to stand. "Wait, no! No bloodshed in my house!" A weight hit her from behind and pressed her ungently to the ground. She struggled and squirmed, to find Fade on top of her, firmly pressing her down.
"Fade!" she gasped. "Get off me!"
"Hurt Fade!" the slave gabbled, and hid his face against her back, sobbing, clinging to her like an overlarge child. "No hurt, no more hurt!"
Kord let out a bellow and caught the first of Warner's sons, as he threw himself at the big Steadholder. Kord grasped the young man by the wrist and belt and threw him across the room to crash hard into the wall. Kord rushed toward the doors to the hall, Aric and Bittan hard on his heels, and the folk of Bernardholt scattered from the Steadholder's path. He slammed into one of the doors and tore it from its hinges, letting in a howl of cold wind and half-frozen rain. He vanished into the night, his sons following.
"Let them go!" shouted Isana. So sharply did her voice ring out that Warner's other two sons drew up short, staring at her.
"Let them go," Isana repeated. She wriggled out from beneath Fade and looked around at the hall. Aldo lay gasping and hurt, and Warner's son slumped unmoving against the wall. At the other end of the hall, Old Bitte crouched over Bernard's pale and motionless form, an iron poker from the fire gripped determinedly in her withered fingers.
"Isana," protested Warner, coming down the stairs, still clasping his towel with one hand. "We can't just let them leave! We can't let animals like that go unstopped!"
Weariness and the pounding in her head met with the backwash of Isana's terror, of the panic at the sudden and vicious violence, and she began to shake. She bowed her head for a moment and willed Rill to keep the tears from her eyes.
"Let them go," she repeated. "We have our own wounded to attend to. The storm will kill them."
"But-"
"No," Isana said, firmly. She looked around at the other Steadholders. Roth was standing to his feet, slowly, and looked dazed. Otto was supporting the older man, and sweat shone on his mostly bald pate. "We have wounded to see to," Isana told the two men.
"What happened?" Otto stammered. "Why did they do that?"
Roth put a hand on Otto's shoulder. "They were firecrafting us. Isn't that it, Isana? Making us all more afraid, more worried than we needed to be."
Isana nodded, silently grateful to Roth, and aware that as a watercrafter, he would sense it. He smiled at her, briefly.
"But how," Otto said, his tone baffled. "How did they do it without one of us sensing it?"
"My guess is that Bittan built it up slowly," Isana said. "A little at a time. The way you can heat bathwater a little at a time, so that anyone inside doesn't notice."
Otto blinked. "I knew you could project emotions, but I didn't know you could do it that way."
"Most of the Citizenry who know firecrafting will do it to one degree or another, during their speeches," Isana said. "Nearly any Senator can do it without really thinking about it. Gram does it without knowing all the time."
"And while his son did it to us," Roth mused, "Kord fed us that nonsense
about a possible flood-and we were worried enough to think that it sounded reasonable."
"Oh," Otto said. He coughed and flushed pink. "I see. You came down late, Isana, so you were able to notice it. But why didn't you just say something?"
"Because the other one was smothering her, dolt," growled Aldo, from where he lay. His voice carried the stress of the pain from his injured foot. "And you saw what Kord tried to do to her."
"I told you all," Warner said with a certain vicious satisfaction in his voice from his position on the stairs. "They're a bad lot all around."
"Warner," Isana said wearily. "Go get dressed."
The spare Steadholder looked down at himself and seemed to become aware of his nakedness for the first time. He flushed, then muttered something to excuse himself and hurried from the room.
Otto shook his head again. "I just can't believe someone would do that."
"Otto," muttered Aldo. "Use your head for something besides a dressing mirror. Bernard is hurt, and so is Warner's son. Get them into a tub and craft them better.'
Roth nodded decisively, visibly gathering himself together. "Of course. Steadholder Aldo," he inclined his head a bit, to the younger man, "was right all along. Isana,