“Or it might not have been,” Aber said, sighing. “How will we ever know?”

“Quiet, my lord,” the doctor said briskly to me before I could answer.

Like all army doctors, he had the bedside manner of a half-wild goat. “Let me look you over.”

I lay unflinching as he poked and prodded me from skull to shinbones. Nothing seemed to be broken, though my skin felt raw. He commented on the number of heat blisters on my hands and face.

“I was lucky,” I said.

“Damned bad sort of luck, if you ask me,” he said. The words sounded clear and close by. My sense of hearing had almost returned to normal. “A lucky man would not have been hit. You do have your father's constitution, though. Any lesser man would be dead now.”

I raised my hands and studied them. Tiny white blisters covered the palms and backs. Not good, but it could have been a lot worse. From the pain I'd felt, I had half expected my hands to be burnt to ash and bone.

“See?” the doctor went on, standing and dusting himself off. “You're barely hurt. A little salve, a few days' rest, and you'll be all right.”

“Thanks.”

“Can you get up by yourself?”

“I think so.”

A little unsteadily, I climbed to my feet. Neole helped steady my arm. I twisted left and right, testing my muscles. My whole body tingled with pins and needles as though circulation had been cut off and was only now returning.

“Good,” he said. He took my right hand and began applying a soothing yellow salve to it. Almost instantly the stinging, burning sensation went away. “This will do wonders for those blisters.”

Aber grinned feebly up at me. “And with your pretty face messed up for a few days, I'll have a better chance with the ladies,” he said.

“It's nice to see you haven't lost your sense of humor,” I said.

He gave me a puzzled look. “Oh?”

I concentrated for a moment, willing my face and hands to change, and from the gasps of the doctor and the soldiers, I knew it had worked. My own meager shape-shifting ability had successfully hidden the blisters. I still felt them, though.

“Damned fast healers,” the doctor muttered to himself. “Don't know why they bother to call me if—”

“I'll keep that salve, if you don't mind,” I said. I plucked the little jar from his hand. “I'll put more on later, when I'm in my room.”

“Don't bother,” he said. “The blisters are gone now.”

“Just in case,” I insisted. “I'm sure they'll be back.”

“As you wish, my lord.” He shrugged, then peered intently at Aber as if expecting my brother to heal instantly, too. When Aber didn't, he just shook his head.

Taking a deep breath, Aber sat up.

“I'll be fine,” he told the doctor.

“As you say, Lord Aber.” Motioning to his assistant, they headed down the hallway.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped over to the open door and stood gazing out into the darkness. Occasional flickers of lightning crossed the sky, then thunder rolled noisily. Gods, I hated this place.

And something else bothered me. I had a feeling we were being watched… that whoever had directed the lightning blast at me was now spying on us through magical means. It might have been the serpent-creature, or it could have been someone else entirely. It might even have been the king's guards. The only sure thing I knew was that I wasn't happy about it.

Well, let them all look. I wanted them to see me. I wanted them to know we had survived unscathed. Let them do their worse! They were powerless against a son of Dworkin.

With a mocking grin, I gave a casual wave into the darkness, then closed the door and bolted it. Aber's spells would have to keep us safe indoors.

“Do you need anything else?” Neole asked.

I shook my head. “Don't go back outside until the lightning has stopped for an hour,” I told him.

“Yes, sir.” He saluted, then led his men down the hall.

I offered Aber my hand, and pulled him to his feet.

“Check those tripwires,” I told him. “Is the house still clear? Are we being watched?”

“Do you hear any screaming?” he asked.

I listened intently, but heard nothing.

“No.”

“You'd hear a scream if someone got in who's not of our blood. A loud, piercing scream that doesn't stop.”

“Good.” I chuckled. “That should discourage visitors.”

Keeping up my shape-shifted appearance began to wear on me, so I let my body slide back to its injured form.

“You said the lightning struck me,” I said. “How did you get hurt?”

“I tried to grab you and pull you free. When I got close, it knocked me flying. It felt like a horse kicked me.”

“You were lucky,” I said.

“We both were. Despite the doctor's opinion.”

He went to the door and opened it a crack, peeking out. Over his shoulder, I saw that still more clouds, pierced by the blue lightning, filled the heavens with a crackling, roaring light show like nothing I had ever seen. Bolts continued to strike the ground, and not just inside the wall but outside it as well. The attack appeared to be continuing. If anything, the storm seemed to be gaining strength.

“Is there any way to tell who caused the storm?” I asked. “Or who's controlling it?”

“Dad might be able to… or someone as powerful. If someone did cause it. We still don't know for sure.”

“What do you mean?” I demanded. “Of course someone caused it!”

“I don't know… stranger things have come out of Shadow over the last forty years. We have all seen storms that can travel between worlds. Some of them looked like this, with dangerous blue lightning.”

“Maybe you were being attacked, only nobody realized it at the time.”

He hesitated. “I suppose that's possible. Though the first such storm came up years ago, before I was born. It killed seventy-six people.”

“This one has to be an attack,” I said, shaking my head. “If the first three bolts hadn't come so close to me, I might have doubts. But that lightning was aimed at me. Considering everything that's happened, it can't be a coincidence.”

He thought about it, nodded, turned back to watch the storm. If anything, the lightning grew more intense, sheets of it flashing across the sky and lighting up the wall and courtyard before us as though it were noon.

“I wish they would hurry up,” I murmured to myself.

“Who?” he asked.

“Everyone. Dad if he's still at court. The hell-creatures if they're coming back. King Uthor if he's sending word of Dad's arrest—”

For our father still hadn't returned from his audience with King Uthor.

Chapter 15

The storm raged on throughout the day. Every time I went to the door and looked outside, the dark sky roiled more violently than before. With a high wind that whistled over the wall and whipped through the house, this clearly wasn't the weather for travel. I pushed back my half-formed plan of visiting King Uthor's court and trying to find out what had happened to our father.

Clearly, I wasn't the only one who found this sudden storm unnerving. A strange hush had descended over the servants. I could not help but notice how they watched Aber and me from the corners of their eyes, how they silenced their voices when we entered a room, then swiftly found duties elsewhere.

They, too, must be remembering our last days in Juniper, when a strange storm had descended on us and lightning bolts began to blast the highest towers to rubble. Fortunately, the lightning here now seemed to be staying high among the clouds. But the similarities still disturbed me. I did not like it that our enemies could control the weather.

I stayed close to Aber as we wandered through the house, checking on the servants and guards, poking into unused corners to see what damage the hell-creatures had done. Although I still became confused by the odd turnings and switchbacks in the halls, I began to sense an order in the seeming randomness. Too, there were landmarks to learn—statues in alcoves, faces of doors, lots of other points from which I could get my bearings.