Jenna lay awake in her tower room, listening to a thunderstorm roll in from the northwest. The wind howled, lashing against the walls. Rain thundered on the tile roof, and she could hear it splattering from the mouths of the gargoyles to either side of her window. Thunder crashed, reverberating through the stones of the castle, and lightning glared through the barred window, creating crazy, shifting designs on the walls.
A change in the weather, Jenna thought, for better or worse.
She propped up, looking around her chamber, reorienting herself. She’d not slept soundly since she’d been moved from her dungeon room. It was ironic, since this bed was more comfortable, and was not infested with vermin, and she didn’t have to worry about rats coming out of the walls.
Well, maybe that last part wasn’t entirely true. This palace was swarming with human rats, and they might be coming for her before long.
Every time she closed her eyes, dreams, images, and memories swarmed through her head.
That voice, pleading for help. Flamecaster. We are dying.
She was flying over a coastline, where the turquoise sea met white sands and buff-colored cliffs. The wind tore at her hair, she slitted her eyes against the wind and . . .
No. It wasn’t the sea, it was Adam Wolf’s eyes, dark with desire, and the taste of his kisses; it was his embraces, all long limbs and gentle, knowledgeable hands. It was the scent of his skin and the thud of his heart.
It was the way he haunted those borderlands between life and death, dark and light, pain and pleasure, and how he selflessly healed other peoples’ wounds while he kept his own hidden away.
Gerard Montaigne, the demon who held her fate in his hands. Maybe. And Evan Strangward, who struck an odd chord of memory in her. Why did he seem so familiar?
Tonight, Adam would put their plan into motion. It hadn’t happened yet—otherwise the palace would be buzzing like a kicked-over beehive. It satisfied her spirit of anarchy—the notion that she could strike one last blow against the king of Arden, whether she landed it herself or not.
Sliding from her bed, she padded in her bare feet to the window. The wind had driven the rain through the narrow windows of her cell, making puddles on the floor. She shivered. The nightshirt the healer had given her was gone, replaced by a silk nightgown that reached nearly to her ankles. At least her legs were covered now.
She leaned on the broad stone windowsill, staring out through the grille of metal, thinking that, what with the sound of the storm, she was unlikely to hear an explosion down at the wharf. Please, she thought, though she wasn’t one for praying. Whatever happens, let Adam be all right.
She heard a faint noise in the corridor and whirled, staring at the door, heart thumping. It sounded like a grunt of surprise and pain, followed by a thud as a body hit the floor. As she watched, the door eased partly open, spilling the light from the hallway into her room.
Who would have reason to sneak into her room at this time of night? Surely not the king or his minions. Was it a rescue? A kidnapping? Some kind of ambush?
She looked around for weapons, grabbed up an oil lamp and waited, scarcely daring to breathe, until the door swung open the rest of the way.
First in the door was a huge man with a long braid on one side of his head. She recognized him—he’d be difficult to forget. He’d been with the Carthian delegation in the king’s presence chamber. The Carthian scanned the room, sword in hand, before stepping aside to admit the others.
There followed four more, three men and a woman, who took their places just inside the door to her room, as if standing guard. And, finally, Evan Strangward, wearing a knee-length coat over his clothes.
Definitely not a rescue, then.
Strangward turned and spoke hurriedly to someone out in the corridor. Looking through the doorway past him, Jenna saw that it was Destin Karn. Karn nodded at whatever the mage had said and pulled the door shut.
Had the king changed his mind about the interview Strangward had requested? If so, why was this happening in the middle of the night? And where were the blackbirds?
Strangward stood, feet braced apart, hands on hips, and studied her. She felt self-conscious, standing there in her nightclothes, the wind whipping her gown around her legs, wishing she had a robe to put on. She tried not to look at her rumpled bed.
Jenna raised the lamp. “Stay back,” she said, “or I’ll use this.” It probably wasn’t a very effective threat against a mage with a sword.
“Jenna,” he said. “I apologize for the late-night visit, but we are running out of time. Your king has forced my hand.”
Not my king, Jenna thought. “What do you mean?”