“Then it grieves me to disappoint you,” Malcius replied, moving forward with his arms wide, enfolding Frentis in a warm embrace. “For no pardon is required.” Malcius drew back a little, his hands on the brother’s shoulders. “Now, tell me of how you came to be here, and in company with such a lovely associate.”

Frentis smiled a little, head downcast, nodded, and reached up to clasp the King’s head between both hands, jerking it up and to the side, breaking his neck with a loud crack.

The knife was in Lyrna’s hand as she rose to her feet. She had no memory of having drawn it from her bodice. The screams began as the shocked stillness turned to confusion and rage, as the queen shrieked and the lithe woman dodged a guard’s pole-axe and drove a punch into his throat. Lyrna’s knife flew from her hand and buried itself in Frentis’s side. He convulsed instantly, back arching, a scream every bit as terrible as Kiral’s erupting from his throat, collapsing onto the marble floor, jerking as the agony wracked him.

The Volarian woman turned from the dead guard at her feet, gaping in shock at the sight of Frentis’s writhing form, his jerks ending abruptly, limbs suddenly slack. A single Volarian word issued from her lips in a whisper: “Beloved?”

“Kill her!” cried the queen in terror and grief. “Kill them both!”

Guards charged from all sides of the room, pole-axes levelled. The woman paid them no heed, her gaze fixing on Lyrna, face rendered ugly with malice and revenge. She extended both arms as the guards closed, and flame erupted from her hands.

Lyrna staggered back in shock, reeling from the heat as the woman whirled, her flames engulfing guards and lords as they swept the room. Lyrna saw little Dirna bathed in fire, her mother next, then little Janus, their bodies charred and blackened in seconds. Lyrna would have screamed but for the choking stench of smoke and burning flesh, making her crawl and rasp on the floor.

“You took him from me!” the woman screamed at Lyrna, advancing towards her on unsteady legs, blood flowing from her eyes in thick red tears. “You took my beloved! You festering cunt!”

A figure came staggering out of the swirling smoke as the woman raised her hands towards Lyrna, reaching out to restrain her. Al Telnar! Lyrna realised in shock.

The lord shouted at the woman as he grappled with her, his words lost amidst the roaring flame. The woman bared her teeth in a feral snarl and drove her hand open-palmed into the centre of his face. Al Telnar staggered back, sinking to his knees, his nose driven back into his skull, then collapsed lifeless to the floor.

Lyrna scrabbled back as the woman lurched closer, arm raised, flames erupting . . . and she burned.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Frentis

Agony erupted as the knife sank into his flesh, instantly spreading to seize his entire body. He heard screams he knew were his own as his legs gave way. It was like being squeezed by a fist made of a million jagged steel points, the pain so intense he felt his reason slipping away, memory fading amidst the torment. Vaelin, the Order, the woman . . . the King’s eyes just before he killed him, the brightness of them—a man finding relief from guilt. Far away there were more screams, a great heat filling the air, but it was so dull, beyond the wall of pain that surrounded him. He retained sufficient reason for one more thought: At least I won’t live to suffer the guilt.

Then it changed, the agony born of the knife blade shifted as it met something, an echo of a previous pain, a seed, stunted, prevented from growing, now given new life. The seed will grow . . . The steel-point grip faded, replaced by something worse, a burning, a searing fire ripping through him, covering his skin, finding his scars. It reached a crescendo then, the pattern of scars covering his torso flaring with a force greater than any he had known before . . . Then it was gone. All the pain, gone in an instant . . . along with the binding.

Air escaped him in a rush as he rolled on the floor, the sensation of freedom overwhelming. His hands found his chest, searching for the scars, finding only smooth flesh. They were gone, healed and disappeared. No scars, no binding. I can move. I CAN MOVE!

He began to rise then grunted as a fresh pain gripped his side where the princess’s knife was still embedded. An Order knife, he thought in wonder, tugging it free. The cut was bad, bleeding freely, but not fatal. He surged to his feet, finding himself standing amidst an inferno. Blackened and burning bodies lay everywhere, flame and smoke covered the walls, the King’s corpse lying before him, dead eyes open, meeting his own.

A shout to his left dragged his gaze away, finding the woman, flame streaming from her hands towards the prone form of Princess Lyrna. For an instant it caught her hair, her face, raising a scream of terror and agony. “No,” the woman said, stilling her flames, stumbling towards Lyrna, blood dripping from her face. “Too quick. You I’ll have raped every day for a year. You I’ll have cut, one piece at a time. You I’ll ha—”

The pole-axe blade slammed into her back and erupted from her chest. Her back arched as blood fountained from her mouth. She hung there for a moment, head lolling to the side, her eyes finding his face. “Beloved,” she said, showing red teeth in a smile of complete devotion. Frentis twisted the blade and watched the light fade from her eyes.

More screams from the princess as she found the strength to rise, her hands scrabbling at her face and hair as they beat down the flames.

“Princess . . .” He went to her but she reeled away, still screaming, running through the smoke, her blue gown lost in the haze. He ran after her, rebounding from flaming walls, stumbling over corpses. The smoke faded as he found the corridor. Screams echoed in the distance as the princess continued her unreasoned flight. He ran on, pausing at the sight of a guardsman’s body a short way along the corridor. This one wasn’t burned, his throat gaping open. Slit from behind, a single stroke. Kuritai. They’re here. It’s started.

He took the guardsman’s sword and ran on, following the princess’s screams, finding more bodies with every turned corner, bloody streaks staining clean palace marble. The screams were soon lost amongst the rising cacophony of terror and combat as the Kuritai abandoned stealth and began their work in earnest. He found a maid standing amidst four bodies in a courtyard, staring about in shock, for some reason still holding a basket of laundry. Before he could approach her a Kuritai appeared from the shadowed arches behind to cut her down with a single thrust through the back.

Frentis held up a hand as the man came for him, short sword raised, speaking in Volarian. “The King has been dealt with. I have orders to secure his sister.”

The Kuritai hesitated, his sword dropping only a fraction, but it was enough. Frentis’s sword point scraped past the opposing blade, taking the man in the eye, punching through to the brain. Frentis tugged the sword free and ran on.

More bodies, more Kuritai killing servants and soldiery alike with typical efficiency, too many to fight. Any who tried to block his path were killed, otherwise he ran on. There was a joy in the familiar feel of the Asraelin sword in his hand as it parried and cut, years of Order training returning in an instant. I am no slave, he remembered, side-stepping a thrust and severing his assailant’s arm. I am a brother of the Sixth Order. Freedom was exhilarating, adding speed to his flight through the palace. There should have been guilt; he had just killed the King of the Unified Realm, he had left a trail of death the length of the Alpiran Empire, but the absence of the binding was too wonderful to allow the onset of despair. That, he knew, would come later.

They should have killed me in the pits, he thought as he ran. I’ll turn this invasion into their ruin. I’ll wring blood from their army until their empire’s bled white.

He drew up short at the sight of a guard officer fighting two Kuritai in a hallway lined with huge paintings. He was a Lord Marshal of horse judging by his uniform, and a skilled swordsman, managing to keep two such able opponents at bay, though they were slowly backing him into a corner, his parries becoming more desperate as they closed for the killing blow.

Frentis took the princess’s throwing knife from his boot, still red with his blood, and threw it at the nearest Kuritai, the blade sinking into the base of his skull. His companion stepped back from the Lord Marshal, his gaze finding Frentis, then dropping into a defensive stance he recognised from the pits. The Lord Marshal saw his chance and aimed a thrust at his chest.

“No!” Frentis shouted but it was too late, the Lord Marshal had taken the bait. The Kuritai ducked under the blade, rolling and jabbing upwards with his short sword, the blade sinking deep into the guardsman’s chest.

Frentis charged the Kuritai as he vaulted to his feet, spinning to parry the first thrust, replying with one of his own, only blocked with instinctive speed. Frentis took in the man’s features, finding recognition there. The One who answered the door to the warehouse, he realised. A Kuritai captain. The man’s face was devoid of expression, betraying no surprise at finding himself fighting a man who had been at the mistress’s side the night before. It was the way with these automata. Bred and trained for war, conditioned with drugs and Faith knew what other Dark devices. Made perfect killers, immune to fear or distracting insult. Even so, he had killed many, and now would kill one more.