As she watched—now visibly shocked by his outbursts—Sire Dagon brushed past her. He inspected one corner of the room quickly, looking high and low. He measured a few steps to the side, and then grasped the tapestry he found there along its bottom edge. With a flourish, he flung it to the side, sending the needlework depiction of a sunset behind the Senival mountains rippling toward the floor tiles. And there it was! As he knew it would be. Nothing more than two depressions at waist height in the stone, each about the size of the heel of a child’s hand. He pressed his against both and pushed. For a moment the wall was as immobile as it looked. He cursed. He heard one of the women whisper something. He cursed again. And then remembered. He pressed harder on the right hand than the left. Of course. A door-sized portion of the wall gave way, suddenly smooth and light before his hands.

“There,” he said, turning, panting. “Now you know that we know of this. Would I betray that information without cause? Please, come in with me. I’ll tell you everything once we are inside.”

The queen glanced at Rhrenna. Sire Dagon knew some message passed between them, but he was too fatigued to riddle it out. Not that he needed to. By the Giver, he had just revealed a secret hundreds of years old, one that by itself changed everything about the trust between the Akarans and the league. He hoped it worked. Of course, if it did not, the queen would likely be dead within the hour.

Without speaking a word or looking him in the face, Corinn moved past him, through the opening. Rhrenna followed, her blue eyes hard on his. Dagon slipped in behind them. He made sure the wall fit snugly back into place, and then he stepped away from it. From this side, the roughhewn stone, which appeared to be lit from above by an opening to the sky, betrayed no sign of the door. Only at his feet, where a fan of thick dust had been swept aside, was there a sign to confirm he had just passed through the wall. How strange to finally be here. He had known of this place since his early days in his office, but never knew that he would see it himself.

He turned to face the two women. Before he was fully around, Rhrenna had slammed her shoulder into his thin chest, pushing him back against the wall. He felt the prick of a tiny, undoubtedly razor-sharp, blade at his neck. The Meinish woman pressed it skillfully, with enough of the flat of the blade that he could feel the pulse of his artery beneath it, and with enough of the edge that he felt his skin on the verge of bursting open around it. Her small face was close to his chin, her teeth bared as if she would bite him as well as cut him. He had expected this, too, but it was savage enough an action to take his breath away again.