She deliberately stumbled, catching herself on the cliffside, and kept walking. There. Clumsy human almost fell. No need for alarm. Everything is as it appears to be.

Ahead the bride reached the bridge of the vala tree and solemnly walked along its curved length to the enormous trunk.

The women lined up on the ledge before the bridge, where the path widened to a luxurious ten feet, and began to chant the words to an old poem in low voices. Maud knew them by heart. Her memory superimposed an image of another time and place on the present. Another vala tree, a lantern in her own hand, and her voice soft and earnest, as she recited, and back then, believed every word:

Night has fallen, sky has opened,

Ancient stars have no mercy,

In the Void and cold darkness,

Find my light and feel my hope.

You will never stand alone,

You will never be forgotten,

Time will never make me falter,

Find my light and feel my hope.

I will wait for you forever,

You won’t lose your way, beloved,

Find my light and feel my hope,

And my love will guide you home.

Sometimes even the strongest love wasn’t enough.

The bride raised her lantern and hung it on a tree branch. The lantern swayed gently. The bride stood to the side, her hand on the tree’s dark bark. One by one the women moved forward to add their own lanterns to the branches, then walked back off the bridge to the ledge.

The sound of a flyer tore through the serenity of the gorge. A slick fighter, all gleaming metal, narrow like a dagger, plummeted from the sky at a dead fall. At the last moment the pilot pulled up. The fighter shot through the gorge at breakneck speed, threading through the maze of arches like a needle, buzzing so close by, the branches of the vala tree shivered. The bride’s robe fluttered from the wind. Maud gasped.

Kavaline shook her staff at the retreating craft. “Tellis, you idiot!”

The fighter streaked toward the setting sun.

Seveline leaned back and laughed.

“I changed my mind!” Kavaline growled. “I’m not marrying him!”

“Was that the groom?” Maud asked.

“Yes,” Onda said, cracking a smile.

“That was beyond reckless,” Maud muttered.

“There was no danger,” Seveline waved her hand. “Tellis is an exceptional pilot.”

“He is,” Onda confirmed. “He has over three thousand hours in a small attack craft.”

Seveline chuckled. “We need to get a move on. If he comes back for a second pass, Kavaline might explode. Your turn, Lady Maud.”

Maud stepped onto the bridge and took her lantern to the tree.

10

When the procession descended the trail, Maud saw two figures waiting for her on the edge of the bridge leading to the upper levels of the castle. Both were blond. The first, huge and made even larger by his armor, leaned against the stone rail that shielded the patio from the drop below. The second, tiny, sat on the said stone rail with her legs crossed.

Maud fought the urge to speed up. Like it or not, she wasn’t going anywhere until the women in front of her exited the trail.

“How adorable,” Seveline murmured behind her, her voice sickeningly saccharine.

It took all of Maud’s control to not spin around and punch the other woman in the mouth. Seveline was a threat and the wasteland taught her to eliminate threats before they had the chance to blossom into full-blown danger. Spin around, kick Seveline off the trail, spin back, lock an arm around Onda’s throat, and choke her until she passed out and she could crush her windpipe…Maud shook herself. She had bigger fish to fry.

The women in front of her veered left, toward the bridge, while Maud turned right and headed for the two people waiting for her.

A long brown smudge crossed Helen’s face. On closer examination, the smudge appeared to be sticky, decorated with tiny bits of bark, and smelling faintly of pine resin. Maud slowly shifted her gaze to Arland. A series of similar smudges stained his armor.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“No,” Arland and Helen said in the same voice. Maud compared the expression on their faces. Identical. Dear universe, she could almost be his child.

Something green peeked from between the strands of Arland’s blond mane. Maud reached over, plucked it, and pulled out a twig with three leaves still attached. She held the twig between them. Arland stoically refused to notice it.

Right. She let the small branch fall. “Are the others watching us?”

“Mhm.” Arland’s face remained relaxed.

“I need some information,” she murmured. “About the Kozor and Serak.”

“What sort of information?” Arland asked, keeping his voice low.

“Rank and power structure.”

“Is it urgent?”

“It might be.”

Arland offered her his arm. She rested her fingers on his elbow and together they strolled to the bridge, letting the last of the bridal party go before them.

They crossed the bridge leisurely, Helen walking in front of them.

“Where are we going?” Maud asked.

“To see my dear uncle. I so miss him.”

Maud hid a smile.

The last robed woman disappeared into the nearest tower. They followed, but where the women went left, they went right. As soon as the bend of the hallway hid them from the view of the departing bridal party, both she and Arland sped up as if they had planned it. Helen ran to catch up. Arland bent down, picked Helen up and carried her, and Helen let him, as if it was a thing he did every day.

They took a lift up three floors, crossed a breezeway, then another, until they came to a solid, almost square tower secured with a blast door solid enough to take a hit from an aerial missile. The door slid open at Arland’s approach, and Maud followed him inside, through yet another, blissfully short, hallway to a large room.

If they had shown her twenty different rooms and asked her which was Soren’s, she would immediately pick this one. A thick rug, looking as old as the castle, cushioned the floor. The skulls of strange beasts and arcane weapons decorated the gray stone walls between the banners of House Krahr and antique bookcases. The bookcases were made with real wood and filled with an assortment of objects and trophies, chronicling decades of war and dangerous pursuits: odd weapons, maps, rocks, data cores of every shape and size, uncut gems, an otrokar charm belt—Soren either made friends with an otrokar shaman or killed one, and knowing the history of the Holy Anocracy and The Hope-Crushing Horde, the latter was far more likely. Money from a dozen galactic nations, daggers, dried plants, shackles, several Earth books, one of the them probably Sun Tzu’s Art of War, unless she read the golden Hanzi logograms incorrectly, and a Christmas ornament in the shape of a big blue ball with a sparkling snowflake inside rounded up the bizarre collection. Here and there padded chairs and a couple of sofas offered seating. In the middle of the room a large desk held court, so massive and heavy, Maud doubted Arland could lift it alone. Behind the desk, in an equally solid chair, sat Lord Soren, carefully studying some document on his reader.

The room screamed Veteran Vampire Knight. It was so classic, it hurt.

The door slid shut. Lord Soren raised his head and regarded the three of them with his dark eyes. He scowled at Arland, nodded to Maud, smiled at Helen, and resumed scowling at his nephew.

“What?” Arland asked.

“Did you have to break his arm?”

Arland made a noise deep in his throat that sounded suspiciously like a growl.

Lord Soren sighed. “To what do I owe the pleasure of the visit?”

“I need to understand the structure of House Serak,” Maud said.

Lord Soren nodded and flicked his fingers across his desk. A giant screen slid out of the ceiling on Maud’s right and presented two pyramids of names connected by lines. The one on the left read Serak, the other Kozor.

“Who are you interested in?” Lord Soren asked.

“Tellis Serak,” she said.

Helen crawled onto one of the sofas, curled up on the big blue pillow, and yawned.

“Ah. The dashing groom.” Soren flicked his fingers, and Tellis’ name near the top of the pyramid, ignited with silver. “His father is the Preceptor; his mother is the Strateg.”

“Who is the Marshal?” she asked.

Another name ignited in the column to the left. “Hudra. She is the Marshal in name only.”

“Why?” Arland asked.

“She has five decades on me,” Soren said. “She was fierce in her day, but time is a bitter enemy, and it always wins.”

Interesting. “Are they grooming Tellis to become the Marshal?” Maud asked.

“He is the most obvious choice,” Soren said. “His ascension to Marshal would cement the family’s hold on the House. They have been preparing him since childhood. Not that he is ready, by any means. Too young, too reckless. Tonight is the perfect example. What sort of fool requests permission for a fighter flight just so he can fan his bride’s hair while she is standing on a cliff?”

Of course. If Arland had buzzed his bride in the fighter, he would be dashing. But since this was the scion of Serak, Tellis was reckless. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but Marshal candidates must be well-rounded in their military education?”

“Indeed,” Soren said. “They are trained to lead. They spend a certain amount of time with every branch of the House’s military to familiarize themselves with the people under their command, but the bulk of their education centers on the effective deployment of these forces and military strategy.”