Clera had already turned from the corner and hurried back along the hall, waving frantically at Nona and Kettle to follow. Kettle turned but Nona remained, gripped both by a debilitating fear and by a rising anger. Just the sound of the man’s voice brought back the full horror of those endless hours waiting for his return, it made her remember the unbelievable agonies from just a brief touch of the Harm and her gut-churning disgust at the tortures he planned. But the fear brought rage with it, a fire roaring out its defiance, refusing to be made small by an old man’s threats—threats issued when all the advantage was his.
Nona put her weight on her injured leg, gritting her teeth against the hurt. She didn’t know who this Istead was. He could be a deadly warrior employed as Lord Tacsis’s personal bodyguard. In her current state it wouldn’t take much of a fighter to take her down, and then she’d be in Thuran Tacsis’s clutches again, the whole nightmare that she’d escaped reinstated simply because she was too proud to run. The silence where Keot should be felt like a hole. The devil would have had advice, and she probably would have opted to do the opposite.
You can only hesitate so long before choice is lost. The two men’s shadows preceded them. Nona pressed herself into the corner. The unknown quantity, Istead, came first. A tall man, well-built, his blond hair and square jaw reminiscent of Raymel Tacsis. Nona wasted no more time. She surged up as fast as she could on her good leg and punched him at the junction of chin and neck, driving flaw-blades deep into his brain. Ripping free in a crimson spray, Nona made to throw herself at Lord Tacsis.
Abused flesh can only tolerate so much. Nona’s leg collapsed beneath her and she fell sprawling before her enemy. Thuran immediately began to turn to flee, drawing breath to shout for aid. Nona managed to swing her non-traitor leg to kick his trailing foot and he toppled facefirst onto the rug that ran the length of the corridor.
Nona scrambled onto Thuran’s back, grabbed two handfuls of greying hair and banged his face repeatedly into the floor with measured violence. It was an expensive rug but not so thick that it would stop Lord Tacsis feeling the floorboards below.
“Unlock that door.” Nona gestured to the nearest door with her head.
Kettle, who Nona knew would have returned for her, limped past and set to work with her picks. The lock surrendered in moments.
“Help me drag him.” This to Clera who had just that second popped her scarf-wrapped face around the corner. “Wait.” Nona sliced and lifted Thuran’s thick jacket, winding it around his head so there would be no trail of blood.
“You’re mad,” Clera hissed, but she took a leg and between the three of them they got the man into the room, closing the door behind them.
The chamber was a spacious drawing room, perhaps for one of the many guest suites in the wing. The furniture was draped with sheets and the place had a musty smell as if it were not often used.
“Under here.” Nona lifted the sheet covering a table set against the wall that must be the palace’s outer wall.
Clera rolled Thuran into place, keeping her head averted in case even in his dazed state he might recognize her over her scarf. She left him face down.
“Flesh-bind.” Nona held her hand out to Kettle, and the nun dug into her robe. She retrieved and handed over the small tub without comment, passing across a wooden applicator a moment later.
Nona knelt, put the tub to one side, and further sliced apart Thuran’s jacket, a thing of gold thread and silk embroidery that must have cost more than a labourer could earn in a lifetime. She found the leather pouch containing the Harm and extracted the sigil-worked disc of iron with considerable care. Her fingers didn’t want to go anywhere near it. She forced them to their task, requiring the same effort as if she had wanted to hold them to hot coals. Next she applied the last of the flesh-bind to the sigiled surface. Her mouth twisted as she contemplated the pallid skin covering the small of Lord Thuran Tacsis’s back. He had started to moan, returning to his senses.
“A better person wouldn’t do this . . .” Part of her wanted Keot to be there in her mind, screaming at her to act. She glanced at Kettle, finding the woman’s face free of expression.
“Any fair court would give the death sentence for his crimes,” Kettle said at last. “It’s for you to decide how.”
Nona remembered the Tacsis, father and son, leaning over her in that Noi-Guin cell, and pressed the Harm firmly into the small of Thuran Tacsis’s back, holding it there as he went rigid with an agony whose measure she could not forget. She held the disc in place long enough for the flesh-bind to form its bond.
“Why isn’t he screaming?” Clera whispered.
“You can’t,” Nona said. “It hurts too much.”
She moved back, lowered the sheet, and got up. “Lock the door behind us.” There was no knowing how long it would take before he was discovered. If they took too long perhaps the pain would kill him or maybe he would survive until he died of thirst. Twinges of regret and shame ran through Nona while Kettle set to work on the lock again, but each time she thought of returning to put an end to the man some image from the cells would rise to stop her.
“Done.” Kettle stood from the lock.
“Can we leave now?” Clera asked.
Nona glanced back at the door, heart heavy, not feeling the release she had anticipated. “No.”
“No?” Clera seemed on the point of mutiny.
“Lano Tacsis said the abbess was escaping with others. They’re going to be caught at the gates. We need to go there and help them get out.”
45
ABBESS GLASS
ARABELLA JOTSIS LEAPT higher than Glass had seen anyone leap, or had imagined that they might. She had sheared away the bottom half of her skirts but still what remained trailed behind her like fluttering plumage. Her leading foot broke the neck of a palace guardsman, her sword scythed through another’s throat, and she was attacking a third before either of the first two could start to fall.
While Melkir dragged Darla between the doors and clear of the melee Ara spun amid the crowd of her foes, creating an ever-wider circle of injured opponents. Her speed couldn’t last, but while it did the results were breathtaking.
Glass worked as quickly as she could, snuffing the flame from one silver table-lamp, flinging it towards the doors, picking up the next, its oil sloshing within, and repeating the process.
Darla, bleeding fiercely from several wounds, shook free of Melkir and hauled herself up him, trying to return to the fray. Melkir caught hold of her again, offering sharp words. Glass couldn’t hear what they were but they worked and Darla accepted his support as they hurried towards the servants’ door. Glass flung a seventh lamp before abandoning her task and setting off after Melkir.
The seventh lamp was still lit. There had been no plan, no words exchanged. Ara had simply exploded from the passage and hurled herself across the room to rescue Darla. Now, planting a foot in a guard’s groin and driving off, she threw herself back across the flames blossoming between the doors. She arrived at the entrance to the servants’ passage simultaneously with Glass, moments behind Melkir and Darla. Glass patted her on the back, taking the opportunity to put out a burning patch of Ara’s dress.
They wedged the door and moved on, Darla stumbling white-faced, the floor behind her painted by the rapid pattering of blood.
* * *
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