Word of a duel between an arcanist and a High Faelen spread quickly and a steady human tide streamed out of the citadel. Many carried burning torches with them, bringing a festive atmosphere to the air.

  The Faelen guards stationed outside Myam-tal’s mansion abandoned their posts to watch, and Price shook his head as he strode inside. That the Faelen had managed to conquer so much of the continent was a disgrace. They had the darts that could shred armies, but aside from that, they were ill-disciplined wretches commanded by arrogant fools.

  Fortunately, Price had gathered his own small force, recruited from the gangs that inhabited the wharves and shadier parts of the city and easily bought with Faelen guilders.

  Natalia Quinn sat in the banquet room, bound to a chair, and he was glad to see even her normally unbreakable composure flinch as she caught sight of his ruined face.

  “Natalia Quinn,” Price said, as he selected a sweet cake from the platter on the table and popped it into his mouth. The Faelen appetite for luxury was insatiable, and it made them weak. He could use them to become powerful here if he wanted to. But it would mean giving them Quinn, and she was far too powerful a weapon to hand them. “I did not expect you to be an agent of the wikkan. What could they have offered you, I wonder? Something significant to bend your pride, not money or power. Revenge perhaps?”

  Natalia Quinn made the chair look like a throne even with her wrists tightly bound to the arms, but she blinked at the mention of vengeance and her teeth clenched momentarily. Price smiled. Vengeance, the purest of motivations.

  “What do you want with me?” Natalia asked.

  “Where is Riot?”

  “At the tower, you’re too late to stop him.”

  Defensive, proud. Proud of Riot? Her reputation was impressive, but she had clearly been compromised.

  “Miss Quinn, have you debased yourself by rutting with the rank and file?” He made a tutting sound. “I have no wish to stop Sergeant Riot, I wish to blind Sergeant Riot in one eye. He did this to me,” Price indicated the empty eye socket. “And I would seek redress before leaving this place.”

  “That's all?”

  “I had planned to kill him, but he fought well enough, and he has reminded me of what a good enemy is." Price pulled the hedron out, twisting it between his fingers, and Natalia's eyes followed it, like a cat stalking a sparrow. "If you help me, I will discuss this with you.”

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  “If you want my help, then return the hedron to me and let me go.”

  “So that you can destroy the tower?”

  “Why do you care? It means nothing to you.”

  “Why would I help the wikkan achieve their aims? Unlike you, I have self-respect.”

  “Self-respect enough to serve the Faelen?”

  “Until yesterday, I was their prisoner. Now I find myself in a position of modest importance. Their thirst for redress suits me, and their gifts flatter me.”

  Price drew the Echo-forged steel that belonged to Tarir-del and laid it on the table. “Riley is dead, Ritta Kerne will be next. If the Faelen wish to aid me, then so be it. They are the enemy of my enemy after all.”

  “You don’t need them for that.” Natalia’s eyes narrowed. “There is more that they have offered you. The same reason you brought me here and not to them.”

  Price remained silent, but he gripped the hilt of the sword. In the lawless kingdoms of the east, they called her a shade. Assassin was too crude a word, for she knew things too—things that made even the witches and the arcanum wary of her.

  Quinn went on. “Riot and Kerne are petty slights and betrayals. You have another enemy, though, don’t you? A group that you have failed to identify, let alone destroy.” There were no lies on her face, only a death mask of certainty.

  His mouth was dry. “And you think you know who this mysterious foe might be?”

  “The ones that created the leybound.”

  The great mountainous edifice that held back the leyline trembled then, just for an instant. “Tell me what you know, and deliver Riot to me, and I will give you the hedron.”

  Natalia Quinn began to speak. She told him a story of cruelty, and suffering endured by hundreds. Some he knew, though much was new to him. It made sense that a legacy of pain should be responsible for what they had done to him. When she had finished, Price felt his spirit seething with anticipation, the Faelen and their crusade fading into nothingness.

  “Alric Rook?” Price asked, his hatred for the name making his voice tremble.

  “Rook was one of them, he was killed by an Erudoran boy at Ivansrook. They made him a sergeant to keep him quiet, they call him the last man.”

  “Riot killed Alric Rook?”

  She nodded.

  “Bring him to me,” Price ordered.

  “Send one of your men outside to look for a filthy little man in an arcanist's robe,” Natalia instructed.

  Price sent a guard away and leveled the sword at Natalia. She gazed at him with absolute indifference. If he had only half a battalion like her, he thought, he would shred through any army on the continent. He cut her bonds and she helped herself to the food and wine as they sat in silence while outside, came the collective roar of hundreds of people outside the city walls.

  The door creaked open and a scruffy gnome in a robe was hauled into the room, wringing his dirty hands.

  “M-m-istress,” he jabbered, throwing himself to the floor.

  “Odred, I need you to do something for me.” Natalia said.

  “Anything,” he replied, breathlessly.

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  Peter