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  It was Varek, one of the castle guards.

  "Of course."

  He sat beside her, running a hand through his dark beard. "I recognize the look in your eyes, Nadia. You're thinking about killing Warrick again."

  "But there's actually a chance now."

  "Really?"

  She related her discovery and her subsequent conversation with Kara. As she talked, she tried to gauge his reaction, but he'd always had a strong poker face.

  "I'll admit that there's some promise in this plan of yours," he said, "but I'm still not sure. I mean, if Warrick could be killed, wouldn't someone have done it by now?"

  "Not without White Fire. It's the only thing that can kill him—well, other than real magic. But we won't find any of that here in the Empire. Not with Warrick in charge."

  "But what makes you think you're the person to kill him?" Varek asked. "This spell won't protect you from his magic. It won't keep Imperial Guards from killing you. It won't get you through the Plain of Storms, or any of the other regions Warrick created to torment us."

  "I know that, but I'm prepared to face those risks."

  "I swore an oath to protect your family," Varek said. "And I intend to stand by that oath, even if it means protecting you from yourself. You're going down a dangerous road."

  She took a deep breath, reining in her temper. "Maybe you're right."

  But she didn't believe that. At the moment, however, she was in no mood to argue, not with one of her few friends. Four years ago, Varek had been the guard at her door. After her mother's death, she refused to come out of her room. She didn't talk to anyone.

  Only Varek broke through the barriers she'd erected. He stood outside her door, talking to her for hours even though she never responded. Eventually, she let him in, and he helped her through the pain, helped her to understand her father's betrayal—at least a little bit.

  Varek's voice startled Nadia out of thought. "You don't believe a word I'm saying, do you?"

  "Am I really that transparent?"

  "I know you too well, Nadia. You're smart. No one'll deny that. But you've gotta stop letting your anger consume you. It blinds you to the truth of things. Warrick's as close to all-powerful as a man can get. You really think you'll surprise him with this spell?"

  "I don't know, but I have to try. For my mother."

  "She wouldn't want you to die," Varek said.

  "I was close to my mother. I know what she'd want. Warrick's death was her life's ambition. Do you really think she'd want me to abandon that?"

  "You're also her daughter," Varek said. "That's gotta mean something."

  "Yes, but Warrick's death is more important." She ran a hand through her brown hair. "Look. I understand how much you care about me. But you're wrong about this."

  "Tell me why I'm wrong. Logically. I don't care how you feel about things."

  Nadia tried to think of the right words. "I'm doing this for everyone. It isn't just for me."

  "A lot of people are happy with Warrick's rule. Hell, a lot of my comrades are only here because they weren't talented enough to be Imperial Guards. You sure killing Warrick would really make the world a perfect place?

  "There's no such thing as perfection," Nadia said, growing irritated. "But I can make a better world. A world without Imperial Guards. A world where we can travel freely, where we don't have to live in fear of Warrick's magic."

  "And what happens when we lose the order Warrick's established? How many people will hate you 'cause you killed the man giving them a stable life?"

  "I don't understand," Nadia said. "You're part of the Order. You're fighting against Warrick."

  "I'm fighting for the people. I accepted long ago that fighting against Warrick is pointless."

  "Then you've accepted defeat," Nadia said.

  "Maybe I have." He rose from the bench, his chainmail rattling, then resumed practicing with the other guards.

  She watched him for a minute or two before placing her sword on the rack and leaving the chamber. As she walked up the spiral staircase leading to her room, she thought again of her mother. The execution came back in a rush, like fire sweeping across dry vegetation.

  She stopped on the stairs, willing herself not to cry. No one would blame her, but that didn't matter. As long as she pretended she was strong, as long as she maintained a perfect stone mask, she could fool even herself.

  Once she composed herself, she walked the rest of the way to her room.

  "Everything all right?" asked Len, the guard at her door. He was three years older than Nadia with a few wisps of beard the other guards mocked. She considered him a friend, and possibly more than a friend, so she liked to tease him. Not today, though.

  "Don't worry about me," she said.

  "You sure?"

  She nodded and entered her room, avoiding his concerned gaze. Then she knocked on the wood door to an adjoining room. Her maidservant Avia answered the knock.

  "What do you need, my lady?" Avia asked. Her expression was kind, as always.

  "I'd like you to prepare a bath for me," Nadia said, forcing a smile. "A cool bath. It's very warm today."

  "Of course, my lady."

  Nadia could have prepared the bath herself, but Avia liked to feel helpful. The bathing chamber was on this same floor, so it wasn't an undue burden on Avia's aging bones.

  While Avia prepared the bath, Nadia found a change of clothes in her closet. She passed all the elegant dresses and opted instead for a simpler shirt and comfortable pants. Yes, people expected a future high lady to wear nice clothes, but Nadia didn't care. She dressed as society dictated only when necessary.

  Nadia left her room and crossed the hall to enter the bathing chamber, where the full stone tub waited for her. She had to remind herself she wouldn't have such luxuries when she set out to kill Warrick. Ordinary people didn't have indoor plumbing. Only the wealthy. Only those who swore allegiance to Warrick's regime. People like her father, like many of Crayden's lords.

  People who sold their souls.

  "Everything all right?" Avia asked as she hung Nadia's clothes on a nearby rack. "You look like something's troubling you."

  "It's nothing. Kara and I had an argument, that's all."

  "All right," Avia said with a knowing expression before leaving the room.

  Nadia disrobed and slipped into the lukewarm water, trying to ease her many concerns. She hated lying to the people who cared about her most, and now doubt had crept in.

  Did she stand any chance against Warrick?

  * * * * *

  Darien Warrick leaned on the table where he read the Webs of Fate. For four years now, there'd been little to control, but he'd remained vigilant, and now the time had come.

  He'd left Nadia a trail of clues that would lead her to White Fire, and eventually to him—or so he hoped. The strands within those webs left many things to chance. There were countless places where Nadia could meet with an untimely end. Some he could prevent. Others he could only hope Nadia would survive on her own talents.

  Talents he had instilled in her, indirectly.

  He massaged his temples, trying to relieve the headache he always got when he read the Webs for too long, or when he tried to peer too far into the future.

  Or when he looked upon the dark strands, as he'd come to call them.

  There, his visions failed him, and it angered him to no end. Most of these dark strands related directly to him. Why could he not see his own future? He had rarely encountered dark strands concerning anyone else.

  Was something or someone out there hiding the future from him?

  No, that's a worry for another time, he told himself before turning his gaze back to Nadia. She had rough times ahead of her. Every reading of the Webs showed countless dangers in her path. Darien would have loved to find another way, but none existed.

  For the moment, he needed to keep her alive. Amazing how easy it was to kill someone.

  Much easier than keeping a person alive.

/>   Chapter 2: An Insane Quest

  Markus sat at the edge of his straw bed, listening to his uncle's faint snoring in the next room. Uncle Theo had been asleep long enough that Markus could sneak away and manage the escape he'd planned for years.

  He grabbed the leather sack of supplies he'd hidden under his bed and the sword he'd stolen from his uncle's weapons cache.

  Markus left his room, avoiding the cabin's creakiest floorboards, then crossed the cluttered living room. When he reached the front door, he stopped and looked back. This cabin had always been his home. He had to leave, but he also had fond memories of the place.

  It wasn't this life he was escaping. It was his future.

  In a week, on his eighteenth birthday, he had to become an Imperial Guard. His uncle, a former Imperial Guard, had prepared that life for him. A life in chains. Markus's uncle would say life as an Imperial Guard wasn't terrible. Consciously, Markus knew Uncle Theo was right, but Markus felt an instinctual objection to that life.

  As Markus stepped out into the muggy air, he stopped. Were his issues so bad he needed to run away?

  Of course they are, he told himself as he walked across the small clearing surrounding the cabin, twigs crunching beneath his leather shoes. He had no future in the Empire. Wherever Markus went, Imperial Guards would find him and force him to join them.

  Well, there was Mountainside, but the journey there was too difficult.

  His only choice was to cross the ring of mountains surrounding the Empire. Everyone said that was impossible, but Markus had to believe it wasn't. He could never serve evil. No matter what Uncle Theo said, Warrick was evil. If he wasn't evil, why had he created these mountains to trap his subjects, and why had he created dangerous regions infested with monsters, keeping the people from traveling freely?

  No good emperor would do those things.

  Markus trudged along a narrow, winding path through the forest's vegetation. A calm wind rustled the leaves around him—a sound he knew he'd miss. A sound of home, of stability and comfort.

  Soon the cabin's outline receded from view.

  After a few minutes, the air felt suddenly cold, and Markus pulled his traveling cloak from his sack. Even covered in the thick fabric, he shivered.

  The longer he walked, passing through thicker vegetation now, the colder the air felt.

  All summer, he'd felt the occasional nighttime chill. Before, he'd thought it strange, but now he worried something supernatural lurked behind it. He didn't live far from the ruins of Woodsville.

  Had Warrick's magical barrier around that site failed?

  Shoving these doubts aside, Markus pushed through low-hanging branches and emerged in the next clearing, where his friend Rik waited in front of his family's cabin. Rik's red hair stood out like a small fire in the moonlit forest.

  "About time you got here," Rik said.

  "Had to wait for my uncle to fall asleep," Markus said as he dropped his leather sack on the forest floor.

  "Don't worry. I'm just giving you trouble."

  "I know." Markus punched Rik lightly on the shoulder. "You're more trouble than a hundred people put together."

  "But what would you do without me?"

  "Live a much safer and saner life," Markus muttered.

  "Hey, I heard that!"

  Markus picked up his leather sack, ignoring Rik's remark. "You sure about this? You don't have to come."

  "Of course I'm sure. Friends stick together."

  Markus loved that part of Rik's personality. Many friends would have found an apprenticeship in Crayden by now or used their skills as a woodsman to make a living. But not Rik. He'd pledged to remain around until Markus turned eighteen.

  But was Rik only doing so to avoid real responsibility?

  "You ready to go?" Rik shifted his own leather sack to a different position. "Why the cloak?"

  "You don't feel how cold it is?"

  "No, it's kinda muggy out."

  "Well, I'm freezing," Markus said.

  "That makes no sense. You sure you aren't sick?" Rik moved as though he was about to put a hand on Markus's forehead, but Markus backed away.

  "I know it doesn't make sense," Markus said. "But, look, I can see my breath! I'm not imagining things."

  As they started traveling, Rik said, "Strange. I can see it too, but I don't see my own. Maybe it's the ghosts of Woodsville. They're out to get you, Markus."

  Markus walked beside Rik. "I already thought of that. Since we're heading in that general direction—"

  "I've always wanted to see Woodsville!"

  "Are you insane?"

  "Come on," Rik said. "You know it would be a fun adventure."

  "Maybe I'm not that keen on adventure."

  They traveled through the night, following familiar paths at first, passing places from their childhoods. The lake where Markus used to skip rocks. The trees he used to climb. The stream he and Rik dared each other to swim in late one autumn.

  He and Rik had done a lot of stupid things. Once, they'd dared each other to get close to a sleeping bear. Another time, Rik had challenged Markus to eat some green berries, and Markus spent the next day vomiting. There was also the time they'd seen who could shoot an apple off the other's head with an arrow. Rik won that dare.

  Unfortunately, Uncle Theo found out about it. Markus still had scars on his butt from his uncle's leather belt. It was the only time his uncle had ever hurt him like that.

  And he'd deserved it.

  Rik sure had a way of bringing out Markus's foolish side, and Markus feared that was the case now. Leaving the Empire had been Rik's suggestion. Most of their plans started with Rik's creative idiocy—or genius, as he would call it.

  As they walked, the chill intensified, and Markus felt on edge. He wished he'd brought a heavier cloak. It was summer for God's sake. What the hell was wrong with the forest?

  Trees crowded their path. Twigs and leaves crunched beneath their leather shoes, the sounds echoing eerily. Markus felt as though something were watching them, something evil hovering in the air. He didn't voice these concerns, though, because Rik wouldn't believe him. Or worse, Rik might believe him and investigate more thoroughly.

  The path narrowed further, winding in snakelike patterns. Markus parted low-hanging branches with his sword while Rik had his axe ready for thicker branches. Why Rik had to carry an axe, Markus had no idea. Even though he was stronger than Rik, he'd always found axes unwieldy as a weapon. A sword flowed in his hand, almost like artwork, but an axe was good only for chopping wood, and Markus hoped to leave that life behind.

  As morning neared, the chill remained, like icy daggers hitting Markus from every side. He tried to ignore it by talking, but his teeth were chattering too much. Whatever this was, it wasn't a good omen.

  Hours later, the sun rose, and the cold vanished as if it had never existed.

  "Strange." Markus removed his cloak. "It isn't cold anymore."

  "Interesting. So only you can feel it, and it only happens at night. Don't know what to make of that. Maybe ghosts are more active at night."

  "Yeah, maybe."

  It didn't take long for Markus to miss the chill. After a few minutes, his light tunic stuck to his back, and sweat trickled down his forehead, into his eyes. His dark blond hair was soaked.

  As the morning warmed, they marched through tighter and tighter paths, finding only the occasional clearing. This was a part of the forest people didn't enter because of its proximity to Woodsville, and it showed. Vines covered everything, looking as though no one had touched them in hundreds of years. Their path was uneven, difficult to climb at times. The mountains near Crayden weren't large, but they were enough to make hiking exhausting.

  Markus and Rik had planned a path that would lead them southwest through the forest, toward the riverside city of Levine. From there, they'd hire a boat and take the river south to Tate City, avoiding the dangerous Black Swamp.

  Then they'd stand at the base of the mountains, Marku
s realized with a jolt of fear.

  He pushed through some low-hanging vines. "This really is crazy. What're the chances we'll actually make it?"

  "Come on, Markus. We've gotta stay positive. Who knows? Maybe Warrick creates the myth that no one can escape so no one will ever try. I mean, nobody who got out would come back to tell us, right?"

  "Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Markus said, but he didn't trust Rik's logic. Imperial Guards were alerted whenever anyone set foot on the mountains, and then the Imperial Guards could teleport to the other side of the mountain.

  And wait to kill the unfortunate travelers.

  But was there a chance? A magical barrier at the edge of the mountains prevented Imperial Guards from crossing, but maybe others could pass through. Imperial Guards were so efficient that no one had ever reached the barrier, or at least no one had lived to tell the tale.

  Markus shoved aside another low-hanging branch. "I still don't see how we're gonna get past the Imperial Guards. What makes us any different from anyone else?"

  "What choice have you got? You said yourself you'd rather die than become an Imperial Guard."

  "But you don't have to die with me. You've got a future. I don't."

  "What future?" Rik said. "You really see me living in a cabin the rest of my life? Or do you think I should become an apprentice blacksmith like Tomas? I'm sorry. I don't care what people think. That ain't the type of life I want."

  "So you'd rather die instead?"

  "Maybe I've got bit more confidence in our chances."

  "Or maybe you're just insane."

  "Yeah, maybe," Rik said. "But I already told you. Friends stick together."

  * * * * *

  Darien Warrick sat once again at the table where he read the Webs of Fate. This time, he was more frustrated than ever. He'd spent many years directing Markus's life, but Markus had made an unexpected decision, choosing a path of lower probability.

  Darien had known it might happen, but it still angered him. Now he had to adjust his plans, and they were too delicate to survive unexpected changes like these.

  He took a few deep breaths, willing himself to relax. All was not lost. It never was.