“I don’t think they let him, Da. Luce said all the guards in the main hall were dead. And Sebourne’s men were taking care to hide the bodies.”

The boys fastened the last of his armor in place and handed him his weapons. He buckled his sword belt, slung his quiver on his back, and settled the band of black Fey’cha across his chest. Sev handed him his Elfbow. He strung the bow quickly, curling his left ankle around one end, bending the long, recurved body of the bow across his back, and settling the loop on the end of the bowstring into place. Bow in hand, he nodded to his sons. “Let’s go.”

His sons pulled their swords, and together they slipped out into the hall.

* * *

The halls of the fortress’s central keep were eerily quiet. All of the King’s Guard stationed in the central tower were missing from their posts, with only a few drops of blood an occasional sign of disturbance to hint at their fate. Cann and his sons, followed by the King’s Guard who had been stationed in the east wing, padded through the silent corridors.

In the king’s suite they found the bodies of Dorian X and his valet, Marten, both unmistakably dead. Cann shared grim looks with the others. Even with the eyewitness accounts of his sons, this irrefutable proof of Sebourne’s treachery left him stunned.

“When we find him,” Cann growled softly, “he’s mine.”

His boys nodded. Together, they slipped back into the hallway and made their way to the stone steps leading to the central hall.

They found Sebourne and two of his men disposing of the body of a King’s Guard in the first hallway of the west wing.

Cann didn’t hesitate. With a speed that would have done his Elvish kin proud, he pulled an arrow from the quiver at his back, nocked it, aimed, and let fly. A second arrowed followed a split second later.

Sebourne’s two companions dropped without a sound. The Great Lord whirled, blade unsheathed and raised for battle. At the sight of Cann and his sons, Sebourne’s lip curled.

“You,” he spat. “I should have known.”

“Ta, me,” Cann snarled. “You miserable, jaffing traitor.” He thrust his bow at his son Severn. His hand dropped to the hilt of the blade sheathed at his hip, and he drew the shining blade from its scabbard.

“Traitor, am I?” Lord Sebourne snarled, baring teeth like a lyrant issuing challenge. “Because Great House Sebourne is finally standing up to that puling Fey-lover of a king?”

“Because Great Lord Sebourne is a spineless rultshart of an assassin, too cowardly to face his enemy in open battle.” Cann crossed the courtyard in a few long strides and took his battle stance, sword raised.

“I’ll face you—gladly.” Sebourne raised his sword. Torchlight glinted along the blade’s fine, gleaming length. “You killed my son. You and those Fey maggots—and that loose-legged slut you called a daughter.”

The insult to Talisa did not make Cann charge recklessly at his opponent as Sebourne had no doubt intended. Instead, all his anger, all his grief, shrank down into a hard, icy knot deep inside his core.

“Your son was a weak, spoiled bully,” he replied. “I should never have let my daughter waste herself on him. Even on his best day, he wasn’t worthy to kiss her hem.”

Satisfaction surged inside him as Sebourne’s nostrils flared. The Great Lord swung his blade with reckless force. Cann dodged the blow with ease and swung at Sebourne’s unprotected back. Dervas spun sharply, raising his shield in time to deflect Cann’s blow. He was no stranger to warfare and no easy kill, with reflexes honed by a lifetime of living in the wilds of the northern borders. Like Cann, there were few lords who could best him.

They flowed from one masterful form to another, attacking and counterattacking with blurring speed and steady, relentless prowess. Scissor Blades. Circle of Ice. Death Drop. Ring of Fire. Shield Strike. Helm Cleaver. Neither flinched or faltered.

Cann had appreciated Sebourne’s skill a time or two in the past, and they’d spent many a day sparring together in a friendly rivalry. Right now, he heartily regretted those days. Sebourne knew him too well, knew how he attacked, defended, which combinations came most naturally to him.

But, then, he knew Sebourne, too.

He watched for the patterns that inevitably appeared in Sebourne’s fighting. And eventually, it came. After a particularly savage series of attacks and parries, a panting, sweat-drenched Sebourne backed off into a lighter attack called Maiden’s Dance. The series of teasing blows, though swiftly delivered, carried much less strength behind them. They weren’t meant to kill, only to inflict numerous shallow wounds to weaken an opponent through blood loss and shake his confidence.

Cann took more of the wounds than he normally would, hoping that would encourage Sebourne to attempt his favorite next move. And there it was. Maiden’s Kiss… the glancing blow to the face intended to lay open the cheek or blind an eye. Not a killing blow, just a bloodletter like Maiden’s Dance, but to dodge the Kiss—which was often the instinctive response—put a fighter off-balance. The attacker could then deliver a hard blow and a sweep of his boot across the defender’s ankle to put the defender down on his back and vulnerable to Final Point, a sword buried deep in a vulnerable throat.

Cann didn’t dodge. He spun into the Maiden’s Kiss, taking the side of Sebourne’s blade across the cheek. He felt the sting, the warm spurt of blood as his skin split. But helm and chain-mail coif saved him from worse injury as he spun into and under the blade, ducking beneath Sebourne’s sword arm. Cann’s sword bit deep into Sebourne’s wrist as he went, while his left hand reached for one of the black Fey’cha strapped to his chest. He sprang up behind Dervas, dagger in hand, to deliver a slicing blow to the vulnerable back of Sebourne’s leg