Okay. As Granny Weatherwax would say: I ate'nt dead. It has taken me a long time to update this. Namely four years. So: if you're new here, thank you for giving this a go. If you're a former person who was kind enough to read my fics, thank you for having the patience to do so. 2008 is my year for finishing things - and this fic is one of them. As I've done over in my other fandom, I'm putting dates for my next update (and better yet - sticking to them.)

A thank you to those lovely people who commented last time (which was, scarily, before FFN has its 'reply' function on comments.) I will now be going back and replying retrospectively to the comments on the last chapter, but it'll take a little itme, so please bear with me! So thank you: Dianna, Behrlie, Faewyn, Kichiko, Karigan, Miri Tazan, Jaya, K'Ranna, Anne McCorvey, Larzdinn, Daugain, Jennjenn, Lady Be, Alia, Hawaiikel, Rhiannon B, AA Battery, Knot2be, defiana, Sailacel, Shiegra, GuardianoftheWaves, Andie Firehawk, Indigo Spirit, Yukatalamia, Aharah Musici, Illyrian Royalty, Musical Kat, CalliopeMused, starlight15, DiSsCoNnEcTed, anonymous, Caracandel, Cherri202, jadetrickster, bellachaos and Zashera. You are all extremely awesome.

I would adore hearing what you think. I can hack criticism - so fire away. I'm a big strong girl, I can take it. Next part by Feb 20th.

And thank you for giving this a go - I hope you enjoy it.
- Ki

A Lady's Shield: Chapter Ten

It was high summer when it truly began.

A time of long days and short tempers; the world was embroiled in the ruthless tug of a civil war.

Rumours were thick and rife; the commoners whispered in despair that Iceblood was dead, knocked from his horse in the midst of battle by an axeman whose blade had gleamed crimson in the sinking sun. He had been a strange champion – a man who didn't cloak his words in charm or lies, a man harder than the steel he fought with, a man who wielded magic like it was merely another tool - but he had been theirs. He had not weighed worth in gold or titles or lineage.

Hope seemed lost as the insidious hiss of hearsay reported that even the Shang were preparing to side with Justinian, that Iceblood's armies were routed and smashed, that the rape and the destruction had begun already.

In the buzzing confusion of truth and lie, a small band of Iceblood's supporters decided on a last stand; whether glorious defiance or simple suicide, news spread and soon this small band swelled and multiplied into a rag-tag militia. Soldiers with pitchforks, old rusted swords they had dug from dilapidated castles of times gone, the final motley defiance against Justinian's tyranny.

In future times, the battlefield would be all but forgotten, names unimportant, the weather meaningless, though it drizzled with grey veils of rain, clouding the bristling lines of men who faced each other.

Justinian stood before his army, a beacon in the burnished bronze armour set with dozens of tiny diamonds so he glittered like an idol. Everyone knew his banner; a red sword on a black field.

The numbers were equal, but Justinian's army were well-mounted, with clean, honed weapons and generals who were the veterans of a hundred battles. Compared to the half-organised, desperately under-equipped commoners, they were princes, every one.

Both sides knew this would be a massacre. In those final few moments, doubt shrieked out in the hearts of men who could only clutch tight their weapons and pray the end would at least be quick.

Justinian raised his hand, ready to signal his archers. Bows raised, row after row after row, aimed at heaven, and falling like the rains of hell.

He lowered his hand, and they fired-

To the last, arrows exploded in blazes of black lightning, filling the sky with the rattle of thunder.

And in fire, in glory, into legend, they came.

Iceblood and the Phoenix, walking through the army that gave before them like worshippers cleaving to their gods. They had ridden for miles under the broiling summer sun on hearing the news. But no one saw the fatigue in both faces, the toll of thousand lives dropped upon their shoulders after that brief – too brief – idyll together.

They only saw the two figures walking tall, Iceblood with a heavy sword in one hand and his familiar, battered helm of iron. Their champion, returned to them in their hour of need. And the Phoenix, more famous even than Iceblood or Justinian, who had at last chosen her side in the war.

She had chosen for love, though no one there even guessed that. They only saw two legends united, surely an omen. They saw only that the fabled Shang had chosen her side, and chosen theirs; they saw Iceblood determined and alive, and they felt hope.

It was a bitter, bloody battle on Aedon's Fell. Even legends can only do so much and men fell, in violence and fear on both sides. So many that the grass was slick to walk on, dark and slippery with blood. Hours dragged on, and each side roused itself again, magic flared through the air to pick at Justinian's army like a hyena at bones.

It was, in the end, a massacre. Of both sides.

But the Phoenix had made her choice, and so made the choice for all of Shang. Evermore, they were set against Justinian, they were allied to magic and poverty, and unsure of both. Untrusting of both.

And rightly so.

It was a swift flight, but an orderly one.

The noise reached them long before they saw a glimpse of the battle: metal upon metal, the faint roar of Raoul bellowing commands – oddly reassuring – and strange, coughing sounds that Kel had never heard before.

They wheeled into the village to see a scene of such strangeness and carnage that Kel could make no sense of it for a moment.

Thick black smoke moved in drifts between the men, who were tightly bunched into small knots that bristled with steel. On those who were down – mercifully few – she saw terrible burns that made her stomach clench.

At the midst of one of those knots, Raoul spotted them and waved them into similar groups. "Lose the horses," he called. "Whatever you do, keep those clouds away. There are things inside them."

Things. The grim way in which he said it left her in no doubt that he meant inhuman.

"They're highly mobile. Fire weapons of some kind. Possible mages. Vulnerable to steel. Use your mages to shield you, they-"

Faster than she would have believed possible, one of the cones of smoke shot towards them. She brought her glaive up – not alone, as two other men weighed in with her, and she felt a jarring impact.

That odd, coughing sound came – and she was helpless at the sight of missiles flying at her-

They rebounded from the shield of one of their mages. She was left staring at pieces of cherry-red metal, twisted as if they had been partially melted.

With practised efficiency, the Own were forming up. She counted a dozen of the strange clouds, darting with deadly swiftness. Pieces of metal and fire hissed against magical shields and embedded themselves in wooden ones.

With the addition of numbers, the Own held a clear advantage. The knots of men began to herd the smoke-spirals, though she peered at them in vain to see what lay at their heart.

Their mages obviously had the same idea. A wind whipped past her and tore at the concealing smoke – shreds drifted away, but were replaced. Another breeze joined it – and another, until it was tugged and battered from three directions. The smoke thinned, receded-

And she gasped aloud at the sight there.

It had the shape of a man, but it was made from what looked like fire. Two shining bands clamped its wrists, and the fiery hands were raised as if in protection of its eyes. It seemed to have armour of a kind – a crude black breast plate with a design-

It shrieked beneath the daylight – and more of that noxious smoke poured from its mouth, soaked with sparks and those little, vicious pieces of metal until it was covered once more.

"What was that?" she whispered.

The creatures had obviously glimpsed that they no longer held the strength of numbers or surprise. They retreated to form an unmoving block opposite the own. For a time, the two sides remained still, silent, unsure.

"Where are you from?" bellowed Raoul into the stunned silence. "This is Tortall, a free land. By what right do you come here?"

A new, chittering sound sprang up. At first she thought it pain, but then one of those columns parted; the smoke wafted up above the creature to form a screen from the sunlight, revealing its strange, flaming form. Now she could see the insignia on its armour: a red sword. Red on black.

"By right of conquest," it said in a thick, rumbling voice that had the crash of hammer upon anvil. "This land belongs to Justinian – he has returned, as he promised. Bow to the Shadow King, or see your world burn."

"Justinian?" She heard the name echo incredulously throughout the company. Some knew it; others were clearly bemused.

"Justinian is centuries dead," Raoul said with scorn.

It chuckled. "Centuries gone. But not dead. Waiting."

"Waiting?" Raoul sounded thunderstruck. "Where? In the grave?"

It rippled, as if trying to burst the manacles on its wrist. "Beyond the grave. Where the shadows meet and merge – where the world is lit by a stranger star than yours."

"And you?" he asked. Kel was amazed his voice was so calm.

"We are his scouts. We have given you your warning. The Shadow King returns! Offer your fealty, or we will harrow you."

She already felt quite harrowed. From the uneasy silence, she was not alone.

"We have a king," Raoul said quite mildly. "And we will not surrender our land to you."

That wild, screeching sound arose again: laughter in a terrible symphony. The creature drew down its cloud again, cloaking itself.

"You will," it said. "Eventually. All falls before him: the shadows will devour you too."

Raoul began to speak – but the creatures were gone, moving so swiftly that she could hardly countenance that they had ever been there. Only the scent of them remained: dusty, acrid, burning.

"Justinian," Raoul echoed, gazing after them. "It can't be true."

"And if it is?" Buri said in a too husky voice.

The knight groaned. "Either way, the king must know. We must settle the wounded and ride for Corus."

Kel could not help wondering if he thought, as she did, of the unicorn running free – and the curse that lingered behind her.

Andrea rapped timidly on the crumbling door. Like everything else in the dilapidated street, it was about to fall apart. Rubbish heaped the gutters, tinged with rivulets of waste and dirty water that trickled through the city.

Neither of them belonged in this filthy alley; even her hair, clean and gold, shimmered too brightly here, a beacon to any thieves down enough on their luck to be scavenging here. And as for him, dressed in Court clothing, he was a hawk in a coop of hens.

The buildings were squat and narrow, crammed together and blackened by soot. Flies buzzed heavily, and the smell was enough to make Andi gag if she didn't breathe through her mouth. In one corner, a man lay slumped, his foot twitching from time to time. Davir had coolly strolled over to examine him, and pronounced him a leper, nearly dead, without a quiver in that confident voice.

"Is it all like this?" enquired the Carthaki. "I recall your ambassador describing Corus as a rare diamond shining out in the gloom of ignorance and brutality. It seems to me too much of both hides in your slums."

"I don't know," she answered, banging on the door again. "I've only been here a month. I came from a village in the North."

"That explains that charming accent, then."

She started as the door opened, and a woman with snaking red hair peered around it. "What be you-oh, it's you, lass. Is Ryan with ye?"

"Not today. He's..." Andrea sought for a kind explanation.

"In a strop again?" Hana Alhaz, Ryan's guardian and partner in crime for ten years of his life, grinned wryly. "He gets them from time to time, girl, don't worry about it. Slap him around a bit and he soon snaps out of it. How can I...oh my."

Her tone had altered to a silky purr at the sight of Davir, who was eyeing her with as much interest. Andi supposed he was a rare sight; a Carthaki noble slumming it for a day. Equally unusual was his flamboyant clothing, cut in strange styles and with the glitter of silver thread at sleeves and hem.

"Bringin' me business, lass?" The redhead opened the door wide, a welcoming smile on her face. Hana was a prostitute, though Andi could still hardly believe any woman could sell herself so brazenly. "I'd not have thought it of ye, but I thank you for it. Things have been slow lately."

"Business, yes," drawled Davir, "but not the kind you're thinking of."

Hana drew herself up. A small woman at best, her glare had no effect on Davir. "No? Then why are you wasting my time?"

"Forgive me," he said icily, "but I hardly see men battering down your door."

Hana cast a disgusted glance around her surroundings. "Times are hard."

"Men, it seems, are not. We are prepared to pay – but for information."

Hana pursed her lips. "Very well. What do you want to know?"

"Nina Burridge. Where is she?"

Andi was shocked at the change in Hana's face. The shrewdness drained from her green eyes, leaving them wide and uncertain and frightened. "By the Goddess, tell me ye don't have business with that – creature! Lass, did Ryan put you up to this? Tell me it's one of his silly jokes."

Confused, Andi could only shake her head.

"Goddess," muttered the woman again. "What do you want with her? Is there no one else who can help you?"

"I need a foreteller," Davir said, more soothingly that Andi would have given him credit for. His black eyes were snapping, intrigued. "The best there is."

"Oh aye," whispered Hana, curling her hand around the doorframe as if to draw comfort from it. "She's the best. But her price is high. Higher than you or I or the King himself can afford."

They had only met a few times, but Andi had always thought Hana could take care of herself and anyone else who came along. "Are you all right...?"

The woman dredged up a weak smile. "Right enough, lass. Please – don't go to her. Anyone but her. There's other soothsayers, other places-"

"She is the best, though?" Davir cut in, slicing over her words like a knife.

Hana stopped, still. Her eyes screamed that she wanted to lie. Reluctantly, as if the words were drawn from her like wire: "She is. There's none who can match her."

"What has she done to you?" The questions were sharp, glass-shard slashes. "Is she dangerous? Will she harm us?"

"Dangerous?" Hana's lips drew tight, her body seemed to shrink in on itself until she was clutching the door as if it was all that anchored her to the world. "She'll give ye exactly what you ask for...there ain't anything more dangerous than that. That was all she gave me."

"I ask for facts," was Davir's scornful reply before Andi could speak. "And all you give me is riddles?" His mouth curled, cruel in that moment. "Tell us where we may find her, and I will give you your coin."

"Keep your damned coin," Hana hurled at him. "How am I supposed to warn ye about something I don't understand? Go down to the Docks, you blind fool, go there and ask for la Bruja, and when you get what you asked for – remember that I tried to warn you."

The Carthaki arched a cynical eyebrow. "I always get what I ask for."

Hana turned her back to them, shoulders shivering, but not before Andrea caught her bitter whisper; "And this time, ye'll get what you deserve."

She put a tentative hand on Hana's arm. "I'll try to stop him."

"Don't bother," mumbled Hana. "I know that type. He's stubborn as Ryan. He wanted to see la Bruja too, but at least I could stop him. Lass, Ryan loves ye – don't go with this Carthaki fool. Don't risk it, please."

The thought of Davir wandering through the docks alone was too horrifying. He'd be dead before he got three steps, his corpse plundered before his skin had even cooled. A sharp tongue was no defence against a sharp knife.

"I'll try to stop him," she repeated, and had to leave then because Davir was calling from the end of the street. She glanced back only once, to see Hana crying softly as she leant on the wall, her head in her arms.

"Real...?"

The mage who had once been known far and wide as Iceblood steepled his fingers, his eyes a darkness filled with creeping shapes. Lines were marked deep on his face, so gaunt it seemed death would reach out and wrap its arms around him at any minute.

"Real," he echoed again, a bitter note in his voice. "Oh yes, I am far too real. Would that I were not, that none of it had happened, that she-"

He stopped, and Roald felt that the mage had not meant so many words to slip out.

"The Phoenix," breathed Neal, as if he understood. "She was real too?"

The mage's face was bleak. "She was more real than anyone I have ever known. More alive than anyone else. Everything else seemed as nothing when she was there. She was easy to love."

"And impossible to lose," muttered Neal, as if he quoted something. His jade eyes were keen, full of scholarly fascination. "Is everything the tales say true?"

The mage – Iceblood – shrugged. "How am I to know, boy? They wrote the legends and the lies after she and I were both gone."

Roald remembered something about a Phoenix – scattered fragments, Numair speaking about...what had he called it? The Folly, that was it. A man who... "You burned the world," he said aloud. "For seven days and seven nights, it burned. And then you – disappeared."

"Or went away," amended Neal, staring at the mage in his tattered clothes. "The legend said you died."

The angry laugh shattered the tomb-still air. "I only wished I had. Seven days I waited for her to rise out of the ashes, as she should have." The anguish in his face was too much for Roald to watch. He found himself staring at his feet, hardly able to believe this was happening. "Every night, I waited to see her walk from them, waited for her smile and her hands and her voice. But she didn't...gods, she didn't."

"Rise?" queried Neal, brows drawn together.

"The Phoenix was blessed by the gods," the mage said hoarsely. "I thought...I thought they would bring her back. She died unjustly, she was betrayed. How could they let someone so sacred die?" He drew in a huge, shuddering breath. "And when the fire died, and I was left with ashes, I realised there was no true justice. Only what men could make."

"So you made this," murmured Roald, understanding at last.

The mage got up from where he lounged in one fast, furious movement. "This," he spat. "And what good has it done? My love is still dead, and the world is still cruel and the wars rage on. What good have I done? If I could have, I would have left you all to rot."

"You could have, though," said Neal, puzzled. "The spells here have been replicated a hundred times over. They use them in court cases – even market traders sell cheap scrolls for finding truth."

"No. I could not. My purpose here runs deeper than rifling through your paltry minds. It..."

His voice trailed off, and those empty eyes widened to fill with emotion. Thick and dark as oil, it washed in, and his fists clenched at his sides.

"No..." he breathed. His head snapped to and fro between them. "Which of you two did it?" he demanded.

Roald and Neal exchanged uneasy looks. Iceblood barely seemed to be on the right side of sanity, and neither of them had the urge to remain around a mage who was a calmly confessed murderer, and seemed on the verge of becoming a loudly obsessed one.

"Did what?" ventured Roald.

"I...I..." The mage's chest heaved, fluttering under the ragtag robes. An eerie calm fell over his face, erasing the anger with uncanny swiftness. "So it is done," he said in a strange flat voice. "All my work...all of it, for naught."

"All of...what?" Neal, ever-curious, piped up.

The mage flashed a grim smile, teeth bone-white. "Does my legend not tell you that?"

"It..." Neal shrugged, spreading his hands. "Well, it doesn't say much really. You disappeared, the Phoenix died, and Justinian began his rule. The Shadow King."

"Nothing of what killed her?"

"Magic...old magic..." Roald said softly. Iceblood's attention swung to him; the gaunt face of a man who had been so preciously, nearly king. "She was betrayed."

"She was killed by a monster." The mage's voice was husky, raw with the ache of ages gone. "A creature from the Divine Realms, though there's nothing divine about it. Every seventy years, the Goddess walks on the earth as a unicorn, the price of a promise she made with a mortal. Once, there were no hounds, hunting her down. But then they were created, dreamt up by some fool mortal who wanted a show, who wanted to see a beautiful thing ripped to pieces." His laughter rattled like old bones. "Did you ever wonder who that mortal was?"

Roald wasn't sure where this was going. "No."

Neal, however, was quicker, though his voice rang with disbelief. "Justinian?"

"I must give him credit. It was a perfect trap. She walked right into it." Despite the coolness of his words, his fists were clenched and whit-knuckled. "The unicorn lived – and my girl died. My beautiful, brave girl."

"He thought that up just to kill her?" Roald whispered.

The mage's eyes were immeasurably pitying. "I doubt you can understand just how important she was to the war. She was a legend. Knowing that she fought Justinian, people flocked to our cause. If she had lived, I don't doubt that we would have won. Without her..."

He closed his eyes. He seemed reed-frail, broken.

"What was the point without her?" The mage swallowed hard. "He dreamt up four hounds, but it only took one to kill her. After, I fought it." He closed his eyes "I fought it so long, with everything I knew. I couldn't kill it...I couldn't win. But neither could it. And eventually, I realised there was only one way to trap it; to keep it here myself, forever. It lived beneath the Chamber, bound by the very fabric of the room. I enchanted every stone and every knot of wood that made this place, I put every last piece of myself into it. In the end...I put myself here, to be sure someone would remember. And in case..."

He shook himself.

"No matter. It was all for nothing. If you hadn't come here, I wouldn't have known for days...I so rarely check the spells any more."

"Known what?" said Roald sharply.

The hooded, awful eyes were intense. "Someone took a nail from the door. They've weakened the spell – they left a crack. And the hound is gone."

Neal went ghastly white. "Are you sure?"

The mage gave him such an icy look that Neal quailed visibly. "I gave up my life and my death to imprison that monstrosity. There is nothing I could be more certain of."

"It's really loose then," murmured Roald softly. He was frantically trying to remember everything he had been taught about hounds; he had notes somewhere, but even Tkaa the basilisk had only sketchy knowledge on the creatures. "They're shapeshifters, aren't they?"

"So one of you knows something. Yes, boy. The hound is their best known form – it's the only one they use in the Wild Hunt, but they could steal your face or mine and no one would be any the wiser. They are drawn to power, particularly magic, and to innocence, and of course, a unicorn is the personification of those attributes. They're predators of the highest and ugliest form. I...cannot say what will happen now that one walks free again."

"Isn't there any way to recognise them?" Neal was white as drifting clouds, but his eyes held an old gleam that Roald recognised well. Always thirsty for knowledge, their Neal, despite his dry and world-weary air. "After all, unicorns are scarce these days. We can hardly ask one to volunteer as bait."

"I don't think you understood me," the mage said slowly. "Unicorns are not its only prey. Innocence in any form draws the creature." Unspoken was the thought that the Phoenix in her strange combination of naiveté and power had fallen to its clutches. "It will be mostly searching for mages, young, powerful mages. It is only fortunate that the Gift takes years to develop properly – we can discount the very young."

'We', Roald noted, not 'you'.

"But if you have any developing mages, particularly girls, they will attract the hound."

A chill ricocheted along Roald's spine. Kally. Wilful, wicked Kally, whose healing talent was growing with every year, the natural inheritance of their parents.

"Your sister," Neal said grimly, their eyes meeting in a moment of determined accord. "And Andrea something or other. That little northern girl who runs around with the thief. There are one or two in the University as well, but the magical wards there are formidable, not to mention the number of mages it'll have to get through."

"We have to go." He had to find his sister– however stubborn she might be, he was one of the few people she would listen to and little as she might like losing her freedom, she'd put up with it for something like this. "I need to warn Kally."

"We thank you for your help," Neal told the mage with a hurried courtesy that proved the Lioness was knocking manners into him bit by bit. "But we must speak with the Palace mages, and their Majesties, and-"

"A moment." The mage was gazing around the small room with the strangest look on his face. "It...it will not be as easy to leave as I thought."

"Leave?" he and Neal chorused in disbelief.

His yellow eyes showed a brief and bleak amusement. "No one is to be tested until midwinter. I can't let this monster run free. The Phoenix died because I was too late – I can't risk anyone else. And who else knows how to hold a hound?"

"Won't you be a bit..." Neil wiggled his fingers. "Um, decayed?"

Iceblood's smile could only be described as patronising. "Magic is not what it was, it seems. The health of my body is bound up with the Chamber. It has been well cared for." He gestured to the doors. "Go. I will join you shortly."

Roald looked at Neal, who gave a little helpless shrug. There didn't seem much else to do except obey.

Ryan Talver was perched on a bar stool and the level of cider in his mug was sinking rapidly. The Princess was flirting with two men who had so much spiky metal on them that he could barely believe they were upright, and she'd just picked one of their pockets.

Worse, she'd just pointed it out to the thug, and given him back his wallet with a kiss on one leathery cheek.

The man laughed, he actually laughed, showing a mouth almost empty of teeth.

"Easy there, lad," advised the barman with a dry grin. "That's your third already, and if Provost's men come in 'ere, I'll be fined for selling to you."

I'm teaching a Princess to thieve! he wanted to shout. I need all the alcohol I can get!

"Never thought I'd see the day old Ripper was charmed by a pretty pair of eyes," the barman continued thoughtfully.

Oh god. That was the legendary Ripper Norris she was pickpocketing? Then the other man had to be Cutthroat Sal, one of the city's most notorious brawlers.

This just wasn't good. Ryan put his head in his hands for a moment, trying not to panic.

"Any chance of another?" he asked pitifully, and the desperation in his voice must have touched the barman's wrinkled walnut of a heart because he pushed another mug across the bar.

The Ripper was coming over. Oh no. Had Kalasin offended him somehow? It was going to be knives in the street, wasn't it? He was sure to get smashed into chutney. This was what came of getting mixed up with nobles.

Ryan steeled himself as Ripper Norris leaned in, baring the few teeth that still clung grimly to his battered gums. There were so many things he'd never done. He hadn't seen the veiled dancers of Carthak. He hadn't scaled Scanra's mountains, or met one of the wild Bazhir. He-

"She's a pretty thing, your girlie," confided the thug with a distinctly infatuated look. "She says you plucked her out of some countryside village."

He was going to live. Probably.

"That I did," Ryan said, frantically trying to remember the rest of her cover story. How anyone swallowed the sweet-and-oh-so-innocent farm girl routine, he didn't know.

"Any more like her out there?" The Ripper gave him a nudge in the ribs. "Reckon she'd do well in one o' the brothels. A looker like that, you'd make a fortune. Bit like that Princess Kalasin, ain't she?"

"A bit," agreed Ryan. He wasn't slurring, was he? "Not as stuck-up, though."

"Even called Sin," carried on the Ripper, dreaminess drifting over his ravaged face. "Not hard to guess which sin she is, eh?"

"Stupidity," Ryan said glumly. "She's definitely stupidity."

The Ripper leaned in. "Well, she's a woman, ain't she? But between you and me, that weren't the sin I had in mind." He gave a hoarse chuckle.

"We all know what you got in mind," chipped in Cutthroat Sal, appearing on Ryan's other side with a suddenness that was disturbing to say the least. "Let us know when you get tired of her, lad. There's a place for her in Tortall."

"And there'll be all of Tortall in her place, no doubt," put in the bartender, from where he was drying glasses with a rag that had seen better days.

"Aye, aye," murmured the Ripper – the Ripper! "Did you see the way she lifted my money? Light fingers." He winked at Ryan. "I bet you appreciate that."

"Oh, he does," agreed Kalasin, wandering up behind him. She produced a bawdy laugh that Ryan couldn't help but be shocked by. She was even doing a passable imitation of a commoner's accent, and he had to wonder just how long she'd been plotting this. "Tell me, Maurice, where did you get that lovely tattoo of the centaur?"

Maurice? Ripper Norris was called Maurice? How had she found that out?

The man gave her a foolish grin. "Souvenir of the yearly fights, Sin. Winner gets a tattoo from the finest artisan in the city. I won three years back – took out Cutthroat's eye, over there."

She looked a little startled at that, but recovered magnificently. "I had no idea there was a competition."

"Well," said the barman, "it's not...official, as such. Provost's men wouldn't be too happy if they knew."

"Keeps us busy in winter, though," put in Cutthroat Sal, leering at Kalasin. "If not warm. I nearly had it last year – just caught a chair in the head at the wrong moment."

"Oh my," murmured the princess, and he just knew her next request would be to see a demonstration...

"Well," he said brightly, jumping off the stool and grabbing her by the arm, "Time we were goin'. I'd like to show my little country lass the sights."

"Oh, but Ryan, I'm sure Maurice and James would be happy to-"

"They're busy men, darlin'," he hinted. "An' we've got so much left to see. I haven't taken ye to the markets yet, or shown you Trickster's Lay."

"Oh, I'm sure I've heard of that. Is that where the…the ladies of the night are?" she asked sweetly.

He tried to silently communicate with her, but if she got the message that he was not, not, not taking the Princess Royal to a brothel, she ignored it.

"That's the King's Lay you're thinkin' of," said Cutthroat 'James, apparently' Sal. "Why, are you lookin' to learn a few tricks o' the trade?"

"I could help you there," drawled Ripper Norris with a knowing grin. "I know all the best whores."

Kalasin's smiled faltered, but she caught it just in time. "Oh, you prankster!" She slid her hand over Ryan's elbow, as if they were a fine lord and lady out for a walk. Half right, then. "Well, Ryan Talver, the rest of the city had better be as exciting as this fine tavern."

"If it ain't, you be sure to come back," cooed Cutthroat Sal. "We'll show you all the excitement you could possibly need."

"I don't doubt it," she agreed with a chiming laugh. Ryan subtly edged towards the exit, forcing her to step with him or let go of his arm. "Don't get into too much trouble," she said, and gave them a little wave.

Ryan threw a glance back over his shoulder as he hustled her out of the tavern. Cutthroat Sal was waving, a distinctly mawkish expression on his face. The Ripper was making an obscene gesture.

"I'm alive," he breathed, and hauled her into the cusp of an alley. "No thanks to you. You can't just…just approach men like that! Do you know who Ripper Norris is?"

She looked blank. "No."

"Maurice," he said with heavy sarcasm.

"Maurice is called Ripper Norris?"

"Not only is he called that," he informed her, drink slowing his words, "he earned the name when he tore off a man's shoulder with his bare hands."

"Don't be silly. No one can do that."

"Tell that to Armless Clegg," he said darkly. "It's pretty tough being a highwayman when you can't hold the knife and the loot at the same time."

She paled slightly when she realised he was serious, then pulled herself together. "I'm just a girl. They wouldn't hurt me."

Ryan cast her a sideways glance. "You don't know anythin' about the world, do you?" he said bleakly.

She levelled a hard, electric glare at him. "Isn't that why we're here?"

Her irreverence enraged him. It made a mockery of the years he and Hana had spent scraping a living from the gutter – it made a mockery of the people who passed them by, of the ones she would not see. "Fine, Princess," he hissed, "you want an education? I'll give you one. You're goin' to rule some country someday, ye might as well see what your glorious kingdom'll be built on, aye?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, but he had grabbed her hand and was dragging her through the streets, weaving around the ever-shuttling, ever-changing loom of the crowds, fury boiling in his veins.

"You'll see," he snapped. If she heard, she didn't reply – she was too busy trying to keep up as he took her down into the dark, uncaring heart of the city.

Pip groaned as she stumbled into her rooms. And it was stumbling; bruises dark as blackberry stains were already rising on her skin, hidden under her clothes.

She fell flat onto her bed, exhausted. The Horse and the Wildcat had shown her how little she truly knew; that everything she had learned until then had been mere practice for what lay ahead. Her muscles felt taut and aching, and for the first time she felt the physical burden of the path she had taken.

Part of her regretted it; another part seethed that she had not been good enough and that the pain and bruises were mere confirmation of this. Try harder, be better, be a weapon and a wonder in one flesh.

It was still what she wanted.

Her brother would be aghast if he saw her now. He had grown used to her eccentricities, as he dryly called them, but this stepped beyond the bounds of propriety. She heard his voice at the back of her mind, logical, calm, level. That was Kieran ha Minch all over.

"What do you hope to achieve, Pippa?" he would say. "You're a noblewoman and you can't possibly hope to succeed. Even if you do, what then? It's a commoner's sport, and you're the daughter of a highborn house – one of the foremost families in Tortall. Would you really bring such disgrace on us?"

Yes, she thought, because it wouldn't be disgrace. Not to me.

"And what about marriage?" she heard him reply. Worst, she thought, was the tenderness that would be in his voice. Kiery was upright and dull as a stick, but she didn't doubt his genuine affection for her. "Pippa, don't you want a family, children, love?"

She knew well the look in his eyes when he gazed at Uline; oh, her brother had been smitten by love and though it could not override his pragmatism, it brought out another side to him that she had been unaware of. Kieran the romantic, capable of better compliments than, "You look almost respectable today."

Do I want those things? she asked herself.

She had expected to have them somewhere along the line, simply because she was the daughter of a noble and a marriageable prospect. But she had always seen it far in the future, some vague and inexorable fate, and she had never cared for it one way or the other. It was her function, nothing more.

"Nothing more?" echoed her brother's ghost (her conscience, she supposed) with outrage. "It's your duty."

It was her duty as a noble to do what was best for her family and her country. But Pip was no longer sure that meant a marriage.

No. That wasn't true: she knew that she could not walk up the aisle and walk down the Shang's wild path. The nobles would not accept it – her own heart rebelled at the idea. It would be like learning to fly and then stepping into a gilded cage, for what man would want a wife who could make no promises to stay with him, who would dive willingly into battle, who was wed to combat as much as him?

And if I loved someone, she thought, if I truly did, could I do that to them?

She hoped not. But she could not honestly say that she would not act with such callousness if forced to it. Such was the price of a dream – sacrifice, in whatever form it came.

As she lay on her bed, body burning, she knew that she would pay it.

It was starving.

It had lain trapped for centuries, famished, twisting and turning in its hunger pangs. The hunt had gone on without it, and each time it felt its prey blazing from the heaven to run free and wild on earth; each time, it had fought its bonds to no avail, and had only fallen back slavering, remembering the last taste of true innocence it had felt trickling down its jaws.

It took shape as it walked, drawing its inspiration from memory and the faces that blitzed by until it was a young man in the glory years of his life, fearless and had they but know it, fearful.

He walked again under the distant sun, and searched for a suitable meal to break its fast. He wore the human face like a cloak as he strolled among the people, seeking, stealthy, starving.

The Palace had its share of youth and of innocence and of magic, but everywhere he felt the three together, he felt too other, stronger mages who would throw it back. No, he would not take the risk – he would not be incarcerated again!

His feet took him from the palace, down into the vast conurbation of human construction and human masses. Ah…there…there, something tasty, something alone and unprotected…smouldering not so far away. No, not one but two of those bright sparks, lighting up the sullen streets like the stars.

He wavered only a moment, and then he chose the one whose life would bring him back to his full powers.

His lips parted; his eyes were bedazzled by desire and as he went into the city, people glanced at the young man who wandered by, and mistaking his appetite for love, let him pass by, inhuman as human, the monster on his way to slaughter. In truth, it was love of a sort, but dark and strong and violent.

They could not tell the difference. Nor could he.

Thank you so much for reading - I would absolutely adore hearing what you thought.