The Heir of Night by Helen Lowe Page B

scoured the New Keep, hunting out enemies and searching for Lady Malian.” Asantir’s gaze never left the Earl’s. “She is not here, my lord. I believe she is in the Old Keep, that she fled there during the attack.”
    “Under the circumstances,” Haimyr murmured, “not good news.” He was standing with one golden shoulder propped against the wall and the Earl shot him a brief, cold glance before swinging back to Asantir.
    “Fled, or been taken forcibly,” he demanded, “since all reports suggest that the intruders came via the Old Keep?”
    “My lord, I don’t believe she has been taken prisoner.” Carefully, the captain repeated the arguments she had advanced to Nhairin amidst the wreckage of the invaders’ last stand, but the Earl’s frown did not lift.
    “Nevertheless,” he said finally, “we must find out for certain what the facts are, whether the Heir has fled or been taken prisoner—” He paused. “Whether she is alive or dead. We must locate her—and quickly. I am relying on you, Asantir!”
    The Honor Captain nodded. “I have already sent to Storm Hold for wyr hounds,” she replied. “But it will be days before they arrive. Malian cannot wait that long, not if she is in the Old Keep with what’s left of the attackers. And we cannot leave you and the New Keep unprotected.” She frowned. “In the end, we may not have the numbers to do more than scout out the Old Keep. We also risk losing those scouts, if the enemy has anything in reserve.”
    The Earl studied her, his black eyes unreadable. Nhairin cleared her throat. “What I don’t understand,” she said, her voice harsh again as all the faces around the table turned in her direction, “is how they could have gotten into the OldKeep in the first place? It’s supposed to be the very heart, the most unassailable source, of Night’s power. Yet these intruders came through it unscathed. No alarm was sounded until everyone in the Heir’s quarter, and a great many in the Temple precinct, were already dead. But who were, or are, these intruders? How could this possibly have happened? And who did finally activate the alarms?”
    “All good questions,” said Asantir, “but we, it seems, have too few answers.”
    “I cannot answer your questions either, Nhairin,” Haimyr put in lazily. “But I can tell you all that Malian is not in the Old Keep’s High Hall, or in the Hall of Mirrors above it. They have been her favorite hideaways of late, but there is no sign of her in either place.”
    The Earl’s brows had drawn together while Haimyr spoke. “Of late?” he inquired ominously. “What do you mean, ‘of late’?” His terrible stare shifted to include everyone in the room. “Am I to understand that my daughter has been going into the Old Keep, which is forbidden, and that some or all of you knew yet did nothing about it?”
    Only Haimyr and the Honor Captain seemed unperturbed by his wrath. The minstrel was concentrating on brushing dust from his golden cuff, but Asantir met the Earl’s stare, her gauntleted hands resting quietly on the buckle of her sword belt. “I think we all knew it, myself included,” she replied gravely. “Yet every keep child and new recruit has to go there at least once as a rite of passage—and Malian is your daughter, after all.”
    Nhairin shook her head, watching the Earl and remembering how they had run wild in the Old Keep when they were children, laughing at the rumors of ghosts.
    The Earl drew a deep breath and the hard-won control closed down over his face again. “It seems,” he said, his voice devoid of expression, “that there is much I do not know, even in my own keep.” He studied the minstrel again. “So you went in there alone, with the attack barely over and the garrison still standing to arms?”
    The chamberlain clicked his tongue. “Individual heroics!” he said, only half beneath his breath.
    The minstrel glanced at him, a sideways look that was hard to read. “It