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Xan follows Jemel down a twisting iron staircase. “What is this business of yours that means you will leave the palace forever?”

As he says this he wonders why he asks. Does he hope for them fleeing together?

For a while Jemel says nothing. They reach the bottom of the staircase and walk for some moments through a narrow tunnel before he says, “I need to help someone. Several someones. They wait for me outside the palace.”

“Is it to do with your foster mother? Did you deduce anything further.”

“In a way,” Jemel says in a soft faraway voice. “There is danger in this place. A great danger to me and to everyone here. You should come with me. We will free Trysta. And then we will all go.”

“Do you wish to free Lukas Darekul too?” Xan says.

Jemel shakes his head. “I have been told that he is not in the dungeons. And apparently, he has his own plan. I am not needed. But I must leave and…” He stops walking and looks at Xan. “I would like you to be with me. I have never left this place.”

“Never. You have never left Attar?”

“I have never left the Rose Palace.”

All Xan says to that is, “Oh.” This priest is a man grown. How can a man live his whole life in this place? But he had. He has no reason to think Jemel lies.

As they walk, Xan thinks about this. In truth he does not know the Rose Palace and the Rose Council who rule over it well. But he has found it to be little better than a den of snakes. He wonders what it would be like for this place to be the only world one had ever known.

Xan is about to say something about it when Jemel stops in front of him, so suddenly that Xan runs into his back. Jemel grunts. Xan thinks that grunt might have had some soft notes of pleasure in it.

But when Jemel turns to look at Xan, it is impossible to tell anything about his veiled face. “Up ahead,” Jemel says softly. “That light.”

Xan looks past Jemel. Clearly ahead of them is a light, far brighter than the one from the torch he carries. “What is it?”

“The guards room. The entrance to the dungeons that the guards use.”

“How many?” Xan says grimly. He is already drawing his sword.

“Five, if we’re lucky. A dozen if we’re not.”

“Very well.”

“Very well?” Jemel says with a shocked tone in his voice. Xan finds he can imagine the expression on Jemel's face quite easily.

“Very well,” Xan says again, stepping in front of Jemel and advancing towards the light.

He has surprise on his side. With his sword drawn and the knife in his left hand, he charges into an underground room full of men. Uniformed men. He takes the nearest one down with an arc of his sword before they even realise what is happening. He hurls the knife across the room at the first one who stands up. It takes him in the neck. The room is in uproar then. They all go for weapons. But he is fast, two more fall before they have swords in their hands.

But that is the end of his advantage of shock and surprise. After that he is fighting for his life. He does not count the number of men in the room. He fights two at once, three at once. He has a second sword from somewhere, from someone he has killed. The guards are shouting words in Artemian. He does not work to understand them. He barely hears them.

Xan is back in Pluma. These are Azurian soldiers, coming through the wall to attack his people. He is a boy. A child carried off as son of one of the clan leaders. His mother screams and she is cut down. He sees her die on an Azurian blade. Die trying to save him.

All his rage at the empire is in him as he cuts down man after man, seeing nothing but red blood before his eyes.

He only stops, panting, sweat dripping from his brow, when he hears Jemel saying, “Xan? Xan?”

Xan blinks into Jemel’s face. Jemel is above him. Xan realises he is sitting on the floor of the stone chamber, slumped against the wall. “Baraboo,” he says roughly. “Are you hurt?”

Jemel shakes his head. “No. None of them came near me. You killed them all.”

“I’m a warrior,” Xan grins. His blood still high. He wants to kiss Jemel. He wants to tear off that veil and kiss him, tear of those robes and fuck him. He wants… He takes a breath. “What did you think I would do, play a pipe that sent them to sleep?”

“I knew you were a warrior. But I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“Then you are lucky, Baraboo.”