“No!” she burst out. “He has to go. If he doesn’t, you’ll die.”

Hadrian’s first impulse was to laugh, but that thought evaporated when he saw her face. “I’m not as easy to kill as all that, you know?” He winked at her.

“I’m from Calis, Hadrian, and I know what I’m talking about.” Her gaze drifted off toward the windows, but her eyes were unfocused, as if she were seeing another place. “I can’t be the one responsible for your death. The life we would have after …” She shook her head. “No, he must go with you,” she repeated firmly.

Hadrian was not convinced but knew there was no reason to argue further. Gwen was not the type for debate. Most women he knew invited discussion and even enjoyed arguments, but not Gwen. There was clarity to her thinking that let you know she had already made her own journey to the inevitable conclusion and was just politely waiting there for you to join her. In her own way, she was much like Royce—except for the polite waiting.

“With you two gone, I’ll have time to organize a first-rate wedding,” she said, her voice strained as she blinked frequently. “It will take that long just to decide what color dress a former prostitute should wear.”

“You know something, Gwen?” Hadrian began as he reached out and took her hand. “I’ve known a lot of women, but I’ve met only two I admire. Royce is a very lucky man.”

“Royce is a man on the edge,” she replied thoughtfully. “He’s seen too much cruelty and betrayal. He’s never known mercy.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “You have to do this, Hadrian. You have to be the one to show him mercy. If you can do that, I know it will save him.”

Royce and Hadrian entered Essendon Castle’s courtyard, once the site of Princess Arista’s witchcraft trial. Nothing remained of that unfortunate day except a slightly raised patch of ground where the stake and woodpile had stood. It had been just three years earlier, and the weather had been turning cold then too. That had been a different time. Amrath Essendon had only recently been murdered and the New Empire had been little more than an Imperialist’s dream.

The guards at the gate nodded and smiled at them.

“I hate that,” Royce muttered as they passed.

“What?”

“They didn’t even think to stop us, and they actually smiled. They know us by sight now—by sight. Alric used to have the decency to send word discreetly and receive us unannounced. Now uniformed soldiers knock on the door in daylight, waving and saying, ‘Hello, we have a job for you.’”

“He didn’t wave.”