The aeries were badly kept. Stone watering troughs lay empty. Gnawed bones lay about, leftovers from past feedings.

Over the years, Orden had sent messages north by graak, and some graaks had stopped here. No one had ever cleaned the dung from the floors; now lime liberally covered the stone. The stairs leading to the aerie were age-worn. Vines of morning glory climbed from cracks in the rock, their blue flower petals open now to the evening sun.

But Orden found that one could see well from the landing field on the aerie—even down to the roofs of the Dedicates’ Keep and Duke’s Keep. So he secreted six archers with steel bows there, ordering them to hide and watch, shooting only if Raj Ahten’s forces made it through the gates. He added a single swordsman to guard the steps.

In the semidarkness, he waited for his body servant to light a lantern; then by its light he toured the Dedicates’ Keep. From the outside, it looked to be an austere, grim keep—a round tower that could hold a thousand Dedicates. For windows, it had a handful of small slits in the stone. Orden imagined few Dedicates ever stood in the full sunlight once they gave endowments. To become a Dedicate for the Duke, one virtually had to consign one’s self to a prison.

But the interior of the Dedicates’ Keep was surprisingly plush. The walls were painted white, with images of blue roses or daisies stenciled along the small windowsills. Each level in the tower had its own common room, with beds arranged around the outer walls, and a fine hearth in the center. Such rooms were devised so that at night a pair of caretakers might watch over a hundred or more Dedicates at once. The rooms each had chessboards, comfortable chairs to sit in, fresh rushes mingled with lavender on the floors.

King Orden worried for his son. He still had no word of Gaborn’s whereabouts. Had the boy been killed? Did he sit in Sylvarresta’s keep, a Dedicate to Raj Ahten? Perhaps he rested beside a warm fire, weak as a kitten, playing chess. One could only hope. One had to hope. But Orden’s hope was waning.

The Duke’s Keep now cloistered less than a hundred Dedicates, all in a single room. Orden calculated that it should have held at least five hundred to serve the fortress defenders. But at least four hundred Dedicates had died in the fight to win back the castle.

The battle for freedom claimed that many victims.

Fortifications for the tower concentrated at its lowest level. With great thoroughness, Orden inspected these defenses, for he hoped to fight Raj Ahten here, where he might have some advantage.