full of potions and bandages.

 "Here." Kel blinked as the reins were taken by one of the men too injured to fight. He nodded at her grimly. "G'wan, Lady Kel. And give 'em one with that glaive o' yours for me."

 By Anella, the healer lifted his hands from her forehead and shook his head. Just once. But it was enough. Buri's fist pounded the ground, furious at losing one of her own.

 Peachblossom was whickering, tossing his head as Leraint saddled him. No banter now, only the fast motions they had practiced so often it was automatic - half the Own remained to guard the camp; the other half were ready, weapons bristling.

 Riding out to battle again.

 The Stormwing watched them with those fathomless black-pooled eyes, the curl of her lip the same still. Affected by nothing. Cold, Kel thought. Don't ever let me get cold like that.

 Why did this have to happen? It was all supposed to be so simple. Just follow this Hunt. This cursed Hunt.

 Had she thought about those last words a little more carefully, she might have understood some of what was to come. She would have understood - but it would not have eased her pain.

~*~

Kalasin stepped out. The airing cupboard had provided the right sort of clothes for both of them, though Ryan had hastily demurred at her twinkling offer to turn her back while he changed.

 The luxurious black hair had been roughly pulled back into a ponytail, swinging high on her head. From the bumps and strands flying free, Ryan guessed she didn't usually do her own hair. The gauzes were stuffed into one of the many baskets of clothes, replaced by a patched linen tunic that reached to mid thigh and was a touch too big, hiding her figure. The trousers were dark brown, and baggy at the ankles. Gone were the delicate heels, replaced by scruffy boots. A faded cloak hung over it all.

 And strange - so strange - she looked more natural in it than ever she had in scraps of silk and gossamer.

 Ryan stared.

 "What?" She patted her hair nervously, the smug confidence replaced by something much more appealing. "What?"

 "Sorry," he drawled with a merry grin. "Wasn't used to seein' ye with your clothes on."

 Did women practice that scornful glare? It could have charred bacon. "I see you've already ripped your clothes."

 He shrugged. "The messier we looks, Sin, the less likely people are to rob us."

 "Sin?"

 "Ye want me to call ye, Kalasin, fine. But I might as we call ye Princess then - it ain't exactly a common name. And besides....Sin fits ye so well."

 He thought that would make her scowl, but instead, the Crown Princess chuckled. He'd made her scrub off all the make-up with a cloth, too, and he'd been surprised how much of the colour of her face was artificial. The petal perfection was gone, replaced by a more golden and uneven complexion.

 "We're going now?" she asked as they walked along the corridors. He gestured to her to pull up the cloak's hood. Too many people knew her here.

 "Yes..." He eyed her. Could he tell her? No. He didn't want to tell the Crown Princess a monster was buried somewhere under her home. But maybe he could only half-lie. "Princess, have ye ever heard of something called the Folly?"

 "Of course - why?"

 He held her eyes, like he always did when he told his most convincing lies. "Master Numair's set Andi an' me writin' a paper on it. Well," he added hastily at her raised eyebrow, "I'm readin' and Andi's writin'. I was just wonderin' if ye knew about it. Happened near here somewhere, I heard."

 "Did it?" The Princess shrugged, turning her head away from a serving woman who tramped by with sloshing buckets. "I don't know about that, but Numair told us about it once as a fairy tale. He used to do that a lot - little tales about the Gifted with uplifting morals." She pulled a gargoyle face. "All I ever learned was that kissing frogs was more likely to give you a cold than a handsome husband, and to stay well away from spinning wheels."

 "What did he say?" he prompted.

 "Oh - it was all a long time ago. There was a power struggle between two kings, one Gifted, one not - it went on for years, until no one could really remember what it all started over. Until the unGifted king trapped the mage's lover and killed her. The mage went mad, and..." She fell silent as they passed by a butler, casually flirting with one of the maids. "Well!"

 "Oh, ol' Murdock'll chase anythin' in a skirt," Ryan said casually. "Had a horrible mistaken encounter with Maren highlanders, I hear - their light infantry wears kilts."

 Both paused at the thought of the elderly butler courting the fiery highland troops.

 Both shuddered.

 "Anyway," he continued. "What were ye sayin'?"

 "And he burned the world," said Kalasin very quietly. Instinctively, she drew the cloak closer about her. "Numair said it burned for seven days and seven nights - he made the earth one huge funeral pyre, blazing out so high that the night became day. And all that time, he sat before it and stared into it, as though he was waiting for something. He burned the world, and burned with it."

 "Nice inspirin' tale there then," muttered Ryan. "What's the moral - don't forget your marshmallows?"

 "Probably great magic brings great responsibility." Kalasin shrugged, and cocked her head. "It was always hard to tell with Numair - he got very confused about fairy tales. He's the only person I ever knew who told the story of the princess who ate the poisoned pea which meant she turned into a swan every night until someone plucked off her feathers to make forty mattresses."

 The Folly. A mage who burned the world? And the thing - the monster under the castle. But where under it?

 Ryan sighed heavily. He was clueless.

 Maybe someone on the street would know more. People there had long memories - particularly for grudges. And it seemed to him there'd be a lot of grudges for a man who set the world alight, all for a lost lady love.

 "C'mon, lass," he said, trotting down a flight of back stairs. "Let's take ye to meet the streets. Try to behave.

 Try very, very hard, he added silently. Nobles have sharp tongues - but street rats have sharper knives.

~*~

 Roald jammed his hands into the pockets of his breeches and stared at the doors of the Chamber. His old enemy, who would open one day far too soon and swallow him. He was afraid he would never return, his soul consumed in a blaze of failure.

 And yet...

 And yet, his encounter with the mage had intrigued him. He'd never come here twice in one day, but the thought that the Chamber was not simply mindless malignancy caught him. Of all the wild tales he'd heard, nothing had ever suggested it was - or had been - in some way, mortal.

 Why had it revealed that only now?

 Why now? He had fallen before its forbidding doors too many times before, and never seen anything but the horrible visions of his own doom. Nothing had been different today, except...

 Except Pip.

 But why would Phillippa ha Minch, in all her untamed ferocity and delightful insouciance, Pip of the sea-green eyes that washed over him not often enough - why would Pip affect it?

 Only one way to know.

 He reached out...

 Nothing.

 Every time before, there had been some reaction. Some blinding image of pain and destruction. The steel-blue eyes narrowed, and Roald was unaware how impassive and cold his face looked then.

 "Are you afraid?" he whispered. "Are you afraid of me now-"

 A burning jolt convulsed right through his body, once, twice. Roald squeezed shut his eyes at the sensation his very self was being shaken to pieces.

 And he opened his eyes onto somewhere quite different.

 Utterly unaware that Neal of Queenscove, curious to discover if Roald was sneaking off to see some lady, had followed him. Unaware that the squire had watched his friend seemingly meld into the Chamber's doors as if they were liquid.

Unaware of Neal watching, debating. Reaching out and pulling back his hand in case he too was drawn in.

~*~

The door opened slowly, with an arthritic groan. When the little, squinting man opened the door to see Davir before him, smiling his wicked feline grin, he squawked, and slammed it-

 It hit Davir's conveniently placed foot with a jarring thud.

 Andrea flinched too. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea.

 "Good morning!" said the Carthaki, leaning one dark hand on the door. "Will it continue to be so, one wonders?"

 "Not with you clogging up my doorway," snapped the old man curtly. "Go and play in the rain, boy."

 She saw the rolling shift of muscles in Davir's shoulders under that clinging chocolate-brown fabric, and the door inched open further. "The sun's shining outside, old man."

 There was the rattle of thunder outside, like the gods playing dice, and rain began to patter through the ceiling.

 "Is it now?" asked the astrologer with a knowing flick of one eyebrow. "You've got your proof, boy - now go and wave your big pointy bit of metal around and stop bothering me. I'm too busy to be harangued by barbarian invaders."

 A low, ferocious sound rippled out over the air, like the rip of velvet. It was a minute before Andi realised what it was.

 Goddess, Davir was growling.

 "Barbarian?" The agonised scream of the hinges as the door crept inwards a little further. "Invader?"

 The old man was trembling with the effort of trying to keep Davir out. Red mottled across his wrinkled face like patches of rot on a strawberry. His watery eyes flicked desperately to Andrea and a sting of pity ran through her.

 Cautiously, she laid a hand on Davir's arm. It was knotted under her touch, smooth as sun-warmed mahogany.

 He swivelled his head to stare at her, the hawkish eyes nailing her.

 "He's only a old man," she whispered in a quivering voice. Goddess bright, but his eyes were vicious.

 "Old or not," replied the Carthaki with a bite to every word, "he is rude."

 "Maybe he's your long-lost cousin then," Andi muttered before she could stop herself. Ryan's bad habits really were rubbing off on her.

 "Young man," interrupted Prava Mavres, his nose twitching, "remove yourself from my doorway. I do not have time to be bothered by-by..."

 His voice trailed off as he caught Davir's glare.

 "Young men," he finished weakly. "And I'll thank you not to disturb me - I'm most busy at the moment."

 Davir leaned on the door, and it scraped open a little further. His tiger's eyes were full of that secret, sinful amusement that Andi found disturbing.

 And fascinating, she admitted.

 "Very...delicate...experiment..." huffed the mystic, as he tried valiantly to shut the door. "My good sir...disturbing the temporal waves..."

 "Come now," purred Davir silkily, who didn't appear to find prising open the oak door any effort at all, "surely if we were such a disturbance, you would have foreseen all this bother, and not have opened the door in the first place?"

 "Momentary...slip..."

 The door flew open, and Prava Matres stumbled backwards, a small dusty figure in his bedraggled robe.

 "I want a prophecy," declared the man, stalking in with the silky stride of a panther. He bristled with hostility. Andi crept in quietly after, decidedly uneasy at disturbing King Jonathan's most favoured soothsayer.

 "I want some peace. It seems we cannot have what we want," snapped the old man. Andi was impressed by his defiance in the face of such silent, icy rage. She would never dare stand up to Davir if he were towering over her. "Go away, boy."

 "Give me my prophecy and I will."

 Mavres gawped. "You think you can just walk in and - and demand foretellings from me? For nothing?"

 The Carthaki picked up a crystal ball idly, and tossed it in one hand. "I rather think I just did."

 "Please sir," she put in timidly, glad to see Mavres gaze soften fractionally when he saw her, "just tell him. He's horribly stubborn."

 "And just horrible," snapped the old man. "I will not be bullied by this, this deviant!"

 "We could skip the bullying and just go straight to physical violence?" suggested Davir.

 This was not helping manners. Andi dug in her dress for her purse, though she doubted there was enough to pay Mavres' huge fees. It might help calm him. She held out the pitifully light amount to him, mutely pleading.

 The old man looked at the coins shining in her palm and shook his head. "I will not take your money, chosen," he said gruffly. "No amount of money would make me aid such an impertinent boy. Barging into my apartments like this-"

 "Yes," murmured Davir nonchalantly. "Your apartments. They are very - plush."

 His stare swept over the acres of heavy oak furniture laden with paraphernalia, with almanacs and crystal ball, chimes and mirrors, bags of herbs and even a simmering cauldron, full of something that looked green and foul.

 "But not much different from the lowliest soothsayer in the dirtiest corner of the docks," the Carthaki continued smoothly. He wandered over to the cauldron.
 
 "Do not drink of it!" squeaked Mavres. Sweat was beading on his forehead. "That is the sacred potion-"

 Davir dipped a finger and tasted it. "Nettle stew," he proclaimed. "With some excellent sea-bass, if I'm not mistaken."

 Mavres mouthed, wringing his hands.

 Frowning, Andi watched them both. What was Davir up to? Surely he had to know Mavres was genuine - why, even that comment about the weather...and of course, he'd made so many predictions for the Royals that had been correct, down to the hour of Prince Liam's birth.

  "Tarot cards," continued the Carthaki. "Even a loom. Come, Mavres, we both know knots and string are for the Gifted. You have the Sight...don't you?"

 One coal-black eyebrow was arched, and Davir's face was near frightening.

 "Of course I do!" Mavres snapped.

 "Why all these aids, then? The Sight comes as it will, and if it chooses to keep away, gazing into all the mirrors on this earth will not summon it. Or are you simply that fond of your own reflection?"

 Mavres was paler now, Andi saw, his lips pressed tight together.

 "Are you Sighted, Andrea?" Davir's question caught her off-guard.
 
 "I...no," she answered, baffled. "My god talks to me sometimes."

 He looked a little startled at that. She supposed not many people had to listen to Mithros when they slept, or, if he was feeling particularly tetchy, any time he chose. He called it 'instructing her'. Ryan called it 'whinging at her'.

 "Then you would not know much about it," murmured the Carthaki, recovering. "My mother was Sighted in her youth, but it faded as she reached maturity, as it often does - particularly in men. By the time she was forty, her visions were gone almost completely. She foresaw only her own death, and that only in the darkest nightmares. I find it odd, Mavres, that after fifty years your Sight is strong as ever. I find it odd also, that I have heard the servants speak of strange voices in your rooms, when none but yourself is present. Odd indeed."

 "Just what are you implying?" snapped the old man, backing away.

 The Carthaki tipped his head onto one side, the curl of his mouth scornful. "Perhaps you no longer see the future. But there are others who can, and you have the money to pay them handsomely. A simple speaking spell, as one might purchase from any mage, and you appear to make miraculous predictions still. It has been done before."

 There was a long awkward pause. Then Mavres' shoulders slumped.

 "You have me," he admitted hollowly. "My Sight faded over a decade ago. I still have visions, but they are unreliable. I began to use slum soothsayers. I suppose...I suppose you will tell the King."

 Davir gave him a long, level look and Andrea felt a soft spill of pity for this old man. Had he revealed his loss, he would have lost his exalted position. Returned, perhaps, to the streets he himself came from; not at once, but gradually moved lower and lower through the palace ranks until he stumbled out into the gutters.

 "That is not for me to decide," announced the Carthaki. "But I am sure you will not mind telling me who did make that most uncanny prediction about the weather?"

 Mavres stuttered out a name.
 
 "Good enough," murmured Davir. "Let us go."

 As the door clanged behind them, Andrea let her breath in a long rush. "How did you know?"

 He shrugged. Almost unconsciously, his hand touched his pocket. "I've seen that scam a hundred times. It was played out often in the slums of Carthak. Poor people making themselves less poor anyway they could. Rich people keeping themselves rich. It's the story of the world, and it spins out every day in a thousand small ways." After a moment, he added, "Do you wish to accompany me into Corus? I have heard your city can be very dangerous."

 Andi hid a smile. The first thing Ryan had done was take her into the filth and slums to introduce her to his friends. Strange friends' rogues and prostitutes and gamblers and flower girls - even a sot of a priest - but people who tightly defended their own. And Andi was somehow counted as one of their own now.

 "I might even be of some help," she volunteered.

 His look said otherwise. She would show him!

 "Perhaps," he said in a tone that agreed not at all. "Perhaps."

 In fact, as they made their way into the city, Andi managed to stop three cut-purses, fend off a horde of beggar children ready to thieve from a strange charitable to show his wealth, drag Davir away from the notorious Blackjack Alley, and wave off a knifeman she knew through Ryan.

Davir, of course, noticed nothing.

His final comment as they entered the truly vicious part of Corus was, "How safe your Northern cities are."

 Famous last words.

~*~

 "You - again."

 His face was arrogant as it was gaunt, and the mage reclined upon one of the long sofas so popular in Tusaine. The luxurious gold work along the arms and legs did not match his tattered black robe, surely as it did not match the cold glare. Hell in his eyes, hell locked inside him.

 The room was plain stone, grey slate all around, and simple as a jail cell. In it, the man was a stark thing of tortured white and torn black. Only his orange stare leant a streak of angry colour.

 "Me," agreed Roald quietly.

 "Well? Why have you returned?" The man flicked a languid hand at him, his bones jutting from the stretched skin. "Flinging accusations of fear at me. Me! Boy, I could make you scream until you clawed your own eyes from your head - I could have you skinning off your own flesh with panic, and you think to tell me I am afraid?"

 Roald shrugged. His father would have demanded answers. He knew that demands were often refused where gentler words were not. "I don't know, to be honest."

 The fiery eyes blinked once, as if Roald had startled him. "Few realise how little they know until they pass before me and are judged."

 "Why judge us?" asked Roald curiously. "How can you be impartial?"

 The man tilted back his head and a strange, husky laugh rippled out over the air. "I am not impartial," he declared. "Not at all. If I were impartial, there would be many more knights. What was that boy's name? Joren, that was it. Had I been impartial, I would have seen his determination, his skill, his intelligence - and let slide his wanton cruelty and his prejudice. I judge on character, not on talent."

 "You play with us too." Roald remembered too many times spent before these doors, haunted by visions of blood and failure. "Those nightmares...they're nothing but malice."

 The man shrugged. "I show you yourself. Is it my fault if what you see is not to your liking?"

 What you see...yes. "And why let me see you now?" Roald tried to keep his voice level. He didn't want this man to be angry with him; something in that taut, grim face spoke of rage burning deep inside.

 "I had my reasons."

 "It was Pip, wasn't it?" Roald stepped forward, closer to the man. It seemed to him the walls creaked and groaned inwards, as if longing to crush him from existence. "It was her."

 The man was silent, except for one brief, paroxysmal movement.

 "Why?" he pressed, gentle as he would have been with a crying child. "She's just a girl."

 The man's tense face relaxed unexpectedly, a hazy nostalgia tipping up the corners of his mouth. "That one will never be 'just' anything. She reminds me of...times gone."

 A woman gone, translated Roald. He knew that dreamy, mellow look; he'd seen it pasted on the faces of his friends over woman after woman. Maybe worn it on his a few times. Hopefully when no one was there to see, and notice.

 "She very determined." Roald smiled faintly at the thought. Pip was the kind of person who would treat the world like an overgrown puppy, giving it all her masses of affection, and never hesitating to smack it with a rolled scroll when it disobeyed. "She wants to be Shang."

 "A dangerous wish." Sadness in the mage's voice. "Shang eats the lives of those who follow it. Their honour is strict, and honour does not expect knives in the back."

 "You...lost someone?" guessed Roald. "Who were you?"

 Fires stoked in those eyes as if demons had slung a gallon of wine onto a pyre. "A man who loved a woman. A man who fought a war. A man who lost them both."

 There was a silken sound, like fabric ripping, and Neal appeared into the Chamber.

 "A man who is going to have no peace, apparently," muttered the mage with a roll of his eyes.

 Neal stared. "Roald?" he squawked. "What's going on? Who's this..."

 Then he looked more closely at the mage, and did a double take.

 "Iceblood?" he said. "Roald, don't tell you're afraid of a bed time story from three hundred years ago."

 "He's not a story," explained Roald helpfully.

 "Yes he is. Watch out, or Iceblood'll cut off your head? Put down that pie, or I'll send Iceblood to rip off your toe nails?"

 Roald could only look perplexed. What was Neal on about?

 "Maybe that was just my mother then," muttered the squire. "You really don't know who he is?"

 Shake. If I knew, do you think I'd be in here asking? Roald wanted to say. He didn't though; he was going to have to cope with enough questions from Neal as it was.

 "Then that means..." The mortified green eyes were huge, gawping at the mage. "He's real."

~*~

  It pushed at the magickal wards about its tomb. Dark magick meant the Gift, and strained. Its form still moved from shape to shape, unable to decide what would be best for these new times and this new world.

 Not strong enough yet.

 Almost - a hair away from breaking its prison, and bursting back onto the world.

 It wanted to be in the world again. Life and colour and beauty...

 All there for destroying.

 It waited...waited to be strong. Moments passed, each slow as the slide of a glacier. Second followed second, time piling up, until...

 It thrust again at the magical bars of its cage. Pushed, until all its power flooded the prison-

 And the bars broke.

 It was free.

A Lady's Shield - Chapter Ten

It was high summer when it truly began.

A time of long days and short tempers; the world was embroiled in the ruthless tug of a civil war.

Rumours were thick and rife; the commoners whispered in despair that Iceblood was dead, knocked from his horse in the midst of battle by an axeman whose blade had gleamed crimson in the sinking sun. He had been a strange champion – a man who didn’t cloak his words in charm or lies, a man harder than the steel he fought with, a man who wielded magic like it was merely another tool - but he had been theirs. He had not weighed worth in gold or titles or lineage.

Hope seemed lost as the insidious hiss of hearsay reported that even the Shang were preparing to side with Justinian, that Iceblood’s armies were routed and smashed, that the rape and the destruction had begun already.

In the buzzing confusion of truth and lie, a small band of Iceblood’s supporters decided on a last stand; whether glorious defiance or simple suicide, news spread and soon this small band swelled and multiplied into a rag-tag militia. Soldiers with pitchforks, old rusted swords they had dug from dilapidated castles of times gone, the final motley defiance against Justinian’s tyranny.

In future times, the battlefield would be all but forgotten, names unimportant, the weather meaningless, though it drizzled with grey veils of rain, clouding the bristling lines of men who faced each other.

Justinian stood before his army, a beacon in the burnished bronze armour set with dozens of tiny diamonds so he glittered like an idol. Everyone knew his banner; a red sword on a black field.

The numbers were equal, but Justinian’s army were well-mounted, with clean, honed weapons and generals who were the veterans of a hundred battles. Compared to the half-organised, desperately under-equipped commoners, they were princes, every one.

Both sides knew this would be a massacre. In those final few moments, doubt shrieked out in the hearts of men who could only clutch tight their weapons and pray the end would at least be quick.

Justinian raised his hand, ready to signal his archers. Bows raised, row after row after row, aimed at heaven, and falling like the rains of hell.

He lowered his hand, and they fired-

To the last, arrows exploded in blazes of black lightning, filling the sky with the rattle of thunder.

And in fire, in glory, into legend, they came.

Iceblood and the Phoenix, walking through the army that gave before them like worshippers cleaving to their gods. They had ridden for miles under the broiling summer sun on hearing the news. But no one saw the fatigue in both faces, the toll of thousand lives dropped upon their shoulders after that brief – too brief – idyll together.

They only saw the two figures walking tall, Iceblood with a heavy sword in one hand and his familiar, battered helm of iron. Their champion, returned to them in their hour of need. And the Phoenix, more famous even than Iceblood or Justinian, who had at last chosen her side in the war.

She had chosen for love, though no one there even guessed that. They only saw two legends united, surely an omen. They saw only that the fabled Shang had chosen her side, and chosen theirs; they saw Iceblood determined and alive, and they felt hope.

It was a bitter, bloody battle on Aedon’s Fell. Even legends can only do so much and men fell, in violence and fear on both sides. So many that the grass was slick to walk on, dark and slippery with blood. Hours dragged on, and each side roused itself again, magic flared through the air to pick at Justinian’s army like a hyena at bones.

It was, in the end, a massacre. Of both sides.

But the Phoenix had made her choice, and so made the choice for all of Shang. Evermore, they were set against Justinian, they were allied to magic and poverty, and unsure of both. Untrusting of both.

And rightly so.

~*~

It was a swift flight, but an orderly one.

The noise reached them long before they saw a glimpse of the battle: metal upon metal, the faint roar of Raoul bellowing commands – oddly reassuring – and strange, coughing sounds that Kel had never heard before.

They wheeled into the village to see a scene of such strangeness and carnage that Kel could make no sense of it for a moment.

Thick black smoke moved in drifts between the men, who were tightly bunched into small knots that bristled with steel. On those who were down – mercifully few – she saw terrible burns that made her stomach clench.

At the midst of one of those knots, Raoul spotted them and waved them into similar groups. “Lose the horses,” he called. “Whatever you do, keep those clouds away. There are things inside them.”

Things. The grim way in which he said it left her in no doubt that he meant inhuman.

“They’re highly mobile. Fire weapons of some kind. Possible mages. Vulnerable to steel. Use your mages to shield you, they-”

Faster than she would have believed possible, one of the cones of smoke shot towards them. She brought her glaive up – not alone, as two other men weighed in with her, and she felt a jarring impact.

That odd, coughing sound came – and she was helpless at the sight of missiles flying at her-

They rebounded from the shield of one of their mages. She was left staring at pieces of cherry-red metal, twisted as if they had been partially melted.

With practised efficiency, the Own were forming up. She counted a dozen of the strange clouds, darting with deadly swiftness. Pieces of metal and fire hissed against magical shields and embedded themselves in wooden ones.

With the addition of numbers, the Own held a clear advantage. The knots of men began to herd the smoke-spirals, though she peered at them in vain to see what lay at their heart.

Their mages obviously had the same idea. A wind whipped past her and tore at the concealing smoke – shreds drifted away, but were replaced. Another breeze joined it – and another, until it was tugged and battered from three directions. The smoke thinned, receded-

And she gasped aloud at the sight there.

It had the shape of a man, but it was made from what looked like fire. Two shining bands clamped its wrists, and the fiery hands were raised as if in protection of its eyes. It seemed to have armour of a kind – a crude black breast plate with a design-

It shrieked beneath the daylight – and more of that noxious smoke poured from its mouth, soaked with sparks and those little, vicious pieces of metal until it was covered once more.

“What was that?” she whispered.

The creatures had obviously glimpsed that they no longer held the strength of numbers or surprise. They retreated to form an unmoving block opposite the own. For a time, the two sides remained still, silent, unsure.

“Where are you from?” bellowed Raoul into the stunned silence. “This is Tortall, a free land. By what right do you come here?”

A new, chittering sound sprang up. At first she thought it pain, but then one of those columns parted; the smoke wafted up above the creature to form a screen from the sunlight, revealing its strange, flaming form. Now she could see the insignia on its armour: a red sword. Red on black.

“By right of conquest,” it said in a thick, rumbling voice that had the crash of hammer upon anvil. “This land belongs to Justinian – he has returned, as he promised. Bow to the Shadow King, or see your world burn.”

“Justinian?” She heard the name echo incredulously throughout the company. Some knew it; others were clearly bemused.

“Justinian is centuries dead,” Raoul said with scorn.

It chuckled. “Centuries gone. But not dead. Waiting.”

“Waiting?” Raoul sounded thunderstruck. “Where? In the grave?”

It rippled, as if trying to burst the manacles on its wrist. “Beyond the grave. Where the shadows meet and merge – where the world is lit by a stranger star than yours.”

“And you?” he asked. Kel was amazed his voice was so calm.

“We are his scouts. We have given you your warning. The Shadow King returns! Offer your fealty, or we will harrow you.”

She already felt quite harrowed. From the uneasy silence, she was not alone.

“We have a king,” Raoul said quite mildly. “And we will not surrender our land to you.”

That wild, screeching sound arose again: laughter in a terrible symphony. The creature drew down its cloud again, cloaking itself.

“You will,” it said. “Eventually. All falls before him: the shadows will devour you too.”

Raoul began to speak – but the creatures were gone, moving so swiftly that she could hardly countenance that they had ever been there. Only the scent of them remained: dusty, acrid, burning.

“Justinian,” Raoul echoed, gazing after them. “It can’t be true.”

“And if it is?” Buri said in a too husky voice.

The knight groaned. “Either way, the king must know. We must settle the wounded and ride for Corus.”

Kel could not help wondering if he thought, as she did, of the unicorn running free – and the curse that lingered behind her.

~*~

Andrea rapped timidly on the crumbling door. Like everything else in the dilapidated street, it was about to fall apart. Rubbish heaped the gutters, tinged with rivulets of waste and dirty water that trickled through the city.

Neither of them belonged in this filthy alley; even her hair, clean and gold, shimmered too brightly here, a beacon to any thieves down enough on their luck to be scavenging here. And as for him, dressed in Court clothing, he was a hawk in a coop of hens.

The buildings were squat and narrow, crammed together and blackened by soot. Flies buzzed heavily, and the smell was enough to make Andi gag if she didn’t breathe through her mouth. In one corner, a man lay slumped, his foot twitching from time to time. Davir had coolly strolled over to examine him, and pronounced him a leper, nearly dead, without a quiver in that confident voice.

“Is it all like this?” enquired the Carthaki. “I recall your ambassador describing Corus as a rare diamond shining out in the gloom of ignorance and brutality. It seems to me too much of both hides in your slums.”

“I don’t know,” she answered, banging on the door again. “I’ve only been here a month. I came from a village in the North.”

“That explains that charming accent, then.”

She started as the door opened, and a woman with snaking red hair peered around it. “What be you-oh, it’s you, lass. Is Ryan with ye?”

“Not today. He’s...” Andrea sought for a kind explanation.

“In a strop again?” Hana Alhaz, Ryan’s guardian and partner in crime for ten years of his life, grinned wryly. “He gets them from time to time, girl, don’t worry about it. Slap him around a bit and he soon snaps out of it. How can I...oh my.”

Her tone had altered to a silky purr at the sight of Davir, who was eyeing her with as much interest. Andi supposed he was a rare sight; a Carthaki noble slumming it for a day. Equally unusual was his flamboyant clothing, cut in strange styles and with the glitter of silver thread at sleeves and hem.

“Bringin’ me business, lass?” The redhead opened the door wide, a welcoming smile on her face. Hana was a prostitute, though Andi could still hardly believe any woman could sell herself so brazenly. “I’d not have thought it of ye, but I thank you for it. Things have been slow lately.”

“Business, yes,” drawled Davir, “but not the kind you’re thinking of.”

Hana drew herself up. A small woman at best, her glare had no effect on Davir. “No? Then why are you wasting my time?”

“Forgive me,” he said icily, “but I hardly see men battering down your door.”

Hana cast a disgusted glance around her surroundings. “Times are hard.”

“Men, it seems, are not. We are prepared to pay – but for information.”

Hana pursed her lips. “Very well. What do you want to know?”

“Nina Burridge. Where is she?”

Andi was shocked at the change in Hana’s face. The shrewdness drained from her green eyes, leaving them wide and uncertain and frightened. “By the Goddess, tell me ye don’t have business with that – creature! Lass, did Ryan put you up to this? Tell me it’s one of his silly jokes.”

Confused, Andi could only shake her head.

“Goddess,” muttered the woman again. “What do you want with her? Is there no one else who can help you?”

“I need a foreteller,” Davir said, more soothingly that Andi would have given him credit for. His black eyes were snapping, intrigued. “The best there is.”

“Oh aye,” whispered Hana, curling her hand around the doorframe as if to draw comfort from it. “She’s the best. But her price is high. Higher than you or I or the King himself can afford.”

They had only met a few times, but Andi had always thought Hana could take care of herself and anyone else who came along. “Are you all right...?”

The woman dredged up a weak smile. “Right enough, lass. Please – don’t go to her. Anyone but her. There’s other soothsayers, other places-”

“She is the best, though?” Davir cut in, slicing over her words like a knife.

Hana stopped, still. Her eyes screamed that she wanted to lie. Reluctantly, as if the words were drawn from her like wire: “She is. There’s none who can match her.”

“What has she done to you?” The questions were sharp, glass-shard slashes. “Is she dangerous? Will she harm us?”

“Dangerous?" Hana's lips drew tight, her body seemed to shrink in on itself until she was clutching the door as if it was all that anchored her to the world. "She'll give ye exactly what you ask for...there ain't anything more dangerous than that. That was all she gave me."

“I ask for facts,” was Davir’s scornful reply before Andi could speak. “And all you give me is riddles?" His mouth curled, cruel in that moment. “Tell us where we may find her, and I will give you your coin.”

“Keep your damned coin,” Hana hurled at him. “How am I supposed to warn ye about something I don’t understand? Go down to the Docks, you blind fool, go there and ask for la Bruja, and when you get what you asked for – remember that I tried to warn you.”

The Carthaki arched a cynical eyebrow. "I always get what I ask for."

Hana turned her back to them, shoulders shivering, but not before Andrea caught her bitter whisper; "And this time, ye'll get what you deserve."

She put a tentative hand on Hana's arm. "I’ll try to stop him.”

“Don’t bother,” mumbled Hana. “I know that type. He’s stubborn as Ryan. He wanted to see la Bruja too, but at least I could stop him. Lass, Ryan loves ye – don’t go with this Carthaki fool. Don’t risk it, please.”

The thought of Davir wandering through the docks alone was too horrifying. He’d be dead before he got three steps, his corpse plundered before his skin had even cooled. A sharp tongue was no defence against a sharp knife.

“I’ll try to stop him,” she repeated, and had to leave then because Davir was calling from the end of the street. She glanced back only once, to see Hana crying softly as she leant on the wall, her head in her arms.

~*~

“Real...?”

The mage who had once been known far and wide as Iceblood steepled his fingers, his eyes a darkness filled with creeping shapes. Lines were marked deep on his face, so gaunt it seemed death would reach out and wrap its arms around him at any minute.

“Real,” he echoed again, a bitter note in his voice. “Oh yes, I am far too real. Would that I were not, that none of it had happened, that she-”

He stopped, and Roald felt that the mage had not meant so many words to slip out.

“The Phoenix,” breathed Neal, as if he understood. “She was real too?”

The mage’s face was bleak. “She was more real than anyone I have ever known. More alive than anyone else. Everything else seemed as nothing when she was there. She was easy to love.”

“And impossible to lose,” muttered Neal, as if he quoted something. His jade eyes were keen, full of scholarly fascination. “Is everything the tales say true?”

The mage – Iceblood – shrugged. “How am I to know, boy? They wrote the legends and the lies after she and I were both gone.”

Roald remembered something about a Phoenix – scattered fragments, Numair speaking about...what had he called it? The Folly, that was it. A man who... “You burned the world,” he said aloud. “For seven days and seven nights, it burned. And then you – disappeared.”

“Or went away,” amended Neal, staring at the mage in his tattered clothes. “The legend said you died.”

The angry laugh shattered the tomb-still air. “I only wished I had. Seven days I waited for her to rise out of the ashes, as she should have.” The anguish in his face was too much for Roald to watch. He found himself staring at his feet, hardly able to believe this was happening. “Every night, I waited to see her walk from them, waited for her smile and her hands and her voice. But she didn’t...gods, she didn’t.”

“Rise?” queried Neal, brows drawn together.

“The Phoenix was blessed by the gods,” the mage said hoarsely. “I thought...I thought they would bring her back. She died unjustly, she was betrayed. How could they let someone so sacred die?” He drew in a huge, shuddering breath. “And when the fire died, and I was left with ashes, I realised there was no true justice. Only what men could make.”

“So you made this,” murmured Roald, understanding at last.

The mage got up from where he lounged in one fast, furious movement. “This,” he spat. “And what good has it done? My love is still dead, and the world is still cruel and the wars rage on. What good have I done? If I could have, I would have left you all to rot.”

“You could have, though,” said Neal, puzzled. “The spells here have been replicated a hundred times over. They use them in court cases – even market traders sell cheap scrolls for finding truth.”

“No. I could not. My purpose here runs deeper than rifling through your paltry minds. It...”

His voice trailed off, and those empty eyes widened to fill with emotion. Thick and dark as oil, it washed in, and his fists clenched at his sides.

“No...” he breathed. His head snapped to and fro between them. "Which of you two did it?" he demanded.

Roald and Neal exchanged uneasy looks. Iceblood barely seemed to be on the right side of sanity, and neither of them had the urge to remain around a mage who was a calmly confessed murderer, and seemed on the verge of becoming a loudly obsessed one.

“Did what?" ventured Roald.

“I...I...” The mage’s chest heaved, fluttering under the ragtag robes. An eerie calm fell over his face, erasing the anger with uncanny swiftness. “So it is done,” he said in a strange flat voice. “All my work...all of it, for naught.”

“All of...what?” Neal, ever-curious, piped up.

The mage flashed a grim smile, teeth bone-white. “Does my legend not tell you that?”

“It...” Neal shrugged, spreading his hands. “Well, it doesn’t say much really. You disappeared, the Phoenix died, and Justinian began his rule. The Shadow King.”

“Nothing of what killed her?”

“Magic...old magic...” Roald said softly. Iceblood’s attention swung to him; the gaunt face of a man who had been so preciously, nearly king. “She was betrayed.”

“She was killed by a monster.” The mage’s voice was husky, raw with the ache of ages gone. “A creature from the Divine Realms, though there’s nothing divine about it. Every seventy years, the Goddess walks on the earth as a unicorn, the price of a promise she made with a mortal. Once, there were no hounds, hunting her down. But then they were created, dreamt up by some fool mortal who wanted a show, who wanted to see a beautiful thing ripped to pieces.” His laughter rattled like old bones. “Did you ever wonder who that mortal was?”

Roald wasn’t sure where this was going. “No.”

Neal, however, was quicker, though his voice rang with disbelief. “Justinian?”

“I must give him credit. It was a perfect trap. She walked right into it.” Despite the coolness of his words, his fists were clenched and whit-knuckled. “The unicorn lived – and my girl died. My beautiful, brave girl.”

“He thought that up just to kill her?” Roald whispered.

The mage’s eyes were immeasurably pitying. “I doubt you can understand just how important she was to the war. She was a legend. Knowing that she fought Justinian, people flocked to our cause. If she had lived, I don’t doubt that we would have won. Without her...”

He closed his eyes. He seemed reed-frail, broken.

“What was the point without her?” The mage swallowed hard. “He dreamt up four hounds, but it only took one to kill her. After, I fought it.” He closed his eyes “I fought it so long, with everything I knew. I couldn’t kill it...I couldn’t win. But neither could it. And eventually, I realised there was only one way to trap it; to keep it here myself, forever. It lived beneath the Chamber, bound by the very fabric of the room. I enchanted every stone and every knot of wood that made this place, I put every last piece of myself into it. In the end...I put myself here, to be sure someone would remember. And in case...”

He shook himself.

“No matter. It was all for nothing. If you hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t have known for days...I so rarely check the spells any more.”

“Known what?” said Roald sharply.

The hooded, awful eyes were intense. “Someone took a nail from the door. They’ve weakened the spell – they left a crack. And the hound is gone.”

Neal went ghastly white. “Are you sure?”

The mage gave him such an icy look that Neal quailed visibly. "I gave up my life and my death to imprison that monstrosity. There is nothing I could be more certain of."

"It's really loose then," murmured Roald softly. He was frantically trying to remember everything he had been taught about hounds; he had notes somewhere, but even Tkaa the basilisk had only sketchy knowledge on the creatures. "They're shapeshifters, aren't they?"

"So one of you knows something. Yes, boy. The hound is their best known form – it's the only one they use in the Wild Hunt, but they could steal your face or mine and no one would be any the wiser. They are drawn to power, particularly magic, and to innocence, and of course, a unicorn is the personification of those attributes. They're predators of the highest and ugliest form. I...cannot say what will happen now that one walks free again."

"Isn't there any way to recognise them?" Neal was white as drifting clouds, but his eyes held an old gleam that Roald recognised well. Always thirsty for knowledge, their Neal, despite his dry and world-weary air. "After all, unicorns are scarce these days. We can hardly ask one to volunteer as bait."

"I don't think you understood me," the mage said slowly. "Unicorns are not its only prey. Innocence in any form draws the creature." Unspoken was the thought that the Phoenix in her strange combination of naiveté and power had fallen to its clutches. "It will be mostly searching for mages, young, powerful mages. It is only fortunate that the Gift takes years to develop properly – we can discount the very young."

'We', Roald noted, not 'you'.

"But if you have any developing mages, particularly girls, they will attract the hound."

A chill ricocheted along Roald's spine. Kally. Wilful, wicked Kally, whose healing talent was growing with every year, the natural inheritance of their parents.

"Your sister," Neal said grimly, their eyes meeting in a moment of determined accord. "And Andrea something or other. That little northern girl who runs around with the thief. There are one or two in the University as well, but the magical wards there are formidable, not to mention the number of mages it'll have to get through."

"We have to go." He had to find his sister– however stubborn she might be, he was one of the few people she would listen to and little as she might like losing her freedom, she'd put up with it for something like this. "I need to warn Kally."

"We thank you for your help," Neal told the mage with a hurried courtesy that proved the Lioness was knocking manners into him bit by bit. "But we must speak with the Palace mages, and their Majesties, and-"

"A moment." The mage was gazing around the small room with the strangest look on his face. "It...it will not be as easy to leave as I thought."

"Leave?" he and Neal chorused in disbelief.

His yellow eyes showed a brief and bleak amusement. "No one is to be tested until midwinter. I can't let this monster run free. The Phoenix died because I was too late – I can't risk anyone else. And who else knows how to hold a hound?"

"Won't you be a bit..." Neil wiggled his fingers. "Um, decayed?"

Iceblood's smile could only be described as patronising. "Magic is not what it was, it seems. The health of my body is bound up with the Chamber. It has been well cared for." He gestured to the doors. "Go. I will join you shortly."

Roald looked at Neal, who gave a little helpless shrug. There didn't seem much else to do except obey.

~*~

Ryan Talver was perched on a bar stool and the level of cider in his mug was sinking rapidly. The Princess was flirting with two men who had so much spiky metal on them that he could barely believe they were upright, and she'd just picked one of their pockets.

Worse, she'd just pointed it out to the thug, and given him back his wallet with a kiss on one leathery cheek.

The man laughed, he actually laughed, showing a mouth almost empty of teeth.

"Easy there, lad," advised the barman with a dry grin. "That's your third already, and if Provost's men come in 'ere, I'll be fined for selling to you."

I'm teaching a Princess to thieve! he wanted to shout. I need all the alcohol I can get!

"Never thought I'd see the day old Ripper was charmed by a pretty pair of eyes," the barman continued thoughtfully.

Oh god. That was the legendary Ripper Norris she was pickpocketing? Then the other man had to be Cutthroat Sal, one of the city's most notorious brawlers.

This just wasn't good. Ryan put his head in his hands for a moment, trying not to panic.

"Any chance of another?" he asked pitifully, and the desperation in his voice must have touched the barman's wrinkled walnut of a heart because he pushed another mug across the bar.

The Ripper was coming over. Oh no. Had Kalasin offended him somehow? It was going to be knives in the street, wasn't it? He was sure to get smashed into chutney. This was what came of getting mixed up with nobles.

Ryan steeled himself as Ripper Norris leaned in, baring the few teeth that still clung grimly to his battered gums. There were so many things he'd never done. He hadn't seen the veiled dancers of Carthak. He hadn't scaled Scanra's mountains, or met one of the wild Bazhir. He-

"She's a pretty thing, your girlie," confided the thug with a distinctly infatuated look. "She says you plucked her out of some countryside village."

He was going to live. Probably.

"That I did," Ryan said, frantically trying to remember the rest of her cover story. How anyone swallowed the sweet-and-oh-so-innocent farm girl routine, he didn't know.

"Any more like her out there?" The Ripper gave him a nudge in the ribs. "Reckon she’d do well in one o' the brothels. A looker like that, you'd make a fortune. Bit like that Princess Kalasin, ain't she?"

"A bit," agreed Ryan. He wasn't slurring, was he? "Not as stuck-up, though."

"Even called Sin," carried on the Ripper, dreaminess drifting over his ravaged face. "Not hard to guess which sin she is, eh?"

"Stupidity," Ryan said glumly. "She's definitely stupidity."

The Ripper leaned in. "Well, she's a woman, ain't she? But between you and me, that weren't the sin I had in mind." He gave a hoarse chuckle.

"We all know what you got in mind," chipped in Cutthroat Sal, appearing on Ryan's other side with a suddenness that was disturbing to say the least. "Let us know when you get tired of her, lad. There's a place for her in Tortall."

"And there'll be all of Tortall in her place, no doubt," put in the bartender, from where he was drying glasses with a rag that had seen better days.

"Aye, aye," murmured the Ripper – the Ripper! "Did you see the way she lifted my money? Light fingers." He winked at Ryan. "I bet you appreciate that."

"Oh, he does," agreed Kalasin, wandering up behind him. She produced a bawdy laugh that Ryan couldn't help but be shocked by. She was even doing a passable imitation of a commoner's accent, and he had to wonder just how long she'd been plotting this. "Tell me, Maurice, where did you get that lovely tattoo of the centaur?"

Maurice? Ripper Norris was called Maurice? How had she found that out?

The man gave her a foolish grin. "Souvenir of the yearly fights, Sin. Winner gets a tattoo from the finest artisan in the city. I won three years back – took out Cutthroat's eye, over there."

She looked a little startled at that, but recovered magnificently. "I had no idea there was a competition."

"Well," said the barman, "it's not...official, as such. Provost's men wouldn't be too happy if they knew."

"Keeps us busy in winter, though," put in Cutthroat Sal, leering at Kalasin. "If not warm. I nearly had it last year – just caught a chair in the head at the wrong moment."

"Oh my," murmured the princess, and he just knew her next request would be to see a demonstration...

"Well," he said brightly, jumping off the stool and grabbing her by the arm, "Time we were goin'. I'd like to show my little country lass the sights."

"Oh, but Ryan, I'm sure Maurice and James would be happy to-"

“They’re busy men, darlin’,” he hinted. “An’ we’ve got so much left to see. I haven’t taken ye to the markets yet, or shown you Trickster’s Lay.”

“Oh, I’m sure I’ve heard of that. Is that where the…the ladies of the night are?” she asked sweetly.

He tried to silently communicate with her, but if she got the message that he was not, not, not taking the Princess Royal to a brothel, she ignored it.

“That’s the King’s Lay you’re thinkin’ of,” said Cutthroat ‘James, apparently’ Sal. “Why, are you lookin’ to learn a few tricks o’ the trade?”

“I could help you there,” drawled Ripper Norris with a knowing grin. “I know all the best whores.”

Kalasin’s smiled faltered, but she caught it just in time. “Oh, you prankster!” She slid her hand over Ryan’s elbow, as if they were a fine lord and lady out for a walk. Half right, then. “Well, Ryan Talver, the rest of the city had better be as exciting as this fine tavern.”

“If it ain’t, you be sure to come back,” cooed Cutthroat Sal. “We’ll show you all the excitement you could possibly need.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she agreed with a chiming laugh. Ryan subtly edged towards the exit, forcing her to step with him or let go of his arm. “Don’t get into too much trouble,” she said, and gave them a little wave.

Ryan threw a glance back over his shoulder as he hustled her out of the tavern. Cutthroat Sal was waving, a distinctly mawkish expression on his face. The Ripper was making an obscene gesture.

“I’m alive,” he breathed, and hauled her into the cusp of an alley. “No thanks to you. You can’t just…just approach men like that! Do you know who Ripper Norris is?”

She looked blank. “No.”

“Maurice,” he said with heavy sarcasm.

“Maurice is called Ripper Norris?”

“Not only is he called that,” he informed her, drink slowing his words, “he earned the name when he tore off a man’s shoulder with his bare hands.”

“Don’t be silly. No one can do that.”

“Tell that to Armless Clegg,” he said darkly. “It’s pretty tough being a highwayman when you can’t hold the knife and the loot at the same time.”

She paled slightly when she realised he was serious, then pulled herself together. “I’m just a girl. They wouldn’t hurt me.”

Ryan cast her a sideways glance. “You don’t know anythin’ about the world, do you?” he said bleakly.

She levelled a hard, electric glare at him. “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

Her irreverence enraged him. It made a mockery of the years he and Hana had spent scraping a living from the gutter – it made a mockery of the people who passed them by, of the ones she would not see. “Fine, Princess,” he hissed, “you want an education? I’ll give you one. You’re goin’ to rule some country someday, ye might as well see what your glorious kingdom’ll be built on, aye?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, but he had grabbed her hand and was dragging her through the streets, weaving around the ever-shuttling, ever-changing loom of the crowds, fury boiling in his veins.

“You’ll see,” he snapped. If she heard, she didn’t reply – she was too busy trying to keep up as he took her down into the dark, uncaring heart of the city.

~*~

Pip groaned as she stumbled into her rooms. And it was stumbling; bruises dark as blackberry stains were already rising on her skin, hidden under her clothes.

She fell flat onto her bed, exhausted. The Horse and the Wildcat had shown her how little she truly knew; that everything she had learned until then had been mere practice for what lay ahead. Her muscles felt taut and aching, and for the first time she felt the physical burden of the path she had taken.

Part of her regretted it; another part seethed that she had not been good enough and that the pain and bruises were mere confirmation of this. Try harder, be better, be a weapon and a wonder in one flesh.

It was still what she wanted.

Her brother would be aghast if he saw her now. He had grown used to her eccentricities, as he dryly called them, but this stepped beyond the bounds of propriety. She heard his voice at the back of her mind, logical, calm, level. That was Kieran ha Minch all over.

“What do you hope to achieve, Pippa?” he would say. “You’re a noblewoman and you can’t possibly hope to succeed. Even if you do, what then? It’s a commoner’s sport, and you’re the daughter of a highborn house – one of the foremost families in Tortall. Would you really bring such disgrace on us?”

Yes, she thought, because it wouldn’t be disgrace. Not to me.

“And what about marriage?” she heard him reply. Worst, she thought, was the tenderness that would be in his voice. Kiery was upright and dull as a stick, but she didn’t doubt his genuine affection for her. “Pippa, don’t you want a family, children, love?”

She knew well the look in his eyes when he gazed at Uline; oh, her brother had been smitten by love and though it could not override his pragmatism, it brought out another side to him that she had been unaware of. Kieran the romantic, capable of better compliments than, “You look almost respectable today.”

Do I want those things? she asked herself.

She had expected to have them somewhere along the line, simply because she was the daughter of a noble and a marriageable prospect. But she had always seen it far in the future, some vague and inexorable fate, and she had never cared for it one way or the other. It was her function, nothing more.

“Nothing more?” echoed her brother’s ghost (her conscience, she supposed) with outrage. “It’s your duty.”

It was her duty as a noble to do what was best for her family and her country. But Pip was no longer sure that meant a marriage.

No. That wasn’t true: she knew that she could not walk up the aisle and walk down the Shang’s wild path. The nobles would not accept it – her own heart rebelled at the idea. It would be like learning to fly and then stepping into a gilded cage, for what man would want a wife who could make no promises to stay with him, who would dive willingly into battle, who was wed to combat as much as him?

And if I loved someone, she thought, if I truly did, could I do that to them?

She hoped not. But she could not honestly say that she would not act with such callousness if forced to it. Such was the price of a dream – sacrifice, in whatever form it came.

As she lay on her bed, body burning, she knew that she would pay it.

~*~

It was starving.

It had lain trapped for centuries, famished, twisting and turning in its hunger pangs. The hunt had gone on without it, and each time it felt its prey blazing from the heaven to run free and wild on earth; each time, it had fought its bonds to no avail, and had only fallen back slavering, remembering the last taste of true innocence it had felt trickling down its jaws.

It took shape as it walked, drawing its inspiration from memory and the faces that blitzed by until it was a young man in the glory years of his life, fearless and had they but know it, fearful.

He walked again under the distant sun, and searched for a suitable meal to break its fast. He wore the human face like a cloak as he strolled among the people, seeking, stealthy, starving.

The Palace had its share of youth and of innocence and of magic, but everywhere he felt the three together, he felt too other, stronger mages who would throw it back. No, he would not take the risk – he would not be incarcerated again!

His feet took him from the palace, down into the vast conurbation of human construction and human masses. Ah…there…there, something tasty, something alone and unprotected…smouldering not so far away. No, not one but two of those bright sparks, lighting up the sullen streets like the stars.

He wavered only a moment, and then he chose the one whose life would bring him back to his full powers.

His lips parted; his eyes were bedazzled by desire and as he went into the city, people glanced at the young man who wandered by, and mistaking his appetite for love, let him pass by, inhuman as human, the monster on his way to slaughter. In truth, it was love of a sort, but dark and strong and violent.

They could not tell the difference. Nor could he.