Estie surged closer. With both fists, she thumped the plump flesh of Magister Avail’s chest. Fiercely, she insisted, “Awaken me. Do you think you have been cursed? I am cursed! My husband has made me a wasteland. I am left with nothing. Open your heart. Awaken me.”

Travail wrote the words like tears on Avail’s forearm.

The Magister’s features were a visage out of his own worst nightmares. He snatched his arm away. With both hands, he covered his face. “Queen,” he moaned. “Oh, Queen. Is this what who you are requires?”

Then he seemed to shrink into himself, collapsing inward like Belleger’s Fist. She had released an earthquake among his foundations. The prospect of losing him threatened to shatter her.

But he was not lost. He was searching himself for something. For courage, perhaps. Or cruelty.

Or compassion.

He did nothing that she could see, said nothing that she could hear. There were no gestures. No incantations.

Silence surrounded her. No one attempted to dissuade her. For her, everyone else had vanished, every emotion, every outcry. Only she and Magister Avail remained.

Only the two of them—and sorcery.

She no longer felt heated. She was heat. Without warning, her world reeled. There was no stone under her feet, no walls and windows and people around her, no sensations in her hands or her face or her skin, no air anywhere. Instead, there was power.

As soon as she felt it, she knew what she could do. She was not done. Not while she lived. The silence in the chamber had become absolute, but that blank quiet had no meaning. Nothing mattered except her awakened gift.

The voice of her mind. From her mind to other minds. To any mind she chose.

With all of her strength, she cried out: BIFALT!!

Then she surrendered. Until that moment, she had not realized that she was exhausted. The floor seemed like a good place to rest.

NINETEEN

AMONG THE FOUNDATIONS

As he left the balcony over the doors of Belleger’s Fist, King Bifalt ran.

Not knowing whether the enemy would understand him, he had shouted, “I am here, you scum! Come for me if you dare! I will show you how the kings of Belleger defend their own!” But he had not stayed to watch the effect of his taunting. He had no doubt that the mass of infantrymen in the bailey would come after him.

True, they could not know how strong his forces were, or how many Magisters he had. Despite their devotion to their god, they were not witless. They would suspect some trick. Nevertheless the tactics of overwhelming force dictated their decisions. Bifalt had taunted them only to infuriate them. He wanted them to come after him at once.

He did not know how much longer Set Ungabwey would live.

Running, he went by the quickest ways down through the levels of the keep toward its foundations. Rather than fear, he felt a fierce eagerness. He was a soldier by nature and training. He could not win the war, but he knew how to win this battle.