Suddenly, it became so simple. Duty and desire became one for the first time in years. “Captain Arturian,” Agon barked in his command voice, so that every royal guard heard him. “Captain! What’s your duty if the king dies?”

The squat man blinked. “Sir! My duty would be to protect the new king. The prince.”

“Long live the king,” Agon said.

The king was staring at him, confused. His eyes widened as Agon’s sword swung back.

Aleine was halfway through a curse when Agon’s sword struck his head off.

King Aleine Gunder IX’s corpse hit the table and knocked over chairs before coming to rest on the floor.

Before any of the guards could attack him, Agon raised his sword over his head with both hands.

“I’ll answer for this, I swear. Kill me if you must, but now your duty is to the prince. Save him!”

For a second, none of them moved. The rest of the panic in the hall seemed far away. The ladies screaming, men shouting, servants armed only with meat knives trying to defend their retching lords, shouts of “Treachery!” and “Murder!” ringing in the air.

Then Captain Arturian shouted, “The king is dead; long live the king! To the prince! To King Gyre!”

Together, Agon, the king’s guards, and a dozen knife-wielding nobles ran from the Great Hall.

Before Kylar got within sight of West Kingsbridge, he slowed to a walk. He willed himself to be a shadow, and looked at himself. He looked like a raggedly cut piece of darkness. That was good; Durzo had told him that the ragged edges obscured the humanness of his figure and made a wetboy harder to recognize. Kylar thought that his Talent would also be muffling his steps—he wanted it to—but he had no idea if it was. He couldn’t afford to find out the hard way.

He rounded the corner and saw the guards. West Kingsbridge was controlled with a large gate like the castle’s own gates. Hand-thick oak reinforced with iron, twenty feet high and spiked along the top, with a smaller gate inset. The big, mailed guards looked nervous. One was fidgeting, awkwardly turning his whole head to look to the sides. The other was more calm, pointedly staring every direction except down to the river. Kylar came closer. He recognized the men despite their helmets, and not only because the twins had matching lightning bolt tattoos on their faces. They were bashers, and good ones: Lefty—he was the one with the crooked nose—and Bernerd.

Kylar looked where Bernerd wasn’t looking. In the darkness, an unwieldy barge squatted on the river like a beached sea cow. Its doors were open, but no one held any lights. But darkness no longer affected Kylar’s eyes. If he’d had more time, he would have marveled about that—as night fell, if anything his vision improved as the shadows became more uniform.