mistake. Pain lanced through her skull. She choked back a surge of bile and groaned again.
Cool fingers pressed against Galena’s temples. A woman murmured in an unknown language. The fresh green scent of pines filled the air, taking away the nausea. More words spoken in that unknown language, like water trickling over stone, then a command delivered in Veraenen.
“Stand up.”
Galena blinked and focused on the woman standing over her. The prisoner. She fumbled for her knife, only to find the sheath empty. Sword gone. Both knives missing. The woman had taken everything.
“Stand up,” the woman repeated. She held a knife to Galena’s throat.
“What do you want?” Galena croaked.
To her surprise, the woman gave a soft laugh. “What do I want? Too many things.” Then all the humor vanished from her face and she leaned over Galena. “I want a way out of Osterling. Get me past the gates.”
Galena noticed she hadn’t promised to release Galena after she escaped. So she was smart, too. “What if I say no?”
“Then I make certain you can’t warn anyone else.”
Her tone was cool and composed, but the hand gripping the knife shook slightly. Desperate enemies make dangerous ones, her father always said. “What did you do to the others?” Galena asked.
A heartbeat of hesitation. “They sleep.”
She killed them.
Galena squeezed her eyes shut against renewed dizziness and considered her situation. This young woman knew a great deal of magic. She’d killed a dozen guards or more. She’d broken free from a prison with strong magical shields. Even if Galena took her by surprise and wrestled the knife away, the woman could probably murder her with a single word.
“I can’t help you alone,” she said. “And I need my weapons.”
“No weapons.”
“Very well. But I can’t get you away from Osterling by myself. I know someone who can, though.” When the other woman hesitated, she added, “If you don’t believe me, you can kill me now.”
The woman frowned, tight-lipped. “You promise? You promise to get help?”
It was not exactly a lie, Galena told herself. “I promise. Come with me.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
MIDNIGHT. ILSE STARED at her ceiling, hardly more than a pale square above her, illuminated by moonlight. Her thoughts remained frozen. No, not exactly frozen. More as though she had succumbed to useless panic, which robbed her from any useful activity. So she lay there, counting the slow thump of her heartbeat. Waiting, waiting, waiting for the day to begin and her enemies to come.
One quarter, two, three.
As from a distance, she heard the next hour bell ring. A single soft peal. They had entered the interval between one day and another. Like the void between lives, she thought. Like the moment between one breath and the next.
Tomorrow Khandarr would question her. It was too much of a coincidence, her presence here, where the Károvín ships had foundered. She could tell from his manner that afternoon. She knew too much about Raul Kosenmark. She only wondered why he had not bothered before.
She rubbed her hands over her face. No use lying in bed. She rose and stalked into her study, scowled at the map of southern Fortezzien, spread over her desk, which she had abandoned earlier. Its contents were not encouraging. Osterling sat on the point of the peninsula. A spine of rocky hills extended its entire length, and into the mainland. On both sides, the shores were narrow, populated with small towns and fishing villages, which were connected by a single highway. There were garrisons, too, each within a day’s ride of each other. Besides, Khandarr would have notified the fort and harbor watches the moment he arrived. They would stop her at the gates.
She could attempt to cross into Anderswar, and from there to Tiralien.
Another questionable choice. Even if she could dare such a thing, Khandarr could track her to Raul’s doorstep.
No, there was no escape. Except one.
Her gaze flicked toward her books. The scroll from Lord Iani hid between two massive dictionaries of the Erythandran language. Not yet, she decided. Not until she was certain about Khandarr’s intentions.
A small voice whispered, Coward.
I am a coward. I like my life and my self.
The candle flame shuddered, sending a cascade of shadows over her desk and hands.
Shadow, ghost, death. A link of words came too easily. It was a child’s game, she told herself. She had left the game behind when she escaped her father’s house in Melnek. Briefly, she wondered about her childhood friend Klara, with whom she had so often passed an afternoon with such