The injured man was sprawled in the dirt in the middle of the road, groaning something she couldn’t make out. Katherine sighed. She'd dismounted as soon as she had seen the man, and had an arrow nocked by the time her feet hit the ground. She scanned the trees, easily picking out the two accomplices hiding there. "Stay here," she told Lucan. The apprentice wizard was still mounted and a couple of paces behind her.

 

"He's hurt," he began.

 

"He's not hurt; they just want us to come close. It's a trap. They're bandits." At least Lucan was smart enough to have stopped his horse when she did, without her having to tell him. Still, she had taken coins to keep him alive. She didn't look back at him as she growled, "Stay back here where it's safe."

 

She walked towards the man lying in the road, keeping her arrow trained on him. "Get up, or I'll kill you where you lie," she shouted to him. "Get your friends out of the bushes and get out of here. We don't have enough money for you to bother anyway."

 

The man stopped groaning. The silence stretched for a few seconds, then, abandoning his pretense, he stood up and retrieved the short spear he had been concealing. He signaled, and his two partners came out from the trees. One had a short spear as well, but the other had a bow. "Morag's bowels, you're a suspicious one. But don't feed me lies, I'm no fool either. You know what we want. Give it and you can go on your way."

 

Katherine resisted the urge to look back over her shoulder to see what Lucan's reaction to that was. It was obvious to her now why Baron Strath had hired her to escort his nephew to the city of Kern. These weren't bandits, her gut told her; they were assassins specifically waiting for her and Lucan, and she knew they planned on killing them no matter what she did. They weren't particularly good at their job, thank Ethani for small favors. She took a few steps closer to the bandits. They were only 10 steps away now, and she knew the archer would fire soon if she kept moving. If he hadn’t been such an idiot, he already would have. She kept her bow trained on the leader, but her attention was on the archer.

 

She took a few steps closer then took a quick jump step to the left. The sudden motion prompted him to fire as she leapt forward again. She heard the arrow as it sped by very close. She let her own arrow go as she moved.

 

Her shot went slightly wide. Luckily, the assassins were inexperienced, and had grouped too close together. At such close range, the arrow buried its length in the gut of the spearman next to her target. She dropped her bow and had her sword out even before the injured man hit the ground with a grunt of pain. Ignoring the leader for the moment she charged at the archer, who was trying to nock another arrow. She was upon him before he could aim, hacking through his bow cleanly with a swipe, and then reversing into a lunge. The blade took him full in the neck and he fell back dying onto the man she'd already shot.

 

She turned to face the leader, parrying his short thrusts as she took a step back. His attacks were adequate, but slow to her experienced eye. Normally against a longer spear she'd move in close to give her opponent no room to work, but his spear was too short for that. Instead, she gave a false opening, lured him into over-committing, then hacked the magically sharp sword down, lopping the head clean off his spear.

 

In desperation, he swung the broken shaft like a club. She deflected the blow while stepping in, slashing downwards across his torso and killing him where he stood. Meanwhile, the injured archer had risen to his feet, and ignoring the arrow protruding from his torso, pulled out a long knife. He stabbed at her clumsily. Without thought she stepped aside and lunged. Her blade buried itself in his chest. She pulled it free and stepped back as he fell.

 

A quick check showed her all three assassins were dead. The entire conflict had lasted just seconds. She squatted and began searching their bodies. Aside from a handful of small coins which she pocketed, the only item of interest was a highly polished black stone that the leader had worn on a chain around his neck, hanging outside his shirt. As far as she could see, the stone was worthless, but the chain it was on looked expensive, far more than made sense for a worthless stone.

 

She pocketed it as Lucan approached hesitantly. Nervous of the bodies, or the attempt on his life, she supposed, but realized she was wrong when he spoke.

 

“I’m sorry, my spell didn’t…,” he said in a shocked voice. “I must have made some mistake, some error—my spell didn’t work.”

 

She felt a sudden stab of shock, but didn't let it show as she cursed her sloppiness and stupidity. She hadn’t noticed he had even tried to cast a spell while she fought the assassins. Of course he would have, and of course his spell hadn’t worked. The sword at her hip was a magic one, but no ordinary kind of magic. It was razor sharp, and essentially indestructible, but that was just a minor side effect of its real magic—when it was unsheathed all other magic in the area failed completely, making a wizard utterly impotent and defenseless. From what she’d learned it was completely unique. It was a sort of magic that only the wizard Aridor had ever been capable of, and he had supposedly died for knowing the secret. She knew if anyone, especially a wizard like Lucan, learned of its power she’d be hounded to the grave by those who would want to take it from her.

 

She said nothing, trying to ignore the guilt she felt. Luckily, Lucan was still talking. "They wanted to kill me."

 

"Yes," she grunted. "So obviously I was hired for more than keeping you sober and out of trouble. What did they want?"

 

"I don't know," he shook his head. "I don't have anything they could want." She could tell he was lying to her—that made both of them liars, although hopefully she was better at it than he was. She dropped the subject. They both knew the bandits had been hired to take whatever he was hiding in his pack, and it was worth enough that someone wanted to kill him for it. Katherine thought he was the sort of person that the untruth would eat at. He'd probably tell her by dinner, she decided, and left the silence to do its work. She went back to her horse and mounted it.

 

"We need to pick up the pace if we want to reach the inn by nightfall. Come on," she said, changing the topic. Obviously he didn't want to discuss what the assassins were truly after, and she didn't want to discuss why his magic hadn’t worked.

 

On the way to the inn Lucan talked nearly constantly, apparently to stop himself from thinking about the assassins. It was a fairly one-sided conversation, with Lucan doing most of the talking, about his uncle the Baron, and the most recent of the subterfuges and machinations of the Council of Barons that controlled Ilmeth.

 

She just let him talk. She'd always found small talk annoying, and to be honest, difficult. People were always prattling on about things she didn't care about, and could barely pretend to care about, but in this case, she let him talk. She told herself that eventually, somewhere in that spill of words, he'd say what she wanted to hear—what his uncle had really hired her to protect. The more he talked, the more likely he would let slip what she wanted to know.

 

While she had intended to just let him ramble, as the afternoon passed she found herself asking more and more questions until, to her own surprise, she had almost forgotten the matter and was debating wholeheartedly the value of different strategies and ploys of the Barons’ internal power struggles. Lucan was a little naive perhaps, but not the fool or the snob she had expected from a wizard belonging to a noble family. To her surprise she found herself warming to the young wizard.

 

They reached the inn as the sun was setting. It was no trouble getting two adjacent rooms upstairs. Scanning the common room she just saw a bunch of merchants, and no one who raised her suspicions. She wasn't foolish enough to let that put her at complete ease, but she trusted her instincts. None of the people in the common room appeared to give her any more interest than the distrustful glances a woman with a sword always got.

 

Lucan was stronger than she thought, and still hadn’t told her anything about what he was carrying. After a bland dinner and a drink by the fire, they went to their rooms. She entered Lucan’s first to give it a quick once over. The room was small, with a bed, wardrobe, and a small table. The window had a shutter that could be locked, and the door had a bolt as well. She went back outside to make sure it couldn't be manipulated from the hallway. From her pack, she tossed Lucan a wooden wedge for the door. “Lock up.”

 

She turned to leave. “Wait,” Lucan said, motioning her to close the door. “I need to tell you something.” She stood by the table while he dug through his pack, carefully pulling out a small flat package wrapped in velvet that he placed on the table. Unfolding it, he revealed a mask of black cloth and bone. “This is what they were after.”

 

She waited attentively as he continued. “It’s a magical mask—the Mask of Beasts my uncle called it. He’s sending it to cement his alliance with Falhein, a wizard who is the Baron of Kern. If you wear it, you can take on the form of an animal, from the smallest rat to an enormous black bear.” He paused. “I don’t know why they want it so badly—certainly it’s useful but there are far more powerful magics in the world.” He looked at her, meeting her gaze as if gauging her reaction. “I suspect they really are more interested in ensuring Kern and Strath don’t join forces.” His secret shared, he relaxed, and sat on the edge of the bed. “My uncle will be furious of course, but I thought you should know what you were escorting. I hope you will keep this secret to yourself.”

 

She didn’t reply. She was surprised by his trust, and it made her own secret bitter in her stomach. But how could she tell him about the magic-cutting sword? She felt the urge to tell him, but that was impossible. In fact, it would have been idiocy, she insisted to herself. She tried to push it from her mind, and decided it was best to go to her own room.

 

“Thank you,” she told him, her voice sounding strange to her. “It is good to know what they’re after. I’m sure they will try again before we reach Kern. Keep the door locked, in the morning I’ll triple tap on it and call your name. Don’t open for anyone else.”

 

She hurriedly went to her room, after quickly checking he’d locked the door behind her. She hung her sword on the back of the chair near the bed and threw her saddlebags, bow and spear on the table. She had to admit she’d assumed he would have been just another minor noble, able to survive in this world only because of his name and wealth and the invisible support given to such people. But to be honest, if she hadn’t unthinkingly cancelled his magic, maybe he would have been of some help against the bandits, and in their conversations she could see he was more intelligent and self-aware than most of the people Katherine had met working for the nobles. That certainly made her job a little easier. She didn't think she'd have to protect him from himself, at least.

 

She decided to only sleep a couple of hours, betting that on the remote chance anything did happen, it would happen very late at night. She had little enough time to sleep. She consciously tried to dismiss her thoughts, focusing on nothing but her breathing, a trick she had learned in her brief stint as a scout in the Astorian army. It didn't work this time, as her mind insisted on going back to the secret she kept from Lucan. After a bit she got up, and got her book from the saddlebags. It was well-worn. It had been expensive and she treated it as gently as possible, but the realities of her life had damaged the book more than once. Still, she found enjoyment in Kharsus' laboriously detailed collection of folk tales and histories, and she hoped it would distract her mind enough to let her sleep. She started paging through the tale of King Gorindor the Unhappy, Last King of Veskral, and the doom that had found him in the Petrified Woods.

 

~ * ~

 

Secure in his room down the hallway, the wizard Tomaino adjusted the thin silver legs of his large tripod with careful precision. The smooth, black stone the tripod supported was the size of a fist, and almost completely unreflective.

 

It was his most prized possession. It had taken months of work to weave the magical links between it and the black stone necklaces he'd made. The principle was something he had learned during his seemingly endless apprenticeship to Crow. Even now, Tomaino could picture Crow in exacting detail—tall, painfully thin, with a long, severe face and a bald pate, and no humanity at all. His left eye was a polished black stone, much like the one in the tripod, buried in a socket of scar tissue. It never closed, never blinked, but the spell that enabled Crow to see with it was one Tomaino had worked hard to learn.

 

He’d adapted the spell in a new way here—through his stone, Tomaino could see out of the linked stones he had set into necklaces, so he could watch his underlings and how they fared. He had shared the new spell with his teacher as payment, for Crow demanded payment in all things. It was, to Tomaino's thinking, an unusually small price where his master was concerned.

 

Crow had told Tomaino of the magical artifact known as the Mask of Beasts that he wanted him to steal. Although Crow hadn’t shared with Tomaino his reasons, he knew Crow wanted it, and he knew failure would not go well for him. Crow demanded the Beast Mask, and Crow’s patience was a very finite, lethal resource. Luckily, Tomaino had already prepared for his second attempt, even before he had hired the would-be bandits that had failed earlier today. If Crow had taught him one thing, it was to always have a backup plan.

 

His second group was preparing to steal the Mask even now, and these hirelings were far more skilled. It would be worth the extra money. Earlier today, while safe and secure in this room, through the black stone he had watched his assassins try and fail to ambush Lucan on the road. Lucan's bodyguard, a swordswoman, had moved to attack them and then the image had vanished abruptly. Somehow his magic spy stone had been negated. He had been watching intently when it happened, and he hadn't seen Lucan do anything. In fact, he doubted the wizard was skilled enough to disrupt Tomaino's spell. And yet, just as the swordswoman had dropped her bow and pulled out her sword, the magic had simply ended.

 

It was impossible, and Tomaino did not like mysteries. Countering a spell was difficult, time consuming, and a secret jealously guarded by those that knew how. Many mages had spent their entire lives trying to create such a spell, as obviously a wizard who could easily cancel another’s magic was a force to be reckoned with.

 

In any case this swordswoman was no mage. Tomaino could not fathom what had happened. The magic had resumed shortly after the fight had ended, as if it had just been suppressed somehow, and he could once again see out of the stone. Luckily, the bodyguard picked up the stone and put it in her pocket, allowing Tomaino to at least track them, even though he could see nothing in the dark pocket where she had placed the necklace.

 

He quickly cast the spell and again activated the stone the swordswoman had picked up. Luck was with him. She was now holding the stone, unwittingly giving him a full view of her room. To his surprise, a candle was lit and she was sitting on the bed. A book was open on the table but she wasn't reading. Instead she was turning over the stone and chain, inspecting it with a bored expression. From the view he quickly determined which room she was in, and he knew Lucan would be in the room beside hers. Tomaino had no doubt the Mask was with Lucan; he knew no-one would willingly give an artifact like that to someone else to hold.

 

Tomaino dismissed the image, and slipped from his room to where killers he had hired waited. Their leader, Tellarius, came out to meet him. He was a short man with graying long hair and a deceptively mild face. Behind him, his three assistants were tying scarves around their necks to act as masks as required.

 

Tomaino indicated Lucan’s room, softly adding "Make sure you're quiet. The woman is in the next room, and she's awake. She'll come to his aid."

 

Tellarius nodded impatiently, with poorly hidden scorn in his eyes. Tomaino knew it was useless advice even as he said it, and knew the mercenary was thinking the same. Of course he would prepare. It always struck him as ironic that the band's spokesman spoke as little as possible, but Tomaino knew the silent man was gifted at his work. He'd done jobs for Tomaino before, and he was sure Tellaruis and his hand-picked killers would be able to slay Lucan and his bodyguard. The Mask would soon be his, and that would settle his debt with Crow. He briefly considered keeping the Mask for himself, but the risks of betrayal outweighed the gain. Far safer to leave Tellarius to his work, while waiting in the wings to claim his prize after Lucan was killed. And if Tellarius should somehow fail, he could still step in to finish off the injured prey. He prided himself on the versatility of his spells, and he had prepared a number of brute force attack and defense spells, just in case.

 

The wheels set in motion, Tomaino returned to his room and linked to the stone Tellarius wore. It was still dark in the corridor, with the only dim light coming from a shielded lantern one of the men held. He saw Tellarius signal two of his men to surround the door, and set the last in the shadows on the far side of the swordswoman's door, to strike from behind if she emerged.

One of them squatted in front of Lucan's door, working with a long tool. After a few quiet minutes, he stopped and listened at the door. At that same moment, the swordswoman’s door, further down the hall, was yanked open. Through the stone around Tellarius' neck, Tomaino could see the bodyguard framed in the open doorway. She yanked her sword from its sheath, moving forward -

 

And, to Tomaino's astonishment, the image in the stone vanished as soon as the sword cleared its sheath.

 

~ * ~

 

Katherine had been surprised, more than she would admit, when Lucan had come into her room a minute ago. Apparently he'd been wise enough not only to jam his door closed as she'd told him, but had put some sort of magical alarm on it as well. She'd been awake and reading when there had been a soft triple-tap at her narrow window. As she opened it cautiously she'd found a large black squirrel sitting on the sill. Before she could close the shutter again it had jumped in. She'd stepped back, somewhat startled, and snagged her sheathed sword from beside the table. As the squirrel landed on the floor it blurred and lengthened, and suddenly the squirrel was Lucan, standing up and pulling off the Mask of Beasts.

 

He motioned her to silence, before leaning close and whispering there were men in the hallway trying to break into his room. With her sheathed sword in one hand, she sidled up the door to listen but couldn’t hear anything. No matter. She yanked it open to see several men in the hallway crowded outside her and Lucan's doors. They were dressed in dark clothes, with scarves pulled over their faces, and their meaning was clear. One of the men, a taller man with long hair and soulless eyes, glared at her in surprise even as he stepped back quickly from her door.

 

She yanked out her sword and headed into the hallway, scooping up the stool in her off hand. She paused before passing through the door. Instead of rushing into the room as assassins would normally have done, they'd pulled back, waiting. She knew that meant a man was doubtless waiting with a dagger for her back as she emerged. As she reached the door, she swung the chair around the corner as hard as she could with the awkward leverage. It was enough. She heard the grunt of pain from the man hiding beside the door as the chair cracked across his arm. In the next heartbeat she rushed out, swinging her sword as she emerged, and felt it sink into his flesh. She spun out into the hallway, passing him as he sank to the ground, and backing away down the hall a few steps so all the assassins were in front of her.

 

It left Lucan unguarded in her room but she needed to make sure she couldn't be surrounded. Once she was sure none of them were behind her, she charged them.

 

The tall man faded back, letting his remaining two assistants take her rushing attack. They were armed with long daggers, but her reach was still better, and the magic sword in her hand was just as light and maneuverable as their knives. She slashed lightly at forearms and legs, keeping them back. Lucan remained inside the room. She couldn't see him from this angle, but she heard him saying the magic words of a spell. Nothing happened—she heard him curse in surprise, and echoed it silently, knowing he was too close to her sword for his magic to work. He didn't know that of course, and her retreat had left the doorway unprotected. She had to get back in the room to protect him. The leader, who had been hanging back behind the other two and studying her carefully, seemed to hear her thoughts. He turned his head at Lucan's failed spell, and after a small consideration, slid into the room to kill him.

 

Cursing, she tried to disengage so she could stop him, but the assassins were pressing their attack. Out of her line of sight, she could hear Lucan's voice, apparently trying another spell. With a sinking feeling, she knew Lucan would die. His spell wouldn't work, not while she had her sword out. With a hot rush of anger she knew she'd failed him, and her secret would be his death as surely as if she'd stabbed him herself.

 

"Morag's bowels," she roared, and pushed her attack again. She had to kill these men and get in there to save him, but she knew it wouldn't be in time. "Lucan, your spells won't work!" she shouted. She heard him stop chanting, but she was blind to what was happening in the room. She tried to take a quick look, but one killer lunged at the same time. She was ready for it. Her sword bit deep into his outstretched hand. His knife and several fingers fell to the ground as he screamed in pain. She grabbed his injured arm and, as she danced sideways, used it to pull him into the way of his friend. He obligingly tangled his partner up, clutching his bleeding hand with the other and staring at it in shock. She attacked again. At the last moment he saw his danger and tried to deflect her blow, but the angle was all wrong for him, and her sword pierced deep into his chest, splitting bones.

 

She brought her sword up as his partner pushed his corpse aside and rushed her, knocking her back. She barely twisted away from the knife he tried to gut her with, grabbing his forearm with all her strength. She was strong, but so was the killer and his rush knocked her off her feet. As she fell, she saw his face light up with triumph. She hit the ground on her back, ignoring the pain. As hard as she could, she kicked at his knee, but he ignored it and threw himself onto her. She punched him in the neck with the hilt of her sword. He shook his head with a grunt, still trying to force his dagger into her stomach. She hit him again, and his grip loosened just slightly. He was too close for her to use the point of her sword, but she sawed the edge of the blade back and forth across his neck just above the shoulder. His eyes went wide in panic as blood sprayed, and he sagged off to the side to die.

 

Lucan was yelling something incoherent from within the room. She shoved the dying man aside, scrambling to her feet. She barged into the room, ice in her stomach.

 

Lucan still lived. The mage was bleeding from a wound in his shoulder and was trying to keep the room's table between him and the long-haired killer. As she came in, the man turned to face her, giving her a small salute with the blade. In his other hand he loosely held a knife, extremely thin but long, almost like a needle. His face was expressionless and cold, with pale blue eyes. He said nothing, eyes flicking between her and Lucan.

 

Katherine thanked the gods Lucan was still alive. She was surprised at the relief she felt, and cursed herself for a fool. The battle wasn't won yet. She could easily see that this man knew how to kill. She advanced carefully, sword raised in a guard. "Who sent you?"

 

He didn't answer. He shuffled sideways, trying to keep her and Lucan in front of him.

 

"Look, you and your friends are going to keep coming, and I'm going to keep killing you," she said with a confidence she didn't really feel. "We can save a lot of time and a lot of blood if you just tell me who sent you."

 

He said nothing. Katherine cursed. Without taking his eyes off her, he dropped his dagger, and with startling speed, reached down and snagged a corner of the bed sheets, yanking them up and throwing them at her in a single motion. The sheets draped across her sword and arm, tangling it just for a moment as he rushed at her. With a curse Katherine stepped back, but she knew it was too slow. She tried to free her sword as his came down at her head. She managed to half block the blow, the impact jarring her arm up the elbow. He hacked at her again, knocking aside the blade, a small smile twisting his lips. His eyes were still ice cold. He drew back for a thrust she knew she wouldn't be able to block in time, and then suddenly froze, shocked pain on his face as he arched backwards. Behind him, Lucan pulled the needle-like dagger out of the assassin’s back, and then stabbed him again. His eyes wide with pain, Tellarius gasped. Blood flowed down his chin. Lucan left the knife buried in his back. The assassin twisted, as if he was going to try to pull it out, then with a deep rattle in his throat, seemed to give up and fell forward to lie in a heap across the bed.

 

Katherine was angry at herself as she quickly checked the others. They were all dead—and if Lucan hadn't stabbed the last assassin, she might have joined them. She'd been careless, and fallen for a simple trick. And to make it worse, she'd almost gotten Lucan killed with her magic sword. She pushed down the feeling. She knew there would be time for self-recrimination later, and she knew the coming nights would be full of it, but there was no time for that now, and certainly not here, not in the open for everyone to see.

 

She cleaned her sword and sheathed it angrily. To make it worse, Lucan wasn't saying much, but she knew he had to be wondering why his magic hadn't worked again. He was no fool. She needed to make sure he focused on something else. She pulled the stone necklace off the leader, pulled off her own, and handed them to him. "Somehow, these are important. It can't be a coincidence both sets of killers were wearing them."

 

He took them from her outstretched hand, taking a closer look. He took one and closed his fist around it, closing his eyes. After a moment, he nodded to himself. "There is some sort of spell on it." After a moment he added, "I wonder if somehow it's related to my spell not working? But this enchantment is too weak for that, so that doesn't make sense. To disrupt a Pattern…a spell I mean…that would have to be so much more powerful." She stood in the doorway, watching as he paced beside the bed, taking care to avoid the assassin's body and the spreading blood pool. She ignored the nervous feeling starting to spread in her stomach. She knew if Lucan kept puzzling about it, eventually he might realize it was actually her sword, now sheathed, that had negated his spell.

 

Down the hall, she heard footsteps, and turned, expecting to see the innkeeper. Instead, at the far end of the hallway, at the top of the stairs leading to the common room, a fat man dressed in black pointed at her and said something. Katherine's sword, still sheathed, was yanked from her hand as easily as if she were a child by some invisible force. Shocked, she saw it fly through the air to drop to the ground at the man's feet with a clatter.

 

~ * ~

 

Tomaino picked it up, face shining in triumph as he scooped it up. He was certain the sword was the key. He'd seen it clearly—each time she unsheathed the sword, his scrying had ended, and when she sheathed it, he had once again seen through the stone. It was a gamble, but magic like that was a prize far greater than the Beast Mask, and he knew he could try again for that later. And with a magic sword like this, he could negotiate a far better price from Crow. He could figure it out later. Who needed Crow anyway? He didn't have time to ponder next steps—for now, the key was to get away. He turned to flee down the staircase. Then he could cast a spell to stop them from following by sealing off the stairs. As he turned to flee, he saw the swordswoman start sprinting towards him empty-handed, her face a mask of cold rage. Sudden fear surged in him as he ran down the steps.

 

~ * ~

 

Though shocked, Katherine hadn't paused. Her other weapons were in the room, but there was no time. She saw the fat man turn and start down the stairs with her sword. As she reached the top, she saw him already near the bottom of the narrow steps. Without weighing the danger, she jumped. She slammed into his broad back, pitching him down the remaining steps as she tumbled after him, slamming painfully into steps and walls as she went head over heels, keeping her head ducked down and her arms over her face. She smashed to a stop at the bottom with pain shooting from everywhere.

 

Tomaino lay curled up beside her, clutching his right leg with both hands. Forcing herself to move despite the pain, Katherine scrambled over him on her hands and knees, reaching for where her sword had fallen. Tomaino screamed angrily through a bloody face, pushed her off him and gave her a kick with his good leg. His face was twisted in fury and shock, teeth red with the blood pouring from his nose, and he spat a spell even as she struggled to again reach the sword. Her fingers just brushed the hilt before she flew backwards as if yanked on a rope, slamming into the wall. She fell clumsily to the ground, barely able to move for a moment, shaking her head to clear her eyes. Her body screamed in pain, as she struggled to her hands and knees. The pain didn't matter, it was just pain, nothing was broken, and she knew to stop moving was to die. She had to get the sword.

 

A large black cat, like a mountain lion of some sort, came down the steps in a rush and leaped at Tomaino. He saw it coming, and had time to erect a translucent blue shield. The mountain lion careened off the shield, twisting in the air, and landed on its feet, skittered to a stop, and snarled at Tomaino. Tomaino limped sideways, away from the transformed Lucan. "Give up. I’ll spare you," he said in a voice edged with disdain. The Lucan-cat snarled again, and melted shape, rising up into a large shaggy bear with baleful yellow eyes. Tomaino gestured, quickly casting and flicking shimmering blue foot-long needles at the bear. They sunk deep into the dark fur before vanishing. Blood began to splatter on the ground from the injured bear.

 

Taking advantage of the distraction, Katherine pushed up from her hands and knees and dove for her sword. She almost laughed as her fingers closed on the hilt. He shouldn't have let her get it. Using the wall to rise, one of her knees stabbing with pain, she saw Tomaino gather another handful of blue darts from the air. The bear turned its head away defensively, blood dripping on the floor. She knew that, bear or not, Lucan was badly injured. Tomaino threw the second handful of darts, which sped like arrows and sunk deep into the Lucan-bear, which screamed in an almost human-sounding voice. In the same instant, Katherine pushed herself off from the wall, knee screaming in protest, and yanked the sword of Aridor from its sheath.

 

Tomaino' shield vanished in the same heartbeat like a snuffed candle, and as she came up behind Tomaino she could see instead of a bear, it was Lucan who crouched on the floor, soaked in blood. She couldn't see the fat man's face as he sensed her approach and started to turn, but she knew what the expression on it would be. There was no room for mercy, or fair play. Without the protection of his craft, Tomaino was just a fat man who was too slow to turn. She hacked across the back of his neck with the sword. The stroke was clean, sending his head spinning off under a table while his body half-stepped and collapsed in the other direction.

 

Lucan stayed on the ground beside Tomaino's body. His face was ashen, and the pool of blood he lay in was spreading fast. She knew what it meant, even as she knelt beside him and tried to staunch the flow of blood. His hand grabbed at her arm, but it had no strength, and it slipped away to fall back to the ground. Lucan's voice was surprisingly calm but sounded far away. "He killed me."

 

Part of her wanted to comfort him and pretend he was fine, but she couldn't bring herself to lie like that. Another part wanted to apologize but that seemed equally impossible. "You saved my life twice tonight." She pushed a wadded up piece of his cloak into the worst of the wounds, but she knew it was too much blood to stop. "I'm sorry…" she murmured. "I should have saved you." It felt like there was a cold ball of lead deep in her stomach.

 

"It doesn't hurt," Lucan said in a surprisingly careless tone. "I'd always thought it would." He gave something that sounded almost like a sigh but didn't say anything. After a moment he looked up and focused on her face, his hands still limp at his side in the puddle of blood.

 

"The magic. You made it go away."

 

After a moment, she nodded. She knew she should probably lie, but he'd saved her life and she couldn't bring herself to do it. It was almost her lying there and bleeding to death. It didn't matter how strong she was, or how capable. It didn't matter about Aridor's blade. She'd always said she didn't need anyone. But she would have died if not for Lucan. She could not bring herself to lie to him. She nodded again, but no words came.

 

He looked confused. "How is…that possible?" he asked. His eyes drifted closed even as he asked, then snapped back open with sheer force of will.

 

"My sword. It was forged and enchanted by a wizard named Aridor. It cuts through magic, Lucan. All magic" It felt strange to say it out loud, after having kept it a secret for so long. But every time she had drawn it to protect him, she had left him defenseless before his enemies, the man she was supposed to be protecting.

 

A flicker of realization crossed his face before fading away. Lucan sighed something unintelligible, then focused on Katherine with a look of weary pity. "Secrets,” he said with a soft wet chuckle. “Not good armour. Hard to move in. Hard to…breathe. I know why you didn't…" He struggled to get a breath.

 

She found his hand and clenched it with a tight squeeze. After a moment, she added, "I'm sorry I didn't save you. I wanted to. You're a good man."

 

Lucan shook his head dismissively, sighed again, and died. He'd saved her, but he was dead, and she hadn't really even known him. Hadn't let herself know him. Katherine sat in the silence, a silence made absolute by Aridor’s blade. She had kept her secret, and in doing so, she had become the very doom she was paid to prevent.

 

The common room was quiet, but she knew it wouldn't be long before people came down to see what had happened. She took the blood-stained Mask from where it lay and tucked it in her belt. She'd have to go back to Garimond to tell the Baron what had happened, and give him the Mask back. She didn't know who exactly to deliver it to anyway. It was important the Baron know the sort of man his nephew had been. She wished she'd hadn't been so blind to it, so absorbed in herself. She wondered how many other people she'd met through the years that had, maybe, been worth knowing better. What would have been different if she'd let them know her?

 

Upstairs and in the back rooms she heard movement. The battle must have woken up half the inn. She pulled up a nearby chair and sat down to wait, catching her breath and getting her thoughts back under control, letting her face settle into its usual mask, an emotionless calm she didn't feel.