Although Aphen had been looking for something like this and had been half expecting to find it, it was a shock nevertheless. She wheeled on Arling, backing them both away from the edge of the wall where they might be seen. “Run back for Bombax and Krolling. Tell them the walls are breached and the Federation is inside. Bring them here at once. Tell them to hurry!”

To her sister’s credit, she raced away without arguing. Aphenglow continued ahead to the next watchtower, pulled open its heavy wooden door, and started down the winding stairs.

Federation soldiers were inside! The safety of the Keep was compromised and Paranor was at risk!

The words screamed in her mind, harsh and insistent, demanding she do something. She wondered how far inside the enemy had penetrated. She wondered what their orders were. At the very least they would try to open one of the four sets of main gates to let the others in. Her hands tightened on the walking staff as she limped from step to step, her senses attuned to the silence of the tower’s dark interior. She heard sounds of movement, soft and furtive, from below. The soldiers were moving about in the hallways, settling themselves in place, waiting until all were inside before trying to reach the gates. How many would she have to face alone? How many would she have to stop?

Her leg began to ache, and she realized she was tense and stiff and forced herself to relax. She found herself wishing Bombax were there. Or Cymrian. Maybe Cymrian even more, so cool and collected and seemingly always prepared. But they were both elsewhere, and she couldn’t depend on either of them.

She eased her way to the bottom of the winding stairway and stopped again in the lower entry. Passageways branched both left and right, but it was from the latter’s dark interior that she heard the faint sound of movements. She realized that she was between the west gates and the soldiers—and they were advancing toward her, creeping through the shadows and hoping not to be discovered until it was too late.

She would have to stop them here.

She glanced around quickly. There were no interior doors on these passageways. Quick movement from one tower to the next was important, and so the corridors were kept open. The point was to stop an enemy before it got inside. Interior doors were more an obstacle to a defender than a help. Given that the Keep’s walls had been breached only once before in its two-thousand-year history, it was hard to argue with the reasoning.

But now it had happened a second time, and Aphenglow wished she had at least one door she could put between herself and the invaders.

They were getting closer.