“Damn,” Vegard said in awe and admiration.

Phaelan was grinning from ear to ear. “I love it. I hate magic, but I love this.”

I didn’t. Balmorlan would have told his men what Piaras was capable of. I imagine the fake Guardians had shielded themselves, but when you saw several tons of fanged and furry rage running at you, shields and discipline would be the first things to go, and your bladder could be next. While I was grateful that Piaras conjured something that could pound the crap out of those guards, I knew he didn’t have that kind of power-but the Saghred did.

“Our nightingale has a rare gift,” came Sarad Nukpana’s voice and presence in my mind-and Mychael’s. “Don’t you agree, Paladin?” With a chuckle, he was gone.

While the bukas were playing with the embassy guards, Piaras was most definitely not playing with the two elves attacking him. Piaras knew how to use a rapier; Phaelan and I had taught him. He was a good student.

He wasn’t this good.

One guard lay unmoving in the middle of the street, the streetlights illuminating the blood staining the area around his heart. No rapier lay in the street with him; Piaras had one in either hand. He’d taken it when he’d killed the elf. I could feel what he’d done. The guard’s death lingered heavily in the air.

Piaras’s first kill.

It was self-defense, I told myself. It had to have been. Piaras was not a murderer. He’d been forced to kill and it was my fault. Mine. Mine and the bastards who wanted me and the power I had. They were the reason why I was here; they were the reason Piaras had no choice but to come with me.

The reason he’d had no choice but to kill that embassy guard.

There was nothing awkward or hesitant in the way Piaras fought. Phaelan had taught him to fight with two rapiers, two men on one. Practicing with friends who didn’t want to skewer you was one thing, fighting for your life against trained solders was something else entirely. I’d seen trained men panic in Piaras’s situation. Not only did Piaras not panic, he fought like a sword master, not the student he was, moving like a hungry Nebian panther stalking dinner.

The embassy guards knew their business. They attacked together, then separately, one elf trying to get behind Piaras, the other intensifying his attack to force Piaras to focus all his attention on him. It didn’t work. It was like the kid had eyes in the back of his head. He didn’t, but Sarad Nukpana wasn’t restricted by eyes. I hated that goblin shaman, but right now I was grateful. His skill was keeping Piaras alive.

The bottom dropped out of my stomach. That same preternatural skill would condemn him.

This might have started out as a kidnapping, but it’d turned into a setup. The embassy guards were no longer wearing Guardian uniforms. For anyone who saw them now, they were elven embassy guards under attack and defending themselves. One of the bastards was even standing off to the side, bearing witness to the whole thing. Balmorlan knew that Piaras was capable of defending himself. Taltek Balmorlan would call it an act of revenge and murder. Piaras was a subject of the elven crown attacking elven embassy guards. Balmorlan could have him arrested and extradited before the ink was dry on the paperwork.

The first squad of Guardians had arrived; their job was to deal with Piaras’s bukas. I wished them luck.

Mychael and I drew blades. Before mine had cleared its scabbard, Mychael was halfway to the Guardian impostors.

One embassy guard risked a backward glance and Mychael’s armored fist punched him squarely in the face. That was the distraction Piaras/Nukpana was waiting for. With a quick twist of his wrist and flick of his blade, Piaras easily disarmed the remaining elf and pinned him to the wall, the tip of his blade resting in the hollow of his throat. Both young men were breathing heavily, and Piaras’s dark eyes were blazing.

“Piaras, stand down.” Mychael kept his voice low and even.

Piaras didn’t move.

The elf who Piaras had pinned to the wall swallowed, and a thin stream of blood ran down his throat where Piaras’s rapier had pierced the skin. “Sir, I can explain,” the elf whispered to Mychael.

“Jari, nothing explains or justifies this.” Mychael’s voice was tight with restrained fury. “Piaras, stand down. I’ve got him.”

The tip of Piaras’s blade was unwavering.

I slowly moved along the wall, closer to the young elven Guardian. I needed for Piaras to see me, to remember me. To remember himself.

“Piaras,” I said. “Mychael can’t question him if he’s dead. If he dies, Balmorlan will never have to answer for anything he’s done to you. Let him go. Please. Lower your blade; Mychael can take it from here.”

I could see the struggle on Piaras’s face, and I could feel the battle raging in Piaras’s mind. He was fighting back, with everything he had he was fighting back. All Piaras had to do was extend his arm and that young elven Guardian would be dead, and this time it wouldn’t be self-defense. It would be murder, cold and calculated. Sarad Nukpana wanted that murder, so did Taltek Balmorlan. Piaras wanted it to stop. He wanted to lower that blade, but he couldn’t.

“Piaras, you’re stronger than he is.” I said it quietly, simply. I said it like it was the truth, willing Piaras to believe it. I was talking about Nukpana’s strength, but the Guardian held captive at the tip of Piaras’s rapier didn’t know that; the Guardians within hearing didn’t know that-and I didn’t want them to. “Let him go; it’s over.”

Piaras swallowed, his breath hissing in and out between clenched teeth. His knuckles were white on the rapier’s grip. Then he took a deep breath and let it out in a shuddering exhale, and with visible effort, lowered the bloodied blade.

Piaras was back with us and in control of himself. For now.

Mychael stepped up next to him, but made no move to disarm him. “Clean your blade and sheath your weapon.”

Piaras did.

For Sarad Nukpana, this was just a demonstration, a taste of what he could make Piaras do-and how he could force me to find the Scythe of Nen and let him out of the Saghred.

“When the lower hells freeze over,” I said in my mind. I was sure Sarad Nukpana heard me. To him, this was but the first move in a game he intended to play until he got what he wanted. Like I said, when hell froze over.

A pair of Guardians stood nearby, awaiting Mychael’s orders.

“Take this traitor into custody.” Mychael never took his eyes off of the disgraced elf.

The two Guardians chained Jari Devent’s hands behind his back.

“My brother ordered me and I had no choice-” The elf’s voice had an edge of panicked desperation.

“You had every choice,” Mychael’s voice slashed through the air. “You made the wrong one.”

Devent’s pale eyes flashed with defiance. Big mistake. “My obligations to my family-”

Mychael took two strides and was in the young elf’s face, his rage a living thing in the air, his voice low and furious. “As a knighted Guardian, you have duty and loyalty to the archmagus, the Conclave, and to me. You betrayed us all.”

The elf’s chin came up. “You’re going to kill me.” He was trying for brave, the tremble in his voice said otherwise.

“No, we’re going back to the citadel, and we are going talk. I will ask questions and you will answer every one of them-truthfully and completely.”

The Guardians took Devent away, and Piaras cleared his throat.

“Thank you, sir.” Piaras’s voice was quiet, but firm. “I don’t know what happened to me.”

“We do,” I told him. “And we’re going to fix it so that it never happens again.”

“Sir!” An out-of-breath Guardian ran up to Mychael. The armor on his sword arm had been ripped away.

A buka’s roar told us exactly what had done the ripping.

I swore. The Guardians and watchers couldn’t kill those bukas, because even though they were solid, they weren’t real. Piaras’s voice had made them; Piaras’s voice was the only thing that could unmake them. As if the kid hadn’t endured enough tonight.