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  Dal slowed his horse to join them. “I don’t see how anyone would dare such disrespect toward the royal family.”

  “That is because you were born in the time of high kings, my lord Thorne, and you come from the east.” Prewitt laughed, the sound guileless and surprisingly pleasant, the kind of laughter one felt inclined to join in. “Things are different in Farhold. Before the Sevan Invasion, we were not a people used to bowing to kings.”

  Dal’s brow furrowed. “But the invasion was fifty years ago, and we’ve had a high king ever since.”

  Prewitt laughed again. “I’m sure it seems an awful long time to someone so young, but remember that before the cities united under the high king, we ruled ourselves for more than a thousand years. That’s a long time to forget.”

  “Oh, I remember my history lessons,” Dal said drily. “A thousand years of war and bloodshed. No wonder the cities are so reluctant to serve the high king.”

  Corwin shot Dal a look, sick of the subject already. For weeks now, all he’d heard was how there was unrest in the west, protests in the cities over the high king’s rule, tax strikes among the merchants, and the growing threat of the Rising. He wanted to cover his ears and hum a tune just for a moment’s peace.

  Prewitt shrugged, his expression placating. “Not that we aren’t learning to appreciate the new way of things. High King Orwin is a worthy ruler, and every day we reap the benefits of our united cities. Such as the bridge he’s commissioned for the Redrush.”

  Corwin made a mental note of how easily Prewitt changed the subject, a mark of a skilled politician. Edwin would hold him in high esteem. Especially as it was Edwin and not their father who had commissioned the bridge. Orwin ruled in name only these days.

  “Yes, the bridge is a marvel of engineering and an industrious decision as well,” Prewitt continued, nodding. Despite the breeze, beads of sweat dotted the top of his bald head. “It will make the journey to Andreas easier for the entire realm and free us all from reliance on unreliable ferrymen.”

  And it will bring in a hefty sum to the royal coffers, Corwin silently added, once Edwin levies the toll. He wondered what Prewitt would make of that when he found out.

  “The Relay riders will appreciate it most of all, I believe,” Dal said. He waggled his eyebrows at Corwin. “Wouldn’t you agree, highness?”

  “For certain,” Corwin said, ignoring the implication.

  They turned off the main road, following a narrower path through a copse of trees dense enough to be called a wood. A strange smell on the air teased Corwin’s memory. He tried to determine the source but couldn’t with the sweet scent of everweeps so strong here, dozens of the colorful flowers growing wherever sunlight reached the ground. Nevertheless, something about that underlying smell made him uneasy.

  When they emerged from the trees a few minutes later, Corwin’s unease turned to alarm. Ahead, the Gregor manor house sat in the middle of a wide clearing. Three stories high and half again as wide, the house was nothing but a charred husk. Smoke still billowed up from several of the gables.

  Fire, Corwin thought, his mind finally connecting the memory to the smell—and burned flesh. His stomach threatened to rebel, and he turned his breathing shallow. For a second he was sixteen again, surrounded by terrified shouts as fire raged through the central marketplace of Norgard. He heard his mother screaming, ordering him to climb the roof, to save—

  No, don’t go there now, he told himself and, with an effort, pushed the memory away.

  Governor Prewitt’s mouth fell open, his jowls quivering. “What happened here?”

  “Death and destruction,” Dal said on a puff of air.

  “But who? And how?” Corwin moved his eyes off the house to examine the wall surrounding it. The fine hairs on his neck stood up as he saw that every wardstone set in the wall had been smashed to pieces. This wasn’t an accidental fire—the place had been attacked. Although the wall here stood easily fifteen feet high, that wasn’t nearly tall enough to keep out nightdrakes. Only the wardstones could do that, and someone had deliberately destroyed them. Corwin swept his gaze over the destruction to see that the gate had been blasted apart.

  Several of the men riding with them exchanged looks and whispers. “Was it nightdrakes that done this?”

  “No, couldn’t’ve been. They don’t really breathe fire, you know.”

  “They used to.”

  “That’s just superstition.”

  “Wilders must’ve done it.”

  The Rising, Corwin thought, tension spreading through him.

  Governor Prewitt silenced the chatter with a wave of his hand. “You four, sweep the perimeter. The rest of you head in to investigate. We need to see if anyone is yet alive in there.”

  Corwin doubted it. The house looked gutted, every visible surface charred and every window shattered. Wilders. It seemed the only explanation. These last few months, the high council had received dozens of reports about so-called Rising attacks from all across Rime. But they were mostly small skirmishes, raids on caravans or personal assaults on members of the Mage League. He’d never heard of them striking so big and neutral a target as this freeholding. On the contrary, from what he’d gleaned, the Rising was little more than a disjointed idea, one picked up here and there by wilders living in fear of discovery by the Inquisition, not a true underground movement. Even their symbol—a lion haloed by a rising sun, left painted on walls or carved into trees—varied widely in its depiction from city to city.

  Spying a hole in the ground a few feet ahead, Corwin guided Stormdancer toward it. The horse crow-hopped nervously as Corwin tried to steer him near enough to see into the hole. In seconds he understood the horse’s reluctance—the hole went so deep he couldn’t make out the bottom.

  “It must be the Rising,” Dal said, bringing his mount to a halt next to Corwin. His voice held a note of awe. It was like the ancient stories come to life—wilders who could rain down fire, summon winds and lightning, even rip the earth asunder. Some of the stories claimed that during the War of Three, a conflict that preceded the Sevan Invasion by more than two hundred years, the wilders cut holes so deep that the first nightdrakes were able to rise up from the three hells themselves.

  “Why would the Rising attack the Gregors?” Corwin said.

  “As an affront to the high king,” Prewitt said, almost matter-of-fact. “Lord Marcus is your father’s greatest supporter in the west.”

  Was, Corwin thought, not is. He turned Stormdancer toward the opened entrance into the manor, scanning the charred wood for the sign of the sun lion in any of its variations but finding nothing.

  “Um, your highness,” Governor Prewitt said. “Would it not be best for you to stay out here until we determine all is safe?”

  Corwin pulled his sword free of the scabbard belted at his waist. He held it up, steel glinting in the sunlight. He wore a pistol too, but he could carry only one weapon and still steer a horse. The pistol held a single shot—the sword could be used many times. His buckler he left hanging from the side of his saddle, at the ready should he need it.

  “Maybe,” Corwin said, “but I’m not going to.”

  “But your highness. You’ve no armor, no—”

  Corwin rode forward, ignoring the governor’s protests. If wilders were responsible for this, it was his duty, both personal and public, to bring them to justice. He saw his mother’s face again, the fear etched across her brow just as the crowd swept over her, trampling her in their mad need to flee the fire—one set by a wilder determined to harm as many people as he could. And that was before the wilders began to organize into this Rising. No, Corwin would not stand idly by now.

  Dal joined him at once. “Thank the gods. Thought I might expire from curiosity.” He pulled free his sword as well. Although he wore an eager, boyish expression, he carried his weapon with the surety of a man who knew how to use it. Which he did, all too well. Both of them did. It was a skill that had bonded them together during their adventu
res away from Rime.

  The smell worsened as they passed through the gate into the bailey. Corwin blinked the sting of smoke out of his eyes and breathed through his mouth, trying not to focus on the stench of burned flesh. Stormdancer snorted in protest, nostrils flaring. Bodies littered the bailey, scattered here and there like desecrated statues. It was impossible to count their numbers. Several of them had burned together, loved ones clinging to each other through the end. Corwin couldn’t understand why so many were caught in the fire. With so much stone in the house’s structure, surely there would’ve been ways to escape before the fire spread. Then the explanation came to him—it must have been more wilder magic.

  Corwin and Dal headed to the right, with the rest of the Tormane guards following behind them, while Prewitt’s men swept the left. Dal stared down at the bodies as they passed, but Corwin kept his gaze up and forward, paying as much attention to Stormdancer’s ears as he did to everything else. If there was danger ahead, Storm would give him early warning. The warhorse was uneasy, his neck arched and back tense, each step punctuated by a snort.

  They rounded the first corner only to find the destruction continued on. More bodies were scattered about, charred to unrecognizable husks. In the distance, what remained of the postern gate hung open, three-quarters of it blown away. The attackers must have surrounded the house.

  Hearing a noise beyond the gate, Corwin tightened his grip on his sword and steered Storm toward it. Once on the other side, he spotted a bonfire burning ahead. A man knelt beside the fire, but the moment he spotted them, he leaped up and bolted.

  “Stop!” Corwin dug his heels into Storm’s sides and reined him after the stranger, who disappeared down a narrow path through the woods. Giving pursuit, Corwin swept his gaze through the trees on the lookout for other enemies. His knees brushed tree trunks and bushes, branches scraping through his hair like grasping fingers. Still, Stormdancer made ground on the man easily. They were almost upon him when the path opened up into a clearing.

  Reaching the man, Corwin leaned over in the saddle and grabbed the back of his tunic. Corwin kicked his feet free of the stirrups and tackled the stranger to the ground. Storm halted at once, as he’d been trained to do. Corwin quickly stood and pointed his sword down at the man lying facedown in the grass.

  “Roll over slowly and look at me.”

  The man obeyed, shifting awkwardly onto his back. Corwin held the sword steady, his gaze unmoving even as Dal and the others arrived. Out of the corner of his eye, Corwin watched Dal fetch Stormdancer for him, securing the horse’s reins.

  “Who are you?” Corwin said.

  The stranger shook his head, which was as bald as Governor Prewitt’s. Pockmarks and dirt spotted his face while blood and char covered his tunic. His right sleeve had been torn away at the elbow, exposing a muscled forearm rimmed with a blue tattoo.

  Corwin brought the sword closer to the man’s throat. “I won’t ask again: Who are you and what are you doing here?”

  In answer, the man opened his mouth, but only a garbled sound came out, a red pit where his tongue should’ve been.

  “What in the three hells is going on?” Dal said, joining Corwin.

  Corwin stepped back, giving the man room to stand. “Get up.”

  The man did so, limbs trembling. Corwin frowned, surprised by the depth of his fear. Surely he knew that if Corwin was going to kill him, he would’ve done it already.

  “Watch out, Corwin!” Dal shouted, making a grab for the man, who had reached into his pocket for a weapon. His hand came out empty save for a puff of smoke. For a second, Corwin thought the stranger was summoning fire, but then he saw it was magic of a different kind entirely. Just what, he didn’t know, but he stumbled back from it in fear.

  The smoke transformed into two long black tendrils like snakes. They slid into the man’s mouth, disappearing down his throat. He began to scream as black lines spread over his face and down his arms, following the flow of his veins. Those veins swelled until they burst, breaking through the skin with blood blackened to tar. The man’s screams abruptly ended, and he fell to the ground in a messy pile.

  Covering his mouth, Corwin turned away from the sight. Around him, the others gasped and shuddered, several of them gagging. At least one man vomited.

  Governor Prewitt and the rest finally arrived. “What happened?” Prewitt said. He dismounted, feet striking the grass with an audible thud, and handed his horse’s reins to one of the guards before approaching the body. Corwin relayed the story while around him the guards made warding gestures.

  After several seconds of examination, Prewitt announced, “This man was from Andreas.”

  Taking a steadying breath, Corwin forced his gaze onto the body. “How do you know?”

  “This tattoo.” Prewitt indicated the blue ink wrapped around the man’s forearm, barely visible on the ruined skin. “It’s a miner’s mark. All who work in the mines in Andreas receive one. The ink glows in the dark, making their bodies easy to find if there’s an accident or they lose their way.”

  Across from them, Dal wrinkled his nose. “That’s rather unpleasant.” He picked up the magestone whistle around his neck and blew it. No sound came out, at least none that the men could hear, but somewhere overhead, Lir let out a cry in answer to the silent summons.

  “But what sort of magic was that smoke?” Corwin said. “I’ve never seen something like that. I thought wilders could only manipulate the elements . . . fire, earth, air, and water.”

  “And sometimes spirit,” Prewitt said. “That’s what the oldest tales say.”

  “No wilder born with spirit has been seen for centuries.” Dal stretched out his arm to catch Lir as she landed.

  “Quite right, Lord Thorne,” said Prewitt with a bob of his head. “They haven’t been seen.”

  Corwin considered the implication. It was true that wilders lived in hiding. The eradication of their kind was one of the Mage League’s primary purposes, one they’d grown even more successful at these last three years since the inception of the Inquisition and the formation of the gold order. Before it, wilders were condemned only once they’d been discovered performing wild magic. Now, the League actively searched them out. Every city and freeholding in Rime was bound by royal decree to allow the gold robes to examine their citizens, regardless of age. Could it be that there were those with spirit abilities who had simply managed to avoid being caught all this time? Corwin didn’t know. But with magic like he’d just seen, he supposed anything was possible. He knew a dozen men or more who would give their right hands to possess such a weapon.

  “Lord governor,” one of the guards shouted, bursting into the clearing to join them. “The fire that man was tending had a nightdrake corpse in it.”

  Corwin, Prewitt, and Dal followed the guard back to the fire. Corwin fixed his eyes on the charred pieces. The guard was right—there was a drake corpse among the debris. Still, he couldn’t make sense of it. Drakes couldn’t have done this. So why were there corpses here? Nightdrakes scavenged their dead. Why burn them? It was like trying to solve a puzzle with misshaped pieces.

  “What would you have us do, your highness?” Governor Prewitt asked.

  Corwin didn’t answer at first, uncomfortable with the question and the responsibility that fell to him. “I suppose we should take the miner’s body back to Farhold and have the magists examine it. They might know more about the magic that killed him. And we need to complete a thorough search of the house and grounds.”

  Prewitt nodded. “Will you be prolonging your stay in Farhold then?”

  Corwin considered the question, his unruly thoughts turning to Kate once more. If he did stay, it was possible he might run into her again. He could even orchestrate the meeting, if he dared.

  But only heartache lay down that path.

  “No,” Corwin said. “I will not prolong my stay. If the man was from Andreas, then that’s all the more reason for me to keep on with the tour.” That and the fact
that Lord Nevan of Andreas is one of my father’s biggest detractors, he thought but didn’t say. “I was scheduled to head there next,” he added. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”

  “Beg pardon, your highness,” replied Prewitt, “but given that this attack might have been an act against the high king, surely someone from your party should stay to learn what the magists have to say.”

  “I’ll stay,” Dal said before Corwin could respond. Corwin shot his friend a suspicious look, and Dal shrugged. “Should take only a short while. I’ll be able to catch up to the tour easily.”

  Corwin resisted an eye roll, understanding Dal’s motives clearly—by delaying his departure, he could avoid the slow pace they were forced to keep with the royal caravan. Should’ve volunteered myself instead.

  Corwin sighed. “If you’re sure, Lord Thorne.”

  “Quite sure.” A hint of a smile curved the edges of Dal’s mouth. “It will give me time to do a bit more exploring of this lovely city. I’d very much like to visit the Relay house.”

  Corwin looked away, hiding a scowl. Dal was free to do what he wanted, as was Kate.

  It’s not my concern, he told himself.

  No matter how much he might wish it were.

  4

  Kate

  BY THE TIME KATE REACHED the Relay house, roll call was over. The other riders were already coming out of the meeting room when she crossed the threshold into the office building attached to the main stable. Their boots made heavy thuds against the wood floor. For a second, she tried to duck into one of the staff rooms, but true to the theme of her life recently, she was too late.

  A familiar voice called out to her, “Late again, Traitor Kate!”

  She braced, ready for a repeat of last night’s torment as she watched Cort heading toward her. He will not get a rise out of me this time, she silently swore.

  Cort stopped in front of her, blocking her way. He slid the saddle he was carrying off one hip to rest it against the other. He’d been the only rider carrying one. Most preferred to keep their saddles in the tack room, conveniently located in the stable. Not Cort, though. This saddle was too valuable to leave in the care of anyone else—or so he claimed. And it was indeed valuable. Custom crafted from the finest calfskin leather, brass fasteners, and gold-laced thread, it was a saddle made for nobility. Kate knew it well—it had belonged to her father.