Faraday may have loved Axis, but she had left him to marry Borneheld.
How Borneheld had laughed in Axis’face and taunted him with his sexual conquest of the woman Axis loved.
Now Eleanon wanted Axis to relive this all over again, save with Inardle now playing the role of Faraday. What did Eleanon expect Axis to do . . . battle and kill Borneheld once again, and then free Inardle — and himself — from this hex?
No, no, there must be something else .
There was a trap here somewhere.
This wasn’t a hex to trap Inardle. It was a hex to trap Axis.
They struggled on through the snow and ice. Inardle kept her head down, not looking at Axis, trapped in her own misery. She kept her hands wrapped about her shoulders, and her wings, still dragging behind her, were now so heavy with ice that Axis was amazed she could still move. Axis wished he could do something for her, but she rejected any overture.
They struggled through the snow.
After what felt like many hours something rose out of the snow before them. Axis was so astounded, almost frightened, that he stopped, staring ahead.
Inardle kept on walking, her head bowed, and Axis did not even know if she realised what lay in front of her.
It was a perfect representation of Carlon — the beautiful lakeside city that had once been Achar’s capital — save it was now constructed entirely from ice. Walls, streets, gates, turrets, the great palace at its highest point, even all the pennants and flags . . . all ice.
Inardle trudged forward.
Axis stared at the city, stared at Inardle — incredulous that she should just ignore this — then forced himself after her.
They walked on.
The gates of Carlon lay open before them. Axis felt as if he walked through a dream — or was it a nightmare? Everything was as he remembered and everything brought back so many memories. They walked through the gates — Inardle still not showing any indication she realised they’d stopped walking through snowdrifts and now trod ice cobbles — and climbed the road that wound upward through the city toward the palace. Axis kept glancing to the side and behind him, wondering what ghosts lurked down side alleys and behind buildings.
But there were none. Just Axis and Inardle, climbing ever upward to the palace.
The gates to the palace lay open.
Inardle kept walking, a little faster now that some of the ice on her wings had grated off on the cobbles.
Axis hung back for a moment, remembering everything that had happened in this palace.
Now Borneheld waited.
Axis glanced upward again. The fog had lifted and he saw a black speck high in the sky.
Thank the stars. Axis hurried after Inardle. He turned the cloak back over his shoulders, giving his hand free access to the heavy sword at his hip.
And the dagger in his boot.
They worked their way through the palace, moving ever upward. They walked through wide corridors, hung with vast tapestries depicting scenes from Achar’s glorious past and lit with ice lamps that emitted a cold, hard light.
There was no one in the palace, save he who waited in the Chamber of the Moons.
“Inardle,” Axis said, “wait.”
Unexpectedly, Inardle stopped, raising her face to look at Axis.
Axis reached out a hand, wanting to touch her, but not daring. He let his hand drop. “Inardle, whatever happens in that chamber, I am going to free us from this hex.”
Her mouth curved very slightly in a sad smile. “You do not know Eleanon. He wants neither of us to leave. You should not have come after me.”
“I could not let you go to Borneheld, Inardle.”
“Would he be any worse than you?” Inardle said, and she turned and walked forward.
This was a nightmare, Axis decided.
They walked on.
Eventually they turned a corner in the main corridor and, there before them, lay open the doors to the Chamber of the Moons.
Axis could hear a faint murmur coming from it, as if hundreds of people waited inside. “Inardle —” he began.
“Too late, now,” she said, and walked inside.
Axis hesitated a moment, then he, too, stepped inside.
And back into nightmare.
It was almost precisely as he remembered from that long ago night.
The Chamber of the Moons was the main audience chamber of the royal palace of Carlon. It was a huge circular room with an outer rim of alabaster columns supporting a soaring domed roof enamelled in a gorgeous deep blue. Gold and silver representations of the moon in the various phases of its monthly cycle floated amid myriad bejewelled stars across the enamelled dome. The floor was an equally spectacular affair of a deep emerald-green marble shot through with veins of gold. Even here, even in this construction of ice, the colours shone pure and unadulterated.
It was a spectacular chamber.
Axis lowered his eyes from the dome to the hundreds of shadowy people lurking behind the columns. They were not real, just shapes drifting and whispering among themselves.
Then he looked to the dais. When Axis had been a young man, BattleAxe of the Seneschal, this had been the domain of King Priam, Axis’ uncle. Then, after Priam’s murder, Borneheld had taken it as his own.
Now Borneheld sat the throne in the centre of the dais again, staring at Axis.
Inardle stood slightly to one side of the dais, facing Borneheld, but for the moment Axis barely noticed her.
His entire attention was centred on Borneheld.
Who could have imagined that Eleanon’s power could have constructed such a remarkable likeness?
Borneheld grunted, lifting a leg over one arm of the throne and slouching comfortably. “Likeness? Not at all, brother. It is I in truth and actuality and flesh. Borneheld. You thought you’d killed me, but here I am again. Aren’t you glad to see me?”
Axis just stared.
“You could come back from the Otherworld, brother,” Borneheld said. “Why not I?”
He stood, then, a hulking muscular man, dark to Axis’ fairness, bulky to Axis’ leanness. They had shared a mother, but it had been their different fathers who had contributed most to each man’s being.
There was a flutter at the door and both men looked.
The eagle sat atop one of the doors and as they watched it flew high into the dome, settling on a rafter close to one wall.
There it began to preen at its feathers, disinterested in the reunion below.
“Ah,” said Borneheld, “the eagle. How I remember that.” He took a step forward, all menace and triumph. “But what use shall it be for you tonight, Axis? I have no heart left!”
Borneheld took hold of his gem-laden jerkin, ripping it apart, and Axis took a half step back in horror.
Borneheld had no chest — only an empty cavity that showed his spine and ribs.
And no heart.
Borneheld began to laugh. “I have no heart left, Axis. How do you think to murder me this time?”
Axis went cold. This was Eleanon’s trap.
Borneheld, unintentionally giving Axis time to think, had turned to Inardle. “Oh,” he said, “she’s so beautiful. Far more so than Faraday, don’t you think, Axis? Special. Magical. I am going to enjoy her . . . although I’ll need to beat the magical out of her.”
He looked back at Axis, sly and vicious. “I used to try and beat the magical out of Faraday. Did you know that Axis? It didn’t work, of course, but it kept her quiet, and that was all I needed from her. Silence. And compliance.”
Axis knew Borneheld was trying to goad him, so he ignored his brother and instead walked a little closer to Inardle, holding out his hand. “Inardle, come away with me. Don’t stay here with —”
“Don’t touch her,” Borneheld said, stepping between Inardle and Axis. “If you want her, you’ll have to fight for her.” Again that sly, vicious smile. “Just as we did half a century ago. Old times, eh?”
He laughed, and Axis gazed at Inardle.
She avoided his eyes, looking miserable and trapped.
Just as Faraday had so often looked.
“Prophecy binds her, Axis,” Borneheld said, “just as it did Faraday. Prophecy is a terrible thing to try and break.”
Now Axis stared at Borneheld, aghast. For some unknown reason what Borneheld had said struck a chord deep inside Axis, and in a blinding moment of revelation he knew how he could break the hex, what Eleanon’s trickery demanded he do, but . . . oh stars . . . oh stars . . . no wonder Eleanon thought he had Axis trapped.
And thank each and every last one of the gods he’d brought the eagle.
“Then let Prophecy work itself out once more,” Axis said, and he drew his sword with a harsh rasp of steel.