There was no whining spiral wrapping itself around her, no blind darkness. Only the ordinary night, and the sounds of men calling to one another and of distant battle. But in a way, she almost thought she could still see that rising ribbon of light twining through the darkness, and the deep hum the spiral had made still echoed somewhere—she could not tell whether she was only remembering the sound it had made or whether she was still truly hearing that sustained note that was not quite music. Or, if she was still hearing it, whether that was only in her mind or actually out in the world.
Blinking, she set her hands on the windowsill and shook her head. She tried to decide whether she’d ever truly heard—seen—experienced that strange magecrafted spiral at all. Whether she’d drawn it into the night air herself, or… No, she knew, even as the thought occurred to her, that she hadn’t drawn this spiral.
A Linularinan mage had drawn it. Someone who had meant to trap her in his crafting? She was afraid that might be so. Tan’s enemies might not have known she existed earlier… Could that have been only the previous night? Everything had been happening so fast, and nothing that happened made any sense. Except that maybe the Linularinan mages had discovered her, or had realized that she was their enemy, or had decided that they needed to clear her out of their way before they renewed their search for Tan. That made sense.
Mienthe took a breath that was half a sob and pushed herself away from the window.
The guardsmen who had previously been in the hall were gone, replaced by three others. Mienthe wondered whether the shift had been about to change when she’d stepped out earlier or whether she had been caught in that magecrafted spiral much longer than she’d thought. Though it couldn’t have been so much longer, or she supposed it would not still be night. Unless it was some other night? No—it couldn’t have been that long, or the guardsmen would surely look a great deal more disturbed. She felt relieved but also surprised, as though it would really have been easier to believe that days had passed. Or weeks. Or years.
“I’m going outside,” she said abruptly.
“My lady—” the senior of the guardsmen protested, but Mienthe went past him without pausing and ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time like a child, and thrust open the door that led to the gardens and, past the gardens, to the stables and mews.
She stopped there, right outside the door. The clamor of battle seemed much closer—much too close—she could make out individual voices shouting within the clamor, hear the thudding of horses’ hooves on cobbled streets, see the flash of swords through the shrubbery. A single arrow rose in a long, high arch, its wicked steel point shining like a chip of ice in the moonlight. The long smooth track of its flight caught Mienthe’s eye and she watched it rise, seem to hesitate at the apex of its flight, and then fall. It sliced through the air with a high, singing sound and, by some singular chance of battle, buried itself in the garden earth directly before Mienthe’s feet. She stared down at the humming feather-tipped shaft and thought how oddly like the hum of the spiral its whistling flight had sounded.
“Lady!” one of the guardsmen said urgently, catching hold of her arm. “Lady—”
“Yes,” Mienthe said dazedly.
“You can’t stand here in the garden!” the guardsman said. “It’s not safe!”
This was abundantly clear, yet Mienthe resisted his pull. She did not even know why. She began to speak, but then did not know what to say. Somewhere near at hand, men were shouting. Somewhere even closer, someone screamed, a high, agonized, bewildered sound.
“It was a horse, that was only a horse!” said the guardsman when Mienthe flinched and gasped. “But it might be you next time, lady! You can’t stay here!”
Mienthe stared at the man. If she’d meant to flee Tiefenauer, she should have gone with the queen. She’d thought the Linularinan commanders would send someone to the great house. She’d thought… It was hard to remember what she’d thought. But it certainly hadn’t occurred to her that Linularinan mages might specifically attack her. And if they did—if they did—she turned suddenly and looked east, as though she could see right through the town and the surrounding marshes and past the rivers and upper woodlands, right to Kames at the very edge of the Delta. Where she had sent Tan. Where, she found herself convinced, his Linularinan enemies would pursue him. Even there.
And she would not be with him. She would not be there to counter any Linularinan mage who found him. Because the Linularinan mages had found her here, and if their first attack had failed, then they would only try again. Unless the ordinary swords the Linularinan soldiers carried killed her first.