The door groaned open. Clariel turned to duck through it, and in that instant, the guards struck. Several blows rained down on her back and shoulders, sending her sprawling across the threshold of the gate. She tried to crawl through, with the sending just standing there, doing nothing but holding the door open. She felt her legs grabbed as the guards dragged her back out. She twisted around and recognised Linel, who mouthed the word ‘sorry’ even as he was treading down hard on Clariel’s hand to make her drop the dagger, pain stabbing through her half-healed wound.

Too much pain, and too much endured in too short a space of time. Clariel made one last, violent attempt to rise up and spring through the door, but she was held fast. Her arms were brought behind her back and roped together before she was picked up and carried away from her potential refuge, limp and no longer struggling. For a moment she gazed up at the night sky, crowded in by the buildings on the street. The sky seemed darker than it should, till she realised she was swimming in and out of consciousness, and then the darkness was complete.

Magister Kargrin, flying above in the shape of a beggar owl, granted by wearing a Charter skin, saw the commotion on his street from afar, but despite the powerful beating of his grey wings, he could not arrive in time to tip the balance in Clariel’s favour. For a moment he did consider a rescue, but there were not only the six guards who had taken Clariel, but another dozen coming up the street. Some were Charter Mages, and there would not be time to argue rights and wrongs, so any aggressive magic he used would be countered or negated by these others, as was the nature of Charter Magic. And he could not physically fight more than four or five guards, on a good day, with luck.

Luck had not been noticeably with him so far that night. He had been spying on the Governor’s House, watching the Trained Bands muster, for he knew the soldiers were not being gathered by Kilp to counter a riot in the Flat, since it and all other parts of the city were quiet. He’d seen Clariel come bursting out of the gate, but had lost her in the alleys, and then had lost precious time going to her home, not guessing she would go to his own tower.

He was wondering whether he should follow the guards taking Clariel back to the Governor’s House, and attempt a rescue there, or do something else, when he caught the sound of a distant horn blast.

The great baritone boom of the Charter-Magicked horn that hung on chains atop the gatehouse of the Palace.

The Palace was under attack.