"I have Count Velemir as you requested, highness." Eugene's adjutant beckoned him to the Vox Aethyria, which had been placed on a folding table for safekeeping during the bombardment.

"Highness." Velemir's voice was barely audible above the crack and rumble of the cannon fire. Velemir's voice was barely audible above the crack and rumble of the cannon fire.

"I have new instructions for you." Eugene heard his own voice as if it were miles away, speaking with arid detachment. "We are at war with Azhkendir. Madame Elysia Nagarian is to be executed. Firing squad."

There was silence.

"Velemir?" Eugene tapped the crystal, wondering if the bombardment was interfering with their communication.

"Madame Nagarian-to be shot?" Even at such a distance Velemir sounded stunned by the instruction. Even at such a distance Velemir sounded stunned by the instruction. "B-but why?" "B-but why?"

"As a spy. A foreign agent. Report to me when it is done." Eugene straightened up and signed to his adjutant to terminate the connection. He stalked out of the tent and went back to watch the destruction of Kastel Drakhaon.

A gaping hole had been blasted in the side of the Kalika Tower. Gavril clambered up the broken stairs over rubble and twisted metal to his father's study, feeling the tower tremble to its foundations as the merciless bombardment went on, cannonade after cannonade.

As he pushed open the door, another blast flung him to the floor. The floor was covered with shards of broken chymical equipment. Many of Kazimir's elaborate glass structures lay shattered.

"Kazimir!" he yelled. "Kazimir!" "Kazimir!"

"H-here." Kazimir was crouched under the desk, white-faced and shaking, clutching a vodka bottle.

"Come out!"

"No."

Gavril caught hold of him by the ankles and tugged him out from under the desk.

"Do you want to live?"

Kazimir nodded, lower lip trembling like a child's.

"You said you could reverse the effects of Linnaius' drug!" Gavril grabbed the doctor by the lapels, thrusting his face close to his. Kazimir's eyes were bloodshot, and his breath stank of vodka.

"N-not enough time," babbled Kazimir.

"Where's my antidote?"

"Hasn't been scientifically t-tested."

"It's our only chance."

"All my experiments-ruined-" Kazimir gestured lamely with the bottle at the smashed glass.

Gavril caught hold of him and pried the bottle from his fingers.

"No more vodka for you till you've given me the antidote."

Kazimir lurched away, broken glass crunching beneath his feet. A colorless liquid was slowly filtering, drop by drop, into a phial. He disconnected the phial and held it up to the light.

"It c-could kill you-"

"And we'll all die anyway if I don't try. Give it to me." Gavril seized it from him and swallowed it in one gulp.

"Ahh-it burns, it burns . . ." He dropped to his knees as a wave of dark flame shivered through his body. And then every vein, every blood vessel seemed to pulse with molten fire.

He gave a hoarse cry as the Drakhaoul awoke within him, a cry that rasped from his throat, wild and inhuman.

He saw Kazimir fall back, hands upraised to cover his face.

All was heat now, unbearable heat and fury. His mind danced with white flames. He tore from the room, clambering up the broken stair, making for the roof and the cold, clean air of day.

Half the parapet had been blown away. He teetered on the edge of a deadly drop, the winter's windchill on his burning skin.

Where was Eugene, his enemy?

He gazed down through the blue heathaze misting his sight. His skin crackled; his eyes blazed.

The broken walls of his kastel lay below him. Here and there he caught sight of bodies, the bodies of his druzhina, druzhina, lying where they had fallen at their posts. One watchtower had been completely demolished. Smoke and flames besmirched the pale winter clouds overhead. lying where they had fallen at their posts. One watchtower had been completely demolished. Smoke and flames besmirched the pale winter clouds overhead.

And beyond, the massed ranks of the Tielen army on the hillside, immaculate in their gray uniforms, row after row of cannon firing in perfect synchronization. The sight of such well-organized destruction enraged him. What had his household done to incur such a brutal response? Faces flashed through his mind: tart-tongued Sosia, weeping at the loss of her cat Adzhika; silly, flirty Ninusha; young Ivar from the stables, always bursting with eagerness to help; doddering Guaram, veteran of countless campaigns, with his meandering stories, "Now, when your father was a boy . . ."

And Kiukiu. His heart twisted within his breast at the thought of her hurrying back to be at his side, into this chaos of destruction.

He had thought he cared nothing for these people. And now he knew-in spite of himself-they mattered to him. They counted on him. They trusted him. And he must repay that trust.

The white flames burned his mind clear of all other thoughts. He saw with utter lucidity what he had to do.

There was only one possible way to attack Eugene-and that was from above.

The Kalika Tower swayed eight dizzying floors above the courtyard. A drop half as far would smash a man to a broken, bloody pulp.

He walked slowly forward until he stood on the edge of the parapet. An icy wind whipped his hair. If he had miscalculated . . .

"Drakhaoul," he whispered into the wind. "I am Drakhaoul."

And then he stepped out into nothingness.

For one moment Gavril was falling, tumbling helplessly through the air to smash to his death on the icy ground far below, and the next he felt a shuddering convulsion twist his body.

"At last!"

Some essence of darkness burst out from deep within him, almost tearing him apart.

No longer falling, he was soaring upward on powerful wingbeats that thrummed through his whole body.

He was flying.

Eugene stared at Kastel Drakhaon with cold indifference, hands clasped behind his back, as another watchtower burst into flame and rubble. The cries and shrieks of the men who spilled from its burning shell were as insignificant to him as the distant calls of moorland birds. Behind him Jaromir's body lay in his tent, covered in the sky-colored silk and gold thread of the Tielen flag. The highest honor he could bestow on a man fallen in battle for his country, and yet it seemed meaningless now, a mere mockery.

At Eugene's side, Anckstrom leveled a telescope to check the effects of the bombardment, scanning the kastel walls for signs of a breach.

"Stubborn brutes, these Azhkendis," he grunted. And then he swore. "What in hell's name is that that?"

Eugene blinked. Anckstrom was pointing at one of the ruined towers. Something dark flapped from the roof of the tower. He seized the telescope from Anckstrom, twisting the lens to try to see more clearly.

"Dear God," he said under his breath.

He had never seen its like before. As it moved, it seemed to radiate a shimmer of darkness, each powerful wingstroke leaving a trail of iridescent smoke.

"Gavril Nagarian," he murmured under his breath. "Drakhaon." "Drakhaon."

And then the seasoned soldier in him recovered. Whatever the creature was, it must be destroyed before it reached his men.

"Concentrate your fire!" he ordered. "Take aim!" His orders were repeated by his officers, cracked out along the rows and rows of cannon and infantry. "Fire at will!"

The sky grew darker with each flap of its wings. Cannon blasted into the air, but still the Drakhaon came on, darting and diving in the darkening air to avoid the exploding shells. Nothing seemed to touch it, even though the sky filled with sulfur smoke and the bright stars of the exploding ammunition. Now it paused, poised overhead as though gathering itself, the dark glitter of its wings blotting out the light, fanning scorch-dry heat toward them.

"Your highness, please move farther off," Anckstrom urged.

"I have never run from an enemy in my life. I do not intend to do so now." Eugene gazed up into the sky. "Show me your face, Drakhaon," he whispered, challenging it. He was beyond fear. This creature of darkness had somehow survived Linnaius' mage-poisons-unless Altan Kazimir had played him false?

"Show me your face!" he cried aloud.

It turned its head, fixing him with a flame-blue stare that seared through him like a firebolt. Drakhaon eyes stared down at him, bright as cobalt.

And then it loosed a wave of fire. Fire crackled from its flared nostrils, flowed from its claws, rippling down from the darkened sky in a dazzle of glittering light.

For a moment everything-troops, cannon, kastel-was silhouetted starkly black against the white glare.

And then came the roar of the heat, the searing, scorching burn of the incandescent wave flowing over the hillside.

Blinded, Eugene flung himself to the ground, hands clutched to his burning face. He began to crawl up the hillside, squirming on his belly like a serpent. And then he felt the wave of heat ripple over him.

He was drowning in a sea of blue fire.

The rolling fire-swell crests, breaks over his head. Caught in the undertow, Eugene sees the Tielen standard fluttering over the broken walls of Khitari's citadel, Karila playing with her ball on Swanholm's green lawns, Jaromir, Margret, his father Karl turning to greet him with dark, dead eyes. . . .

Drowning men see their lives flash through their minds before they die. . . .

Gasping for air, Eugene broke from the ebbing sea of fire.

All around him a terrible sound dinned in his ears, the shriek of hundreds of men and horses dying in an agony of flames.

The smell of charring human flesh choked his nostrils, mingled with the chymical stink of molten metals.

Inching slowly forward, he began to drag himself from the inferno.

The Drakhaon hovered on darkly glittering wings above the scorched hillside. Not much that was recognizably human remained of Eugene's army. Twisted, melted knots of metal, still glowing hot, were all that remained of the cannons. Blackened piles of bone ash blew where men had crouched behind the great guns.

Glittering particles drifted in the slowly rising smoke, smoke that reeked of bitter chymicals.

The part of him that had been human gazed down in silent, wordless horror.

Such devastation. Such destruction.

What have I done?

And then the Drakhaoul whispered, dark as smoke, in his head, "Elysia. Mother." "Elysia. Mother."

CHAPTER 40.

"Would you like to go for a ride in a sleigh, Karila?" Astasia asked. "It's a beautiful, crisp day. I'd love you to show me your father's estates."

"A ride in a sleigh? Oh yes, yes!" the little girl cried. And then the eagerness faded from her voice. "But Marta will never agree. She'll say the cold wind will make me cough."

"I'm sure if you're wrapped up warmly in furs, Marta will agree. After all, she is only a servant and you are a princess."

Elysia had listened to the exchange from her hiding place in the princess' schoolroom, which opened off her bedchamber. She rose as Astasia came in, carefully shutting the door behind her.

"You heard?"

"Yes," Elysia said. "But is it right to use the child? Her health is weak. I wouldn't want her to fall sick on my account-"

"I can see no other way for us to escape," Astasia said. "Besides, they won't dare fire on us with Eugene's daughter in the sleigh." Her dark eyes glittered with determination; Elysia glimpsed something of her brother Andrei's devil-may-care attitude.

"Kidnap the princess?" the princess?"

"Look. Here's Marta's cloak." Astasia took the dark blue cloak from where it hung on a hook on the schoolroom door and draped it around Elysia, pulling the voluminous hood well over her head. "Now, Nurse Marta, no one will even give you a second glance."

"Very well," Elysia said unhappily.

The sleigh was brought to the inner courtyard, the runners clattering over the icy flagstones.