Sorasa saw their predicament as an equation, her mind reducing to battle and circumstance, as she had been trained. Three on the floor, one still stumbling with the wine, this one dead. She vaulted over the knight choking on his blood, running after Corayne. She hoped Dom and the squire were smart enough to follow. Taristan and Erida’s knights certainly would.

The rumble of an explosion set a rare smile to her lips, which widened with the sound of running chain. She paused at the passage door to glimpse the chaos. The chandeliers fell in succession, each one a hammer, splintering tables, sending plates and bodies flying. Courtiers tried to dodge, leaping over each other, while the dais dissolved quickly, the Queen’s advisors fleeing in all directions. Taristan fought to his feet, caught in the melee, one side of his face jagged with cuts, while Red Ronin cursed at the vaulted ceiling. The Queen found herself prisoner to her own knights, the Lionguard shielding her from debris.

The Elder passed Sorasa first, his face a white sheet. Then came the squire, Trelland. Sorasa added them to her count.

Four alive.

She drew a long, ragged breath. Run, her instincts said, only a whisper now.

It was easy to ignore.

She drew the door shut and barred it with a heavy thunk of wood. In the great hall, the chandeliers continued to fall, thunderous. Her own heart beat in time, a steady rhythm. The danger fed something in her, enough to quell any fear for now.

The other three did not share the sentiment. Corayne reached back to check her sword, her fingers shaking horribly, her eyes wide as dinner plates, black ringed by stark white. The Spindleblade was still there like a gash down her back, comical in size compared to her small body. Dom leaned against the wall beside her, his lips in his teeth, one hand testing the dagger still buried in his side. Only the squire seemed to be of any use. He ripped his blue-and-gray coat into rags, holding them against Dom’s wound.

“Do I have to do everything around here?” Sorasa said, wiping her dagger clean. The red ending of the knight’s life disappeared with a few quick drags. She glanced down the long passage of branching rooms, antechambers of sorts for the Queen and her council.

Corayne looked through her, as if the assassin were nothing at all.

“That door won’t hold,” she murmured, stepping back. Already someone was banging on the other side. Many someones. It jumped on its hinges, straining against the bar. “She’s with him. The Queen is with him.”

“Thank you. I also have eyes,” Sorasa bit out. “Can you run, Elder?”

His left side was painted crimson. He only grimaced. There was blood in his beard too, turning the golden hair red. “It’s nothing,” he said, and batted Trelland away. “The Vedera heal quickly.”

“Don’t—” Sorasa began, lunging for him.

But the godsforsaken imbecile of an immortal was well past stopping. He drew out the knife in a single motion and tossed it away, smearing blood across the floor. More sprang from the wound in his ribs, gushing like a fountain, and he faltered, hissing, dropping to a knee.

“Oh,” he gasped as he fell.

Corayne caught him, slipping in the puddle of immortal blood. “For Spindles’ sake!”

The copper tang was sharp on Sorasa’s tongue as she pushed the Elder to the floor.

“I can’t imagine living for a thousand years and still being so stupid,” she said, tearing his tunic at the wound. “It’s almost an accomplishment.”

“Five hundred,” Dom hissed through gritted teeth, as if it made any difference.

“Immortal or not, you are still very capable of bleeding to death.”

Somehow, he seemed surprised by the possibility.

Sorasa ignored him so she wouldn’t kill him herself. Instead she ripped and ripped his clothing, grabbing for anything that could be a bandage. Trelland offered his rags and she crammed them into the gaping hole, his ribs glossy white between hard red muscles. At least Dom didn’t flinch as she plugged him up like a bucket with a leak.

“Any more brilliant ideas, Elder?”

He was on his feet quicker than she would have thought possible, standing over her in his tattered clothes, chest bare to the torchlight of the hall. His skin was like his bones, gleaming and pale.

“Run,” he rattled.

“We won’t make it back the way we came in. And the kitchen bridge, the Bridge of Valor, the garrison docks . . .” Sorasa faltered, ticking off every path, every escape route she knew. Each one shuttered before her eyes. “I can get myself out of here, but not the rest of you.”

“Well, that’s helpful,” Corayne snapped.

The door banged again as something large and heavy collided with the wood. Probably a table being used as a battering ram. It wouldn’t be long until the door fell, or Erida’s guards approached from the other side. They had minutes, maybe.

Seconds.

Trelland crossed to the windows, looking out into manicured gardens. Torches leapt up all over as guards were roused and dispatched. A maze stood beyond the green lawns, shadowed in its spirals, a labyrinthine design of hedges. The palace cathedral sneered over it, proud and daunting, a grand wonder. Its columns arched like a rib cage. The squire’s face tightened.

“We should try Syrekom,” he said in a low voice.

“The cathedral?” Sorasa scoffed. The knight’s blood and Dom’s dried on her face and hands, crusting over. There was no difference between them, mortal and immortal. They tasted the same. “Claiming sanctuary only works in the stories, Squire. This isn’t one of them.”

A few knights were in the gardens, their torches bobbing, but none entered the maze. Sorasa tried to remember Syrekom Cathedral beyond it, a monster of gray marble and glass, a crown jewel of Ascal, built to honor their greatest and most terrible god.

“Syrekom,” Trelland said again, firmer this time.

His hand twitched, reaching for a sword that was not there. He had no armor, not even a knife that Sorasa could see. Only his trousers and torn coat, a bit short at the wrists. He was still growing, a boy even now, after all he’d seen. But he does not sound like a boy now.

“I’ll take us through the maze and then . . .” His gaze hooked on Dom’s blood. “I hope you can all swim.”

Sorasa eyed Dom. His breath came in short, beleaguered gasps. He glared back at her.

“I learned to swim before your bloodline began,” he growled, setting off with a stormy glare and a furious pace. She almost expected him to walk straight through a wall. Instead he kicked a door open, leaving it dangling on gold hinges.