Then it began to ease. When Lylin felt Estie trying to move, she nudged Crayn. With a groan, Crayn raised himself. Shrugging off timbers and rubble, he staggered to his feet. Lylin pushed herself off the Queen. At once, the devotee sank back on her knees and heels, letting Estie gasp for air.

Both of them had flung themselves over the Queen to shield her from the falling rain of glass and wood, the spray of blood, the rent organs and shards of bone, the wild storm of papers, the chunks of stone torn from the ceiling. The devotee of Spirit was simply faster than Crayn. She had landed on Estie a fraction of a heartbeat ahead of the Commander.

Retching, Estie fought for breath.

The air scraped her throat like gunpowder. But it was air. At least for a moment or two, it was enough.

Shaking with effort, she tried to lift her head.

Lylin assisted her. For a moment, Estie could not see. Dust and reeking fluids clogged her eyes. With the sleeve of her robe, Lylin wiped Estie’s face. Blinking, Estie cleared her gaze.

Carried by breezes from the uncovered windows, shredded pages swirled everywhere. In clouds, they drifted down to settle like shrouds on half a dozen mangled bodies. The shaman was only stunned. Blood pulsed between ruptured ribs below his heart, but Estie saw his chest rise, fall, rise again. One of the Farsighted lay with her head at a sickening angle. The other knelt beside her, keening. Magister Avail’s sorcerous voice was a howl, yelling soundlessly to every mind in the library for help. Magister Rummage lay on his side against the wall. One of the table’s legs protruded from his lower belly. It looked as thick as an axletree. As far as Estie could tell, the monks in the room were still alive. She could not locate Magister Oblique.

Sirjane Marrow had become a horrid welter of shattered bones and gore. Clumps of white hair floated among the ruined papers.

Queen Estie of Amika pitched away from Lylin’s support to vomit. Then the full effects of the explosion caught up with her, and she collapsed, unconscious.

TWELVE

STORMS ON THE HORIZON

While the great pyre for the dead of Belleger and Amika blazed, King Bifalt let the onlookers stand their vigil. Magisters and gunners, servants and soldiers watched the dance of flames with desolation in their eyes, sorrow and lost hopes. He did not have it in him to hurry them.

However, the King made two exceptions. In a tone that did not encourage argument, he sent General Klamath to the nearest bunkhouse. When Klamath had left Belleger’s Fist with his company of Magisters the previous morning, he had intended nothing more ambitious than an experiment with sorcery. But since then, he had spent most of a day and night goading his horse through the snow. He needed rest.