He spun about, one hand groping back after the weapon. The dwenda leaned in the arch of an entryway on the other side of the chamber, grinning, dressed. His hair was gathered back from his face, his arms folded over a doublet of black and sapphire-blue weave. His feet were booted in black to match; his breeches were no lighter, and they clung to the lines of his legs before they tucked in. He was not armed.
If you ignored the blank dark eyes, he might almost have been human.
Ringil made himself turn away from the empty gaze. He picked up and started to unfold his clothes.
“I have to go,” he said, not quite firmly.
“No, you don’t.”
Ringil fumbled his way into his shirt. “You don’t understand. I have an appointment. I’m going to be late.”
“Ah, just like the estranged princess of fairy tale.” A whip-crack snapping of fingers behind him, to jog memory that must, Shalak had always argued, stretch back through thousands upon thousands of years. “Now what’s her name? You know, the one who loses track of time at the ball, the one who stays and dances all night, until the night wears thin, as thin as the soles of her shoes and then she finds—”
“You know.” Underwear, breeches. Bending to pull them on, breath held tight. “I could probably do without the fucking fairy-tale jokes right now.”
“All right.” And the voice so suddenly close, the cold-water shock of it on his neck. Right behind him. He spun about and found the dwenda standing two feet away in the light from the window. “Try this. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Try and stop me.”
“I already have. What time do you think it is really?”
Ringil met the Aldrain gaze and he saw the eyes glow, just as he’d known they would, with the rinsed-out rosy tints of the approaching sunrise. He felt the spike in his heart, felt how he sagged as the realization hit. The dwenda nodded.
“Dawn itself, properly speaking, has come and gone while you slept. You are out of time. They waited for you at Brillin Hill Fields a full half hour, as custom apparently dictates these days. Then your second, a man named Darby, stood in for you and was duly killed by your opponent. He gave a good account of himself, it seems, but was simply not well enough versed with a court sword to hold his own.”
Ringil closed his eyes, bit his lip until he tasted blood. Behind his curtained-off vision he saw it, the little gathered knots of men on the open ground down by the fish pools. Gray sketched figures, not enough light yet to color them in. And the two men between, the back-and-forth shunt of the duel. He heard its miserly metallic tones on the cool air, the clink and scrape of the court sword blades. Saw Darby drawn in, wrong-sided, feinted out. Riposte—the grating blade goes home. Bright crimson on the graying pastel palette of a day that Darby now won’t live to see.
How long did it take Iscon Kaad to find the opening? Was Darby sober, had he made that much effort for the man that might have been his commander once?
Ringil opened his eyes. Whatever the dwenda saw there, it didn’t like much. It swayed back a fraction.
“Easy there.”
“You knew. You fucking knew.”
The dwenda nodded. “So did you. But you allowed yourself to forget.”
Ringil wrenched his shirt straight. “You take me back. Back into the Aldrain marches, back before it happens. You—”
“I’m afraid that can’t be done.”
Through clenched teeth now. “You fucking take me back or—”
“Or what?” Abruptly the dwenda’s arms whipped out. A grabbed handful of shirt, Ringil was jerked forward. A flat palm came at him like stone, slapped palm-first into his forehead, and suddenly he was on the floor, arms and legs robbed of anything resembling motive force. He flopped like a landed fish.
The dwenda stood over him, arms folded.
“
Ringil managed to get onto his front and force his knees under him. The room rocked and shifted around him, ice trickled down his limbs. He struggled for strength to push himself upright.
He heard the dwenda sigh.
“I was afraid it might come to this, Ringil Eskiath, but not so soon. We are none of us used to dealing with humans after so long. It’s a constant learning experience.”
A booted foot came out and gently shoved him over on his side. Getting up faded to a distant dream. Ringil summoned what breath he could.
“Who sent you?” he panted.
