In the harsh flicker of the brazier, it was difficult to see how blue her eyes were, but her smile was plainly visible as she drew up next to him, placing her hands upon the walls and following his previous gaze. Padric no longer looked out. Her long tumble of golden hair was bound against the wind in several thick braids and he stared for a lingering moment over the curve of her jaw. She must have been the envy of her village before it was burnt and she stolen away. Padric had never seen an Airlann born girl that was her equal. Mayhaps she was even wed. He hoped that her phantom husband had defended her to the death, spilling raider blood until his own spilled from him, making the slavers pay a heavy price for thrusting her into this life of fear, servitude and the ravings of monsters.

“Kederic?” he asked at last, hating to break the silence.

Svala looked over at him. “Svefn,” she said.

“Svefn,” Padric said, and she smiled a little, watching him puzzle through the few words Slouch Hat had been teaching him. “Ah, svefn. Sleeping…sleep?”

“Ja,” she said, nodding with approval. “Sleep.”

He smiled back, delighting in the accent of her people. She spoke again, maybe four words, but he only caught one of them.

“Kvila? Urn…illness? Sick? He is sick.”

She nodded, her face veiled slightly with a resigned sadness. “Ja.”

Padric turned away, not wanting his grimace of anger to fall upon her. At his insistence, Torcan had the Thegn brought to the castle from Reaver’s Meadow. He had arrived only a day behind their own party and was in a wretched condition.

Since obtaining Jerrod’s crown, Padric had found Torcan all too willing to please. The Thegn’s lies had never truly convinced the goblin warlord, Padric saw that now. The deadly test in the Tower of Vellaunus had always been part of his plan. Any previous courtesy had been nothing but a precaution, a show of respect, lest he actually prove to be the Gaunt Prince’s heir. And now he was, at least to Torcan’s mind, and the goblin’s uncontrollable hunger to give his devotion to that perverted lineage consumed him.

The clamor of the hammers in the yard below drove the peace away and Padric took Svala’s hand so that they might walk the walls together. For all their lies, the fortress was still a prison, and the only way to escape it was to get out under the night sky, and see that even Castle Gaunt sat dwarfed under the heavens.