“Find the king,” said Rhy as the palace shook around him. “We are under attack.”

* * *

At this rate, the wards wouldn’t hold. Rhy didn’t need a gift for magic to see that. The palace gallery shook with the force of the bodies throwing themselves against the wood and stone. They were on the banks. They were on the steps. They were on the river.

And they were killing themselves.

The shadow king was killing them.

All around priests scrambled to draw fresh concentration rings on the gallery floor. Spells to focus magic. To bolster the wards.

Where was Kell?

Light flared against the glass with every blow, the spellwork straining to hold under the strength of the attack.

The royal palace was a shell. And it was cracking.

The walls trembled, and several people screamed. Nobles huddled together in corners. Magicians barred the doors, braced for the palace to break. Prince Col stood before his sister like a human shield while Lord Sol-in-Ar instructed his entourage in a rapid stream of Faroan.

Another blast, and the wards fractured, light webbing across the windows. Rhy lifted his hand to the glass, expecting it to shatter.

“Get back,” ordered his mother.

“Every magician stand within a circle,” ordered his father. Maxim had appeared in the first moments of the attack looking drawn but determined. Blood flecked his cuff, and Rhy wondered, dazedly, if his father had been fighting. Tieren was at his side. “I thought you said the wards would hold,” snapped the king.

“Against Osaron’s spell,” replied the priest, drawing another circle on the floor. “Not against the brute force of three hundred souls.”

“We have to stop them,” said Rhy. He hadn’t worked so hard and saved so few only to watch the rest of his people break themselves against these walls.

“Emira,” ordered the king, “get everyone else into the Jewel.”

The Jewel was the ballroom at the very center of the palace, the farthest from the outer walls. The queen hesitated, eyes wide and lost as she looked from Rhy to the windows.

“Emira, now.”

At that moment, a strange transformation happened in his mother. She seemed to wake from a trance; she drew herself up and began to speak in crisp, clear Arnesian. “Brost, Losen, with me. You can hold up a circle, yes? Good. Ister,” she said, addressing one of the female priests, “come and set the wards.”

The walls shook, a deep, dangerous rattle.

“They will not hold,” said the Veskan prince, drawing a blade as if the foe were flesh and blood, a thing that could be cut down.

“We need a plan,” said Sol-in-Ar. “Before this sanctuary becomes a cage.”

Maxim spun on Tieren. “The sleeping spell. Is it ready?”

The old priest swallowed. “Yes, but—”

“Then, for saint’s sake,” cut in the king, “do it now.”

Tieren stepped in, lowering his voice. “Magic of this size and scale requires an anchor.”

“What do you mean?” asked Rhy.

“A magician to hold the spell in place.”

“One of the priests, then—” started Maxim.

Tieren shook his head. “The demands of such a spell are too steep. The wrong mind will break….”

Understanding hit Rhy.

“No,” he said, “not you—” even as his father’s order came down:

“See it done.”

The Aven Essen nodded. “Your Majesty,” said Tieren, adding, “once it’s started, I won’t be able to help you with—”

“It’s all right,” interrupted the king. “I can finish it myself. Go.”

“Stubborn as ever,” said the old man, shaking his head. But he didn’t argue, didn’t linger. Tieren turned on his heel, robes fluttering, and called to three of his priests, who fell into his wake. Rhy hurried after them.

“Tieren!” he called. The old man slowed but didn’t stop. “What is my father talking about?”

“The king’s business is his own.”

Rhy stepped in front of him. “As the royal prince, I demand to know what he is doing.”

The Aven Essen narrowed his eyes, then flicked his fingers, and Rhy felt himself forced physically out of the way as Tieren and his three priests filed past in a flurry of white robes. He brought a hand to his chest, stunned.

“Don’t stand there, Prince Rhy,” called Tieren, “when you could help to save us all.”

Rhy pushed off the wall and hurried after them.

Tieren led the way to the guards’ hall, and into the sparring room.

The priests had stripped the space bare, all of the armor and weapons and equipment cleared save for a single wooden table on which sat scrolls and ink, empty vials lying on their sides, the dustlike contents glittering in a shallow bowl.

Even now, with the walls trembling, a pair of priests were hard at work, steady hands scrawling symbols he couldn’t read across the stone floor.

“It’s time,” said Tieren, stripping off his outer robe.

“Aven Essen,” said one of the priests, looking up. “The final seals aren’t—”

“It will have to do.” He undid the collars and cuffs of his white tunic. “I will anchor the spell,” he said, addressing Rhy. “If I stir or die, it will break. Do not let that happen, so long as Osaron’s own curse holds.”

It was all happening too fast. Rhy reeled. “Tieren, please—”