"The House of Nagarian has been a constant threat to the peace and stability of the whole continent. We must crush this young serpent in his lair. And if Muscobar will not help, then I swear on my father's name I will take action myself."

"How can Muscobar help you, highness," Velemir said with a shrug, "when we are tied by the Treaty of Accord the Grand Duke signed with Lord Volkh?"

"Volkh is dead," Eugene said coldly. "The treaty is null and void. You will remind the Grand Duke of that fact, ambassador."

There was silence for a moment, except for the hiss and crackle of the flaming logs in the grate.

"So what answer shall I convey to Grand Duke Aleksei, highness? Do you accept his proposition?"

Eugene sensed-with some satisfaction-the slightest suggestion of desperation coloring the ambassador's carefully chosen words.

"Can we hope for a peaceful conclusion to this unfortunate disagreement in the Straits?" Velemir added.

"I will give it all due consideration." Let the Grand Duke and his ministers sweat a little longer, Eugene thought. Now that Muscobar's most powerful ally, Volkh, was dead, Aleksei Orlov was doubly vulnerable. "I will let you know my decision as soon I have discussed the matter with my ministers."

Velemir's face darkened as he realized he had been dismissed, but Eugene saw him swiftly conceal his disappointment in an elaborately courtly bow.

CHAPTER 9.

Every time Kiukiu closed her eyes she saw Bogatyr Kostya loom out of the smoky shadows, staring at her with eyes of stone, finger jabbing accusingly.

"You lied to me. You summoned Lord Volkh. Now you must send him back."

"But I don't know how . . ."

She woke shivering, her linen shift soaked with perspiration. She sat upright in her narrow bed, hugging her knees to her, trying to still the shaking.

The little room was dim with the half-light before dawn, a fusty, dusty light. She blinked-and it was as if the dust of past ages had settled on her lashes, veiling her sight. One thing alone was clear: she must try to send Lord Volkh's spirit-wraith back to the Ways Beyond before anyone discovered the truth.

But how can I send him back without the mirror? And what if he refuses to go?

Kiukiu waited, hiding beneath the stairs, until she saw Lord Gavril escorted from his chamber by the Bogatyr. As they descended, she heard the Bogatyr insisting upon an important meeting with the Azhgorod lawyers. If she was lucky, the bedchamber would be empty for at least an hour.

Once inside, she made loud noises scraping out the grate, clattering the dustpan and brush so that anyone passing outside would know she was busy at her work. And all the time that she worked, she could sense the little doorway to the dressing room behind her. Such an innocuous-looking little door-and yet in her mind it loomed vast as a portal to hell.

At last the grate was cleared and fresh kindling laid. She sat back on her heels and wiped the back of her hand across her brow. Hot work, clearing grates.

She listened. No one was about. No one would know if she slipped into the dressing room for a few minutes.

"Lord Volkh?" she whispered as she entered. "My lord?"

What was she doing, calling on a ghost as she might call Sosia's cat? The little room had lost all its charged atmosphere, it was just a dressing room again. She closed her eyes, searching in her mind for any trace of Lord Volkh's presence. But there was no response, no prickle of fear or recognition. . . .

A sound from outside startled her.

Someone was in the bedchamber. Someone who-from what she could hear-was rifling through the Drakhaon's possessions.

And they don't know I'm here.

Kiukiu crept through the doorway and stayed, hidden behind the bed canopy, biting her lip so as not to breathe.

Who is it? What are they looking for?

Curiosity overruled caution. Kiukiu knew she should not peep, but she could not stop herself.

Silently, she drew back a fold of the heavy dark brocade and saw a woman in a jade silk gown bending over the unlocked dragon chest, a woman who was feverishly sifting through the contents, a woman whose luxuriant chestnut hair glinted in the dim light.

Lilias.

Kiukiu closed her eyes in dread. If Lilias knew she had been observed . . .

"Not here. Not here." Lilias was muttering to herself now. She pressed the lid shut and locked it again, using a little key on a chain around her neck.

She pushed herself up to her feet, moving slowly, laboriously. "Then where, where where?" she whispered, one hand on her swollen belly, as though talking to her unborn child. She looked up at the portrait of the boy and-to Kiukiu's astonishment-spat at it. The genteel Lady Lilias, spitting like a common village drudge . . .

"Don't think I'm going to give all this up without a fight. When my son is born, then we shall see who is truly Drakhaon."

There was such malice in her voice that Kiukiu shrank back inside the doorway.

Best not to have looked. Best to stay quiet, not move, not give myself away.

Lilias gathered the loose folds of her green silk gown about her, and Kiukiu saw her lift the corner of one of the great gold and crimson hunting tapestries on the far wall. A little door slid open behind . . . and Lilias bent to enter, letting the tapestry fall back behind her.

A secret door. Kiukiu stared, her mouth open. She knew there were secret passageways in the kastel, but she had never before been aware that there was one right here, in the Drakhaon's bedchamber. She had dusted and polished so close to it and never known. . . .

"Kiukiu!" shrilled Sosia.

Kiukiu opened the door a crack and looked warily out.

"Better hurry," said one of the guards on the door with a grin, "or she'll box your ears!"

She nodded. As she reached the stairs, she grabbed a handful of skirts and ran down to the hallway, the sound of her footsteps echoing and reechoing up into the rafters.

And as she ran, she kept silently repeating to herself, "Best forget, best forget . . ."

Best to forget all about it.

Kiukiu carried her empty bucket across the weed-grown cobbles to the coal house in the kastel outbuildings. Here the green boughs of the great forest of Kerjhenezh overhung the ramshackle roofs of the stores and granaries, whispering and sighing in the breeze, wafting a faint breath of pine resin across the twilit courtyard.

She was shoveling the precious coal into her bucket when she heard the cry. An eerie, keening cry that made the hairs prickle at the back of her neck.

Ghost spirit of the forest. The stalking beast whose fangs dripped blood.

It came again-high-pitched, inhuman-the cry of a creature in pain.

Kiukiu dropped the shovel and began to run toward the sound of the cries, through the kitchen gardens toward the old walled orchard. She came stumbling between the bent, weathered apple trees to see a man kneeling, stout stick raised, over something that shrieked and struggled, caught in the fanged jaws of a poacher's trap.

"Let it alone alone!" Kiukiu cried, launching herself across the frosty grass. She hurtled into the man with full force, knocking him over. Only then, as she rolled clear of him, she saw whom she had felled. It was Oleg, the butler.

Oleg gave a winded groan and began to fumble for his stick. Panicked, Kiukiu edged away across the grass, slippery with frost-blackened windfalls. Was there still time to make a grab for the stick? She had meant to save the creature in the trap, but now it looked as if Oleg was about to attack her.

"Come here." Oleg rose unsteadily to his knees. He let out a rumbling belch; his breath stank of stale beer. "Come here and I'll give you a good thrashing."

"Help!" Kiukiu yelled at the top of her lungs. "Help me!" She grabbed up her skirts to run-but her toe caught in the hem and she came crashing down onto her knees. Oleg lurched toward her, jabbing the end of his stick in her face.

"They bring bad luck, Arkhel's Owls. Cursed creatures. Kill 'em and string 'em up to rot, I say."

"Help me!"

"Who's going to hear you, you silly little bitch? Someone needs to teach you a lesson."

He swung the stick back to strike.

"No!" Kiukiu flung up both arms to cover her face.

"Who's there?"

Oleg hesitated, distracted, looking around.

There were footsteps running through the orchard toward them. Kiukiu looked dazedly up to see Lord Gavril beneath the ancient apple trees. His eyes burned like blue flames in the gloom.

"L-Lord Drakhaon." Oleg dropped the stick.

Lord Gavril advanced on Oleg, one hand outstretched, finger pointing. Oleg began to tremble.

"You. Go. Get out Get out."

"M-my lord-" Oleg, face suddenly pale as ale froth, turned and went loping clumsily away, leaving the stick where he had dropped it.

"Are you all right?" Lord Gavril knelt beside Kiukiu. "Did he hurt you?"

Kiukiu stared up at him, dizzy with gratitude and relief. Lord Gavril had saved her from Oleg! Her heart sang silently within her.

"Thank you, my lord," she whispered.

"Who was that man? What was he doing here?"

A blood-chilling shriek came again from the trap. Kiukiu jumped up, brushing the moss and dead bracken from her skirts.

"He's called Oleg. He was going to kill it," she said, pointing to the trap. "I couldn't let him do it."

The creature was a writhing ball of speckled snow-white feathers against the dark brambles. No blood-boltered fiend, just a young bird, injured and terrified.

"Ohh," Kiukiu said softly. "Poor thing. Poor little thing."

"What is is it?" it?"

"See those ear tufts? I think it's a young snow owl. But they rarely nest this far from the mountains. . . ."

The bird hissed at her from a sharply curved beak. It was nearly exhausted from its struggles, and its feathers were bloodied and torn, but it was still ready to fight to defend itself.

"We'll have to pry the trap open." She was untying her apron. If Sosia found out what it had been used for, she would beat her, but there was no other alternative.

"There, there," she crooned to the owl as she edged forward across the crushed bracken. "Hush now. We'll soon have you out."

She held out the apron. Good, thick-woven linen. Tough as a sack. She hoped it would protect her from the sharp, snapping beak.

"Here." Lord Gavril had retrieved Oleg's stick.

"When I put the apron over its head, my lord, you open the trap."

Brilliant owl eyes blazed defiance. Gavril knelt beside her and the terrified bird tried to jerk away again. Hastily she threw the apron over its head.

"Quick!" Its struggles beneath the coarse cloth were frantic as Lord Gavril fumbled with the iron teeth of the trap, trying to find the spring. "I-can't hold it-much longer-"

"I am am hurrying!" hurrying!"

With a sudden clang, the trap sprang open and Kiukiu swiftly drew out the owl. For a moment it went limp-whether due to loss of blood or relief, she couldn't tell. She took a look at the injured leg. "It's lame."

"It'll never survive if we leave it here."

"Then I'll care for it." She began to wrap up the little creature again, swaddling it like a baby.

"The hunting dogs'll sniff it out and kill it. If Oleg doesn't find it first. What does he have against snow owls?"

She looked up at him. Didn't he know? Had no one told him?

"They still call them Arkhel's Owls, my lord. They were the emblem of the House of Arkhel."

"Arkhel's Owls," Lord Gavril said pensively.

"They bring bad luck, my lord. Bad luck for our House. Your father's men kill them whenever they find them."

"Bad luck?" he echoed. His eyes had reverted to their normal sea blue again, calm waters now after the storm.

"Poor little abandoned orphan," Kiukiu crooned to the owl, trying to stroke it. "Ow!" She snatched her hand away, shaking fingers. "It pecked me."

Lord Gavril began to laugh. "There's gratitude for you."