He did not hear her.He was moving. He crossed the lawn in a single stride, and the golden fire poured from his fists like water from a broken dam. Melissa raised the Lance. He struck it aside with the back of his hand, and the spear shattered in a spray of white fragments. She stared at the broken shaft in her fingers. Then his fist caught her in the jaw.It was a blow of pure, unthinking rage, backed by an earth-clover’s weight, and it lifted her off her feet. She flew twenty paces and hit the ground, rolled, and came up on one knee, blood pouring from her mouth. Thorne was on her before she could rise. He hit her again, and again, a storm of golden fists, and she crumpled beneath them. She raised a hand, a flicker of power, a wall of pale force, and he tore through it like paper.“You killed him,” he said, and his voice was not his own, vast and old and shaking the ground. “You killed him.”“Thorne!”“You killed him!”He caught her by the throat. He lifted her off the grass. She hu

A sound escaped Williams that was half laugh, half sob. “I will tell her.”“And Max.” The word was barely a breath. “Tell Max. I kept my post.”“I will. I will tell him.”“He will be… he will be cross…”“He will be proud.”“Good.” The pale eyes drifted. “Good. I was always… a bit afraid he would think… I had not…”“You did everything.”“Ah.” A faint, blissful sigh. “Then I may rest.”His hand went slack in Thorne’s.For a moment, the garden was perfectly silent. The wind had stopped. The steam on the river hung motionless. The silver wheel of the Orion Sentinel turned slowly overhead, twelve bright points and one hollow dark.Then the sound came. It came from the old master, from Williams, bent double over the body of his oldest friend. It was not loud. It was a low, broken, shuddering moan, the sound of a man being torn in half. He pressed his forehead against Kester’s, his shoulders heaving, and his hands, which had held Dawnrender through a hundred battles, clenched helplessly in t

They carried Kester down into the vault at midday, with the sun still shining as if nothing had happened.It took six of them. Thorne and Cael Dross took the shoulders, Breck and Maya the middle, and Master Adrian and Sablen the legs. Williams walked ahead of the little procession, bareheaded, with his torn cloak folded over one arm and Dawnrender sheathed at his hip. He did not speak. He had not spoken since he rose from the grass, except to give orders in a flat, careful voice, like a man reading from a page he did not trust himself to look at.The stone stair was cool and quiet. The torches along the walls, which had flared to life for every other visitor, stayed dark as they passed. Corwin, who had gone ahead, stood at the bottom of the steps with a lantern in his hand, and when he saw them coming his shoulders sagged slightly, as if he had been bracing for something worse.“This way,” he said. “The east chamber. It is the coldest.”They had never been in this part of the vault. P

“You sat here.”“That is the whole of the job.” Cael clapped his shoulder and rose stiffly. “Come in when you are ready. Adrian is making soup. It will be terrible. We will eat it anyway.”The soup was terrible. They ate it anyway, in the long main room, with the fire burning low and the shutters closed against the dusk. Nobody said much. Elder Corwin sat at the head of the table with his hands folded, staring into the middle distance. Master Adrian ladled out the bowls with fierce, stiff movements, as though the ladle had personally offended him. At the far end, Williams sat alone with a sheet of parchment in front of him and a quill in his fingers, and he had been sitting that way for more than an hour.“He has not written a word,” Maya whispered.“I know,” said Sablen.“Should someone speak to him?”“I would not.”“Neither would I.”At last, when the soup was gone and the fire had burned to embers, Williams set down the quill. He rose, crossed the room, and laid the parchment on th

They went. The gate boomed shut behind them. For a long while, the only sounds in the yard were the wind in the gallery and the harsh, ragged breathing of the boy on the ground.At last the Master stepped forward. His boots crunched on the packed earth. He stopped beside Maximus and stood looking down, and in the grey light, his weathered face seemed to age.“Odegard,” Torvin said, in a low voice. “I did not expect—”“Who died?” the old man asked.“Kester. The steward of Elder Williams of the Blackwater Clan.”“His brother.”“Yes.”“How?”“A sorceress’s spear. In the defense of the island. He took the blow meant for the one we are all sworn to protect.” Torvin drew a breath. “I will tell you everything, Master, if you wish. But the boy must hear it first.”“He will hear it.” Odegard bent, with a creak of old joints, and laid his gloved hand on Maximus’s head. “Boy.”Maximus did not look up.“Maximus. Look at me.”Slowly, brokenly, he lifted his face. His eyes were swollen, and tears s