Princeps' Fury (Codex Alera 5)

"The signal?" Amara hissed, her body singing, alight with rage and with the silver-white pleasure flowing from the metal collar bound about her thigh. "The signal is your corpse, traitor. You will never touch my husband."

He tried to say something, perhaps, but no sound emerged-the dagger had parted his windpipe as well.

It was nearly impossible to strike down a furycrafter of Brencis's power without employing comparable furycraft to accomplish it.

But only nearly.

The last scion of Kalarus crumpled to the floor of the inn, shrinking like a bladder being slowly emptied of water. His blood joined the perfumed water on the floor.

There had barely been a sound to betray the murder.

Amara stumbled back against the wall of the room, fighting the euphoria still being forced upon her by the collars. She wanted, very badly, to just sink to the floor and let the pleasure have its way with her once more-

- but the collar on her leg ceased sending its pulses of ecstasy through her at the very thought. She had, at her own insistence, been instructed otherwise. If she ignored those instructions, it would shortly begin inflicting hideous pain instead of bestowing rapture, and Amara felt little bubbles of entirely involuntary panic rippling through her at the very thought.

She forced herself to stagger to the room's wardrobe, conscious of Lyssa's wide eyes upon her as she moved. The collared girl had her mouth open in horror, and tears had flowed down her face, cutting streaks through the flecks of blood spattering her features. Amara opened it, and seized one of Brencis's tunics, quickly donning it, then tossed one of his capes over her shoulders. They fit her like sacks, but they would do. She took Brencis's sword from the belt at his hips a few seconds later, moving quickly, half-terrified that his stillness might be a ruse-but the dead man never stirred. Like the clothing, the sword was too large to fit her comfortably-but like the clothing, it would do.

"I'm sorry," Lyssa sobbed. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Amara turned to look at the girl, and caught her own reflection in a mirror hung upon the wall. She wore a dark green tunic and cloak, and the color contrasted sharply with the almost-solid scarlet staining her face, her hair, her hands, and the bare skin of her leg. She bore a bloodied knife in one hand, a bright sword in the other, and her eyes were wild and dangerous. For an instant, Amara frightened herself.

"Stay here," she told the girl, her voice hard and clear, "until you are instructed otherwise."

"Ye-yes, my lady," Lyssa said, pressing herself abjectly to the floor. "Yes, yes, I will."

She turned to the window, unlocked and opened it. The window overlooked the Slave Market courtyard, which looked much as it had when she had last seen it-full of prisoners, though with rather fewer guards than there had been. Only a few Vord were in sight-but the green glow of the croach was brighter, from other parts of Ceres, than it had been the night before.

She couldn't be sure of any of the collared Alerans. Some of them could have been collaborators like the two with Rook when they'd bumped into one another. Some of them could have been more deeply conditioned by the modified collars than others. Some might be able to fight against the collars' control and help them-but Amara had no way to know one from another.

So she had to regard each of them as the enemy.

Amara stood in the window for a moment, fully aware that she could be seen in the candlelight of the room. Dimly outlined, feminine shapes appearing in that window would doubtless be a familiar sight to those below-and she had no way of knowing where Bernard was, to be able to give him a more specific signal. She would simply have to trust that he had been keeping track of where she had been taken and would be in position to watch the building to see her standing there like a practice target. She counted slowly to thirty, then closed the curtains again.

She went out of the room on silent feet, wrapping herself in a windcrafted veil that should keep her unseen to anyone beyond the reach of her sword-a potent advantage if she decided to attack, but not an overwhelming one. A skilled enough metalcrafter would not need his eyes to know where her sword was, and the Vord didn't seem to have kept anyone alive who was not at least wielding the skill of a Legion Knight at his given talents.

There were several collared Alerans in the main room of the inn, apparently off duty. Three were watching one of Brencis's whisper-girls dance to music no one but she could hear. Another trio played listlessly at cards, and a silent pair were deep in their cups, drinking with grim, methodical determination. Amara went through the room with every ounce of stealth she could muster, wary of her own balance under the befuddling aftereffects of both collars' euphoric bonding process. She managed to pass by them without attracting attention, and glided into the Slave Market.

She headed straight for the stone box-cages that held the captured windcrafters.

The cages didn't have locks, thank goodness, and were held closed by simple bolts. In her current condition, she wasn't sure how quickly she would have been able to open a more complex mechanism, even though she still had her tools in a pocket on the trouser leg that had survived. Snoring came from some of the cages.

Brencis had to have been slipping them the drugs in their water. She would just have to hope that some of the Alerans inside had been aware and determined enough to refuse it, hoping for their chance at escape.

Amara and Bernard were about to give it to them.

Or at least, she desperately hoped Bernard was.

"Can you hear me?" Amara hissed into one of the slots just under the top lip of the first cage.

It took a moment for someone to answer, "Who is there?"

"I'm a Cursor," Amara whispered. "And keep your crowbegotten voice down."

Confused murmurs came from the cage, sleepy voices speaking in blurred words. They were immediately shushed by other voices, which probably made more noise than all of the confused murmurs together.

"Quiet," Amara hissed, looking around, certain that someone was going to notice the muted commotion any second. "We're going to get you out of here, but we're going to get as many people out as we possibly can. Stay alert. Everyone who can fly in a straight line needs to be ready."

"Open the cage!" someone rasped.

"Be ready," Amara responded. "I'll be back." Then she slipped over to the next cage, and repeated the conversation. And the next. And the next.

The Vord discovered her as she reached the fifth.

She had just shushed the final stone cage filled with captives when one of the lizard-form Vord twenty yards away raised its head, whuffling in through its nose, and let out a shriek that vibrated from the stones of the courtyard.