Casket of Souls

actors.”
    “Ah.” He gave her a look of fondest regret. “My apologies for discomforting you.”
    “I’m so sorry!” She sounded quite sincere.
    “Think nothing of it. The pleasure of your company isdelight enough.” He took the citrine pin from behind his ear. “Perhaps I should return this to its rightful owner?”
    “Oh, please keep it,” she said, folding his fingers around it. “As a token of my regard, and for all the pleasure you’ve given me onstage, and tonight. I hope you’ll visit again.”
    “Of course I shall!” He rose and kissed her hand one last time. “Know that you occupy a very special place in my heart, broken though it may be.”

 
    K LIA and her forces had spent the last two days pushing half a troop of Plenimaran infantry—two squadrons of which were marines—out of a wood twenty miles east of the Folcwine. It was their second major victory in the past three weeks and as bloody as it had been, they’d given worse than they’d gotten. In the process they’d cleared the enemy out of a small Mycenian town, and the grateful villagers had brought Klia a dozen pigs and some beer. For the first time in weeks her riders had a taste of fresh meat, if not very much of it.
    It was nearly midnight but reports kept streaming in to Klia as officer after officer appeared at the front of her tent with news of successes and losses. She found herself stifling yawns and at last she allowed Myrhini to announce that she would hear the rest of the reports tomorrow.
    “You’re asleep on your feet,” Myrhini chided as she helped her friend out of her filthy tabard and hung her fine chain-mail hauberk on its rack.
    Klia pushed through the flap at the back of the tent, pulled off her boots, and collapsed on the narrow cot in her breeches and sweat-stained shirt, utterly exhausted.
    Myrhini chuckled. “Sleep well, my friend. You’ve earned it.”
    She lit the night lamp and pulled a blanket over Klia, then went out to her own cot at the front of the tent.
    Tired as she was, Klia didn’t sleep well. Her dreams were filled with the clash of battle and the screams of the dying.Perhaps that saved her life; the moment she felt a hand grasp her shoulder she grabbed the dagger from under her pillow and threw herself off the bed. The night lamp was out, the little room in darkness.
    “Myrhini!” she shouted as hands found her again in the darkness. She struggled, twisting in their unseen grasp, but they held her fast and sudden pain shot through her arms, hands, and right hip.
    She heard Myrhini’s outraged shout and the hands released her. She dropped to the ground and crawled toward her sword rack. Torchlight flared suddenly, illuminating Myrhini lashing out at three men, a fourth writhing in pain underfoot. More riders came crowding in, but before they could kill or apprehend the assassins, the invaders brought something to their lips and fell down as if stricken by magic.
    Klia sprang to her feet, glaring at the others. “How in Bilairy’s name did they get in here? Where are my guards?”
    “Dead, Commander,” one of her rescuers told her. “They’re lying out front with their throats cut. Bastards killed them before they came after you.”
    “Why wouldn’t they have killed me, too?” asked Myrhini as she began checking Klia’s wounds. The men had been armed with daggers, and between the darkness and her struggling they had only managed to inflict superficial wounds.
    “I—I don’t feel well,” Klia said, pressing a hand over her eyes. Suddenly she felt light-headed and nauseated.
    “Hertas, fetch the healer!” Myrhini ordered, righting the overturned cot and helping Klia to lie down.
    “I’m all right,” Klia said, looking at the cut on her arm.
    “It’s not deep, but it’s bleeding.” Myrhini staunched it with the corner of Klia’s blanket, then turned on the others. “Quit your staring and raise the alarm. If there are any other assassins sneaking around, I want them captured. Alive!”
    “Thanks.” Klia winced as Myrhini insisted on looking at the stab wound on her hip.
    “Bastard must have been going for your belly.”
    Klia looked past Myrhini to the dead men littering her room, which was beginning to spin. They wore Plenimaran uniforms. “Looks like we missed a few. They must have beencarrying poison in case they got caught. I think—” Her tongue felt thick and she tasted something bitter. “I’m poisoned, too.”
    “If you are, it’s something