Chapter One
A forbidden act of love forever sealed his fate. Because of his audacity, Giele Stillwater lost everything that ever meant anything to him: his name, his commission, his king, his country.
Terika, Princess of Aelfland, smiled at him as she lay amid the soft pillows of her boudoir, showing the adorable dimple in her cheek. The imported Verigan silk wrapping the goose-feather pillows was cool and slick against the back of his head. The sheets were ivory white muslin and scented with a rose perfume that mingled with the spicy scents of their lovemaking. Wax candles burned on tables and dressers, their comforting flicker pushing the evening’s shadows off into corners. Incense burned in a small brazier on the princess’ headboard, filling his head with the smoke of cinnamon-wood and cloves. The soft glow of candlelight highlighted the sheen of sweat covering her skin, made flawless through expensive oils and lotions, and the steaming baths with the finest soaps and shampoos from the royal chemists. He loved the soft curves of her aristocratic body, much more pleasant to touch than the thin, hard bodies of camp whores who serviced the men of his unit.
How fortunate was he, a common soldier in the King’s Army, to have found the love of a princess? She’d warned him to be cautious and discreet, for the King required that she should remain chaste. The reality was far different and much more sensual.
Her almond-shaped eyes, flecked with green and gold, shimmered as he sprawled beside her, wearied from his exertions. “Oh, Giele, that was wonderful. You have a gift for making me happy.”
“It was my pleasure, my lady.” He leaned down and kissed her full, soft lips.
“If only we could make this moment last forever.” She sighed in contentment. Her delicate fingers toyed with a tassel hanging down from her canopy.
“I wish that too,” he said. “What do I have to do to remain in your company forever?”
She laughed, like musical notes from an orchestral reed pipe. “Giele, I’m royalty. I can do as I please, or have company as I please.” She rolled over to straddle him. Fresh desire stirred itself once more. “And right now, I’m pleased to have you here.”
He caressed her smooth, pale thigh with his tan, callused hand. Before he’d ever lain with Terika, he’d feared some kind of reprisal would be exacted against him for daring to touch royalty. The princess assured him that such experiences were normal among royalty. Her father’s own exploits were the stuff of legend. In his youth he’d selected commoner women of beauty for his concubines, and had even married one and fathered Terika with her. Terika told Giele she wished to keep him as her own concubine, regardless of whatever lord she might find herself married to for political purposes. She was his princess, and he believed her, even when she’d first allowed him to take her. The gift of her virginity had convinced him more than anything of her sincerity. “Even though I’m a common soldier?”
She kissed him. “You are a most uncommon soldier, dear Giele.”
Outside the palace, a cold Autumn rain battered the windows and walls. Lightning flickered and answering peals of thunder rattled against the palace walls. The crackling fire, luxurious curtains, and a thick bearskin rug warmed Terika’s chambers. Before their loving, he’d thrown a couple logs into the fireplace, and the Dwarven steam radiator emitted a quiet hiss in the corner. Woven tapestries, some hundreds of years old, lined the stonework walls, showing scenes of peaceful mountain heights, forests, and the seaside. Terika loved to look at them on days such as this, when the storms kept sensible folks sequestered indoors. From a more practical viewpoint like Giele’s, they trapped heat within the chambers and kept the room comfortable and warm in spite of Autumn’s damp chill. In this boudoir in her high tower, he felt safe in a way he never had in the field.
“Not tonight. Tonight, I’m not a soldier. Tonight, I’m yours.” Right then, he was prepared to give away everything to spend the rest of his life with Terika.
“Oh, Giele.” She kissed him and they cuddled against one another, lovers hiding from the rain.
Lightning flared and thunder gave its immediate answer as the storm’s fury centered over the thousand-year-old palace. Giele tensed, for in that brief flash he’d seen the silhouette of a man where none should be—behind the window’s silk curtains. His reflexes, honed by twenty years in the military, kicked in. Terika shrieked as he rolled the two of them off the bed to the floor, where she might be safer from a potential assassin. He grabbed a letter opener from Terika’s bedside table and flung himself across the room. Fighting naked would put him at a disadvantage against a clothed opponent, but Giele didn’t have time to seek out his uniform from the pile of discarded clothing. He heard the unmistakable sound of steel sliding from scabbard and knew with grim certainty he had but one chance to kill the would-be assassin.
Terika gasped as the killer thrust a dagger through the curtain toward Giele’s belly. Twisting away from the attack, Giele plunged the letter opener downward into the assassin’s throat. Bright blood sprayed the diaphanous silk of the curtains, making a sticky black blot against a sudden burst of lightning beyond the window. The invader clawed at the burbling gash in his neck. Giele knew the wound he’d inflicted wouldn’t be fatal—a letter opener makes a poor weapon. He kicked the assassin’s feet out from beneath him. Leather shin guards caused painful shocks against Giele’s bare foot. The shadowy killer yanked the curtain from its hooks as he fell. A freshet of blood stained the silk as it tumbled around him. As he squirmed, sluggish and dazed on the floor, Giele grabbed hold of his head through the curtain and smashed it twice against the corner of the stone hearth. More blood spilled out, this time from his ruined head. His struggles ceased.
Terika squeaked in terror, her fists jammed against her mouth, as the dead man’s blood spread across her chamber floor to soak her rug. Giele realized he must have looked just as terrifying, with the assassin’s gore streaked up his arms and chest. Nevertheless, there was a time for blubbering and this wasn’t it. There could be more attackers on the way. “Call for the Guard!” Giele flung aside the curtain to view the attacker.
The Elf’s hair was cut military-short, the same as Giele’s, and his armor bore the rose insignia of the Royal Palace Guard.
“What in the hell?” Giele muttered.
Someone’s heavy mailed fist pounded against the bedchamber door.
“I’m sorry, Giele.” Terika crawled back into her bed. Confused, he turned to look at her. Her face showed not fear, as he would have expected, but sadness. She drew a deep breath and then screamed, “Help me! He’s going to kill me!”
Giele stood in shock. What game was she playing?
Terika pulled her blankets up to her neck as Palace Guards crashed through the door, pistols and crossbows at the ready.
Giele looked to Terika in confusion. Instead of fear or terror, he saw naught but a conniving, sly smile on her face, and realized something had gone wrong in the worst way. Had this all been an act? He’d been duped. His hopes for a future with her shattered into pieces, and without a moment’s hesitation, he turned and dove through the window.
Glass crashed all around him and the sharp edges raked new furrows amid the scars from three wars. The shock of pain and cold rain against his naked flesh took his breath away as he tumbled down some ten feet from the Princess’ tower to hit the steep slope of the roof below. His momentum carried him down the rain-slick slate tiles and he cast about, desperate to stop his tumble before he went sailing off the roof to break himself upon the cobblestone courtyard four floors beneath. Lightning struck a nearby minaret and the resultant explosion of thunder seemed to shake his very bones loose from their sockets. The silver plating on the palace minarets, which made the castle shine like a star in the daytime sun, reflected the sudden flashes and almost blinded him.
Bullets and bolts shattered tiles, but not one struck Giele’s naked flesh. In the Army, he had always scoffed at the substandard training of the Palace Guard, but now he was grateful for their poor aim. What they lacked in
accuracy, though, they made up for in organization, and whistles shrieked above him as they raised the alarm.
He reached the edge of the rooftop and his questing fingers caught the drainpipe as his body swung out into space. Desperation lent him strength as he dangled in the rain, above the yawning open air. He managed to grab the pipe with his other hand and shimmied along it. A palace wing jutted out twenty feet away and if he reached it, he might yet avoid a workout session with the Royal Torturer.
Beyond the palace walls lay the rest of Morningstar City, wreathed in a mist of steam and smoke from flues, trapped by the cold Autumn storm overhead. Its peaked roofs looked like tiny mountains poking through the fog. Gaslights on the cobblestone streets made diffuse yellow glows amid the gray tile roofs. Copses of trees poked up between the chimneys like dark giants. If Giele could escape the palace, he could disappear into the streets and alleys of the city. Then he could figure out what had happened and why Terika had betrayed him. Beyond that, he’d need time to plan his future, for it could no longer lie as a member of the King’s Army.
Before he’d covered half the distance toward the next wing, the drainpipe separated from the roof and bent. Cold rainwater sluiced across him and stung his