The bearded man reached down and slipped a short wooden cudgel from a loop on his belt. The club was perhaps a foot and a half long, with a handle tightly wrapped in leather cord, and light glittered off the heads of nails which had been driven into the thick end to act as studs.

  “Whoever you are, you’re trespassing where you aren’t wanted,” he growled, and then raised his voice to shout back up the stairs. “Ulric! Hugh! Get down here, lads. We’ve got three rats need to be taught a lesson.”

  Ettie saw that Shooting Star had already dropped into a fighting stance and drawn a hunting knife in his right hand. Ronja, even though she had to lean on her crutch for balance, had put her back to the wall of the corridor and was whispering an incantation under her breath. Ettie might have felt better about that if her friend hadn’t already used multiple spells to drag them through the shadows on the way in; while Eld tended to have a higher mana capacity than most humans, she knew that reputation was somewhat exaggerated. In truth, it was the Eld who could trace their direct descent to one of the V?dim, within only a few generations, who were the outliers.

  For her own part, Ettie was very quickly beginning to understand why her mother tended to wear a sword as often as she could get away with.

  “You’re right,” Ettie said, holding her hands up to show that she didn’t have a weapon. “We’ve accidentally wandered somewhere we shouldn’t be. If you show us the way out, we’ll leave now.” She didn’t think there was much of a chance they’d avoid violence, but she didn’t lose anything by making the attempt.

  The stamp of boots on the stairs accompanied the bearded man shaking his head. “Come into our house, snoop around, and think you can just walk out again? Not how it works, girl. The guildmaster’s gonna want to talk to you. Now, tell your man to drop his dagger, and we won’t rough you up too bad.” He grinned. “Can’t speak for that knife-eared slut, though. She looks like she needs to be taught a lesson.”

  “Aluthent’he Aiveh Trei Scelim’o’Mae!” Henriette shouted, and thrust a hand forward at the man, aiming just over Shooting Star’s shoulder. Five rings of mana drained out of her in an instant, coalescing into three dagger-sharp shards of coherent mana which hung, shining blue, in the air before her for just an instant before launching at the man with the cudgel.

  “Blood and shadows!” The man screamed, diving to one side in an attempt to get out of the way. Ettie heard the distinctive wet, meaty thunk of a blade sinking into flesh, and caught sight of blood, but she didn’t wait long enough to see whether the man would survive or not.

  “Up the stairs!” she shouted. “Star, clear the way!”

  Ettie reached out for Ronja, and slipped an arm under her friend’s. With the crutch on the other side, the two women stumbled toward the stairs, moving as quickly as they could but lagging behind the Red Shield hunter. Unencumbered, Shooting Star met the two men coming down the stairs before Ettie and Ronja had even finished making their way down the corridor.

  The tradesmen, presumably alerted by their friend’s scream, already had leather saps in their hands, and they struck downward at Shooting Star as soon as they were within reach. The Red Shield raised his left arm, blocking the first man’s strike before it could take him in the head, and stabbed his blade into the man’s chest, just beneath the shoulder. Before he could pull the dagger free again, however, the second man’s sap came down on his head, sending the hunter reeling back, dazed.

  At a wave of Ronja’s hand, strands of darkness rose up from the guildsman’s own shadow, wrapped around his arm, and then yanked him downward, sending the man tumbling down the stairs. Shooting Star, recovering his wits, stomped down on the man’s sap-hand, breaking his fingers between boot and stone floor with an audible crunching sound that made Ettie wince. He leaned down for just long enough to retrieve his knife. Then, the three of them were past the wounded men, rushing up the stairs.

  “What in the name of the Trinity is going on out here?” a man’s voice shouted from the end of the corridor. It was the same voice Ettie had heard through the door, and she only chanced a single glance backward so that she could put a face to it, later, when her aunt asked.

  The man who’d stormed out into the hall had greasy back hair, and a beard to match, though both were showing the first threads of white. While the beard was still full, the hair on the top of his head was thinning with the loss of his youth. His face was thin and sharp, and his angry eyes met Ettie’s for just a moment before she turned round again, half-dragging Ronja up the steps.

  “Ring count,” Ettie gasped, just as they’d been taught.

  “Four,” Ronja panted back.

  It was actually more than Ettie had expected; she herself only had seven remaining, plus the one in her guild ring. Two spells, at most, and she could count on her friend for one. If they could get out of the guild all before encountering resistance in force, it might be enough.

  Shooting Star reached the top of the stairs first, began to turn, and then staggered backward, the bolt of a crossbow protruding from his stomach. With a clatter, his hunting dagger fell end over end down the stairs, tumbling past Ettie and Ronja to skitter across the stones of the corridor below. The hunter’s hands fell to the bolt in his belly, and he swayed there, looking as if he would collapse at any moment.

  “Star!” Ettie shouted up to him, as she pulled Ronja to the side with her, against the stone wall of the staircase. “Get out of here! Go to my aunt!”

  He met her eyes, and Ettie could tell that he wanted to argue with her. Then, he collapsed into blood, just before two more crossbow bolts hit him. They tore through the mass of blood and continued on out the other side, while the original bolt that had pierced Shooting Star’s stomach fell out. A wounded bat spread its wings where the hunter had stood, and it fluttered off away from the stairwell and out of sight. Ettie could only pray that he would get away, and get to someone who could treat his injury before he passed out.

  A sudden, intense stab of guilt tore through her. Aunt Liv had warned her how risky this was, had demanded that Ettie not go anywhere she might be put in danger, and she’d gone ahead and snuck into the guild hall anyway. Now it wasn’t even her who might pay the price, but her friends.

  Crossbowmen crowded the top of the stairs, their weapons loaded, stocks at their shoulders, bolts pointed down, directly at Ettie and Ronja. She could hold a mana shield for a little while - but with only a spell each, after that, and Ronja’s hurt leg, she didn’t see how they could possibly get away.

  “Stop,” Ettie said. “We surrender. You don’t want to kill me - it’ll cause you more problems than its worth if you do.”

  “Hold a moment,” the man with the greasy hair commanded, raising his hand to the men at the top of the stairs. “Why is that, girl?”

  “My name is Henriette Summerset,” she said, the words tasting as foul on her lips as sour berries after a dry summer. It rankled to have failed on her own, to have to rely on her family’s name, but if it kept Ronja alive, the embarrassment was worth it. “My father is Duke of Whitehill, and my aunt is the Queen of the Alliance. If you hurt me, they won’t stop until everyone here is dead.”

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  “Prove it,” the man at the foot of the stairs demanded. “If you’re a Summerset, you’ll have their word of power.” He snapped his fingers. “Get me a bottle of wine, a flask, a waterskin. Anything liquid will do.” One of the crossbow wielding workmen dashed away. “You others, keep your weapons trained on her. If she does anything other than what I tell her to, kill her.”

  “I’ll get you out of this,” Ettie promised Ronja, keeping her voice to a whisper that only the two of them would be able to hear. “I swear it.”

  The three wounded men, now that the actual fighting was past, groaned, stirred, and set to binding each other’s wounds. Each of them cast such glances of hate in Ettie’s direction that she was certain any of them would slit her throat and dump her body in the River Aspen without a second thought. It seemed that an eternity passed before the third man returned, a corked, half-full bottle of red wine in his hand. He held it up, so that the man at the bottom of the stairs could see.

  “Good.” The bearded man nodded. “Uncork it and pour it down the steps.”

  The man with the bottle hesitated only a moment, then did as he’d been commanded. The rich scent of wine filled the air, and a stream of dark red, fragrant liquid splashed against the stone and then poured down the steps, the bottle chugging audibly as the tradesman dumped it out.

  “Show us Ters, then,” the man with the greasy hair demanded. “Dry the wine out.”

  Henriette swallowed. “Terset ?'Methia,” she said, pointing with her free hand at the mess. She could feel all of the men watching as a kind of pressure, bearing down on her shoulders; if the magic didn’t work, Ettie had no doubt that she and Ronja were both dead. But Ters was the word of her father, and her grandfather before him, and all of the Summersets back to the Thornkiller himself. The wine dried until it was only a dark stain on the stone, as if the spill had happened weeks or months ago.

  “Trinity be damned,” the greasy-haired man cursed. “Of all the - fuck. Rope! Bring me rope, you useless pieces of shit. Move! Lady Henriette, I very much wish that you had not come here. All of our lives would be a good deal easier if you’d simply fucked off to whatever it is spoiled noble brats spend their evenings doing.”

  “I could simply leave,” Ettie proposed, though she already knew that wouldn’t be happening.

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort.” He shook his head, sending his limp hair rustling about his shoulders. “That horse has already left the barn, as they say. I’d prefer not to kill you, because it will make my life simpler, but if you try to escape, or cast a spell, I will kill your friend there without a moment’s hesitation. I doubt your father and mother will be nearly so upset about her loss as yours.”

  Half a bell later, Ettie and Ronja were each thoroughly trussed and tied, seated on the basement floor in the very room they’d attempted to eavesdrop on, each of their backs to a separate pillar of thick, strong wood. They’d been searched, and their mage guild rings taken; those two pieces of jewelry were now resting on a rough wooden table, within sight but well out of reach, even if their hands hadn’t been secured behind their backs.

  The wounded men had been sent off to be patched up, though the three tradesmen with the crossbows remained. Their weapons were no longer drawn, but Ettie knew precisely how quickly that could change.

  The man who’d ordered them captured had dragged a wooden chair over to face them and made himself comfortable in it, while the man he’d first been speaking too - the one who had, in his drink, first alerted Ettie to the fact there was a plot at all - stood behind the chair with his thick arms crossed, glowering at them.

  “Do you know who I am?” the man with the greasy hair asked. His eyes never moved away from Ettie; it was as if, in his mind, Ronja did not exist, or at least did not matter.

  “I’m guessing you’re a member of the guild,” Ettie said.

  “Not this one, believe it or not,” the man admitted. “My name is Obadiah Harrow, and I am guild master of the Most Honest Guild of Traders and Merchants; appointed by the former king of Lucania, Benedict.”

  “The one whose mother was a heretic,” Ettie said. “The same one who tried to attack my home and kill my parents. Who did kill my grandmother and grandfather. Who spent the rest of his life rotting in exile after abdicating.”

  Harrow pursed his lips, as if he’d bit into something sour. “Benedict was a good man. He valued the interests of the guilds. Your aunt killed him, you know, as surely as if she’d wielded the knife herself. It broke his heart, losing both his crown and his daughter. He wasted away on that island, and died far too young.”

  Ettie couldn’t help but laugh. “You’ll forgive me if I’m not exactly sympathetic,” she said. “Is that what all this is? Revenge for things that happened nearly twenty years gone? You’ve been carrying a grudge this entire time?”

  “Only an aristocrat would be so arrogant as to think everything revolves around her family,” the guild master said, shaking his head. “No. I am motivated by what is best for business, not some petty scheme for revenge.”

  “I don’t see how trying to kill a queen helps the guilds,” Ettie argued.

  “Then you aren’t thinking,” Harrow returned. “Or perhaps you simply haven’t been paying attention. I suppose you could be forgiven that; you’re very young, after all, and I can’t imagine you’ve had much opportunity to visit Freeport. I, on the other hand, have had a front row seat, with which I have observed just how - malleable - a kingdom under the care of regents can be. For eighteen years, King Lucan’s affairs were run by his advisors. Now, imagine what were to happen if your aunt, and her husband, were to die suddenly, leaving that very young, very impressionable cousin of yours to inherit the throne of the alliance. Well, in that circumstance, whoever was chosen to serve as her regent would have quite a bit of power, for quite a long time, would they not?”

  Ettie shook her head. “It would be someone like my father, or Valtteri. No one who was sympathetic to you.”

  Harrow smiled, but there was no joy in it. It was the cold, grinning rictus of a skull, utterly devoid of any human emotion. “Which is why they need to die as well, of course. If I’m going to go to the trouble of eliminating a ruler, I can’t very well leave what comes after to chance. You shouldn’t blame me, however: you should blame your aunt for making this necessary.”

  “You’re a small, stupid man,” Ronja spat, from the pillar to one side of Ettie. “You actually think you can kill the Lady of Winter? She faced down a goddess, you idiot -”

  Harrow sprang to his feet, crossed the distance between them in two steps, and backhanded Ronja hard enough to snap her head around and send a spray of blood out. “You aren’t here to be heard,” he said. “You’re here to ensure Lady Henriette’s good behavior. Speak again and I’ll not only have your tongue cut out, I’ll round off the tops of those ears.”

  Ettie clenched her fists where they were tied behind her back, trapped against the wood of the pillar. She could get one spell off with what she had left. One blade of mana, to take Harrow in the throat, and this would all be over. Or Ters - the bastard deserved to suffer. Let him thrash about on the floor a bit, as his flesh withered and cracked until there wasn’t a drop of moisture left in his body.

  She could kill Harrow at any time; Ettie was certain of it. But if she did, what was there to stop his men from murdering Ronja, in return? She took a deep breath, and relaxed her fists, unwinding her fingers.

  “Arrogance,” Harrow said, and he began to pace rather than return to his chair. “It all comes back to arrogance. All of you noble brats, hoarding your wealth and magic generation after generation, thinking you're better than the rest of us. And every time we take a single step forward, you’ve got to do something to remind us that we weren’t born on your level.”

  He stepped right up to Ettie’s face, and held out his sleeve. “The merchants have too much wealth, they’re getting ideas. Let’s pass a law that they can only wear certain colors, so that everyone can see the difference between merchants and barons.”

  Guildmaster Harrow spat in Ettie’s face, and she flinched back from it. She wanted to wipe it away, but her hands were tied, and instead the gob of spit slowly rolled down her cheek, cold and foul.

  “That's what I think of your family,” he said. “You and all the other dukes and barons. And your queen is the worst of them all. She won’t even give the guilds so much as a voice in her council. She sets her priests to burn anyone she doesn’t agree with, and, not content with simply being queen, demands to be worshipped as a goddess. She’s disgusting.”

  “That’s not true,” Ettie said. But with every word Harrow spoke, she was more and more convinced that he would never let either of them leave this basement alive.

  The guildmaster shrugged. “It no longer matters what you think,” he said. “By this time tomorrow, your queen will be dead, and everyone will know that she was never a goddess - only a mortal woman, just like the rest of us.”

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  Dramatis Personae

  Henriette Summerset aka Ettie- Daughter of Matthew and Triss, niece of Liv and Keri, cousin of Rei and Princess Rianne. Heir to the Duchy of Whitehill. Apprentice of the Mages Guild. Not above using her family name. [12 Rings of Mana]

  Obadiah Harrow - Guild Master of the Merchants Guild. Has a scheme, and no scruples.

  Ronja t?r Taneli k?n Asuris - Apprentice of the Mages Guild. Hostage! [14 Rings of Mana]

  Shooting Star - A hunter of the Red Shield Tribe. Wounded, with a mission!