Please, Qirsar, she prayed silently. Give me the strength to keep silent. Give me the courage to face their blades and torches.

The captain led the men to the dungeon door, searching his keys for the proper one. Finding it, he unlocked the door and pulled it open. Stale, fetid air swirled up the dark stairs, hitting Enid like a gangrenous fist and making her gag. She tried to back away, but the men held her.

“It’s not too late to tell us what you know, Enid,” came a voice from behind them. “You don’t have to go down there.”

The guards turned, and the minister with them.

Marston stood in the tower doorway, the golden glimmer of the torches lighting his ruddy face and grey eyes.

“My father sent me to reason with you one last time. He’s prepared to offer you a choice: life in the tower, or a quick, easy death. All you need do is talk to us. Answer our questions about the conspiracy, and you need never set foot in that dungeon.”

It occurred to her then to lie to them. She had been lying for so long. A day more or less wouldn’t mean anything. She could give them plausible answers to their questions and be done with it.

But as quickly as the thought came to her, she dismissed it. It seemed there was more to her silence than devotion to the Weaver and his cause. Here at the end, with every path before her leading to the Deceiver, she found strength where she least expected it. Pride. To feign a confession, to give the Eandi fools any information at all, faulty or not, was to surrender. Enid couldn’t bring herself to do it. Even if it could have bought her freedom, rather than just a comfortable incarceration, the price would have been too high. She would sooner linger a year on the torturer’s rack than give in to them.

Instead, she chose to fight, like a good soldier faced with an insuperable foe. This is a war. Yes. She needed time, however. Just a bit.

“Your father believes I would betray my people, just to save myself from a foul smell?”

“My father is a good man. Indeed, he’s so generous in spirit, that it weakens him. He refuses to accept that others are not as honorable as he, even after they have proved themselves liars and cowards again and again.”

“I see,” she said, though she was barely listening to him. Rather, she was reaching for her power, despairing at how feeble her magic had grown with age and years of neglect. At first she thought there was nothing left, that she might have to face the dungeon after all. But at last, as Marston began to drone on again about her duty to the House of Thorald and his father, she sensed the magic still residing with her, like a shallow still pool. She remembered when it had flowed through her limbs and body like a torrent fed by the early rains, and she lamented the passing of her life, the withering of her body and mind.

Still, she reached into those still waters, carefully drawing forth what remained, like a child carrying the precious nectar of Bohdan’s fruit in cupped hands. She would have but one chance, she knew. If she failed the first time they would kill her before she could try again. So she devoted her mind fully to this last act, as if she were a young Qirsi new to her apprenticeship, using her powers for the very first time. She closed her eyes.

“What is she doing?” she heard Marston say, fear in his voice.

She would have liked to strike at the thane as well, but she was so weak. It would have to be enough to attack the two who held her.

With a sudden, hard push of her mind that tore a cry from her chest, she threw fire at the two guards.

Enid heard them cry out, felt them release her. Opening her eyes, feeling the ground pitch and roll as if from an earth tremor, she saw that their clothes and hair were ablaze. She was stronger than she realized. Once again she considered using her magic against Marston as well, but already he was drawing his sword. She hadn’t time. Instead she lunged for the nearer of the two guards, grabbing his dagger from his belt.

Other guards were coming at her. Marston had drawn back his weapon to strike. She sensed death closing on her from all sides, like an ocean fog. But still she had time enough to choose. Barely.

She turned, took a long step toward the stairs to the dungeon. Then a second and third. And then she leaped.

The fetor, the unseen fist, pounded at her senses, but she no longer cared. She felt herself falling through the blackness, knowing the impact with the foul stone floor would probably kill her. Still, she wanted to be certain. Slowly, as if she had an abundance of time, she placed the tip of the soldier’s blade against her chest.

“For my people!” she cried.

And struck.

Chapter Twenty-two

Solkara, Aneira, year 880, Qirsar’s Moon waxing

“Wake up, traitor!”

Grigor started, hearing the too-familiar jingle of chains. He opened his eyes and let out a soft moan. His legs and back ached from sleeping on the stone floor of the prison chamber. Or perhaps it was from the manacles that held his wrists and ankles, making it impossible for him to lie comfortably when he slept. He couldn’t be certain anymore, nor did he care.

He smelled like the streets of Solkara on a hot day, having fouled himself more times than he could remember. His hair and clothes were matted with filth, his skin itched as if from a thousand bug bites.

They had spared him the dungeon-a grace offered because he was duke of the royal house. But Grigor could hardly imagine that the dungeon would be worse. He had two windows in this chamber, though each was as narrow as the flat side of a sword, and he had not been tortured. Yet. But in every other way, this was his dungeon, his forgetting chamber.

“Get up!” the voice said again.

The voice of the yellow-haired guard. Grigor had come to know it well over the past several days. Aside from Numar and Henthas, the only people who had spoken to him since the poisoning were the night guard and this man, the day guard. They brought him water and food, such as it was, and they ordered him to keep quiet when they tired of hearing him complain or protest his innocence.

“I said, get on your feet!” The guard’s voice echoed loudly off the stone walls.

Looking toward the door, Grigor realized that the man wasn’t alone.

“Why?” Grigor asked. His lips and throat were so dry, he could barely make himself heard.

“Because I ordered it, traitor!”

He just grinned at the guard, not moving. “Why?” he said again.

“I believe he wants you to stand because I’m here,” the other man said, stepping forward so that Grigor could see his face through the small iron grate on the chamber door.

Pronjed jal Drenthe, Chofya’s archminister. There was a small smile on his bony face, a look of amusement in those ghostly pale eyes. Had Grigor been armed and free to move, he would have lunged at the door, blade in hand.

In truth, he would have liked to stand. His knees throbbed and he longed to stretch the night from cramped muscles. But he refused to give the Qirsi that satisfaction.

“What is it you want?”

The minister shrugged, his smile broadening. “I was about to walk down to the city-”

“And you wanted to know if I could come?” He shook his chains, making them ring like tiny bells. “A kind offer, Minister. But as you can see I have other matters holding me here.”

Pronjed regarded him for several moments, the smile growing forced and brittle. “You have a singular humor, sir. I suppose some might even mistake it for courage. No, I was going to say that I’m on my way to the city to announce your execution, which is planned for tomorrow. I thought it only fair that I tell you first.”

He tried to sustain his own grin, but failed. He needed water. “What day is this?”