It felt like twin bolts of lightning struck Kevlin simultaneously. One roared into him from the Mace, while the other burned up through his leg from where Tia Khoa lay hidden in his boot.

  He jerked, his entire body convulsing under the magical onslaught. The magnitude of it rivaled the power that overran his mind and nearly killed him at Il'Aicharen.

  The amulet flared to red-hot brilliance where it rested against his chest. It singed his skin, and blue light blazed from every opening in his clothing. The light mingled with the blue fire from the Mace that rolled up his arm and spread around his torso.

  His thoughts scattered, and it took him a moment to realize he was only screaming on the inside. His mouth remained locked closed. Imagining screaming wasn't nearly as soothing.

  He'd only wanted a little magic. Stealing it from one of the most powerful weapons ever known might not have been the best place to try. The magnitude of the power raging into him from the Mace was bad enough, but he wasn't prepared for Tia Khoa's reaction. The rock had never initiated contact with him before.

  Intense white light blazed around him, and through him. It was very distracting, but it didn't appear that anyone else in the room could see it. They were gaping at the flames enveloping him, and Remiel seemed convinced he'd gone made and committed suicide.

  The light changed his eyes. He now looked through physical forms to the magnificent spirits burning within each person's soul. Lady Miren's and Gabral's spirits burned pure white, while Remiel's looked dingy, like a long-used dish-rag. The keisara's pure spirit was ringed by clinging darkness, as were those of the guards stationed by the door.

  Sitara's spirit surprised him. It was a flowing mixture of inky black and snowy white, whirling together but not mixing. The evil power possessing the others was affecting her worse.

  The torrent of magic burst through his partially formed mental shields like the tidal wave Tanathos had unleashed against the fort at Il'Aicharen. It flooded his mind and his thoughts began to drown. Before he could really embrace the ensuing panic, he realized this was not the agonizing experience that Il'Aicharen had been.

  This was glorious.

  The magic freed his mind from the constraints of his physical form and left him floating on a river of power, able to go wherever he wished, to do anything he wanted.

  Kevlin threw back his head and laughed. This was exactly what he deserved! This power was what he'd longed for ever since Il'Aicharen.

  As if from a great distance, Gabral shouted, "What are you doing? Let go! The Mace is mine!"

  The enraged Mace bearer threw a punch. To Kevlin's hyper-alert senses, the movement appeared sluggish. Reacting to it was as simple as forming a thought.

  Blinding white light exploded from him and knocked Gabral from his feet. The short colonel lost his grip on the Mace and tumbled to the floor while everyone else in the room covered their eyes from the blinding flash.

  Gabral stared from his empty hand to the Mace burning in Kevlin's grip. He looked like he was going to cry.

  The moment was ruined when the deep magic filling Kevlin revolted. He tried to form shields, but the magic already filled him head to toe. It had slipped inside his defenses and he'd allowed it in.

  Raging magic battered against his constraints like an enraged bull and shattered them. He would have staggered under the onslaught had he been able to move. His body remained immobile, burning with blue fire.

  He didn't understand. He'd connected with Tia Khoa so the magic should be contained. Yet this magic, magnified to terrifying proportions, smashed against his defenses and threatened to drown him conscious will.

  Kevlin groaned as he fought to raise new mental walls and summon forth his army of determination and resolve. Magic inundated his thoughts, submerging his defensive walls time and again, like an angry sea. Each time he struggled to cast it off, to retain his thoughts and sanity, but his resistance began to weaken.

  He wondered why he should bother?

  This magic freed him. It lifted him to greatness he could find in no other way. He should embrace it, ride the wave wherever it led, no matter the consequences.

  He could achieve victory right now. No more hunting for elusive shadows. The enemy was close. He had the power to destroy them now.

  He could do it. He could embrace the magic instead of fighting it, release it in one gigantic blow that would shatter this tower and the entire palace beyond. Many would die, but so would the enemy. So many innocents had already died in vain. There could be no more glorious end for anyone than to be sacrificed to this end.

  Kevlin fought the insidious ideas, battling his own frustrated anger that weakened his resolve. The many sacrifices and setbacks they'd suffered fueled his urge to give in, just do it. Justice had been denied too long. He resisted, even as the fringes of his will began to fray.

  Fire could be used.

  Tiny wisps of flame flickered around him and throughout the room. They hung for a split second in the air before he extinguished them.

  Or a whirlwind.

  A breeze picked up, fluttering hair and bringing with it the threat of impending destruction. He gritted his teeth and pulled the magic back, denying it the life it needed to swell further to life.

  Kevlin weaved where he stood, torn by conflicting desires, barely holding the magic in check. It pounded through him, a torrent pushing the limits of his control. In desperation, he reached for the connection to Tia Khoa and felt the stone's presence in his mind.

  Take it back. I cannot handle it right now.

  He felt no response from the stone, but drove the still-resisting magic back into the rock. At first it fought like a cornered lion and nearly burst from his control, but then its resistance snapped and it drained away.

  As the last vestiges of magic faded, Kevlin's mind cleared and he remembered his brothers. He clutched after the magic but it slipped through his mental fingers like a sieve.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Before it faded completely, he reached for his brothers, and this time felt their minds.

  Brothers. The enemy attacks the keisara. Come now!

  The contact broke before he felt any reply.

  Kevlin dropped the now-extinguished Mace to the floor with a metallic clang. Gabral snatched it up. He clutched it to him and glared at Kevlin, his grey eyes burning with hatred. Then he lifted it high and it burst into blue fire. He exhaled a great breath, as if he'd feared Kevlin had damaged it, or that the magic was gone.

  Gabral snarled, "The Mace is mine, do you hear?"

  "I'm sorry." Kevlin didn't want to fight Gabral. He ached from the mental and emotional drain of battling for control of the magic. "You should have listened to me and that wouldn't have happened."

  "If you ever touch it again, I'll kill you."

  He looked ready to carry out the threat right then and there, but instead stepped away, as if fearing Kevlin would once more steal the weapon.

  "What does this mean?" Sitara asked. She stared at him, her expression surprised.

  Keisara Fideima convulsed over her stomach and moaned. She clutched at her head, and dislodged the plumed hat. Her voice hissed between clenched teeth. "Will . . . not."

  Sitara leaned over the keisara, her face worried.

  Kevlin advanced. "Your Majesty, who is doing this to you?"

  The keisara staggered to her feet and took two faltering steps toward him. She looked up, and the blackness drained from her eyes. For a second they shone bright, clear blue and she reached for Kevlin, her face desperately pleading

  "Help me."

  Then her eyes again faded to black.

  Kevlin's heart sank and he shouted, "No! Fight it."

  She retreated from him and bared her teeth like an animal.

  "Kill them both! Traitors!"

  The two guards stationed beside the door drew their swords and rushed toward Kevlin.

  "I am no traitor," Gabral declared, outraged.

  Kevlin shouted to Lady Miren, "Run! Get help!"

  She ran for the door, but it was flung open from the other side and more guards charged into the room. Lady Miren yelped and tried to dodge, but the first guard slashed her across the ribs.

  She screamed and tumbled away, a dark bloodstain already spreading across her waist. When she tried to rise, the guard punched her in the face and she crumpled, unmoving to the floor.

  The two guards who had been stationed at the door closed on Kevlin. He drew his heavy belt dagger and flicked a stiletto into his left hand. He threw the stiletto from ten feet and took the first guard in the right eye. The man screamed and collapsed.

  The second guard swung, and Kevlin ducked the whistling blade before it took his head off. He lunged under the man's sword arm, but the guard dropped his sword and caught Kevlin's wrist before he could drive the dagger home. The two grappled for control of the blade.

  While the keisara silently watched the fight and more soldiers charged across the room toward Kevlin and Gabral, Sitara beckoned to Remiel. "It is enough. Kill the keisara."

  "Are you sure?" His face paled and his hand holding the dagger shook.

  "It has to be done. Trust me."

  "I do, Angel." He hefted the dagger and circled the motionless keisara, approaching from behind.

  Keisara Fideima made no move to resist.

  This could not be happening.

  With a burst of strength, Kevlin broke the guard's hold and clobbered him in the side of the head with the hilt of the dagger. The man fell like a stone.

  Kevlin spun toward the keisara, flipped the dagger in his hand, and cocked his arm back to throw. Remiel stood directly behind her, shielded from anything Kevlin do from that distance.

  Gabral moved to meet the dozen onrushing guards. He hefted the Mace and said, "Halt or I will strike you down."

  They continued their charge.

  The keisara stood five long strides away, but the distance might as well have been half a league. Kevlin couldn't reach her before Remiel struck.

  Remiel's dagger glinted, as if winking at Kevlin as it paused in that last second Remiel lifted it high before plunging it toward the keisara's unprotected back.

  Kevlin did the only thing he could do.

  He threw his dagger.

  The heavy weapon flipped once and struck true with a meaty thunk. It sank to the hilt in Keisara Fideima's right shoulder. She screamed and twisted.

  It was enough.

  Remiel's dagger plunged into her back below her opposite shoulder instead of into her heart.

  She screamed again, her body rigid with shock. Her mouth moved in silent denial, her expression terrified. Then she crumpled to the floor. She lay motionless and could almost be sleeping. The widening pool of blood could almost be missed against the cranberry color of her dress.

  "Villain!" Gabral shouted at Kevlin, but the charging soldiers prevented him from carrying out his threat to execute Kevlin.

  "I had to do it," Kevlin shouted back.

  Most of the soldiers moved against Gabral, but three of them came around the short colonel and closed on Kevlin. He drew the silver dagger from the base of his neck, but it would prove little use against three swords.

  This was going to hurt.

  The door they had originally entered was flung open and Drystan and Jerrik burst into the room. Shouting his traditional battle cry, Jerrik plowed into the knot of guards closing on Gabral. The entire group went down in a tangle of limbs and naked blades.

  Drystan danced around the group and shouted, "Kevlin, catch!"

  He tossed Kevlin's sword. Then he started rapping the heads of soldiers fighting Jerrik. His long spear proved extremely effective, whipping out and dropping one soldier after another.

  Jerrik surged up from the press, a maniacal grin on his face as he punched one soldier after another in the face.

  Kevlin ripped his sword from its sheath, shouting, "They're possessed. Try not to kill them."

  Gabral snarled, "You do not command me!"

  He clubbed one soldier in the head. The heavy, spiked ball sheared through the helm and smashed his skull. Blood and gray matter sprayed out, and the man toppled from his feet.

  Kevlin engaged two guards, their sword ringing loud through the room. The third charged Drystan.

  Being possessed didn't make the man any smarter. Drystan dropped him with a lightning-fast series of jabs with the butt end of his spear, then moved to help Jerrik and Gabral fight off the bulk of the soldiers.

  "Stand down!" Kevlin shouted at the soldiers, but they only tried to decapitate him.

  He ducked and slashed one soldier's knee. The man screamed and fell, and Kevlin tackled his companion. They fell together, with Kevlin on top. The man tried to push him off, but Kevlin pounded on his head with the hilt of his sword until the man stopped moving.

  Jerrik heaved a soldier across the room. As the man collided with the wall, he called out, "A little crude, Kevlin, but effective."

  He was one to talk.

  Jerrik knocked the sword out of another soldier's hands with a heavy blow from his huge broadsword. He clubbed the unfortunate fellow and threw him into a clump of three soldiers facing Gabral. They fell in a heap and Jerrik brained them as they rose.

  Kevlin spun back toward the keisara just as Sitara said to Remiel, "Finish her. Time to go."

  Remiel leaned over the unconscious monarch to slit her throat.

  Kevlin snapped the concealed stiletto into his right hand and threw the narrow blade at Remiel. It caught him in the side of the throat.

  Remiel stumbled away, clutching at his neck as blood ran through his fingers. It was a serious wound, but not fatal. Kevlin needed more daggers.

  "Stop interfering," Sitara shrieked, throwing out her arms.

  A wave of hardened air blasted through the room. It caught the standing soldiers and tossed them like so many rag dolls across the room. Jerrik and Drystan tumbled along with them, cursing and flailing their arms. The group piled up along the far wall, and for the moment, no one moved.

  The amulet captured the magic that struck Kevlin, and he felt no more than a light breeze. As soon as the magic entered his body, he changed it to gain control, and focused all of it into a spear of magic, which he threw at Remiel.

  A golden shaft of light shot across the room and drove into Remiel's torso, tearing a gaping, smoking hole in his side and throwing him from his feet. He screamed, blood spewing from his lips. The surprisingly appetizing smell of roasted meat wafted through the air.

  Two problems solved together. He was getting better at managing his time. With the magic gone, he didn't have to worry about the Tai Pari, and Remiel was down and out. He'd expire within minutes.

  Sitara dropped to the floor beside Remiel and cradled his head in her lap. She placed glowing hands on his chest while tears stood in her eyes.

  "Don't leave me," she cried. "I can't do this alone."

  That clarified a few things.

  Sitara wasn't possessed. She was the enemy.

  "Sitara? Why would you do this?"