The Dragon's Path

lady of the household would have already been knocked to the ground and reinforcements shoutedfor. Instead, the man turned to knock on the oaken door and Vincen Coe stepped up behind him, wrapping an arm across the guard’s neck and lifting him. The man choked and kicked, his hand clawing at Vincen’s arm. Clara closed her eyes, and the sounds alone were worse than the sight. After entirely too long, the guard went slack. Vincen lowered the body to the floor and stood with the guard’s drawn sword in his hand. Phelia drew a key from her sleeve, fitted it to the lock, and a moment later they were in Feldin Maas’s private study.
    Vincen brought a candle in from the hallway, and by its light he found and lit the lamps. The room slowly grew lighter, taken by a dark, sullen sort of dawn. Shelves of dark wood and a thin writing desk with a brass inkwell and a white fluff of a feather quill. It was a larger space than Clara had expected. There were no windows, and a lattice of dark and light against one wall led her to think the room had once been used to store bottles. Phelia walked to the shelves like she was walking in her sleep. From amid the clutter of scrolls and codices, she took a simple wooden box, its top fastened with a hook and hinged with leather. She held it out to Geder Palliako.
    “They’re ciphered,” she said. “I don’t know the code.”
    Geder took the box, grinning like a boy with an unexpected present. As soon as it left her hand, Phelia closed in on herself, as if her bones had gone soft and smaller.
    “Thank you, dear,” Clara said. “It was the only way. You know it was the only way.”
    Her shrug was painful to watch.
    “I don’t know how it came this far,” she said. “I truly don’t. If I could have—”
    The roar was inhuman. Anger and wildfire and murder made sound. Clara screamed even before she knew what it was.
    “What in hell is this?”
    Feldin Maas stood in the doorway, a bare blade in his hand. His face was flushed almost purple with rage. Two more men stood behind him, blocked from entering.
If he closes that door,
Clara thought,
we’re trapped. And if we’re trapped, we’re dead.
    “No, Feldin,” Phelia said, walking forward. “It’s the right thing. It’s what we have to do. Lord Palliako’s promised mercy. He knew everything anyway.”
    “You
brought
them here?
You
betrayed
me
?”
    “I—”
    Maas’s sword reached out swift and sudden as a lightning strike. Clara, behind her cousin, didn’t see the blade strike home, but she heard it. She saw the horrible play over Feldin Maas’s face: surprise, horror, grief, rage. Even before the blood, Clara knew the woman was dead.
    Vincen Coe boiled past her, shouting and swinging his stolen blade like a scythe in a meadow. Maas fell back into the hallway from the sheer animal force of the attack. For a moment, the doorway was clear. Geder Palliako stood over the fallen woman, his jaw slack and his face pale. Clara pushed him, moving him toward the door.
    “Go!” she shouted. “Before they seal us in!”
    Geder and the priest hurried out. The sound of blade against blade almost made Clara pause.
I’ll surrender,
she thought. They wouldn’t harm a woman. It was an idiot’s thought. A reflex. Against all instinct, she ran out toward the fighting.
    If the corridor had been wider, Feldin and his two guards would already have gotten around Vincen and cut him down. Instead, the huntsman swung hard and fast, his blade filling the space, holding them at bay. Sweat was pouringdown his face, and his breath was fast. Feldin waited with a duelist’s eyes, looking for an opportunity.
    “Run!” Vincen shouted. “I’ll win you what time I can!”
    Geder Palliako needed no more urging. He turned, sprinting down the hall toward the staircase and double doors. She caught a glimpse of the wooden box still in his hand. She took four steps after him, but turned back. The priest moved just behind her, retreating from the fight, but not fleeing. Vincen’s shoulders worked like a laborer’s.
    “Oh,” she heard herself say. “Oh, not this. Not this.”
    Feldin’s blade swung high and hard, batting Vincen’s swing aside. The guard to Feldin’s left thrust past him, and Vincen grunted, leaping back. There was blood on the guard’s blade. Vincen’s blood, spilling on the floor.
    “You can’t win,” the priest said, his voice loud and throbbing. Clara looked up at him, tears in her eyes, but he smiled and shook his