The pillars of creation

"It was a very complex and powerful ward that preserved it until the right person touched it-to pull the note free," Sister Perdita said in a quiet voice. "The ward was likely keyed to your touch, Excellency."

For a long, terrifying moment, Jennsen feared that Emperor Jagang might suddenly swing his sword with a wild cry and behead the woman.

To the side, an officer suddenly pointed up at the Confessors' Palace.

"Look! It's her!"

"Dear Creator," Sebastian whispered as he, too, looked up and saw someone in the window.

Other men yelled that they saw her, too. Jennsen rose up on tiptoes, trying to see around the tall soldiers rushing forward, and the officers pointing, past the reflections on the glass, to the person she saw back within the dark interior. She shielded her eyes, trying to see better. Men whispered excitedly.

"There!" another officer on the other side of Jagang cried out. "Look! It's Lord Rahl! There! It's Lord Rahl!»

Jennsen froze from the jolt of those words. It didn't seem real. She ran the man's words through her mind again, so shocking were they to hear that she felt she had to check again if it really was what she thought she had heard.

"There!" another man yelled. "Moving down that way! It's both of them!»

"I see them," Jagang growled as he tracked the two fleeing figures in his black glare. "I'd recognize that bitch in the farthest reaches of the underworld. And there! — Lord Rahl is with her!"

Jennsen could catch only fleeting flashes of two figures racing away past windows.

Emperor Jagang sliced the air with his sword, signaling his men. "Surround the palace so they can't escape!" He turned to his officers. "I want the assault company to come with me! And a dozen Sisters! Sister Perdita-stay with the Sisters out here. Don't let anyone get by you!"

His gaze sought Sebastian and Jennsen. When he found them among those standing close he fixed Jennsen in his hot glare.

"If you want your chance, girl, then come with me!"

Jennsen realized, as she and Sebastian raced away after Emperor Jagang, that she had her knife clenched in her fist.

Close on Jagang's heels, in the shadows of towering marble columns, Jennsen raced up the wide expanse of white marble steps. Sebastian's reassuring hand was on the small of her back the whole way. Fierce determination etched the faces of the savage men bounding up the steps all around her.

The men of the assault company, sheathed in layers of leather armor, chain mail, and tough hides, wielded short swords, huge crescent axes, or wicked flails in one hand, while on their other arm they all carried round metal shields for protection, but the shields were also set with long center spikes to make them weapons as well. The men were even swathed with belts and straps set with sharpened studs to make grappling with them in hand-to-hand combat treacherous, at best. Jennsen couldn't imagine anyone with the nerve to go against such vicious men.

Storming up the steps, the burly soldiers growled like animals, crashing through the carved double doors as if they were made of sticks, never checking to see if the doors might be unlocked. Jennsen shielded her face with an arm as she flew through the shower of splintered wood fragments.

The thunder of the men's boots echoed through the grand hall inside. Tall windows of pale blue glass set between polished white marble pillars threw slashes of light across the marble floor where the assault force stormed through. Men hooked the marble railing with big hands and swooped up the first stairway, going for the upper floors where they had seen the Mother Confessor and Lord Rahl. The sound of the soldiers' boots on stone echoed up through the high-ceilinged stairwell decorated with ornate moldings.

Jennsen couldn't help being wildly excited that this might be the day it all ended. She was but one mighty thrust of her knife from freedom. She was the one to do it. She was the only one who could. She was invincible.

The fact that she was going to kill a man was only dimly important to her. As she raced up the steps, she thought only about the horror Lord Rahl had brought to her life and the lives of others. Filled with righteous rage, she intended to end it once and for all.

Sebastian, racing right along with her, had his sword out. A dozen of the big brutes were in front of her, led by Emperor Jagang himself. Behind were hundreds more of the grim assault force, all determined to deliver merciless violence to the enemy. Between her and those charging soldiers behind, Sisters of the Light ran up the steps, without weapons but for their gift.

At the top of the flight of stairs, they all bunched to a halt on a slick oak floor. Emperor Jagang looked both ways down the hall.

One of the panting Sisters pushed through the men. "Excellency! This makes no sense!"

His only answer was a glare as he caught his breath, before his gaze moved, searching for his prey.