Draef looked satisfied, though tension still stood stark on every feature, and Dorian and Jenine started walking. Only now did Dorian risk a look back to Tavi. He was afraid that the young man’s quick hatred might be roused even by meeting his eyes. Dorian had won, but with the overweening arrogance this aetheling possessed, it was best not to appear to take any joy in the victory.

The eight aethelings all had their eyes jumping from Dorian to their opponents on the opposite side of the hall. For them, any move Dorian made might be the distraction they or their enemy might take advantage of. And whether he made out of the hall alive or not, they would fight. Soon.

Out of the side of his mouth, Dorian said, “Remember to walk like a—” It was too late; Jenine had been drilled on proper comportment for far too long.

“She stays!” Tavi shouted suddenly and reached out with vir to grab Jenine.

The move set one of Draef’s boys off. He threw up a crackling shield reflexively.

That unleashed a magical firestorm. Dorian threw a shield around himself and Jenine. A fire missile made it through before the shield formed and scored his ribs. He hunched and almost lost the shield. Jenine grabbed him and held him upright.

The hall filled with magic, stroke and counterstroke, gouts of fire, lightning bolts that smote the rocks as shields diverted them, the rocks cascading from the ceiling turned into missiles themselves and hurled down the hall. Most of the attacks weren’t directed at Dorian and Jenine, but they were in the line of fire.

Dorian’s shield thinned, layer after layer snapping, melting, withering. The aethelings were all fresh. This battle would last long after Dorian’s shields finally gave way. He was going to die, and worse, he was going to let Jenine die. He had failed her.

No, not while I have breath. God, forgive me for what I’m about to do. It was no true prayer to beg forgiveness while choosing to sin—but he meant it fervently all the same.

Dorian reached to the vir. It came, joyfully.

Someone was screaming, a terrible scream compounded a hundred times by the vir to shake every hall and tunnel of the Citadel. Dorian stood and flung his arms out. As they passed in front of him, he saw that his skin had totally disappeared beneath the all-absorbing, wriggling blackness. Nor did the vir stop at the bounds of his body. They lashed out from his arms—out farther and farther, like great wings—and came down on either side, barely registering the aethelings’ last desperate attacks.

He felt the boys crunch beneath those mighty wings like beetles popping under his boot. Their shields broke like shells and the softness within was ground to gory smears on the rock.

The vir sang power and hatred and strength. It is vile, and I love it.

He stopped screaming, and it was long seconds before the sound stopped echoing back from the Citadel’s halls. Dorian quieted the vir from his skin with effort. “Are you all right?”

Jenine’s big, beautiful eyes were wider than he’d ever seen them. She tried to speak, couldn’t, and nodded instead.

“I’m sorry,” Dorian said. “It was that or die. We’re almost there.”

But as they stepped through the now-smoking gate, Dorian saw that he was wrong. Halfway across the glowing spans of Luxbridge was a man in a majestic white ermine cloak like Garoth Ursuul had worn. He wore the gold chains of a Godking around his neck and vir swam on his skin.

Dorian’s brother Paerik Ursuul had come to claim his throne, and blocking the bridge with him stood six full Vürdmeisters.

17

On the third night, after they made it through Forglin’s Pass and set up camp, Dehvi finally spoke to Vi. “Let us train together, wetboy.”

“I’m not a wetboy,” Vi said quickly.

“You were Hu Gibbet’s apprentice.”

Vi’s mouth dried up. “Yes.” The very name brought back ugly memories.

Dehvi drew a pair of sais. “The Night Angel did kill him.”

“I know. I couldn’t be happier.” Vi wished she’d had the guts to do it herself.

The smile faded into puzzlement. “You seek no vengeance?”

“I’ve fucked men for smaller favors. I wanted to kill Hu since I was thirteen.”

Dehvi scowled. “Too much talk.” He bent over Vi’s bedroll where she had put her sword. He poked the point of one sai at the juncture of blade and hilt and flicked her sword to her. She caught it and tested the edge. It was blunted with a thin shield of magic, but a strong blow would still cut. Dehvi checked all six points of his sais. Vi had never fought against sais. A sai looked like a short sword with a narrow blade, except that the hilts swept in a broad U for catching blades. Each tine was sharpened.

Holding the sais in one hand, Dehvi removed his horsehide cloak and draped it over a rock. Vi followed suit reluctantly. Then Dehvi turned, bowed, said something incomprehensible in Ymmuri, spun the sais in his hands, and took an impossibly low ready stance.

Vi’s doubts about such a low stance were broken at the first clash. She lunged toward his face. He nearly leapt forward, catching her sword with one sai and then the other and twisting as he sprang like a snake. Vi’s sword spun from her grasp and she found a sai touching her throat while the other jabbed the small of her back. Dehvi’s face was impassive. He stepped back wordlessly and flicked her blade back to her.

She lasted fifteen seconds the second time, and didn’t lose her blade, though Dehvi twisted it far out of the way and touched her ribs with the other sai. After a few minutes, she was beginning to understand. Then Dehvi changed stances. He sidestepped her first cut, not even using the sais, and swept her feet out from under her.

She pulled herself out of the mud and found him grinning. Hu Gibbet had leered at her sometimes, and mocked her often, but Dehvi’s grin was innocent. It suggested that if she could see herself, she’d laugh too.

Suddenly, she was crying, hot tears spilling down her cheeks. Dehvi gave her the look she deserved: utter bewilderment. She laughed at the ridiculousness of it, rubbing her tears away. “Hu shit on everything, Dehvi. Every time he trained me, it was all mockery and bruises and humiliation. For fuck’s sake, this is actually fun. And I’m learning so much more from you. You’re better than he ever was. No wonder you kick ass.”

“Asses I have kicked,” Dehvi said. “Though finding them less sensitive than other places.”

Vi laughed and blinked her eyes to keep that bizarre flood down.

“You did marry in Waeddryner way,” Dehvi said. He tugged his own ear to indicate her earring. “But are not Waeddryner. Who is husband?”

Well, that helped with the crying. She cleared her throat. “Kylar Stern. Sort of.”

Dehvi’s eyebrows raised.

“It’s, uh, complicated.”

He shrugged and drew a sword. He touched the edge to make sure it was shielded, and they began sparring again. Vi sank into it, releasing her worries about the life she was fleeing from and the life she was fleeing to. Even as she lost, time and again feeling the dull poke of Dehvi’s sword, for the first time she had the sense that fighting was something she was really good at. When she countered a move that had caught her before, Dehvi might barely nod, but it was as good as effusive praise.

Dehvi shifted fighting styles no less than six times, and Vi sensed that he knew quite a few more, but the last one felt familiar. Vi was sunk so deep into her own body that she barely noticed that she’d spoken until she saw Dehvi miss a step. Her riposte brushed his stomach. She’d said two words: “You’re Durzo.” Her eyes told her it was impossible. Her knowledge of illusory masks told her it was impossible. But she knew, and his reaction confirmed it. “What are you doing here?” she asked.