A tremor rumbles under my feet.
I sit idly in one of the chairs before my hearth, staring into the dancing moonfire flames. It is dark outside my window. I don’t know how long I’ve been like this, still as stone. My head rests heavily in one hand, my eyes glazed and dull.
But then the room starts to vibrate. The stones in the walls growl, and my stomach drops. I sit bolt upright, grip the arms of my seat. For a moment, my mind flashes back to the last time this happened. Only then, I was sheltered in Vor’s embrace, shielded from the worst of the falling stones.
There is no such shelter now.
By the time I’ve fully grasped what’s happening, however, the tremor is almost over. Then it stops completely without having disturbed so much as a stick of furniture in the room. Though my hands are still white-knuckled to the chair arms and my gaze shoots this way and that, I detect no sign of damage. I almost wonder if I imagined the disturbance.
Then Hael pounds at the door, her voice a bark: “Princess? Princess, are you all right?”
So, I didn’t imagine it. Hael has been standing silent watch for hours. I’ve felt small pulses of uneasy emotion from her through the wall between us, but nothing more. Now, her emotions are spiking.
“Yes, Hael,” I answer if nothing else to get her to stop that pounding. “I’m fine.”
My bodyguard is silent for a moment. Then, “Please, Princess. Unlock the door. It doesn’t seem right, you barricaded in there. What if you needed me, and I could not reach you swiftly enough?”
Breathing out a long sigh, I close my eyes. What sort of danger does she expect to assault me in an upper-level room with only one entrance? Still, I cannot put her off forever. Slowly, stiffly, I stand. In the hours since Vor’s departure, I’ve put on the simplest gown I could find in the wardrobe. It’s dark and a bit heavy, the fabric richly beaded, with long trailing sleeves and a deep V across my chest. It doesn’t suit me at all, but at least it’s some covering.
Holding the skirt out of my way, I cross to the door and lift the bolt. Without a word, I turn away and move to the window where I stand with my back to the door when it opens. I feel Hael’s gaze fixed upon me from behind. Anxiety radiates off of her like heatwaves. “You are well, Princess?” she asks.
“Yes, Hael,” I respond without looking around. “I am well.”
She doesn’t go. She remains there, trying to come up with questions. I wonder if she suspects what happened between her king and me during this morning’s interlude? It doesn’t matter; I’ve no interest in discussing such private matters with her. Let her stew in her own curiosity.
Schooling my face into cool, disinterested lines, I finally spin on heel and face my bodyguard straight on. “Is there something you require, Captain?”
She presses her lips into a thin line. Then, with a quick shake of her head, “Nothing, Princess. As long as you are all right. The stirring did not disturb you?”
“Do I appear disturbed?”
“No. Certainly not.” She begins to back away. One hand reaches for the door.
“Wait.”
Hael stops. Her brow puckers as she catches my eye.
“Where has the king gone?” I ask. When she hesitates, I take a step closer, the black gown dragging behind me. “I saw the morleth riders muster from my balcony. They were heavily armed.”
Hael’s gaze skirts away from mine. A stronger pulse of anxiety throbs from her heart, enough to make me wince. “There’s been . . . trouble,” she admits.
“What sort of trouble?”
“I . . . I’m not certain I should . . .” She takes a step back, as though she wants to retreat. Then she drops her head and lets out a heavy huff of breath. “It’s my brother. He may be in danger.”
My brow tightens. “Yok?”
Hael nods.
“What kind of danger?”
Hael opens her mouth to answer. Before she can utter a word, however, a scream rips across my awareness. It’s faint. Distant. So distant, it doesn’t quite feel real. But the pain of it, the sharpness is enough to make me start and turn. Frozen, I strain my ears. When the second scream comes, distant as a waking dream, I realize I didn’t hear it. It was my gods-gift which reacted.
“Princess?” Hael steps back into the room. “What’s the matter?”
I hold up a hand for silence. Turning to the window once more, I push through the curtains and onto the balcony, out under the dimming lorst light. Mythanar still glows bright with the many light sources used by its denizens, the streets alive and busy and full of life as ever. The stirring—as Vor calls the tremors—wasn’t strong enough to cause much disturbance. So what is this I feel? I rest my hands on the rail, lean out into open space. Did I imagine it? Are my senses still so distraught from earlier events, they play tricks on me?
Ah! There it is again. Faint, echoing. But real.
Screaming.
Terror.
My eyes widen.
A terrible black swell seems to rise from the lower city, close to the wall. My gods-gift recoils, but I cannot turn away. It’s a wave of darkness, of emotion, so massive, so unlike anything I’ve ever before seen. Higher and higher it sweeps, rippling across the city, swallowing up street after street.
“Gods!” I whisper. I can do nothing but stand there. Watching. As the black, roiling horror grows greater, until it towers over all Mythanar. It comes to a crest.
I scream, put up both hands in feeble defense just before it crashes down on top of me.
Somewhere far away, I hear Hael crying out, “Princess!” But I’m already crumpled in a heap, shrieking as my senses are overwhelmed in darkness.
