Shadows Return

Phoria faced the people and raised the bloody Sword. In a voice trained to carry across battlefields, she declared, “By the Four, by the Flame and by the Light, I will defend Skala!”
    The royal party moved on into the Temple of Illior, signaling the distribution of free ale and food to begin. Signs and omens were quickly forgotten as the festivities commenced.
             
    Alec and the others went to Kylith’s for a feast. Micum and his family left early, but Seregil and Alec stayed, singing and drinking, and returned to Wheel Street late and drunk.
    It was well past midnight, but they found the steward, Runcer, waiting for them in the salon with a royal herald.
    “This man arrived for you at sundown, my lord,” he announced, and withdrew.
    Seregil collapsed into an armchair and looked blearily up at the blue-clad messenger. “Well, well. What can she want with me at this hour?”
    “I was sent by his Highness, the Vicegerent, with a message for you and Lord Alec of Ivywell,” the man replied. “You are commanded to attend the queen first thing tomorrow morning, in the Chamber of Judgment.”
    Drunk as he was, Alec’s gut tightened at those words. “Are we being arrested?”
    “If past experience is anything to go by, he wouldn’t send us a warning first.” Seregil chuckled. “Please, good sir herald, give my regards to his Highness, and assure him that we are honored by this invitation, and will do our best to be there.” The herald arched a brow at the flippant reply. “Go on, tell him. He won’t mind.”
    “As you wish, my lord. From your lips to the Vicegerent’s ear.”
    “You’re drunker than I thought,” Alec muttered, helping Seregil up to their room. “What were you thinking, sending a message like that?”
    Seregil let out an inelegant snort and leaned on the wall while Alec fumbled with the bedroom latch. “Kor? He won’t care. And serves ’im right, calling us out at such a wretched hour, after a festival night. Mark my words; it’s
her
doing.”
    He staggered inside and collapsed facedown on the bed. Before Alec could draw him out further on the matter, Seregil was snoring.
    “Fine then. Sleep in your clothes,” Alec muttered, letting his own fall where they would as he followed.
    If he’d been more sober himself, he’d probably have been more worried.

CHAPTER 4
    Those Who Serve at the Queen’s Displeasure

    BY THE TIME they rode to the Palace the next morning, Alec was sober enough to be worried and wine sick in equal measure. Even the weak early light made his head throb. Seregil, as usual, was feeling fine and didn’t seem particularly perturbed about the summons. They’d left Micum pacing the courtyard, clearly worried whether or not he would see them again.
    “Bilairy’s Balls, Seregil, why did you let me drink so much?” Alec grumbled.
    Seregil snickered. “
Let
you? I seem to recall being told to ‘hand over the bottle or piss off’ at several points during the evening.”
    “So you’re as immune to drink as you are to magic?”
    “Hardly. I’ve just had better luck with drink. You’ve seen what magic does to me.” He raised a hand unconsciously to the faded scar hidden beneath his fine surcoat. “I’ll take a bad wine head any day.”
    Alec’s horse missed a step on the worn cobbles and lurched. Alec’s belly did the same. “Easy for you to say.” He kept his real worries to himself as the dark bulk of the Palace loomed before them.
    Built of black and grey stone and buttressed by the western wall that surrounded the city, with square towers overlooking the harbor below, it was as much fortress as castle, and one that had never been successfully taken. Alec had read the histories of how Queen Tamír the Great had built Rhíminee, guided by visions and the best builders in the land, after Plenimar had destroyed the original capital at Ero. The Orëska House had been built at the same time, but where it was airy and open, the Palace had a closed, oppressive feel.
    At least we came in through the front door this time,
thought Alec as a liveried servant led them through the large receiving hall and down a twisting series of corridors to a smaller, but no less imposing chamber.
    This one was long and rather narrow, with a row of stained-glass slit windows set high up under the vaulted ceiling. These left the room in semidarkness at this hour, and it was cold. At the far end, several rows of long oak benches faced a large throne on a