The Forlorn(10)

When at last she was a little more self-possessed, and able to think rationally and beyond her immediate survival, Shael peeped out cautiously. The picture that presented itself was not an attractive one. There were still patches of fighting, but it was obvious that it was nearly over. The black-clad Morkth troops were herding frightened prisoners along the streets. Sections of the town still burned. She shivered with fear. Would the fire spread? Would they fire the palace?

Resolutely she shrugged off the thought. She must plan. She must win clear of this place. The fallen city-state of Shapstone was less than a tenth part of her father's lands. Even if it had been conquered she could still go . . . She stopped short. He was dead. She hadn't loved her father, and he certainly had never shown the least real affection towards her. She had never expected any. She was his tool, a valuable tool, but still a tool, to be married off to his best advantage. She had never questioned this: It was simply what she was bred for. She now realized that with his death, she was nothing.

The Tyn States were his creation. If he had fallen, so had their unity. None of them would welcome the Tyrant's daughter as a ruler. They were more likely to kill her in various unpleasant, slow and vengeful ways. Her mother's people in far-off Arlinn would not welcome her either. Her father had taken the lady at swordpoint to be his bride, stepping over the bodies of several of her kin who had objected. The act that had resulted in Shael's conception would have been regarded as rape in any eyes but that of the law. Of course, when you were the law . . .

Shael knew that in the eyes of the nobles of Arlinn she was tainted with her father's blood. They would offer her no refuge. She cast the net of her mind about for someone else to turn to and drew it back, empty. Friends, not mere toadies, were something she'd never had. What need had there ever been? Relatives were simply other claimants to the throne, and her father had been singly effective in his purge of those. The few that had fled to dubious safety in the lands of exile certainly had no cause to love her.

Where to then? There seemed no answer, except away from here. Shael was not a likable person, but as she lay there, with the evening wind blowing cold, it would have been easy to feel sorry for her. With goosebumps on her bare arms and tear streaks in her makeup, she looked far more like a miserable sixteen-year-old than a twenty-four-carat bitch of a princess.

She rationalized that it would be better to wait for the conquerors to get drunk beyond competence before she tried to escape from her hiding place. In reality, which she could not truly hide from herself, she was simply too scared to move from that little patch of safety. She hugged herself and pulled her knees up under her chin. She wished she'd worn something less flimsy and revealing that morning. It was only as she drifted off into an exhausted sleep that the thought slipped into her tired mind: who or what had killed that animal Blis? She vaguely tried to focus on this thought spark, but her brain was too soggy to fire up a logical train of thought. Sleep came mercifully.

She awoke cold. Teeth-chatteringly cold. She'd never been this cold in her life. She would die for something warm. She was about to call out to her maids when awareness of where she was came flooding back. If she called out now she might really die. Hugging herself and rubbing her bare arms she looked out over the dark city. There were no more burning buildings. There were no sounds of drunken revelry. She could see squads with torches patrolling the streets below in a systematic fashion. These were the zombielike warriors of the Morkth hives. Human bodies without human passions. Soulless, near mindless, killing machines. She watched the regular pattern weaving through the streets, like a formal dance outlined by their torches. Eventually the cold forced her to turn her attention away from the hypnotic ebb and flow of lights. She must get off this roof, out of this cold wind. Could she face going over the edge with that drop reaching for her?

The height had been hard enough to face in the heat of the moment, but now in the dark, and in cold blood, the very idea filled her with terror. But if she stayed . . . she might die of cold. Her stomach growled at her. It reminded her that it had been a good many hours since she had emptied it onto the marble floor of her room. There must be some other way off the roof. She decided to stand up, and explore the icy refuge in which she'd interned herself. Standing next to the gargoyle, with it as a support, was not too bad. She took the step beyond it on the steeply sloping slate roof . . . no! The Princess settled for crawling, with a hand on the gutter. At least that was flat. Even that small comfort was denied her when it creaked, and dropped several inches. She pulled away in fear, the seven stories of darkness dragging at her. Holding her quivering lip between her perfect white teeth, she moved on, only on the slippery slates now, edging her way round. A slate beneath her knee cracked, a sudden, sharp sound in the silence. She stayed as still as fear would let her, tasting the warm saltiness in her mouth.