Chapter 1

Aly woke with her hands and ankles chained to a wall. Her sarong was still on her, although in pieces. It covered up most of the important parts, but gave her no warmth in the cold room. Aly shivered, still not fully awake. The sharpened edges of the cuffs cutting into the callused skin on the heels of her hands. There was dried blood on her arms and legs from all the cuts.

New trickles of scarlet were running down her arms from her hands. Her mind was slowly clearing. Aly tried to pull her arms down. Again, the sharp edges of the handcuffs dug into the heels of her hands. Aly whimpered. She wasn't prepared for that. She stopped moving all together.

There was a sharp pain between her thighs, and other associated areas. Wonderful. They must have been very thorough in their search for hidden weapons. She was hurt and was sore everywhere. Her mind was clearing, but not fast enough. Somewhere in the subconscious of her mind she registered the sound of footfalls. But it took until a shadow fell over her for her to connect it with the door opening.

She now was completely awake. Aly slowly raised her head. The person standing over her had black hose on his head, so Aly couldn't see his face. But she did notice that he was very muscular, and wore very tight pants, had his hands on his hips, and made no effort to hide the fact the found her very appealing.

"So, girl, you finally came to. We have some questions regarding the goings on at the palace, that is so very far away from here. Would you like to enlighten me?" his voice was completely neutral. It sent another shiver down Aly's spine.

Aly didn't saw anything. She wasn't going to give anything up. She wasn't going to say anything until she saw how far these people were willing to go. Were they amateurs? Or did they know what they were doing? These were questions Aly needed answered before she could risk anything by speaking.

"Do you have a tongue, wench?" his voice had become a bit mocking.

Ah, so you think that if a person does answer they are but amateurs in the spy game? Does that mean he does not know that I am the spymaster? Too many questions.

The man grabbed Aly roughly by the chin, and forced her to meet his eyes. His eyes were gray, and lifeless ... emotionless. Aly's own eyes were filled defiance.

"I asked you a question," he spit each of the words out one by one, "I expect you to answer at least the second one."

Aly remained silent. She slowly fought down the urge to spit in his face.

He squeezed her jaw. Aly grimaced. He pushed two of his fingers past her lips, and between her teeth. He found her tongue, and yanked. He didn't pull it out, but it hurt, and Aly opened her mouth and gave a half scream. Cutting herself off when she realized what she was doing.

"Why, you do have a tongue, wench."

He shoved Aly back into the wall. He released her jaw and grabbed her throat with his left hand. He put his lips next her ear, "I've left you your tongue, girl. Next time I ask you a question, use it, or things will get very ugly. I wouldn't want to screw up that pretty little face of yours, bitch."

He shoved her back into the wall, knocking the wind out of her lungs. Aly kept her eyes trained on the ground, trying to recover the lost air. She heard the door shut, and footfalls getting steadily softer until there was no sound left but the dripping of water into a stagnant puddle somewhere.

This was going to be harder than she thought.

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Dovasary Haiming Temaida Balitang, Queen of the Copper Isles, walked down one of the less used hallways of the palace on her way to a meeting about the safety of her kingdom. She didn't really know why this meeting had been called on such short notice. Her people, the ones important enough to converse with her about such matters, all had their jobs, what they were supposed to do. It was late in the afternoon. Nawat, her General, came back from a 'trip' at noon. Nawat had taken over after Ulasim, the original General, died in the rebellion. Aly, her best friend was due here about that time. She was never in on time. A little late or a little early, depending on what went on. It was really a bad omen if she showed up on time to the dot.

Good, she thought, Aly makes this place much more lively. She knows what to make of the entire game. The queen rounded the last corner, deep in thought. Shouting jarred from her meditative state.

Dove's eyes narrowed. The shouting was coming from the meeting room. Where she was headed. What is going on? Dove heard Chenaol's firm, demanding, voice. It could still be considered a voice, and not a yell. One voice was raised the same way, edged with annoyance. Taybur Sibigat, Captain of the Queen's Guard. Then there was Fesgao's yell. Dove had heard it before. He used when training new recruits. Then there was one that Dove could not identify. It was louder than the others, laced with worry. Nawat, Dove thought. The only person other person that could be yelling.

The door had been left open. So she stood there, hands clasped in front of her, obviously angry. Slowly, each person in the room shut up. The first to notice her was the mute mage, Ysul. After him was Taybur, then Chenaol. Fesgao and Nawat quieted about the same time.

"What is wrong with you? Yelling like this? Is something really that bad?" asked Dove. She flicked her eyes to each person in the room. Finding different emotions in each. The last person she looked at was Nawat. He was standing at the back of the room. Eyes filled with worry and pain.

Dove's own eyes softened at that. "What happened? What has you all on edge? What is wrong?"

"Aly… She's missing… She's never been this late before…" Nawat's voice was hoarse from yelling and choked with worry.

Dove's hands dropped to their sides, her eyes widened, they filled with worry for her best friend.

She walked shakily to a chair, Taybur helped her to it when she almost stumbled, and Chenaol kicked it out from her position to the chair to the right of it. She rested her elbows on the table and put her head in her hands as everyone took their seats.

"Start from the beginning, and leave nothing out." she commanded.

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-A/N- Okay, I had one of my friends at school go home and read this. She came back to school the next day and said, "I thought she was knocked up by a crow." It was then I realized that in the epilogue of the last book, Aly was indeed pregnant. In my parallel Tamora Pierce world, that never happened. And I apologize for not using the ruler, I couldn't get it to work. So I've given up on that completely.