Antoinette sat in the center of her shadowy cell. The gray light from her small window wasn’t much, but it gave her enough light to fiddle with her ring. He called this a riddle ring, she remembered, thinking of the craftsman in Edge who had given it to her. More than meets the eye, he said. She could see the dozens of interlocking gold and silver bands, but she couldn’t find the point where they unwound.
She looked again at the keyhole on the shackles that held her ankle chains to the cell floor. More determined than ever, she went back to tugging at the ring. If I could just get this . . . she gritted her teeth and twisted the blue onyx. Suddenly there was an audible click. The onyx came loose, and a silver band of metal sprang free.
“Yes!” she exclaimed, but before she could unravel the rest of the ring, she heard footsteps in the hall. The chamber door swung inward and Kearn appeared. Antoinette hid the ring behind her.
He entered the chamber without a word and placed a long bundle upon the stool near the corner. Then he turned and looked at Antoinette. There was something strange about his demeanor. He did not bear his usual confident sneer. He stood with his head slightly downcast and his shoulders hunched. His hair was unkempt and his cloak was draped unevenly on his shoulders. Kearn looked worn out, withered, defeated.
“Kearn?” Antoinette whispered gently.
“I have just come from speaking with my master,” Kearn said almost inaudibly. “The attack in Ludgeon is under way. We begin the march to Alleble in two hours’ time. In a few days our forces will be arrayed before the walls of your city . . .”
“But?” Keeping the ring behind her, Antoinette stood to see Kearn’s eyes. Kearn looked past her to the window.
“You will be left here under heavy guard until after King Eliam has fallen and Alleble is secure. Then you will be summoned.” Kearn’s voice trailed off again, and he turned away.
“He plans to kill me, doesn’t he?” Antoinette asked him.
Kearn did not turn around. “Turn you or kill you. Yes, that is his plan.”
“I will never turn to him,” Antoinette said. “I follow King Eliam and none other.”
Kearn spun around and, with anger burning in his eyes, flew to the bars of Antoinette’s cell. “Then you will die, you willful, stubborn wretch! Do you not see how futile your allegiance is? The power is ours now!”
“I already told you.” Antoinette stretched her chains to their limit and stood face-to-face with Kearn at the bars. “Power is not all there is!”
Kearn grumbled and flung his hands in the air. “Wake up, Antoinette! Power is the way of things. It is mirrored in nature—predators and prey. The strong devour the weak. The strong take from the weak! And I for one would rather be doing the taking!”
“That is because . . . ,” Antoinette whispered, talking more to herself than to Kearn as her ideas crystallized. “Of course. You covet power because . . . because you’re afraid.”
“Me? Afraid?” Kearn laughed scornfully. “Pray tell then, what does Kearn, the left hand of Paragor, fear?”
“You said it yourself, just now,” Antoinette said. “You’re afraid if you don’t have the power, if you don’t do the taking, that someone else will take everything that matters away from you!”
“Ridiculous!”
Antoinette threw aside all caution and said, “If it’s so ridiculous, then why do you care if I die?”
“What do you mean? I do not care—” Kearn’s mouth snapped shut. He crouched low and clutched his head with both hands as if to keep his mind from exploding. At last, he looked up and quietly said, “When I first saw you, I wanted nothing more than to drive my sword through your heart and rid The Realm of yet another weak enemy. In Baen-Edge I tried to kill you, but you defied me and lived on. You challenged my swordcraft, and for that I grew to respect your skill, but there was something else. There is something inside of you . . . something that I long for, but for the life of me, I do not know what it is. I only know that now I cannot bear the thought of losing you.”
Kearn buried his head in his hands and seemed to shake. “I feel . . . I feel like I plummeted in my sleep to the bottom of a black lake,” came his voice, thin and half choked. “I awakened but could not tell the direction to swim for the surface. But suddenly, there was a glimmer of light, and I knew where to go. But the light wavers now and threatens to go out. I am left alone, in the depths . . .”
“Look at me, Kearn,” Antoinette said. He lifted his head a little. “What if I told you that I know a power beyond the sword? Beyond conquering armies? Beyond crowns and thrones?” She had his full attention now.
“With this power,” she continued, “you can step forward when others shrink back. You can face obstacles, knowing that if you fall you will be caught. You can let go of the fears that race around in your mind . . . and simply rest in the knowledge that you will be taken care of. But most of all, Kearn, with this power . . . you will never be alone.”
Kearn stood and looked at her. “All of my life I have been taught to take what I want. To force my will upon others. To mold things in the image I would have them be. Lord Rucifel, my father, showed me!”
Rucifel? Antoinette’s mind raced.
“And I have succeeded!” he exclaimed. “And not because of my father’s position. He gave me nothing but bruises if I dared prevail upon his name. By the sweat of my brow and the blood of others, I have clawed to a magnificent peak! I have riches—more than I could ever spend in ten lifetimes. I have power—great physical strength and the ability to command legions! And next to the Prince and my father, there is no one in Paragory who is so well known as I. But now that I have these things, I find it maddeningly not enough! The peak I have reached is actually a precipice, and I stand at the edge.”
“But you don’t have to go over that edge,” Antoinette said, her voice pleading. “There is another way. Will you see it?”
Kearn’s familiar sneer appeared again. He put both his hands high on the bars of Antoinette’s cell and leaned forward. “This other way you speak of . . . by that you mean renounce my allegiance to Paragor? You mean bend the knee to King Eliam on the very eve of his defeat? Antoinette, you must know that I cannot. I would lose everything.”
“Maybe that’s just what you need to do.”
“What?”
“Maybe,” Antoinette repeated, “maybe you need to abandon all those things that you thought would satisfy you—the gold, the respect, the power. Cast them aside. They have not fulfilled you the way you thought they would, right?”
Kearn’s hands fell to his sides. His eyes glinted red, but weakly.
Antoinette continued. “When you throw yourself on the mercy of King Eliam, you will finally let go of the fear you have only managed by your own power. You will finally see that power is not in controlling . . . but in letting go.”
Kearn’s face was a mess of emotions. He walked over to the stool and picked up the bundle he had laid there when he entered the cell. When he again stood before Antoinette, he looked utterly defeated and hopeless.
“There will be no mercy for me,” Kearn said. “If I brought myself before King Eliam’s throne he would know my crimes against Alleble, and he would have me executed. And he should! For I have ever been his mortal enemy, and I have slain with my own hands hundreds of his followers. And I have led many, many more into the places of torment within this fortress. No, there will be no mercy for me.”
“Now you’re being the stubborn one,” Antoinette accused. “Yes, King Eliam knows of your deeds, but as to the consequence, you leave that to him.”
“I marvel at your faith in your King,” Kearn said, and his hopeless demeanor hardened into grim resolve. “But I cannot do what you ask.”
“Kearn—”
He raised his hand to silence her. “No, our conversation has reached its due end. There is but one more thing—the very deed I came here to do.” He began to unwrap the bundle. Antoinette stared. Her lips parted, but no words came forth. Kearn held in his hand the Daughter of Light, the sword Antoinette had traded for Trenna’s freedom.
“The sword,” Antoinette mumbled. “How?”
“That Ebenezer is a miserly old fool.” Kearn smiled. “But in the end, my knights were able to persuade him to accept my generous offer of gold. They returned from Baen-Edge with it. I was going to keep it mounted on my chamber wall, a memento to remind me of a worthy opponent. But when the master revealed his plans for you . . . well, then I had a different thought.”
Antoinette wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that.
“I am going to give you your sword,” he said. “It will not cut your chains, nor will it open the locks that bind you. But no warrior should be killed by an executioner’s axe, dying like some common criminal. No, you keep your sword. Hide it under this cloth in the corner of your cell. And when at last the walls of Alleble have fallen and Paragor sends his guards for you . . . unleash your blade. Fight like you never have before, and take out as many of them as you can. Die well in battle. A true warrior deserves as much.”
Kearn bowed to Antoinette and went to hand the sword to her. But suddenly a blast from a war horn rang out, and Antoinette turned to the window of her cell. In that moment, she heard the clatter of metal hitting stone and she jumped. Antoinette turned and whispered, “Kearn?” But he did not answer. He was gone from the cell, vanished as if he had never been there at all. Only her sword remained. Antoinette thought she knew where he had gone, but she wondered what that could mean.
Antoinette lunged toward the sword that lay beyond the bars. She stretched and pulled at the chains, but she could not reach the sword. Remembering the ring, she sat down in the center of the cell and began to twist it. The one loose metal band slithered out several inches. Antoinette slid it into the keyhole of the lock that held her ankle chains. She fished it around for a long time, until she felt something inside give a little. She threaded another inch of the metal band in, and then twisted it. Click! The lock opened!
Antoinette yanked the chains loose from the floor and dragged them to the bar. This time she had easily enough reach. She grabbed the Daughter of Light and drew it into her cell. It felt like meeting an old friend, and she hefted the blade in each hand. She placed it nearby and went to work on the locks at her wrists and ankles. With some effort, they each came free. The only lock left was the one on the cell door. Antoinette didn’t think the riddle ring’s metal band was strong enough for that.
But before she could make an attempt, a wailing howl rose up from outside. Antoinette covered her ears and fell to her knees. The sound rose in pitch and at last trailed off. She had heard that mournful cry before on the Forest Road.
Antoinette stepped to the window and looked out. She squinted and rubbed at her eyes, for she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. Far down on the Grimwalk, near the base of the Prince’s Crown, something dark began to creep. It was like shadowy tentacles at first, but then it began to gush forth from within the mountains. It spread and became like a dark fog bank, slowly advancing across the Grimwalk.
Then Antoinette heard other sounds. She looked to the left. What she saw made her blood run cold. Below, filling every path and marching along every bridge and rampart, was an endless army of soldiers. Thousands upon thousands they marched forward, eventually disappearing into the mists upon the Grimwalk. The flow of soldiers did not slow. This army was ten times those she’d seen before, and there was nothing but greater numbers behind them as far as she could see.
Antoinette knew where they were going. These soldiers were bound for Alleble. Paragor’s attack was about to begin.
