you now. Are you awake? Yes? Good. Now, use the bathroom—the gods alone know when next
you”ll have the chance—get dressed and we shall leave.”
Maximilian sat on the bed, waiting for Ishbel, thinking that he felt as ill as Ishbel looked.
It had been an absolutely hellish day.
They had been lucky to have escaped Sirus” dungeons, and only the fact that no one
could find any poison on either Maximilian or Ishbel had saved them.
Sirus was still convinced, however, that one or the other had murdered Allemorte.
Furthermore, he was now absolutely certain that Ishbel was in league with the Outlanders, and
that the Outlanders—for whatever reason—were planning further murderous attacks, if not a
full-scale invasion, within his kingdom.
Whatever chance there had been for peace between the Outlands and Pelemere and its
neighbors was now completely gone.
Maximilian rubbed a hand over tired eyes. He”d spent the two hours before he”d woken
Ishbel with Garth, Egalion, and Lixel, arranging for them, as well as the Emerald Guard, to melt
away into the night in ones and twos and to reassemble at a spot a suitable distance, and in
suitable seclusion, from Pelemere.
Sirus might have his guard on high alert, but the Emerald Guard were almost as attuned
to the darkness as Maximilian was himself—they had all come from the Veins—and would be
able to slip past Sirus” guards without too much trouble. Maximilian thanked whichever gods
watched over him that he”d brought only a relatively small retinue from Escator, and not a
column of hundreds. That would have been impossible to sneak out of Pelemere.
Maximilian looked up. Ishbel had returned. Silently Maximilian helped her into the
clothes he”d selected: thick felt underclothes and shirt, furred trousers, vest and hooded coat, and
a heavy cloak.
Ishbel was a tall woman, but she looked lost beneath all the layers.
Maximilian tied the cloak around her shoulders. He needed to talk to Ishbel badly, but
because of the turmoil of the day they had not yet discussed anything that had happened.
Maximilian needed to confront Ishbel about the ring (why hadn”t he had the courage to do this
weeks ago?), and about why murder seemed to be trailing her every step.
Did it have anything to do with Elcho Falling? Was this part of the disaster that was
eventually going to necessitate Elcho Falling”s reawakening?
But for now, Maximilian felt tired and ill, and Ishbel looked even worse, and they were in
mortal danger unless they could leave this palace and this city now.
Talk would need to wait.
They had gloves with them, but for the moment they kept their hands free so that
Maximilian could hold one of hers in a firm grip, their fingers interlaced. Ishbel thought an
observer might think it a result of affection, but in reality Maximilian needed close contact with
her so that he could cloak her in his almost supernatural ability to move unseen through the dark.
Ishbel remembered how he”d managed to stand utterly unobserved in her chamber for
hours, watching her. Now she, too, enjoyed the same degree of disguise and it made her wonder
about him, about the depths within him she had not yet bothered to plumb and, again, why it
might be that the Great Serpent wanted so badly for her to be married to this man.
Sirus had stationed guards, not directly outside their apartment but at the junction of the
corridor that connected their apartment wing with the main part of the palace. This was the only
means possible by which to leave their apartments, the windows being far too high from which
to jump, and so Sirus had not needed to place guards closer.
The guards were awake and alert: Sirus had no doubt considered the possibility that
Maximilian and Ishbel might try to escape. As they neared the guards, creeping along the wall,
Maximilian”s hand tightened briefly about Ishbel”s, and he pulled her a little closer to him.
She felt a peculiar sensation creep over her: a heavy chill, oppressive, and yet humid.
Ishbel”s chest constricted, and she had to struggle to draw in a breath.
Maximilian stopped, watching her.
Ishbel struggled for a moment or two—not merely to breathe, but to do so quietly—then
felt her chest relax somewhat, and her breath come easier.
Maximilian felt her relax, and he gave her a small nod and squeezed her hand again.
Then he led her past the guards.
Ishbel swore that two of them turned and looked at them directly. One of them blinked,
but then he looked away again, while the other guard”s eyes slid over them without pausing.
The cold grew denser, and Ishbel”s shoulders sagged with its weight.
Again Maximilian”s hand tightened about hers, but then the next step they were past the
guards and about a corner, and, for the moment, were safe.
For an hour they crept through the palace and then the streets of the city. Ishbel”s heart
hammered in her chest, not merely with the constant fear of discovery, but also with the weight
of Maximilian”s oppressive concealment. She yearned for the spaces beyond the city, for any
space, for anything that might give her relief from the pressure.
By the time they neared the city gates Ishbel was stumbling with fatigue. Maximilian had
tried to pick her up, but Ishbel resisted. She murmured at him irritably, then blinked. They were
standing outside the gates. How had that happened?
“Maxel?”
“I am almost as weary as you, Ishbel. Come. Not far to go now.”
“Where? Where? Gods, Maxel…”
“This way.” Again he took her by the hand and led her along a path by the city walls,
north, then along a path that branched off to the northeast.
A period of time later—to Ishbel it felt as if half the night had passed, but she was sure
Maximilian would claim the distance could have been measured in the space of a few
minutes—they entered a small grove of trees.
A man stepped forward—Egalion.
“Maximilian! Thank the gods! We”d almost given up hope.”
“We still have a way to go yet, Egalion,” Maximilian said. “Do you have the horses?”
Egalion nodded behind him, and one of the Emerald Guard—Ishbel noted with some
rancor that he looked as fresh as if he”d managed an entire night”s sleep in a feather bed—led
forward two saddled horses.
Maximilian looked at the horses, then at Ishbel.
“I”ll carry Ishbel with me,” Maximilian said to Egalion. “She”s too tired to sit a horse by
herself.”
Ishbel wanted to protest, but Maximilian was right. She”d fall the instant they left her to
balance herself, and the next moment Maximilian had mounted one of the horses, and Egalion
was lifting her up to him, and Ishbel could finally succumb to the cold heaviness and lean against
Maximilian, and sleep.
CHAPTER TWO
Pelemere, the Central Kingdoms
Maximilian wanted peace and he wanted quiet, and above all he wanted the opportunity
to talk with Ishbel. They had been married some two months, and still she was a complete
stranger to him—even more the stranger now, he felt, than when he”d first met her. Events were
crowding in, and murders and wars piling up around them. What Maximilian had thought would
be a simple business—the procuring of a bride—was now becoming ever more dangerously
difficult by the hour.
He was growing increasingly concerned about the escalating crisis between the Central
Kingdoms and the Outlands. This, combined with the vision he”d experienced on the way to
seduce Ishbel, solidified in Maximilian”s mind the certainty that Elcho Falling was about to
wake.
Ishbel knew far more than she had admitted to him thus far, and Maximilian didn”t think
he could go on much longer, or farther, without prizing some of that knowledge out of her. She
must have some of the answers locked within her. Not all perhaps, but many, certainly. She was
of Persimius blood, she”d come from the Mountain at the Edge of the World, and she was
somehow intimately connected with Elcho Falling.
But, oh, what a complicated woman she was! Her refusal to discuss matters that held any
discomfort for her frustrated Maximilian beyond measure, yet at the same moment Ishbel
endlessly intrigued him. Her reserve challenged him, her reluctantly awakening sexuality
inflamed his desire for her, while her secrets angered and discouraged him and added to his
ever-growing anxiety about Elcho Falling and what he needed to do about it.
At the grove of trees, Maximilian had given the Emerald Guard some brief orders, then,
as was his wont, had turned his horse off in another direction, taking himself and Ishbel
northwest. He was heading for one of the isolated woodsman”s huts about which Borchard of
Kyros had told him.
An hour after dawn, the new day”s light almost lost amid the deepening snowstorm,
Maximilian carried Ishbel inside the hut.
She slept through most of the day, waking only in the very late afternoon when