Cursors's Fury

The fire passed swiftly, though the bloom of heat from so much flame had parched the air and left several of the bars in the domed cage glowing with sullen fire. Amara looked up at Odiana, Aldrick, and Lady Aquitaine. “Bernard?” she cried, hearing her own voice shaking with panic. “Where is he? Bernard?”

“No time!” Odiana spat.

Lady Aquitaine pointed at the cage. “Aldrick.”

The big swordsman crossed to the cage, set his feet, and swung his blade in three swift strokes. Sparks rose from the steel bars, and Aldrick stepped back. A beat later, a dozen sections of iron bar fell to the stones with a metallic clatter, their ends glowing with the heat of parting, leaving an entire triangular section of the dome-shaped cage missing.

Aldrick extended his hand politely to Atticus Elania, and said, “This way, lady, if you please.”

Lady Aquitaine gave the girl a narrow look, then turned to Odiana, and said, voice sharp, “Fire crystals.”

Odiana’s hand dipped into the low neckline of her slave’s tunic and she tore at the lining, one hand cupped. She caught something as it tumbled from the neckline and passed it to Lady Aquitaine-three small crystals, two scarlet and one black, glittered in the palm of her hand. “Here, Your Grace,” Odiana said. “They are ready.”

Lady Aquitaine snatched them from Odiana’s hand, muttered something under her breath, and cast them down onto the far side of the tower’s roof, where they promptly began to billow with smoke-two plumes of brilliant scarlet and one of deepest black, the colors of Aquitaine.

“Wh-what’s happening?” Elania asked, her voice shaking.

“The smoke is a signal,” Aldrick told the girl, his tone briskly polite. “Our coach should be here in a moment.”

“Lady Aquitaine!” Amara snapped. After pausing a deliberate beat, the High Lady turned to Amara, one eyebrow raised. “Yes, Countess?”

“Where is Bernard?”

Lady Aquitaine gave an elegant shrug. “I’ve no idea, dear. Aldrick?”

“He was holding the stairs below us,” Aldrick said, his tone short. “I didn’t see what happened to him.”

“He couldn’t possibly have survived that firestorm,” Lady Aquitaine said, her voice practical and dismissive.

The words drew a spike of anger such as Amara had never felt before, and she found herself standing with her hands clenched into fists, her jaws clenched while tiny spangles of light danced in her vision. Her first instinct was to hurl herself bodily at Lady Aquitaine, but at the last instant, she remembered the child still clinging to her back, and she forced herself to stand in place. Amara took a second to control her voice, so that it would not come out as an incoherent snarl. “You don’t know that.”

“You saw it,” Lady Aquitaine said. “You were there, just as I was.”

“My lady,” Odiana said, her voice hesitant, even cringing.

“Here they come,” Aldrick called, and Amara looked up to see their Knights Aeris arrowing swiftly for the top of the tower, bearing the coach between them.

Lady Aquitaine glared back at Amara. Then she closed her eyes for a moment, lips pressed together, shook her head tightly, and said, “It doesn’t matter at this point, Countess. With the alarm raised, we must leave immediately if we are to leave at all.” She glanced at Amara, and added, in a quieter tone, “I’m sorry, Countess. Anyone left behind is on his own.”

“It’s so nice to feel cared for,” called Lady Placida. She padded up the stairs, still holding her chain and stone in one hand. Her white muslin undergown showed half a dozen rips and any number of scorch marks. Her right hand was raised, bent at the elbow and wrist, and a small falcon of pure fire rested upon her wrist like a tiny, winged sun.

“Given how fashionably late you generally are, Invidia,” she said, “I would expect you to have more tolerance for others.”

She hurried onto the roof, turning immediately to offer a hand down to Rook. The young spy looked disoriented, her balance unsteady, and if Lady Placida hadn’t been helping her when her balance wavered, Rook would have fallen.

Amara felt her heart stop for a single, terrible, seemingly eternal moment, then Bernard came up behind Rook, his bow in hand, his face pale and nauseated. He had one hand on the small of the spy’s back and was pushing her up more or less by main strength. Relief flooded through her, and she clasped her hands tightly together and bowed her head until she could blink sudden tears from her eyes. “What happened?”

“Kalarus tried to burn us out,” Bernard said, his voice hoarse. “Lady Placida countered him. Sheltered us from the flame, then sealed the stairway in stone. ‘

“He meant to say, ‘Lady Placida and I’ sealed the stairway in stone,” Lady Placida said firmly. “Though your friend there was struck on the head by some debris. I’ve exhausted myself, and it won’t take Kalarus long to open a passage through the stone we put in his way. Best we hurry.”