Rebecca shook her head.

“I felt something,” Nandra told her. “Though I did not know what it was. Do you?”

“The sorcerer who rouses the Beast, his energy is gone,” Lena said.

Rebecca, for one, had not felt that.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Can we be sure about anything we sense, see or feel through our craft?” Lena asked as answer. “But there is a great change, and it has naught to do with the fact that there have been less orderly quakes. The Beast is not gone, he is not asleep, he is…pacified. But he is the Beast. He has awakened. So he will not be pacified for long.”

“I do not like the sound of that,” Nandra muttered.

“I urge you, my sisters, in this time of despair, to hold on to hope,” Lena said. “Much swifter than I ever would imagined with these four, I feel their power building. This means we must protect them at all costs.”

“At all costs,” Nandra agreed.

Rebecca thought of what was happening in her home.

So when she repeated, “At all costs,” her words were full of sorrow.

As were the expressions of her sisters.

83

The Down

Prince True

Crittich Keep, Notting Thicket

WODELL

The roads to Crittich Keep were lined with deathly silent Dellish citizens.

And not a one of them appeared surprised that Prince True rode his steed Majesty at a breakneck pace along the cobbles, his mantle flying out behind him, his face set in stone.

Though there were a goodly number of them who were astonished at just how brightly his eyes were glowing green.

But True was of no mind to the silent masses that lined the streets.

Only one thing was on his mind.

And this was why he’d thrown his leg over Majesty’s rump to dismount before his horse even came to a full halt.

The instant he was on his feet outside the prison, he tossed his reins to a waiting guard who had to catch a still-moving Majesty and pull him back before he was yanked off his own feet.

True did not watch this.

His lieutenants Luther and Wallace—who had also dismounted on the fly—shadowing him, True stalked under the raised portcullis and through the high, double-wide, stone-arched door. A door that sat dead center in the long one-story section that separated the two tall, stark towers constructed of three-feet wide blocks of black Airenzian stone.

He was unsurprised that Aramus, Cassius and Mars awaited him just inside.

He was surprised that Frey Drakkar and Apollo Ulfr of Lunwyn were with them.

It was Aramus who approached first, his eyes moving over True’s face, and thus his lips knew only to ask, “Which one do you want first?”

“Carrington,” True gritted, prowling toward the inner hall without breaking stride, his mantle flashing behind him.

The men all formed a phalanx after him as True took a right turn in the hall.