Ser Voyne tears her gaze away from Leodegardis to find the room has gone dark, even though she is certain the sun was at its zenith only a little while ago. The room has few windows; they are thin, tall things, designed to be defensible. But they still let in enough light to see by in midday, even in a storm.

Unless they are blocked.

Unless bodies curl against their slanted sills and press into the gaps, covering the sun and air almost completely.

Only a little light filters in, enough for Voyne to make out an arm, a leg, the curve of a hip.

The glimmer of eyes.

There are eight window niches in the room, and every single one of them is occupied. She jerks away from the table, on her feet and reaching for the sword that isn’t there. Laughter erupts from every side, and she backpedals, closer to Leodegardis.

“Do you remember,” she asks him, the words rasping in her throat, “where they took my blade?”

“I took it,” he reminds her, and she does remember it, at last. Him kneeling at her feet, and her surrendering her sword, her armor, as the Lady looked on. “They would not touch it. I placed it . . . I placed it by the throne, where it belonged.”

And then his brow draws down and he seizes her with his remaining hand, hauls her close. “You must swear to me two things, Ser Voyne,” he gasps out against her ear.

“Name it,” she says, trying desperately to give him her full attention while keeping her eyes fixed on the prowling shadows.

“Trust in Phosyne,” he says. It sounds like stone grinding on stone. He is fighting everything in himself. But the words catch the tinder beneath her ribs and ignite, burning bright. She hangs on to him and to his every word. “And protect the people.”

He releases her, and she falls forward. The shadows are slinking closer, the light from the windows brightening as they leave the sills and come into the room proper.

“I swear,” Ser Voyne says. “I swear on my life. I am sorry—”

And then she runs.

32

32

Phosyne slams the door shut with a single thought.

The bar draws down, her workbench slides over, and she is protected, bending double, gasping for breath. Nobody knocks. Nobody tries to get in. When she’s got her breath back enough to retreat, it’s like any other evening she’s spent alone in this room.

Evening?

She stares for a long minute at the darkened glass pane up in the loft. She stares until Ornuo nips at her ankle, and she kicks him off. It’s enough movement to get her started, and she prowls up the steps and begins to dismantle the haphazard pile blocking her window.