collapsed, exposing the blackened skeleton of its interior. Floors hung at rakish angles, and massive columns leaned like felled trees, supported by the piled rubble that shifted . . .
I blinked.
A few faint lights—pale green and yellow—flickered through the dark interior. Their pulsing movement must have fooled my eyes into seeing the rubble expand and contract as if it were a wounded man’s chest instead of crumbled stone.
“A moment.” I halted Ladyslipper and squinted into the deepening gloom. Shadows had pooled just at the spot where the two collapsed walls would have joined. And like a pond, the blackness had swelled and shifted when a carved capital tumbled much too slowly from an upper floor and penetrated its boundary. I squinted, my eyes refusing to accept what they encompassed. The scene was entirely wrong .
“Sonjeur de Duplais, what’s happened here?” I whispered. My heart, still racing from the encounter with the rats, rattled my ribs. “That hole . . .”
“An unfortunate shifting of the earth,” he said. “The collapse occurred a year ago. The Camarilla announced that some natural cavern in the rock beneath the fortress gave way—perhaps an instability caused by excessive rain. The prefects are weaving spells to ensure the integrity of the remaining foundation before they rebuild.”
“Who would risk going in there to work with the structure in such a precarious state?” I said, watching the colored lights multiply like gleaming fireflies in the deepest corners of the ruin.
Without shifting his gaze from the pavement in front of us, Duplais urged his mount forward. “No one goes inside the collapsed wing. It is forbidden.”
“But . . .” Green sparks drifted across an open span where the great rib of a vaulted ceiling lay below. The livid glow reflected on a bulbous metal object—a lamp or an urn or a cooking pot—that chose that moment to slide off the edge of a raked floor and drop . . . no, settle slowly, like an autumn leaf, and vanish into the pooled night.
My head, already aching, rattled like a tin drum full of squirrels.
Impossible. I didn’t believe in sorcery, certainly not sorcery that could collapse walls or cause . . . whatever I had seen. Yet as I followed Duplais up the road to Castelle Escalon, I kept my eyes on the pavement lest nature open an abyss under our feet, and all my strident intellectual protests produced not a single principle to explain why metal pots and blocks of granite might fall so much more slowly than physical laws predicted, or why their landings might cause ripples in the dark. When Duplais nodded to the palace guards and ushered me into my new home, I blessed my priggish escort and welcomed the closing gates behind me as I never imagined I could.
CHAPTER 6
4 OCET, EVENING
“ I’ m to provide chamber service for you, damoselle, as I do for the queen’s other young ladies. As you’ve brought no personal maid, I’ve been told to attend to your dressing and hair, as well. I’ll bring your supper here when you’ve no other engagements.”
The queen, dressing, hair. The topics were so at odds with my current preoccupations, they might have been foreign words. The venture through the city had left my head like porridge.
“I’ll come back tonight once I’ve finished my other ladies, and see to the unpacking. Here’s your bedchamber.” The round-cheeked girl, lugging my heavy book satchel, opened the door at the end of the wide passage and allowed me to enter first.
The small, tiredly elegant room was possessed of a single casement, no hearth, and a clutter of furnishings. It was also occupied.
The woman inspecting my piled luggage whirled about. “Well, here you are!”
Did I not know Eugenie de Sylvae nearer five-and-thirty than five-and-sixty, I might have assumed that the woman extending her arms in welcome was the Queen of Sabria. A trim woman of mature age, she had gowned herself in purple velvet heavily embroidered in
I blinked.
A few faint lights—pale green and yellow—flickered through the dark interior. Their pulsing movement must have fooled my eyes into seeing the rubble expand and contract as if it were a wounded man’s chest instead of crumbled stone.
“A moment.” I halted Ladyslipper and squinted into the deepening gloom. Shadows had pooled just at the spot where the two collapsed walls would have joined. And like a pond, the blackness had swelled and shifted when a carved capital tumbled much too slowly from an upper floor and penetrated its boundary. I squinted, my eyes refusing to accept what they encompassed. The scene was entirely wrong .
“Sonjeur de Duplais, what’s happened here?” I whispered. My heart, still racing from the encounter with the rats, rattled my ribs. “That hole . . .”
“An unfortunate shifting of the earth,” he said. “The collapse occurred a year ago. The Camarilla announced that some natural cavern in the rock beneath the fortress gave way—perhaps an instability caused by excessive rain. The prefects are weaving spells to ensure the integrity of the remaining foundation before they rebuild.”
“Who would risk going in there to work with the structure in such a precarious state?” I said, watching the colored lights multiply like gleaming fireflies in the deepest corners of the ruin.
Without shifting his gaze from the pavement in front of us, Duplais urged his mount forward. “No one goes inside the collapsed wing. It is forbidden.”
“But . . .” Green sparks drifted across an open span where the great rib of a vaulted ceiling lay below. The livid glow reflected on a bulbous metal object—a lamp or an urn or a cooking pot—that chose that moment to slide off the edge of a raked floor and drop . . . no, settle slowly, like an autumn leaf, and vanish into the pooled night.
My head, already aching, rattled like a tin drum full of squirrels.
Impossible. I didn’t believe in sorcery, certainly not sorcery that could collapse walls or cause . . . whatever I had seen. Yet as I followed Duplais up the road to Castelle Escalon, I kept my eyes on the pavement lest nature open an abyss under our feet, and all my strident intellectual protests produced not a single principle to explain why metal pots and blocks of granite might fall so much more slowly than physical laws predicted, or why their landings might cause ripples in the dark. When Duplais nodded to the palace guards and ushered me into my new home, I blessed my priggish escort and welcomed the closing gates behind me as I never imagined I could.
CHAPTER 6
4 OCET, EVENING
“ I’ m to provide chamber service for you, damoselle, as I do for the queen’s other young ladies. As you’ve brought no personal maid, I’ve been told to attend to your dressing and hair, as well. I’ll bring your supper here when you’ve no other engagements.”
The queen, dressing, hair. The topics were so at odds with my current preoccupations, they might have been foreign words. The venture through the city had left my head like porridge.
“I’ll come back tonight once I’ve finished my other ladies, and see to the unpacking. Here’s your bedchamber.” The round-cheeked girl, lugging my heavy book satchel, opened the door at the end of the wide passage and allowed me to enter first.
The small, tiredly elegant room was possessed of a single casement, no hearth, and a clutter of furnishings. It was also occupied.
The woman inspecting my piled luggage whirled about. “Well, here you are!”
Did I not know Eugenie de Sylvae nearer five-and-thirty than five-and-sixty, I might have assumed that the woman extending her arms in welcome was the Queen of Sabria. A trim woman of mature age, she had gowned herself in purple velvet heavily embroidered in
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