"Is there a problem, My Lady?"

Wynn shook her head, starting another lap around the three gowns that stood on dummies at the foot of her bed. Lady Thia was in the far doorway, concern written on the young woman's face.

"No, I am well. You should be in bed."

"So should you, your Grace."

Wynn nodded. She was distracted for a moment by the detail on one panel of the evening dress, but turned back to the knight after a few moments.

"I know, I know. I don't expect to sleep easily tonight."

Lady Thia nodded.

"I understand, My Lady. Would you like me to have something brought? A herbal tea to help you sleep?"

The Duchess shook her head.

"No, I have enough to worry about tomorrow without waking late from a drug-induced coma. I will look at the dresses a little while longer and then to bed. You should sleep as well."

Lady Thia stepped into the room, closing the door silently behind her. She moved into the soft lamp-light with a smile.

"Perhaps I will look at the dresses with you. May is very skilled."

Wynn nodded.

"She certainly is."

"To think that she was languishing in your father's household before you returned there."

Lady Nystral frowned.

"Do not speak of my father so."

Thia shook her head emphatically.

"I'm sorry my Lady, I meant no disrespect, only that it was a household without..."

"I know what you meant. I would rather not face the memory of my father tonight."

She knew she might be facing more than his memory, though.

"I am terribly sorry, My Lady."

"Don't worry, Thia, I am not offended. Now, go away to your bed, and I promise I will keep to mine."


She had almost got to thinking he wouldn't come. There had been dreams both pleasant and dreadful, but even the most harrowing was a relief compared to the prospect of seeing her father again. See him she would though, she was sure of that.

It was at the end of a minor nightmare, some unseen threat pursuing a dark-haired woman through an indistinct labyrinth while the real Wynn watched from her detachment. At the moment of confrontation, the instant at which a less enlightened person might have awoken with a start, she instead moved suddenly into one of her father's dreamscapes.


Turning and reaching sluggishly in her sleep, Wynn felt her way along the edge of the bedside table. Passing a hand over the surface, she knocked the scroll of Marrosh onto the floor. With no idea what she'd done she kept searching, the hand moving back and forth across empty space.


The mist swirled about Lord Nystral as he spread his wings restlessly.

"This is it, my dear. Time for the final decision."

"By now I'm sure it's out of my hands. Just as you always intended. Get on with it."

The angel nodded.

"The choice is simple. Go home; leave as soon as you wake and never look back. Give me your word that you will do it and I will let you go."

She eyed him suspiciously.

"And if I don't?"

"I was going to let you live, to take your word for the time being, finish this tomorrow if need be. But if you won't even give me that much, I don't see any reason why you should be allowed to see another day."

Wynn's sword came out of nowhere, swinging for her father's throat as quickly as she could will it into her hand. Faster yet he had a sword of his own and a square parry. To her surprise the familiar weight of a duelling buckler faded into the dream on the back of her off hand as she dropped back a few paces.

"Go home? You come here on the eve of my wedding to force me to leave? Tomorrow I marry the man I love, and nothing short of my death will change that."

He nodded.

"Yes, I know." He held out his left hand and watched as a second sabre coalesced in his grip. "That is why I must kill you."

Wynn fell back, sacrificing yards for time as she brought her buckler into the way of his first swing and turned away the lunge with her sword. He pressed her, forcing the same again; she had no idea what might be in the mists behind her and no time to look.


May took another look over the dresses as she laid out undergarments to go with each. She made a few mental notes of things to check when the light was better, but for the most part it was the start of a day much like any other.


It was a fight she could not win. She'd had hard fights before - Sir Richard was better than her, just - but she'd always felt that there'd been some kind of chance. Her father was different: fencing in his dream world was as much about being able to manipulate the rules of the place as it was about skill with the blade, and he wasn't lacking in either. The swords were a part of him, as was everything else about the place.

Everything except her, and at this rate it wasn't staying that way for long. With every spare moment she wished she had the scroll.


Recalling the last time, May dismissed the water-girl as soon as she noticed the Lady's disturbed sleep. The Duchess had stressed the importance of the piece of paper but now it lay abandoned on the floor, far from her hand as she desperately scoured her bedside table for it.


Wynn pounced on the low thrust, forcing the blade down with her shield then stamping on it, pinning it to the ground with the bulk of her weight. A normal opponent would have yielded; Wynn was at least hoping he'd fight on with only one sword. Instead he swung the sabre upward, moving it as though there were no weight to the blade, let alone an opponent stood on it.

His daughter was flung into the air to land hard on her back several yards away. The mists obscured him for a moment but did not disguise an unmistakable beat of his giant wings before he dropped out of nowhere onto her.

The leading foot landed on her sword arm. There was a nauseating crunch as bones splintered under his weight, the height from which he'd dropped shattering them in an instant before he planted the other foot lightly on her chest. Leaning down he placed the tip of one sword against her neck.

"Surrender now and I will let you live. Promise me that you will go back to Nystral tomorrow."

It should have been easy. Nystral wasn't such a bad place, and she was always disturbed by the apparent permanence of her father's plan. Ultimately she didn't make the decision so much as give in to stubbornness as it drove her to keep looking for the scroll. She'd left it by the bed for just this occasion: she had to be able to find it now that she needed it. But she'd been looking for it since the dream had began, and it really didn't...

It was in her hand. As suddenly as that, the familiar parchment was between the fingers of her shield hand. She looked submissively to her father, hoping a new expression might buy her a few moments as she unravelled the scroll in one hand, before flipping the shield over.

"Aba Morrosh Dila Noroe!"

A bright light glinted off the sabre, like a normal reflection until the blade seemed to dissolve in the beam. Nystral made to kick her but the light swung up onto his chest, the illumination forcing him back even as it dissolved mist and darkness.

Wynn looked up behind her and met a friendly face, albeit one with the most severe of business written all over it.

"Wake up."

"With pleasure."

The prone woman gone, Lord Nystral knelt before the new arrival.

"I am sorry."

"Perhaps you could be forgiven, brother, but that is not my place. You've earned a cell in the Alabaster Citadel to think on what you've done without distraction. By order of our Father I am to take you there now."


Wynn opened her eyes. She was in bed, in her room in the Palace; her neck was uncut, her arm intact. Looking up, she noticed May standing tentatively a few paces away from the bed.

"Is everything well, my Lady?"

The Duchess nodded vaguely.

"Why are you standing there like that?"

"I thought you were looking for the scroll, like you said, so I handed it to you. I was waiting to see if there was anything else I might get you."

Slowly but surely a broad smile crept across Wynn's face, the most genuine happiness the servant had seen in her mistress. The assassin-turned-noble leapt from her bed and threw her arms around her dress-maid, tears of joy rolling down her cheek onto the girl's hair.

"You saved my life. Don't worry about how, just take my word and my gratitude; without you I would never have woken." She loosened her grip, letting May drift to arm's length. "What time is it?"

"Not long past six, your Grace."

Wynn nodded.

"Then I shan't try and go back to sleep. Let us find some breakfast."



Next Chapter: Chapter 75