The man had caught a handful of her long hair to prevent her from escaping, and the pain that exploded through her scalp made her scream furiously.

Talon gave a roar and flew between her and the would-be assassin. The man grunted as Talon blocked the knife with one arm while delivering a powerful blow to the offender's gut with the other. Shasta's pain subsided as her hair was released, and she quickly dodged aside. Talon and the assassin were blocking the door, so she ran to the farthest corner of the chamber and curled into a ball on the floor. Her lungs felt hot and she closed her eyes, struggling to breathe.

Talon's first instinct was to rush after her charge, but she hesitated. Unarmed, how could she defend Shasta? Should she try to distract the assassin instead? As if sensing her dilemma, the assassin saw his opportunity and grinned. In that instant, Talon realized that this was what her nerves had been preparing her for all day. The tension that had built for hours on end suddenly released in a flood of adrenaline. Her concentration heightened so intensely that everything-colors, smells, sounds-abruptly amplified as time seemed to slow down.

The assassin barely took a step before Talon hurled her weight at the man. Growling, "Over my dead body," she grappled him from behind and they both crashed to the marble-tiled floor.

The man rolled over with a snarl and slashed upward with the knife. Talon felt a sting and threw herself backward just in time to avoid having her throat slit. She struck his wrist sharply with the edge of her hand.

As the knife spun across the floor, she yelled, "Princess, get out of here now!"

Shasta removed her hands from her eyes and stared, frozen and wheezing hard. Talon didn't have time to repeat her instructions before the assassin retaliated with a fist of his own planted solidly across her face. She reeled back at the force of the blow but managed to block a second strike, bringing her knee down hard into his abdomen.

Shasta chose this moment to move, scrambling out of the corner and past the brawl. With a grunt of desperation the assassin grasped her ankle, tripping her to the floor. Talon clamped her hands around the man's throat to cut off his air, and he let go of the Princess, trying to fight off the constricting fingers. But Talon's grip was unshakeable. Her muscles felt like iron. The man's face purpled as he struggled to breathe.

Out of the corner of her eye Talon saw Shasta crawling out of reach. Relief must have loosened her fingers slightly, for the assassin chose that moment to bring his legs up unexpectedly, heaving her through the air.

Only her acrobatic training saved her from being pitched headfirst into the stone wall. She twisted so that it was her left shoulder, not her head, that struck the wall first. Searing pain erupted through her arm and upper back. Stumbling to her feet, she saw that Shasta had paused at the sound, her expression suddenly conflicted.

Talon gasped as the Princess took a hesitant step toward her. "No, Shasta, run! Don't worry about me, just run!"

On his feet again, the assassin lurched toward his knife, and Talon threw herself at him, ignoring the white-hot surge through her shoulder as she tackled him. The blade was just a handbreadth from his grasp. Her left arm was strangely unresponsive as she tried to hold him, and it took only a second for the assassin to flip her over. The breath was trapped in her lungs as he crushed her windpipe with his forearm. No matter how she kicked, his weight pinned her down. The powerful burst of adrenaline that had lent her such strength before seemed to be dissipating with the lack of oxygen. Her vision began to sparkle darkly until she couldn't see his face any longer. Then, somewhere above the chaos she heard the Princess's voice.

"Talon! The knife!"

Something caught her flailing wrist, pressing a smooth, familiar object into the palm. Talon's fingers tightened instinctively and she brought the blade down into her attacker's back. A warm liquid rush followed when she withdrew, and the grip at her throat loosened. Talon continued stabbing as her vision gradually cleared, but now all she could see was red. Everything was covered in a thick, shiny coat of scarlet that burned her eyes. She kept moving the blade automatically, feverishly, until a firm hand at her shoulder caused her to pause.

"That's enough, my boy. I don't think he's a threat anymore."

Talon looked up and met the eyes of her mentor with shock. "Captain Vaughn?"

She inhaled sharply when she realized that she was straddling a dead body, the man's chest and throat torn with multiple stab wounds. Blood saturated his cloak and pooled beneath him on the tile, flowing in streams toward the gutters along the edges of the walls and into the bathing tub. The water in the tub was morbidly crimson, steaming like some evil potion being brewed right there in the privy chamber. Talon realized she was still gripping the knife with blood-slicked hands and dropped it, numbly. Vaughn's hand on her shoulder suddenly reminded her of the pain throbbing there and she twisted away, looking for the Princess.

Shasta was staring with an indescribable expression, and Talon frowned. Something was wrong. As Shasta's eyes rolled back in her head Talon cursed and sprang to her feet, but Vaughn was faster. He caught the girl before she could hit the floor and quickly checked her pulse.

"She's not breathing," he said tersely, and Talon moved forward but he held up a hand. "No, wait, just give her a moment."

For several anxious seconds Talon obeyed, frozen in place and only half aware of the bustle in the chamber around her as several of the royal guard inspected the assailant's body, the tub, the dressing screen, trying to determine what had happened. Her attention was entirely focused on the Princess, whose face was alarmingly pale and still.

Finally Shasta gave a shuddering gasp, and Vaughn nodded with satisfaction. "There, she'll be all right now. Too much excitement, I think, but she's breathing again. She'll come out of it in a minute or two." He straightened, carrying the Princess out of the privy chamber and setting her gently into her bed with Talon on his heels.

King Soltran burst into the bedchamber then, and when he caught sight of Talon's blood-soaked clothing and his daughter lying quietly on the bed, he erupted furiously. "What happened here?" He crossed the room in four strides and took hold of Talon's shirt front, mindless of the blood that covered her clothing.

Talon swallowed. "There was a man, Your Majesty, in the Princess's privy chamber..."

"I seem to remember giving strict orders that you were to inspect Her Highness's privy before every use."

"I did, Majesty, but I didn't see anyone-"

"Then you didn't look well enough, did you? Did I or did I not make it quite clear that Shasta's life is in great danger? I expect you to take that seriously, Corporal!"

Talon resisted the urge to point out that it was the King himself who had authorized a trip into the middle of the Ardrenn markets without so much as a guard escort, but she thought better of it. Talon had come to realize that common sense was not the King's strongest attribute. Soltran loved his daughter very much, and meant well, but he often set others up for failure inadvertently. Of course, when things inevitably backfired no one dared to blame the King publicly, and Soltran himself seemed oblivious to his own faults.

So Talon simply nodded. "You're right, Majesty. I have failed Princess Shasta. I should have been more careful."

Her shame was genuine. How could she have become so comfortable with their daily routine that she had lost sight of the very real danger that attended the Princess at every minute of the day? She'd been so obsessed with getting out of the open, back to the palace where they would be safe. How easy it was to forget that for Shasta, the palace was hardly safer than the streets of Ardrenn.

"Please, Your Majesty, I will accept whatever punishment you choose. But my sisters..."

"Fear not, Corporal Talon." Soltran suddenly appeared surprisingly calm, considering his fit of temper only a moment before. "You are still learning what it means to be a soldier. And the Princess is unharmed, after all. So, this one time, you will not be punished, nor will I impose the special terms of our bargain. This is your one and only free mistake, so learn from it."

Talon bowed quickly. "I will, Your Majesty, you have my word. Thank you."

The King then looked down at his hands, smeared with blood from Talon's clothes, and grimaced. "Report to the infirmary immediately and get cleaned up. I imagine that eye's going to swell up like a ripe plum in a few days. I'll stay with the Princess myself until you get back."

Hesitating, Talon cast another look at Shasta, who was beginning to stir against the pillows. "Your Majesty, I...I may have frightened her. I lost control there, for a minute, and..."

The King chuckled and clapped Talon on the shoulder. "You'd be surprised how much it takes to frighten my daughter, Corporal."

Later that night Talon could barely suppress a groan as she lay down on her cot by the Princess's bed. Every muscle in her body ached. The healer had corrected her shoulder, which had been dislocated when she connected with the privy chamber wall. He'd also stitched the cut at her throat, which was not dangerously deep but would probably leave a scar. True to the King's prediction, her eye was already beginning to swell shut, and now that the rush of adrenaline had left her veins there was nothing to prevent her from feeling the full impact of the day's damage to her body. Even the healer's special pain-reducing tea could not do much more than dull the sharper pains into a permeating haze.

Talon berated herself for the hundredth time that day as her head hit the pillow. How could she have been so careless? After all the stress of the afternoon in Ardrenn, she'd allowed the Princess to walk right into an assassin's trap. Talon wished she could be in the King's study right now; he and Vaughn would be trying to determine how exactly the assassin had managed to conceal himself in the Princess's privy without anyone noticing. Erinda and the other chambermaids, who had gone in and out repeatedly as they filled the bathing tub, faced particular suspicion. All of them claimed they had not seen any sign of the villain lying in wait behind the dressing screen.

Talon wondered if they'd identified him; that was surely another assignment that the King and Captain Vaughn would be working on tonight. It was impossibly frustrating that she couldn't be a part of the investigation, and even worse that she could barely perform her primary duty, that of ensuring Shasta's continued safety.

"Talon?" Shasta's head suddenly appeared over the edge of her bed.

Talon gave a start. She'd thought Shasta was asleep. "Princess?"

"Are you all right?" she asked shakily. "I heard they gave you stitches."

Talon propped herself up on one elbow and pulled the collar of her shirt open. "They're not bad, see? It wasn't a very long cut."

Shasta slid from her bed onto the cot and nudged Talon's legs aside so she would have room to sit. Very gently, she placed cool fingertips to Talon's swelling eye. "Does it hurt?"

"Everything hurts. But better me than you."

"You killed that man, didn't you?"

Talon closed her collar again. "Yes."

"Have you ever killed anyone before?"

Talon was taken aback for a moment, debating her answer. "Once."

Shasta nodded thoughtfully. "Was it like this?"

"In some ways, yes." To avoid further questions she quickly changed the subject. "Princess, I'm so sorry. I never should have let you set foot in that chamber."

"It wasn't your fault. You've checked the privy for me hundreds of times, and no one was ever hiding there before."

The thought was far from comforting. Talon was horrified to realize that it had never occurred to her to inspect behind the dressing screen as part of their daily ritual. She'd put the Princess in danger not just on this one night, but hundreds of times without even thinking. "Oh, Goddess," she whispered.

Shasta made an impatient sound. "Now stop that. You saved my life today. I really didn't know what to do when I saw him crouching there. I just threw everything I could at him and ran."

"You did exactly the right thing." Talon pulled herself into a sitting position, trying to ignore the throbbing complaint from her shoulder.

"But I didn't. As soon as you came in I just...I ran off into the corner like a frightened child. I didn't even try to help you."

Talon stared. "You're not supposed to help me, Princess. You're supposed to stay alive. The fighting is my job."

"Daric would have helped. He wouldn't have been afraid."

Talon could hear the catch in her charge's voice, and she covered Shasta's hand with her own. "Then your brother would have been foolish. Fear is nothing to be ashamed of, Princess. It can keep you alive."

"You weren't afraid."

Talon choked back a laugh. "I was terrified."

"You were?" Shasta turned luminous eyes on her guardian, the moonlight turning them a pale golden color.

Talon looked away, feeling strangely, deliciously chilled under the Princess's gaze and suddenly forgetting what she was going to say.

Shasta didn't seem to notice, and gave a sad sigh. "He was perfect, you know. Daric was the perfect Crown Prince for Ithyria. He was strong and brave and so very wise, and me...I'm scarcely even a shadow of what he was. I get winded going up the stairs, a mouse scurrying across the floor is enough to send me shrieking from the room, and I can't even save a poor serving girl from being beaten to death in the street."

"Princess, you can't blame yourself for that. You did everything you could for her. It couldn't be helped."

"You're wrong. There must have been a way to save her, I just wasn't able to find it." Shasta covered her face with her hands. "What good is being a princess if you can't help your people?"

Talon didn't know what to say, and she did the only thing she could think of: pulled the Princess into her arms like she would one of her sisters and held her for several minutes. "You know, you're much more courageous than you think. You stayed in the privy and handed me the knife. In fact...you saved my life."

Shasta slowly dropped her hands. "I did, didn't I?" A smile spread across her face as she blinked up at Talon.

"Yes, you did." Talon allowed a few seconds for that to sink in. "And you have to promise me you will never do anything so foolish again. When I tell you to run, you run. Don't stop, don't look back, don't think about me or anything else."

"I don't know if I can make that promise, Talon. How could I just run away and leave you to be hurt, maybe even killed?"

"Because I'm asking you to." Talon held the Princess's eyes intently with her own. "If that man had killed me, he would have gone after you next." Talon didn't want to imagine the possibility. "You're the Crown Princess of Ithyria. No one's life is more important than yours. So if I tell you to get away, promise me you'll go."

Shasta cringed, and Talon realized she was gripping her charge's shoulders rather fiercely. Immediately she released her, and the Princess drew a deep breath.

"All right. If that's what you want, I promise."

"Thank you."

Shasta stood up and returned to her own bed, climbing under the bedcovers. She was silent for a while, then rolled over on her side and said, "Good night, Talon."

Talon was relieved to hear only affection in Shasta's tone, instead of sulkiness. "Good night, Princess."

Who wanted Shasta dead and why? Who had the most to gain? Talon swung her sword at an imaginary enemy and pondered what the royal guard had been able to gather so far. Captain Vaughn kept her informed but so far, they had more questions than answers.

No one had been able to identify the assassin's body. Everything about him was carefully unremarkable, from his average height and build to the slightly shaggy cut of his brown hair. He had no scars or markings of any kind and wore simple dark clothing that was neither unusually shabby nor unusually fine. General Anjen was convinced the man was a professional assassin, likely the same who'd murdered Prince Daric the previous winter, but Talon wasn't so sure. The black-cloaked man she remembered from the banquet had a catlike grace, subtle and sinister. But the man she had killed, though aggressive, relied on brute force and moved clumsily.

"Careful, my boy," Vaughn warned, rising from his seat. "In a position like that you've opened yourself up for a nasty strike to the gut. Remember what I've said about guarding your center." He took the sword from Talon's hand and repeated the swing she'd just made, exaggerating the vulnerable position. "You see? Pull your shoulder in and put your weight on both feet. You have to pay more attention, unless you want someone spilling your insides in the dirt."

Sheepishly, Talon took the sword back and repeated the corrected movement he had demonstrated. Vaughn gave a grunt of approval. She continued through the exercises, meant to improve form as well as strengthen important muscles, and glanced at her mentor out of the corner of her eye.

"Captain Vaughn, do you think one of the nobles could be behind the attacks on the Princess?"

"What makes you say that, Corporal?"

Talon shrugged and dropped into a lunge, raising the sword over her head to block an invisible attacker. "It just seems like whoever it is must have connections in the palace. They managed to sneak an assassin right underneath the noses of the royal guard in spite of the new restrictions at the palace gates. Not only that, he was able to get into the Princess's private chambers without anyone seeing him."

She lowered the sword and rose smoothly, making a half turn and thrusting outward. She held the position for several seconds so that the weight of the blade burned in her upper arm. "He was too good to be some disgruntled revolutionary. Someone had to be paying him."

"That's our assumption as well, yes."

Talon sheathed her sword and pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve to mop the sweat from her brow and neck. "It just doesn't make sense. Why would someone try to kill Princess Shasta and not the King? Surely His Majesty has more enemies than the Princess."

"Not necessarily." Vaughn shuffled through the books on the table in preparation for the academic portion of Talon's lessons. "King Soltran's claim to the throne is more tenuous than his daughter's. Perhaps the Princess is a greater threat because of her birthright. The house of Rane has ancient and powerful enemies."

Talon joined the captain on the bench, stretching her legs out in front of her and peering at Vaughn skeptically. "You're talking about the Flesh God, aren't you? Ulrike and his followers. My sister Lyris is convinced that he's the one trying to destroy the Goddess's royal family. She blames every flower that wilts on his influence. I didn't think you put much faith in those mystical religious stories."

Vaughn chuckled. "Well, I don't know that I'd go as far as that, but it does seem that some tragedy befalls the royal house with every winter that brings us closer to the millennium. Two winters ago it was the Archduchess Silaine and her two children killed in that terrible house fire. A winter before that, the Queen's cousin Duke Asquith died of fever unexpectedly. Over the past two decades, the house of Rane has dwindled through illness, infertility, and misfortune. Now the Queen is dead and the Prince murdered, and only Princess Shasta, Viceroy Fickett, and his son Kumire remain to continue the royal line."

Talon cast a distasteful look toward the opposite end of the room, where Chancellor Kumire was bent low over one of the tables explaining something to the three girls seated there. He was standing just a little too close to the Princess, one arm resting lightly on her shoulder while, on his other side, Bria leaned toward him in an obvious attempt to usurp his attention.

Vaughn followed Talon's line of sight, his own disgust evident. "It certainly seems there must be some evil power at work, doesn't it?"

"You may be right." Talon swung one leg over to straddle the bench, tugged a heavy volume from the stack on the table, and opened it to where they'd left off the day before. "But I'm not going to let anyone, God of Darkness or otherwise," she glared quickly over at Kumire, "bring harm to my family or my Princess." She pretended not to notice Vaughn's poorly concealed snicker and turned her attention to the book. "Now, where were we?"

Pacing in her room after the lessons were over, Shasta could not shake the restlessness that had gripped her for days. She knew it was reasonable to be distressed by the attempt on her life, but that wasn't what truly bothered her. She kept thinking about the episode in the Ardrenn markets, unable to get the dying woman out of her mind. How could such inhumanity be tolerated among her people?

During lessons, Chancellor Kumire had explained that in Ithyria, labor was a commodity that could be exchanged for money, room and board, and other goods. Shasta could understand that. The servants in the royal household had tended the palace kitchens and waited on her family for generations and were compensated for their services with lodging on the palace grounds, as well as food and an allowance for clothing and personal items. But each person was rewarded for their own labor, and no one was held responsible for anyone else's debts.

It troubled her that Ithyrians could indenture not only themselves, but their families, to pay off obligations or obtain loans. The woman in the marketplace was working off a note that wasn't even her own. How selfish, how unbearably wicked, for a man to live in freedom while his daughter slaved under a tyrannical master to repay his debts. And how could the laws be so careless of an indentured servant's most basic rights? Servants were hardly criminals, yet terms of indentureship allowed the creditor unlimited power over a person for the duration of their service.

Shasta's first real glimpse of her people had been quite a revelation. She realized just how very sheltered she had been and wondered what other terrible things were going on in Ithyria, right under her very nose, that she was completely unaware of. Shasta found herself replaying bits of conversation with Talon and her companions, those rare moments when one of them would make reference to their lives before they came to the palace. She recalled Talon saying that they had been orphaned when they were very young by a barbarian raid on their village. How could such a thing be allowed to happen? Was her father aware of any of this?

Daric had sometimes alluded to the fact that the public did not much care for King Soltran, and Shasta now thought she could understand why. The government and nobility were supposed to provide protection for their people, yet injustice seemed tolerated with little concern. Did the people of Ithyria blame her family for their misery? Was that the reason Daric was killed, the reason someone was after her now? Had someone been mistreated so badly that they were looking for revenge?

After pondering these matters anew, Shasta finally decided she had to speak to the King herself.