“I didn’t know I found the horn, not back then, at least. All I knew is that I had a box. A box that I couldn’t open. Did I suspect? Sure. But the only thing I was certain about is that I had an important relic, the extravagance of the hidden vault made that obvious. There were a lot of details I still needed to find out. No instructions were inscribed on the box. I tried to ask the emperor about it, but that didn’t go well. I wasn’t about to take the word of Proust, either, and I saw no reason to let him know the true nature of my search as he sounded a bit too interested. I needed more information, answers that I suspected could be found in The Book of Brin, which we found at Dibben, and I was right. Bran explained everything.”

“Where is it?”

“Knowing you were coming, I hid the box. No one else knows where. No one can find it but me.” She forced a grin of supreme confidence. “Go ahead and kill me, but if you do, you’ll say goodbye to the horn. As you know, I’m pretty good at taking precautions, and you gave me plenty of time.”

“How long will it take you to get it?”

There it was: the bridge to paradise, the words she had hoped to hear, the goal she’d been playing toward. She needed to sell it. “Why should I?”

Mawyndulë looked at Kolby.

Farilane was pulled away from the knight and flung across the tile. Kolby ran for her, but a shard of stone rose from the floor directly before him. He slammed into the wall, stunning himself. The stone spilled out and encased him in a cocoon of rock.

“Farilane!” he shouted. “Farilane!” His cries faded to faint, muffled sounds as the chamber he was trapped in sealed shut.

“I’m not positive,” Mawyndulë said, “but I think he has less than thirty minutes of air, so I hope that’s enough time. And, Princess, I know all about you. How you gamble with lives. You embarrassed Lord Rhinehart. He backed down, but you were bluffing. You didn’t have any orders from the emperor, and you didn’t command two legions. You didn’t have so much as a cohort behind those hills.”

Farilane could hear the indecipherable shouts of Kolby as if he were in another room on another floor. Behind her, the way was still blocked.

“Don’t try anything. I won’t be bluffed.”

The great golden doors opened.

“And, Princess, I will be watching and listening to you.”

Chapter 19: The Gamble

Chapter Nineteen
The Gamble