Raomar woke with a start. He’d slipped into a state of semi-sleep, where his conscious hung suspended between being fully awake and sinking into oblivion. It let him keep tabs on his environment without being on full alert.

  It was a soldier’s way of sleeping…one his kind learned early, if they wanted to survive the forests they called home.

  It’s also a fugitive’s way of sleeping, he thought, remembering his years on the run. The Hunters were relentless and hard to shake. Only Enshul’s temple had provided peace, and then the treaty.

  He shoved the memory aside, seeking the sound that had brought him from almost-sleep to full wakefulness. Footsteps. Keeping his eyes closed and his muscles relaxed, he followed their progress, marking their route as they came down the last of the stairs and along the corridor.

  He’d expected them to stop sooner or to pass his cell door and stop after. He was surprised when they stopped outside and the keys rattled in the lock. Cracking his eyelids enough to watch the room while still appearing asleep, he watched as the door opened.

  The two guards that came first were no surprise. They barely spared a glance at the lordling lying on the straw mattress on the other side of the cell, keeping their attention on Raomar, instead.

  The guildmaster forced his face to stay relaxed and his muscles not to tense, watching as they stopped, the swordsman a little in front of the crossbowman that covered him. It wouldn’t have stopped him taking them, if he’d wanted to. They were too close for that.

  He listened to Broderick’s breathing, willing the young lord to keep sleeping. He didn’t need to be worrying about what he might do, with three… More footsteps sounded. No…four more guards in the cell.

  He watched as the next two carried in the limp form of a young woman, and opened his eyes.

  The crossbow came up as he pretended to startle and pushed to his feet.

  “Stay where you are!” the swordsman snapped, moving in.

  Raomar froze.

  “Who…” he began.

  “Shut it!”

  Raomar closed his mouth, his gaze moving past the swordsman to take in the girl. It was hard not to react when he recognized the guild’s newest recruit. Of the two guards, he recognized the duke’s head bodyguard.

  He bent over the girl, checking the bandages on her forearm, bicep and around her waist.

  “Thorough,” the guard accompanying him mentioned.

  Kale grunted. “Bandages are holding, and she’s got more color. Antidote will pull her through.”

  “Not that it matters,” the guard noted as Kale straightened.

  Both men glanced at Raomar, and Kale’s mouth tightened.

  “One of yours?” he asked, and Raomar made a show of looking the girl over.

  It was a struggle to keep his expression neutral as he shrugged.

  “Never seen her,” he replied. “What’s she in for?”

  As if the duke’s cells were nothing more than any other guard facility. He watched Kale tense, but the man’s eyes were sharp and he studied Raomar’s face intently.

  “None of your business,” he replied, pausing before he added, “and if she is one of yours, we’ll know soon enough.”

  His fellow guard snickered. “Yeah, with what the duke’s got planned, you’ll both be singing like pardel in a grain field.”

  He nudged Brianda’s arm with the toe of his boot. “You think she’ll be able to use it when he’s done?”

  Raomar noted a darker patch beneath the bandages, and a cold lump formed in his chest.

  The chief bodyguard glanced down.

  “She might,” he allowed, “If she’s got skills he can use, and she can be turned, he’s not going to be happy if she’s lost them.”

  The guard shrugged. “Your call.”

  “For shadow’s sake!” Kale knelt beside Brianda, lifting her arm. “Bring that lamp over here.”

  Another guard came in from the corridor, bringing the lamp. He didn’t stay, but handed it to Kale’s companion.

  “Hold it steady.”

  Raomar watched as the veteran unwrapped the bandage, unable to keep the shock from his face, when he saw the hole in Brianda’s arm.

  “What…” he began, subsiding once more as the guard before him, laid a hand on his chest pressing him into the wall as he positioned his blade tip over his ribs.

  Across the cell, Kale ran his hands over Brianda’s arm, manipulating her fingers with an increasingly sour look on his face.

  “I need a godsbedamned priest,” he swore. “His thrice-fucked lordship’s cut some strings.”

  “This time of night?” the other guard replied. “You’ll be lucky to find one awake…and even luckier to find one that won’t talk about what they’ve seen.”

  “Try the beast elf,” the crossbowman said. “He carries Enshul’s mark.”

  Kale glanced at the man, and then at Raomar. “Later, you will tell me how you know that,” he stated, and the crossbowman paled.

  “Yessir,” he replied.

  Kale turned to Raomar.

  “Is that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your goddess will answer even when you’ve been captured?”

  “She might,” Raomar allowed, feeling Enshul’s laughter in his soul.

  Of course, she would answer. Her people were bound to be captured at one time or another. It was an acceptable risk of the trades she oversaw, albeit one they all tried to avoid. There was no greater penalty for a priest being detained than for any of her other followers meeting the same fate.

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  “Then try,” the guard instructed. “The duke prefers it if his tools are broken when he chooses…and kept in a state of usefulness until then.”

  Raomar forced his face to a perfect blank, banking the rage that surged through him for later. It wouldn’t help him, now. A second guard had appeared at the door, his crossbow cocked and perfectly balanced…and he was too far away for Raomar to do anything about him before he fired.

  “Do you have more bandages?” he asked, crouching beside the girl and inspecting the wound.

  It had started bleeding through the crude stitches closing it, so he clamped a hand over it, and held it vertical.

  “Also numbing salve and a needle and thread.”

  The head bodyguard nodded at the man standing beside him.

  “Leave the lantern and fetch what he needs. I’m out.”

  The man’s mouth opened as though he was about to protest, and Kale snarled.

  “Now!”

  The man went, scowling all the way. Raomar noted the first signs of rebellion and glanced at Kale.

  “Him and I,” the head guard stated softly, “will talk.”

  The way he said it, Raomar didn’t think the conversation was going to be anywhere near civil.

  “I’ll also need hot water and cloths,” he stated, and Kale gave him a grim smile.

  “He’ll fetch them when he gets back.”

  Raomar could imagine just how well that was going to go down, but he said nothing. If the man wanted to push troop discipline, now, who was he to intervene? They weren’t his men.

  He lifted the weaver out of his tunic and was surprised when Kale lashed out, seizing him by the throat and moving swiftly behind him. The soft hiss of a dagger was all the warning he had before the man’s blade was laid across his belly.

  The crossbowman shifted around him, letting him see how ready he was to fire.

  Raomar froze, remembering to keep his grip on Brianda’s wrist.

  “That…” he tried, and the guard’s battle-calloused fingers tightened, warning him to silence.

  Raomar waited, careful not to show any signs of resisting. Counting his heartbeats helped, and he’d reached twenty before the man moved close enough to place his lips beside the guildmaster’s ear.

  “You cast anything more than healing, and you’re dead,” the guardsman warned. “You can’t get to us all.”

  His hand loosened on Raomar’s throat, and the kevarag took it as a signal to speak.

  “Understood. Only healing.”

  The head guard stayed tucked in close to his back, the pressure of his blade against Raomar’s skin unrelenting, his hand loosely wrapped around Raomar’s throat.

  “Healing only.”

  Raomar carefully lifted the talisman.

  “And we’ll have that when you’re done,” the man added.

  Raomar tensed, but hand and dagger pressed a little harder and he forced himself to take a breath.

  “Healing only,” he confirmed, sending a quiet prayer realmsward as he made the request in kevarag.

  Chances were neither man understood it. They’d see the results and that was all.

  Enshul answered, the sense of her neither displeased, nor amused. Raomar frowned. If anything, the goddess seemed…distracted…but she answered, and that was all that mattered.

  He felt her power reach through him. It traced a warm path from his chest to his shoulder and down the arm holding the girl’s wrist. Blue light spread from beneath his palm, and was greeted by gasps from at least two of the guards.

  Fingers tightened over his wind pipe.

  “Healing only,” he murmured, focusing on directing the power through the injury, asking it to mend the broken connections so that the girl regained the use of her hand.

  Her skin rippled beneath his grasp and he followed the movement along her arm, relieved when her fingers twitched in response and the gaping hole closed.

  Perhaps he wouldn’t need the needle and thread, after all…

  “All that is hurt,” he reiterated, this time in Common, and the blue light spread in response.

  It gleamed under her tunic, flaring brightly, before fading only to reappear as a dull glow beneath the bandage on her bicep and in glittering sapphire sparks in a myriad of smaller cuts. When it had found all it could, the light faded, and Raomar let out a soft sigh at its departure.

  The hand tightened around his throat.

  “Hand over the god-link,” Kale ordered, “and don’t say a word.”

  Raomar lifted the chain holding the soapstone weaver over his head, sadness rippling through him at its pending loss. He lifted it, and one of the other guards stepped in to take it. Instead of releasing him, the head guard holding him tightened his grip, and the dagger at his waist tore through cloth to bite into flesh.

  Raomar gasped, stifling a cry as the blade bit deeper, splitting skin and muscle but not going deep enough to tear anything else. The guard released him, letting him sag as he rose, and stepped away.

  “Got to have something for his lordship to rub salt into,” he stated, watching Raomar grip his waist.

  He took the god-link from the other guard and dangled it out of reach.

  “And now you have something else to think about.”

  Footsteps heralded the return of the other guard.

  “Patch him up,” Kale said by way of greeting. “The girl’s fine.”

  Realizing he spoke the truth, Raomar laid Brianda’s arm across her waist and let it go, before settling beside her. The guards moved to the door, save for the one who’d arrived with the salve, needle, thread and bandages.

  He took one look at the way Raomar held his arm across his belly and shook his head.

  “Lie down,” he ordered.

  Raomar glanced up at him, and he lifted the small bag holding his supplies.

  “I won’t ask again.”

  Reluctantly, he stretched out, flinching as the guard lifted the torn and bloodied tunic out of his way.

  With a soft whistle, the man glanced back at his boss. Raomar followed the look, and saw Kale raise his eyebrows and lay a hand on his sword hilt. The message was clear. If the guard didn’t want the same treatment, he’d do as he was told and without complaining.

  “Vindictive sonuvabitch,” the man muttered, making sure his words didn’t carry. He glanced at Raomar. “This is gonna hurt.”

  “So, tell me something I don’t know,” Raomar managed, and then wished he hadn’t.

  “It would’ve hurt less if you’d kept your mouth shut,” the man snapped, and took a flask from his belt. “Alcohol.”

  Raomar tensed. He thought about getting out of range, but the wound needed stitching and the goddess was curiously absent, as if removing her symbol was an affront she couldn’t ignore. He hoped that wasn’t the case, because he didn’t think he was getting it back…and crafting another one…

  He couldn’t afford to be without his powers that long, but the little statue wasn’t called a ‘god-link’ for nothing. Every deity insisted on one. Why, Raomar didn’t know. He figured they didn’t actually need their servants to have one in order to answer their prayers, but that was the way it worked…and he couldn’t think of a single exception.

  His brow furrowed as he tried to follow that thought, but the guard poured the alcohol over the wound and he barely stifled a scream.

  “Child,” the man mocked and the kevarag glared at him.

  “Why don’t you try it…” The suggestion ended in a gasp as the guard pinched the edges of the wound together and started the first stitch.

  After the initial cry, Raomar pressed his lips together and tried not to make a sound. His ‘medic’ didn’t make it easy…and he didn’t use the numbing salve he’d brought. Raomar noted the omission and decided he wasn’t going to beg.

  “You done?” Kale’s voice rang out from the doorway, and the man jumped, jerking the thread.

  Raomar drew in a hissing breath, and the guard turned back.

  “Quit your bitching,” he snarled, hurrying the last few stitches and then dousing the wound with another round of alcohol. “If you survive this, you’re going to owe me a drink.”

  A drink? Raomar’s eyes widened in disbelief. He was determined he owed the man something, but a drink wasn’t it.

  “And top shelf,” the guard added, pulling the last stitch tight and knotting the thread.

  Raomar wondered what weapons he kept on his top shelf and if any of them would satisfy, but the guard didn’t notice the dark turn of his thoughts and patted his chest.

  “All done. Don’t call again.”

  Raomar let his head sink back to the flagstones and resisted the urge to close his eyes. He wanted to keep his eyes on the sick sonofabitch until he was sure he’d left. When the man kept walking and didn’t look back, he relaxed, but kept a wary watch on Kale at the door.

  Kale noted his observation, concern momentarily creasing his face. The look was gone almost as fast as it had come, and Raomar wondered why it had appeared at all. The man was, after all, the reason he’d been caught…and cut…in the first place.

  Why do you care? he wondered, watching the man usher the other guards out of the cell, and then follow, pulling the door closed behind him. As soon as he heard the keys rattle in the lock, Raomar let his breath out in a soft sigh, and closed his eyes.

  What he wanted to do was get up and take Brianda over to the mattress Broderick was sleeping on…but that wasn’t going to happen. He lay there, feeling the ache of torn muscle and wished Enshul would answer regardless of whether he used a god-link or no.

  Curious to see if he could, he reached for her and found he could neither feel her presence nor tap the power she held.

  With another look at Brianda, he decided lifting anything was beyond him—at least until the god-link was returned. Clamping an arm across his waist, he struggled to sit and worked his way over to the wall. Grabbing Brianda by her collar and dragging her close so she rested against his leg was the best he could do—and it was a mercy when she didn’t stir.

  Feeling the warmth of her body resting against his thigh, Raomar leant his head back against the wall and let himself drift into a light sleep.