has done with all our heroes and man-gods. I could choose to be with a priest or
one of the Burek but I’ve chosen to be with you.”
She stripped the loose tunic back from the prince’s shoulders and pulled him
toward her. He resisted, fumbling with the accursed buckles on his sandals, then
committed himself to the changes she promised.
It was night at last, with the darker emotions of the mortal spirit obscuring
the heavens as surely as the smoke and the eternal fog. Ischade extinguished her
candles and gathered her dark robes around her. She had planned and deliberated
as she had seldom done, choosing decision over reaction despite its risks and
unfamiliarity.
She sealed the White Foal house with a delicate touch; if she failed, the dawn
would find nothing more than rotting boards rising from the overgrown marshes.
The black roses opened as she passed them, giving her their arcane beauty for
what might be the last time. With a caress she savored their death-sweet perfume
and sent them back where she had found them.
Across the bridge, deep within the better part of town, the bay horse consumed
the last of the ward-fire, leaving the Peres house naked to whatever moved in
the darkness. Ischade clung to the shadows with more than her usual caution; she
was not immune to mortal forms of death and there were others migrating
instinctively to the house now that its defenses had vanished. Crouched in a
doorway, she lit a single candle and studied the wisps of magic rising through
the ruins of Roxane’s wards.