5.4.0

Zyrdicia wandered back toward her quarters in the South Tower slowly. She already felt the familiar nag of boredom tugging at the edges of consciousness.

Guards continued to follow her at a distance, although by this time there was already a mutual understanding that it was a charade. She had frequently enough masked herself in invisibility to convince them of the futility of the endeavor. This time she let them follow.

Vector was already on his way to Lyr. Getting rid of the mage had been surprisingly simple. Without a guide, it would take him days to find his way through the sprawling urban landscape to the Magic Guild. The endless maze of streets could keep even the most clever visitor lost for an eternity. If the old geezer could relax enough to enjoy himself, the city would undoubtedly show him a good time. Assuming, of course, that it did not kill him. In her birthplace, beasts still lurked in unlit doorways and power was a currency spent quickly.

She entered her chambers and listened to the guards lock the door. She traced a toxic rune upon the latch to ensure that it stayed shut. Portia would recognize it and know how to disarm it, but Zyrdicia doubted any of the castle's other residents would be so observant.

The door to Charles and Anthony's sleeping quarters was closed. She noted that the boys had taken the scrying angel with them, exhibitionists that they were. Everybody loves an audience, she thought.

Portia was still off seducing Cai, Blackpool's seneschal. That would eventually probably prove to be a useful relationship, but for now it left Zyrdicia without a playmate. The clock said nine-thirty. She normally slept during the day, so slumber was out of the question. Besides, she could not dare enter the dreamworld without Portia nearby. Zyrdicia had more than had her fill of diabolic emissaries in recent days.

She conjured herself a hot bath and luxuriated in the water, letting her thoughts drift. The similarity of the rose crest in the Greystone family coat-of-arms to the old symbol of the invading Philonian Order in Lyr bothered her. In her experience, the world contained very few coincidences. The knights of the defunct Order all wore an identical image, but their roses always had a golden unicorn above the flower. She had killed enough of them early in her life to know the symbol very well. Their heads and shields still adorned the wall of the Old City. As far as she knew, she had hunted and exterminated the last of the knights decades ago, though their leader, Philonius, had escaped while she was still a too young to stop him.

The Order's world of origin had never been discovered. According to the historians, the Crusaders had arrived in Lyr soon after her conception. They came possessed with a mission to rid the ancient bastion of dark magic of its evil. In the ensuing inquisition, they had killed an impressive number of Lyr's most prominent citizens, including her mother. Someone, somewhere had sent those Crusaders into Lyr. That someone had undoubtedly been sorely disappointed when dark magic triumphed and crushed the meddling foreigners like the vermin they were. She would have liked to have known who sent them, to have seen that being's frustration.

Time to go explore the castle, she thought. The secret door begged to be violated now that it was not so secret.

If anyone here had a sense of humor, she imagined it might be amusing to teleport the contents of the prince's little treasury to the center of a volcano somewhere. And perhaps reset the Wizard's traps around the castle with more creative versions of her own. Then kill any monsters guarding the premises in order to replace them with a few friends from the underworld. She laughed to herself at the thought. Now that the Wizard was gone, she could more properly torment Blackpool.

If he were not so grumpy, he might even be amusing. All the right components were there - - lust for power, strong will, sharp intellect, more than a hint of madness. She collected entertaining companions in her travels like other people did picture postcards. She tended to rip them apart almost as easily. Some of them she adventured with. Killing was, after all, a sport best shared with those able to appreciate its beauty. With the more clever of her companions, she frequently developed long-term business relationships. The only power in Lyr that had lasting meaning was wealth, and she had an uncanny knack for generating it in massive quantities.

An economics professor at the Lyrian University recently published an article describing her as the single most significant economic force in the region. He had managed somehow to trace her myriad shadow corporations and multi-plane smuggling rings back to the Temple and consequently, directly to her doorstep. She quietly amassed more gold and platinum over the years than could be found on most continents. It was not the money that interested her so much as the game of acquiring it. The more convoluted and indirect the scheme, the better.

She rose from her bath and cursed the chill. Even in late spring, this place was far too cold for her liking. She was a creature accustomed to warm, fragrant, tropical sea breezes. She wrapped a silk robe around herself and glanced through the nearest of many chests littering the floor. Anthony's propensity for hyperbole resulted in his insistence upon bringing far more clothing than she could ever possibly wear. She selected something in a thick, black velvet. Damn the cold in this miserable castle, she thought.

From a well-organized box Portia had packed, she retrieved a small, silver compass and thrust it in her pocket. As an afterthought, she also picked up a carefully folded piece of black, silken cloth. She considered calling the sword and dagger now, but decided it was superfluous. Most unforeseen encounters could be solved more efficiently with magic.

She opened the concealed door in the wall with little effort. She had explored enough citadels and catacombs in her day to be well versed in most locking devices. The spring mechanism in this door suffered from neglect. It probably had not opened in generations. Without care, it would soon be useless.

The narrow passage beyond the door was dark as pitch. As she entered it, she needed a few moments to allow her eyes to adjust to the darkness. She carried no light source. She did not need one. She could see in the dark somewhat better than she could in the brightest daylight. Whether this was a natural circumstance or only a lingering effect of years of childhood spent in subterranean darkness, she couldn't know. In any case, she found the darkness welcoming.

She made her way carefully through the passageway, noting the cobwebs as she explored. Other than a rather large population of unremarkable spiders, this part of the castle was completely uninhabited.

In her head, she carefully memorized each twist and turn. It dawned on her that it would take weeks to fully explore the interconnecting system of secret passages weaving through this place. She was certain there were at least three separate systems, built at different times and following different logical schemes. It appeared the South Tower was the oldest part of the castle, probably once a free-standing keep.

The rooms here had all been abandoned long ago. The furnishings in most chambers were in an advanced state of decay. Many pieces were draped with dust-covered white cloths. Everywhere small house spiders scurried to and fro. A portrait in a long-dead lord's sleeping room drew her eye.

The flaking, dust-covered image depicted a man in plate mail. The visor shield of his helmet concealed his face. Along its bottom edge, his shield bore a tiny version of the now-familiar symbol of a snake coiled around itself to form a symbol of infinity. She had seen the emblem all over the castle and assumed it must be a family sigil. Above the snake on the shield's face danced a small golden unicorn. Her breath caught in her throat.

Nothing in the painting hinted at the man's name or the year in which it might have been made. Zyrdicia looked carefully through the chamber, looking for any clue as to the man's identity. There were no papers or personal effects, other than the crumbling furniture.

She pulled the square of black cloth from her pocket and unfolded it, careful to only handle the dull backside of the fabric. A well-practiced spin sent the square to the ground in a fluid motion that prevented its edges from curling. As it landed, a hole of extra-dimensional space opened in the stone. She had no intention of leaving the first evidence of the Crusader's home world behind to slowly disintegrate in the dark. She pulled the framed portrait from the wall and tucked it delicately into the magical space. A few spiders scurried in behind it. Her nimble fingers then plucked the edges of the enchanted fabric up to fold the hole and return it to the safety of her pocket.

In the stone behind the portrait's former place on the wall, she noticed a brick slightly askew. She examined it carefully, without touching it. She was certain it was a mechanism of some kind. Under the dust, she saw a faint pattern of large dots etched into the wall all around the brick device. She sensed danger and trusted her instincts.

She summoned the sword and dagger to her silently with a thought. Repeating the incantation she had used in her own chamber, she discovered the outline of a large stone door next to the mechanism. She moved to the doorway leading back to the secret passage. Standing in the frame of the door, she threw the long dagger across the room at the mechanism. As the point of the blade hit the brick, a large panel opened in the ceiling. From it, a second panel swung down toward the mechanism. The swinging panel consisted of a ten-foot square sheet of long iron spikes. The spikes slammed into the wall housing the mechanism. A few spikes broke off as they hit her enchanted dagger embedded in the brick. The spiked panel retracted immediately, and the secret door in the wall slid open with a grinding sound.

She moved cautiously to the opening. Anything worth trapping was probably worth exploring. The secret door led to a descending stone staircase. She cast a spell immobilizing the door. It would hold the portal open temporarily while she explored and prevent the need to gate herself out later. Her dagger flew of its own volition out of the stone wall into her waiting hand.

She wandered down the narrow, winding staircase. It was carved into the stone bedrock upon which the castle was built. She smelled sulfur. The air warmed as she descended.

The staircase ended in a vast, cavernous room. A hotspring bubbled in the space of an ancient fountain carved into the stone floor. The arches supporting the room's vaulted ceiling consisted of tiny, black octagonal bricks.

"Octagonal bricks? What the fuck?" she breathed in disbelief. She knew of only one only race which built subterranean spaces supported with pointed arches made out of those strange, little bricks. Dark elves. Perhaps there was more to Aparans than she had first thought.

Soon after Azriok took custody of her as a child, he had entrusted her to the dark elves who lived beneath Lyr. He respected them more than he did humans. They cared for her mortal needs in his absence, though he never left her alone very long in those days. The Sephiroth-worshipping elves regarded caring for her as a sacred task, though they were terrified her presence would someday attract the Crusaders and bring them into the civil war that raged in the city following Zyrdicia's mother's martyrdom. They taught the human child the ways of the subterranean creatures and kept her amused as best they could. Loneliness was unknown to her back then. Azriok always came at night and took her from the caves into the boundless cosmos beyond. Years passed before she saw the sun in the material world again. Her body had developed a nocturnal rhythm then that persisted still.

She heard a pitter-patter on the stone behind her. She whirled to find a giant salamander-like reptile sniffing her curiously. Annoyed that she could have let it get so close without noticing it sooner, she relieved the creature of its head in a swift, fluid motion. She scanned the room carefully for additional movement. All was still.

Her eyes fell on an ancient, enormous, dust-covered silver statue standing near the bubbling pool. Its base contained a stained sacrificial bowl. The statue depicted a woman with hair of flame. The figure raised one hand near her neck, grasping the head of a thick snake. The snake wrapped its tail around her neck, contorting its body into the familiar infinity symbol. The woman had six fingers.

Zyrdicia's mind raced. Six fingers. The demonology historian she kept on staff at the University listed six fingers as one of the attributes of Zyr's earthly manifestations. She had never personally seen such a manifestation, since the Crusaders had managed to slay Zyr in this world soon after he conceived her. She craned her head around the side of the statue to look at the blade that hung from scabbard behind the image. Sure enough, the sword's edges were not smooth. Six curving waves undulated along the blade's length on each side. At the statue's base were inscribed the letters,

S A X A R B A

Saxarba--Abraxas. Zyr. There wasobviously more to the Sephiroth's interest in this place than she had first thought. For humans to create such a statue, Zyr must have appeared in ancient Karteia for some reason--as a woman.

The gender shift did not particularly surprise her. She knew from Azriok that the Sephiroth were sexless in their true form. They adopted mortal gender attributes when they chose an earthly manifestation, but it was purely an illusion. Her conception had been the only known exception. "What was Zyr up to in this little world?" she mumbled to herself.

Beyond the statue, she could see an opening leading to caves beyond this room. She considered entering the caves but decided to wait. As consumed as she was by curiosity, she possessed sufficient self-discipline to recognize the peril. For spelunking, she needed more equipment and the protection of leather for rock-climbing. Elfin catacombs would be heavily trapped with magic and full of nasty guardians. She was unprepared for such encounters at the moment. When she left her chambers, she had anticipated a quiet walk through the castle, not the start of subterranean adventures and weird mysteries.

Dark elves, Zyr and that damned unicorn, she thought. Castle Blackpool was certainly full of puzzles.

She made her way back up the endless staircase and back out into the main passage. She ignored the countless branching passages veering off in disparate directions, preferring to focus on a route meandering toward the newer, presently occupied wings. She felt drained from her previous discoveries, but needed to keep herself occupied.

She spent hours exploring the many systems of passages in the newer castle. Some of the halls were lit with torches, which annoyed her in that it spoiled her night vision. The constant movement from darkness into light prevented her eyes from adjusting perfectly to either.

Opening doors in this area was problematic, given the likelihood that many of the rooms would be presently occupied. She solved the difficulty by making herself invisible and altering the matter of her body so that she could pass through stone. It was a simple trick she had learned early in her magical education. Her human blood made it hard to maintain the matter alteration for more than a few moments, but as long as she passed through the stone quickly enough, there was little danger. If she were to linger in a solid object too long, however, the consequences might be fatal.

Exploring in this way, she mentally mapped most of the new castle. Dodging frequent traps, she discovered the location of the armory, the treasury, alternate routes to the dungeon and countless domestic areas.

She found numerous spy holes, carved to peer into select rooms. The castle's architects had built small alcoves directly into the passageway walls. Inside each alcove was a small opening, apparently hidden in cracks of the stonework on the other side. In every case, curtains shielded the alcove from torchlight in the passageway. It looked as though the spy holes were still in use. A curious watcher might sit in a darkened nook and observe everything that transpired in the chambers on the other side.

Hmm, she thought, someone is either quite a voyeur or incredibly paranoid. The moment she completed the thought, her sensitive nose detected the faintest whiff of leather in the passage. The prince was somewhere nearby. He had probably passed this way not long ago.

She checked each spy hole in the vicinity and failed to locate him. She continued exploring, passing through the walls of those chambers lacking spy holes. When she finally found him, she was surprised by what she saw. She moved into the room as silently as she could. She barely breathed, not wanting him to sense her presence.

He sat at a small table, facing her. He held his open hand over the flame of a candle. He looked up and glanced suspiciously around the room. She noted that he sensed a disturbance in the air, sensed he was being watched. Seeing no one in the room, he focussed his attention back upon the candle. The muscles of his jaw tensed as he concentrated.

She watched his face, intrigued. She would have liked to listen to his thoughts. She regarded it as terribly inconvenient that his mind was sensitive enough to notice her telepathic invasions. There were so few people who could keep her out. It seemed unfair that it was always the interesting ones who had the ability.

The man clearly understood more of pain than she would have guessed. Those who dismissed him as a madman and a sadist failed to see that there was more at work. In the blue depths of his eyes, she saw him transform the pain in his hand into something else.

After a long moment, he finally pulled his hand away from the flame. He looked satisfied.

Zyrdicia dispelled the invisibility that hid her from his view. "Good evening. You surprise me."

"Hi." He did not look pleased at the interruption. "I surprise you? You are the one who makes a habit of appearing out of thin air. Are you truly incapable of knocking?"

"Would you have answered if I had knocked?"

"Probably not. Did you just arrive or have you been lurking there watching me?"

"You already know the answer to that. You should learn to trust your instincts, not your eyes, Prince Blackpool. You sensed you were being watched and let your eyes deceive you. Let me see your hand." She set her sword on the table.

He clenched his burned hand in a tight fist. She took it and gently pulled the fingers open. The burn was deep though he feigned disinterest. She whispered a healing incantation that erased the wound. She then set his hand back on the table.

He looked surprised. "Thank you. I wouldn't have guessed that you practiced white magic, too."

"I most certainly do not!" she laughed. "I pronounce the syllables of harmful spells backwards. It's a useful trick that's kept me alive on more occasions than I care to remember. And you're welcome."

"Why do I surprise you?"

"I saw you cross over."

"I've no idea what you are talking about."

"There is a mystical barrier in the mind that separates pain from... something magnificent. There are only a handful of human beings I've encountered who understand pain well enough to manipulate the barrier and dare to cross over to the other side."

He looked uncomfortable. It occurred to her that he probably did not even acknowledge to himself what he was really doing. He confirmed her theory when he spoke. "You saw what you wanted to see, perhaps. The exercise is merely a test of will. Were I unable to tolerate the pain, I would kill myself. Weakness is intolerable to me."

"All of which does nothing to dispel the fact that you did cross over." She ignored his glare. "You don't have to explain it away. If you have the capacity to do it, and aren't afraid of it, you should be grateful. Legend says the first generation of human beings all could do it. Pain was one of Zyr's sacred gifts to mankind at Creation. Most of the species has degenerated beyond appreciating it." He held her gaze in a prolonged moment of silence.

Finally he looked away from her eyes and looked down the entire length of her body. His eyes stopped on her sword resting on the table. "There's blood on your weapon. You are covered in dust. What have you been up to?"

"Exploring," she smiled. She dispatched her weapons back to the ether.

"Vector was supposed to keep you amused and out of trouble this evening. I should have known he would fail."

"Servants can't be trusted. If you want something done properly, you really have to do it yourself."

He smiled playfully, "Apparently. Well, then..."

Their eyes locked again. He pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. He took one of her hands and kissed it lightly. She sensed that his lips lingered on her hand just a moment longer than custom probably required. She noticed again that for a mortal, he really was quite handsome.

"Come. I'll have to keep you out of trouble myself," he said, leading her to an adjoining chamber. The chamber looked like some sort of private sitting room. He motioned her to a leather-covered armchair. "May I offer you some wine?"

"Absolutely. I only drink red."

"Good. I prefer it as well." He retrieved a bottle from a cabinet built into one of the walls and uncorked it elegantly. As he poured he asked, "Whose blood was on your sword?"

"One of your castle's reptilian residents in the tunnels under the South Tower. It looked like a giant lizard."

"What were you doing in those tunnels?" He handed her a crystal goblet and took an identical leather-covered chair next to her.

She tasted the inky cabernet and found it pleasant. "I told you - - exploring. Your wine is admirable. It isn't aged in oak. Maybe walnut?"

"Excellent observation."

"Locally produced?"

"Of course. Southern wines tend to be absurdly sweet. The grapes here seem to benefit from the short growing season." He frowned. "The South Tower is very dangerous. You shouldn't go exploring there. Some of the rooms are filled with awful spiders. The entire Old Castle is crawling with them."

"Is that why you chose to lodge me there? Hoping the spiders would invade my rooms and frighten me perhaps?" She laughed.

"Surely you can't be serious. I'm shocked that you would think that I could be so cruel. I was merely fulfilling your request for a place where you wouldn't be disturbed." The irony in his tone suggested that he had, indeed, hoped they would bother her. She found the game entertaining.

"Why would I fear little house spiders?"

"Those 'little house spiders' in the South Tower are Death Widows. They're quite poisonous."

"So am I."

"I doubt that."

"Why are they called Death Widows?" she wondered.

He thought a moment. "I believe it has to do with their mating rituals. The females supposedly eat their mates after copulating."

"How positively delightful."

"Hardly. I hate spiders. Absolutely loathe them."

"I remember an image in your mind when we first met. A nightmare involving being trapped in a room filling with thousands and thousands of spiders, being bitten by them, collapsing into a sea of them."

He frowned again. "That wasn't a nightmare. It was a memory."

"The spiders almost killed you and that's why you hate them?"

"Precisely."

"I used to feel that way about snakes after I was fed to a sea serpent as a child."

"What happened?"

"I got over it. Snakes are beautiful predators. Irrational panic and phobias have no place in my world."

"No, I mean what happened with the sea serpent. I presume the beast discovered you tasted so bitter that it preferred to spit to you back out."

She laughed. "No, I cut my way out of its stomach. Fortunately, snakes swallow prey whole."

"And who fed you it?"

"Azriok, my Sephiroth guardian. I think I was probably eight or nine."

"That's hardly an effective way to guard a child's well-being. He sounds horrid. Punishment for misbehavior?"

"Of course not. And he wasn't horrid." She surprised herself with the defensive tone of her voice. "He was teaching me the virtue of strength. To him it was a simple lesson in honing my nerves and eradicating fear. There was no malice involved on his part. Quite the opposite. He wouldn't have done it if I hadn't been ready for it. It may have been unpleasant at the time, but he intended the experience to be a gift."

His face revealed that he was quite intrigued. "If that creature raised you, your mother must have died when you were young. In childbirth, perhaps? "

Zyrdicia shook her head. The story was so well known in her home world, it felt strange to actually have to relate it to someone. "She was executed by a group of foreign knights in Lyr when I was four. They wanted to rid the world of black magic, and she was an easy target. They hunted her for years before finally capturing her. Had Azriok not intervened, I would have burned with her."

"Burned?"

"She was a prominent symbol of the Old Ways the invaders were trying to eradicate. They burned her at the stake in the city square for all the world to see. It was actually quite a beautiful sight."

"You saw her die?"

"Of course I did. Azriok took me to see it. Another of his gifts."

"Why do you say it was beautiful?"

"Because it was. As I watched her ignite and heard her scream, I remember only hating her for her weakness. Watching the flames devour her was satisfying."

His eyes searched her face for any trace of emotion. She saw a grudging respect in those eyes. "I recall thinking something like that when my father beheaded my mother, though I was a few years older than you were."

"In your mind, I saw an image of an auburn-haired woman pleading for her life. A large, dark-haired man severed her head with a sword. That was your mother dying?" He nodded. "You hated her?" she asked.

"Of course I hated her. She was a traitor. She led a rebellion against my father. She didn't even have the dignity to die without begging to be spared." His voice was bitter.

"Did you always hate her?"

"No, we were once close. Until she betrayed the family and the Crown."

"And knowing that you were once close, your father wanted you to see her die, and taught you to despise her."

The prince scowled slightly and looked away, remembering.

She continued, "Then he must have cared about you a great deal. He was feeding you to a different sort of sea serpent, teaching you his own lesson about the virtue of strength." She noticed his cheeks color ever so slightly. She had touched a sensitive nerve in his psyche. She decided not to pursue it further.

The prince was obviously not used to discussing the subject. Whatever he carried inside himself usually stayed there. This was vaguely alien to Zyrdicia. Her life had always been very public. To some degree, she tended to doubt the reality of any experience which did not have an audience. Every phase of her childhood had been chronicled and publicly reviewed. Even in supposedly private moments, she had lived with Azriok in her head, constantly sharing every thought and sensation. She had more privacy in her mind now than she had ever had and found the stillness irritating most of the time. She used Portia and her other companions, even her biographer, Phillip, to vent most experience and emotion.

He drained what was left of the wine in his goblet. He stood up to refill their glasses and seemed to remember something. "You said once that you keep track of number of people you have killed in your game. What is that number?"'

She smiled at the change of subject. "Direct killings or indirect ones?"

"The difference being?"

"Some killings take place because of me, but not directly by my hand. Instigating genocide, for example, but not actually taking part in it. Inciting war for the pleasure of watching both sides rip each other apart would be another example. Those are indirect. I lost track of that number some time ago. It was in the tens of millions."

"And direct killings?"

"24, 986 - - only humans count, and only confirmed kills. That number doesn't count mass destruction with an unconfirmed number of bodies."

"I don't believe you."

"You will after we take Tronin," she smiled.

"When did you start this game?"

"When I was sixteen. I was profoundly bored."

"It's impossible. You couldn't have killed that many people in less than a decade."

She laughed. "How old do you think I am?"

"You can't be more than a few years past twenty, if that old. Sometimes you seem much younger."

"Fifteen years ago I celebrated the hundredth anniversary of my birth. The older I get, the slower I age. No one knows yet what my lifespan will be. A professor friend in Lyr guesses a thousand years, maybe longer. I am a creature without precedent. My reign of terror will last a very, very long time."

He seemed amused by her answer. They talked for a few of more hours about various subjects, finishing the wine in the interim. As dawn approached, they found themselves unable to agree about the exact moment which was most satisfying in slaying an opponent. She believed it was the moment the soul left the body, the instant victory was completely secured. He was as certain that it was just prior to the victim's death, when defeat registered in the eyes of his opponent. They argued playfully for a long time.

"I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree for now," the prince said. "The sun will be up soon. I'll walk you back to your chambers."

"There's no need. I came here by the secret passages, and can find my way back without difficulty."

He shook his head. "We'll go by a more conventional route. You really shouldn't be in those passages. Come."

As they walked, she tried to mentally reconcile the castle's main hallways with her mind's map of the system of secret passages. He interrupted her silent work. "This may well be the first time I've talked to you that you haven't made a concerted effort to provoke me. Why?"

She gave up on the map in her head. "I wasn't in the mood for it tonight. Exploring the tunnels in the South Tower drained me. Besides, I discovered you are actually pleasant company when aren't being an ogre. You did an excellent job of keeping me amused and out of trouble."

"I suspect continuing to keep you out of trouble will prove to be no small task."

"You are very perceptive." She slipped her hand around his forearm. "If you miss the provocation, I'll put extra effort into irritating you tomorrow."

"I dread it already. Do tell me what you found in the South Tower that drained your interest in vexing me. I'd like to be sure store it in abundance. You are much more enjoyable this way."

She didn't answer, since they reached the door to her chambers at that moment. She noticed immediately that the rune was gone from the latch. Portia must have returned.

The guards looked sleepy. They immediately perked up as the pair approached. They looked nervous. They had not seen Zyrdicia leave. Seeing her with Blackpool meant that he was aware of their failure to keep tabs on the strange visitor. Their lord glared hard at them.

She laughed again as she saw one of the guards shiver. "You really should find a better use for them. They're much too slow to keep up with me."

"Indeed. Given their effectiveness, perhaps I'll feed them to the dogs." All four men stood at attention, rigidly staring straight ahead at some distant point.

The prince opened the door to her chambers and took her hand from his forearm. Their eyes met for a long, silent moment. As he raised her hand to his lips, his fingers grazed the long scars on the underside of her wrist. Sensing them, he turned her hand over. His eyes widened when he saw the elegant marks ascending her forearm from the base of her hand midway to her elbow.

"You tried to kill yourself?"

"Of course not. When I set out to kill something, I'm always successful. If I had wanted to kill myself, I certainly wouldn't have chosen such an inefficient method. This was purely recreational. It's not much different from you and your candle. Good night."

"Bye." He kissed her hand again and turned to leave.

She let him go a few steps then called after him, using his first name for the first time since the torture chamber. "Dirk?"

"Yes?"

"I plan to go dragon riding nearby tomorrow afternoon. The dragon tends to become irate when humans shoot missiles at him, and I wouldn't want him to damage your home unnecessarily. See that your dragon bow is well secured. And if you keep balistas on your battlements, please warn your men to leave us alone."

"Certainly. Thank you for the warning."