Linsha watched him go, worried by the sudden change in his demeanor. Her hand automatically clutched the dragon scale under her wet robe. Had she offended him that badly? All of her pleasure evaporated in a sense of dismay and confusion. She dropped her towel on a rack and said softly, “Good night, my lord.”

Outside in the hot darkness, Linsha walked quickly through the garden toward the barracks. Head down, her thoughts elsewhere, she didn’t see the dark figure detach itself from the garden gate and slide out of sight into the shadows of the courtyard.

Chapter

The moon hung low in the western sky and shed its light through the open loading door and ventilation windows in silvery beams that barred the velvet darkness of the hayloft. In the patch of light that gleamed on the hay-strewn floor, Linsha spread out a blanket and settled down to wait for Varia to return.

Although the night was waning, Linsha was still pent up and agitated from her time with Lord Bight She had wanted to leave him in peace and instead he left irritated and affronted by her presumptuous behavior. At least she guessed that is what had forced him to withdraw from her. Since he hadn’t explained, she could only assume he was displeased by her conduct, and yet if he didn’t want to participate in such horseplay, why had he started it? There were other possibilities, of course, but none that seemed likely. Perhaps the tensions of the day had caught up with him and haltered his exuberant play. She hoped he would eventually accept her apology, for she couldn’t stand the thought of his rejection.

There was just enough illumination in the stable loft to see what she was doing, so Linsha pulled out her leather juggling balls. Often the disciplined spin of the balls helped her put her thoughts in order, and tonight she needed all the help she could get. She sent the juggling balls sailing in a slow circle from hand to hand and up and down. As the balls traveled through her hands, she turned her focus inward to the people who occupied her thoughts the most.

“Lord Bight,” Linsha said quietly as one ball smacked her palm. “Mica,” she said to the second. “Ian Durne,” for the third. In rhythm with the balls, she listed more names. “Captain Dewald… Lady Karine… the Circle… Solamnics… Dark Knights… the Legion… Sailors’ Scourge… pirates… Sable…volcanoes…” There was a pattern to all these names. Everything had a place in the complicated pattern of Sanction, she just hadn’t found them all yet. She could feel a sense of urgency building like the dome on the volcano. Time was slipping away from her. The Clandestine Circle would be expecting action, yet she didn’t have all the answers to make the right decisions.

“Lord Bight,” she murmured again. Even after days in his personal guard, she was no closer to knowing the truth of his power or his origins. If he was a trained sorcerer, he must have taught himself, for he had never set foot in her father’s academy and had been using sorcery long before Palin founded the school. So where did he learn to use. the power? Only a handful of people understood and practiced the ancient magic as well as he.

“Ian Durne.” Now, there was a conundrum. Cool, efficient, capable. Yet Lord Bight left him in charge while he went to see Sable, and everything went from bad to worse. Did he botch the job, or were things simply beyond anyone’s control? Now his aide was dead and the night’s raid was a disaster. What was happening here?

“The Circle.” They wanted Lord Bight discredited and removed from his position of power. Were they working under orders from the Solamnic Council or from their own secret agenda? Did Sir Liam condone their desire to be rid of Lord Bight? Why couldn’t she convince the Circle that Hogan Bight was the best leader for this complicated, temperamental city?

She murmured the names again, around and around in her mind like the balls in her hand. “How do they fit together?”

“How does who fit together? You and me?” asked a man from the darkness.

The balls fell from Linsha’s hands as she spun around to face the ladder, her dagger already in her grip.

“It’s all right, Lynn,” said Ian Durne. “It’s just me. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

By all the absent gods of Krynn, she thought, slowly dropping her blade. How long had he been out there? She slid her dagger back in place and, still keeping an eye on him, knelt to retrieve the balls.

The commander walked between the stacks of hay to stand at the edge of the moonlight. “I didn’t know you could juggle. Where did you learn to do that?”

“I taught myself. It helps me think,” she replied in soft tones. She noticed he carried a bottle of wine and two stemmed cups.

He held up the wine like a peace offering. His eyes were like glass in the moonlight, his face stern and sad. His usually immaculate uniform was dusty and rather disheveled, and his weapons were nowhere in sight. Linsha thought she had never seen him look so weary and forlorn.

That warm flutter started again in the pit of her stomach. She tried to ignore it, to remember Varia’s advice. He was a stranger. What did she really know about him? “What are you doing here?”

“I saw you cross the courtyard, and I thought I’d join you.”

She stood up, uncertain how she felt about that. “Can’t sleep?”

“No.” He looked up at the roof wrapped in darkness, at the timbers and the piles of hay. “So, why are you up here?”

“It’s peaceful. I like the animals.”

“It helps you think,” he finished for her. “Ah, may I sit down?”

She nodded and smoothed out a corner of her blanket with a bare foot.

He lowered himself to the blanket in stiff, slow movements, then he uncorked the wine and poured a generous measure in both glasses. Sampling it, he sighed with pleasure. “A nice red. One of the new local vintages. It’s pleasantly soft, with a fine, lingering finish.” He glanced up at Linsha, still standing by the edge of the blanket. “Oh, please, sit down. I hurt my neck tonight and I don’t want to look up.”

Linsha hesitated, torn between being discourteous and on guard, or polite and vulnerable. Did she really want to put herself in this position? She could just take her leather balls and go. Varia would find her. She wouldn’t have to stay here, alone with this man who awakened such an attraction in her. She could say “thank you” and “no” and leave him to the blanket and the wine and the darkness.

“It is said, ‘In delay there lies no plenty,’ “ he murmured.

“It is also said, ‘If you leap too soon, you can lose all,’ ” she quickly retorted.

He grinned. “Ever the cautious alley cat. Always sniffing around corners before you enter the street.”

“Of course. A cat can never be too cautious when there are big toms around.”

As if on cue, a large orange tomcat strolled out of the darkness, his tail held high. “Where did you come from?” Linsha asked. The cat twined around her legs and purred, but when Ian reached for him, his ears flattened on his skull and he hissed at him.

The commander grumbled, “That’s why I don’t like cats.”

A laugh welled up in Linsha’s heart. She scooped up the cat and sat cross-legged on the blanket across from Ian, the cat curled up in her lap.

“You are so beautiful when you smile,” Ian said, his voice a haunting whisper. He poured a glass of wine, black-red in the moonlight, and handed it to her.

She saw him wince from the movement. “Tell me what happened tonight.”

He passed a hand over his eyes and stayed silent for a long while before he spoke. “It was a fiasco. We were ambushed by the Dark Knights on a farm in the northern vale.”

Linsha sucked in a breath. “How?”

He gulped his wine and poured another measure. “Lord Bight’s informer betrayed us. Instead of catching the Knights off guard, we were attacked by a full company of their horsemen lying in wait for us. We lost five men, and ten more were wounded before we could fight our way out.”