“I think the tunnels smell worse than the streets,” Corayne said, her voice muffled. She drew her shirt up over her nose and mouth, leaving only her black eyes visible. She glared at the walls and the dirt floor, searching for faults. Her eyes seemed to eat the meager light.

Dom’s growl echoed. “I did not realize that was even possible. And yet here we are.”

“Funny, the Elder legends don’t mention how fussy your kind is,” Sorasa snapped, though she had to agree. The tunnel air was somehow both sour and stale. The canal ran above them, and clearly the walls were perpetually wet, covered in moss that gleamed by the weak light of her torch.

The Elder muttered a retort in his own language. It echoed down the tunnel, passing away into the blackness. The Konrada vaults were behind them now, occupied only by a gray priest who would regain consciousness sometime around dawn.

The memories came with each step. Her first contract behind the walls of the New Palace was fifteen years ago, the last only four. Both ended with men dead in their chambers, missing ears and fingers, contracts fulfilled and messages relayed. She took no pride in them nor satisfaction. Duty was done for its own sake—at least, it was then.

Beneath Ascal, in the chilling damp, Sorasa had never felt farther from the Amhara and the citadel. She chewed her cheek, the air cold through her clothing, like a touch of sickness.

After a long while, the tunnel began to slope upward. Dom brushed the back of his hand over the wall, feeling the stone. “We’re out from under the river,” he said, his knuckles coming away dry. “We must be under the palace now.”

“Oh, good,” Corayne said. Her voice held the edge of panic. “Now I can stop worrying about being drowned and focus entirely on being crushed.”

A rare chuckle passed through Sorasa’s teeth. “It’s not so bad,” she replied. “Protect your skull and ribs. You’ll be all right.”

The girl blinked at her. “You’re a very strange person, Sorasa Sarn.”

“It’s a strange world out there,” Sorasa said. Her eyes met Dom’s as he brought up the rear of their trio. He fell into his constant scowl. “And growing stranger by the second.”

The Elder opened his grim mouth but stopped himself, squinting, his immortal eyes seeing farther than her own could. There was something in the darkness.

Corayne glanced at him, worrying out of her skin. “What is it?” she hissed, dropping her voice. One hand stole to her boot, where she kept a small and useless knife.

Someone should teach her how to use that, Sorasa thought, noting the girl’s poor grip.

Dom only raised his chin. “You’ll see.”

The gate came, barring the passage. It was good, old iron, with no lock and no hinges, welded into plates on either side of the tunnel. This was meant to stop anyone who stumbled this way, from either direction.

“Is this new?” Corayne offered, searching for answers as was her way. “Or do you have a trick around it?”

“I’d wager this is near two hundred years old,” Sorasa sighed, eyeing the ironwork. “And yes, I have a trick. He is quite large and quite annoying,” she added, looking pointedly at Dom.

He sneered down at her. The torchlight turned his golden hair to fire and cast shadows along the sharp lines of his stern face. Darkness pooled in his scars.

“I’m annoying?” His green eyes burned like the embers. “You brought us to a locked gate.”

Sorasa looked over his broad hands and wide-set shoulders with a sniff of indifference. She remembered the bull in Byllskos, tossed and toppled by the immortal.

“I brought you to a locked gate about to be knocked open. There’s a difference,” she said.

The Elder pursed his lips and looked back at the iron bars. His brow furrowed deeply, his body unmoving.

“What, afraid of a few bruises?” Sorasa prodded.

He made a noise low in his throat, somewhere between a growl and a huff.

There were a few bruises.

12

THE LAST CARD PLAYED

Erida

The Queen knew why her future husband demanded roses for the morning. Scarlet, crimson, ruby, red as the sun at the first light of dawn. Red was the color of the old empire, and roses bloomed in its shadow, red ghosts to remember ruins gone. They grew all over Ascal, especially in the gardens of the New Palace. They did the same in Lecorra, the once capital, and in the old cities of the provinces from Kasa to the Gates of Trec, where Corblood once ruled. Erida had to admit, she craved roses too, and she thought of ways to wear them in her hair for the ceremony. Bound with silver, braided, pinned. Woven into a crown, perhaps.

Her maids busied themselves in her apartments, laying out gowns for the morning in the grand solar. They would be working well into the night, inspecting every square inch of silk and brocade for flaw while the seamstresses looked on, worrying their hands. Every other servant who could be spared from the preparations or the feast hunted roses. She watched them through the windows, picking through the gardens by torchlight, shears in hand.

Erida’s gown for the ceremony would be cloth of gold trimmed in green, with a cream veil over her crown, as was Gallish tradition. But tonight she favored crimson, to please her future consort. The color felt odd, but not unwelcome. Erida looked down as she walked, her skirts flowing, the silk reflecting the lights of the long hall. Her fingers twitched, winking with the emerald ring of state. It was not a long walk from the residence to the great hall. She could do it in her sleep, every turn and stair etched in her memory.

Tonight it felt both endless and far too short.

My ladies are nervous, she knew. They trailed at a distance, letting Erida walk alone. Like all but the Crown Council, they did not know who she had chosen to wed, or why. Erida counted no confidantes among their number. It was too dangerous to share secrets with her ladies-in-waiting, let alone befriend any one of them. Three were daughters of Gallish nobles, and the other two came from the courts of Larsia and Sardos. Their allegiances were elsewhere, to ambitious fathers or distant kings.

Not to me. There are no companions for ruling queens. The weight on my shoulders is far different, and far more. My mind is my own and no one else’s.

She folded her hands together, falling into her well-practiced air of calm, though she was anything but. Her pulse quickened with fear and anticipation. She would present her consort tonight and marry him in the morning. It had been announced only a few days ago, and the court had not ceased its buzzing ever since. Only the council knew her choice, and they were sworn to secrecy. To her surprise, they seemed to have kept their oath, even Konegin.