Solace Shattered by Anna Steffl Page A

she’s young and accustomed to the attention due a princess. She’s a good girl. After the excitement of his admiration is past, she’ll think nothing of it.”
    “Do you really think she’s a good girl?” Fassal brightened upon hearing her praised.
    “Of course.”
    “But I don’t like this,” Fassal said grimly. “You there,” he called to one of the idle noblemen, “be a good man and finish my game.” To Degarius he said, “I am going to see the armory master’s son about that pup. What a slobbering great dog he will be. I wager you ten crowns Sarapost has never seen the likes of him. Make my excuses.”
    Degarius was about to argue that it had been Fassal’s idea to play when he glanced to the princess. She was smiling radiantly at Ousterhall. Perhaps it was best if Fassal left.
    “Are you coming to Summercrest?” Miss Gallivere asked Degarius when he returned to with her punch.
    “It’s the prince’s intent, but I don’t see the point. I have a great deal to finish here before returning to Sarapost.”
    “A great deal.” Miss Gallivere shielded her eyes from the sun. A coy smile showed beneath her hand’s shadow.
    The Saviors’ Gate bell tolled half past the hour. Degarius had hoped to be at the archive by now. Having to go home first to change to a clean shirt and wash his face, he might just make it before five so he’d be there to carry her kithara to Lady Martise’s for her. To Miss Gallivere he said, “Carry on without me.”
    “We’re nearly finished. What’s so pressing you must leave now?”
    “While in Acadia, I’m looking into their archive books to compile a manual of winter campaign strategies.”
    “You can’t spare one afternoon?”
    “I have a war to prepare for.”
    “I’ll come and turn pages or take dictation. Everyone praises my clear hand.”
    “That’s good of you,” Degarius said, but the prospect of sharing the one blessed hour of the day he spent in a manner of his own choosing was unthinkable. “I have all the assistance I need.”
    “Really? Who?”
    Degarius hailed Sebastion, who’d been lounging in the shady recess of a door through the Citadel’s immense outer wall that let to stairs to the beach below. “Would you play with Miss Gallivere?”
    “Why leave now?” Sebastion called back. “The game is almost over. If you win, I’ll get you a drink. Be a good sport.”
    “Another time.”
    As Degarius turned to leave, Miss Gallivere caught him by the sleeve. “Be careful which books you look into at the archive. The Lerouges are peculiar about their possessions.”
    “What?”
    She smoothed his sleeve. “Consider yourself warned.”

    Changed into a fresh white shirt, Degarius was just entering the shortcut through the Citadel woods that he and Hera Solace always took to and from the archive when the bell sounded five. Damn it, he was late. But surely she would wait, or at least he’d catch her on the path.
    He rounded a statue of the current King Lerouge, donated by the Weaver’s Union. With the king looking rather tired and paunchy under the puffs and ruffles of his coat and collar, it was no wonder it had been hidden in this small clearing.
    A muffled woman’s cry came from ahead on the path. There was a note of terror in it. He broke into a run. Through the trees, he caught sight of movement. He drew his sword and pushing aside branches, plunged into the wood.
    Where could they have vanished to? The wood wasn’t that big. Degarius burst into a clear-cut path around the wall. To his right, a man was climbing a ladder up the wall. Atop the wall, was a giant of a man with a limp-bodied woman in a gray dress slung over his shoulder. Hera Solace. Degarius, the blood coursing through veins in his neck, sprinted to the ladder. The man climbing it, nearing the top, heard him and looked. He scrambled the rest of the way up. From the wall, he began to draw up the ladder. The moment Degarius reached the wall, he dropped his sword and leaped