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Hawkril's mouth twitched, several expressions raced rapidly across his face as the baron bent over him, and he made a faint sound that might have been a moan. Embra was utterly silent as she suddenly rose on hands and knees and crawled a little way forward, staring at the far wall of the room with her back to them all.

"Lady Embra?" Glarsimber asked roughly, taking a cautious step after her.

"I saw… a dragon," Embra murmured, and then turned her head sharply to look at him. "Here, in this room, towering up just there-but that cannot be!"

"Embra," the Baron of Brightpennant asked gravely, "are you… all right?"

The Lady of Jewels looked at him expressionlessly for a moment before her lips twisted into a thin little smile. "If I were Craer, I'd tell you I was considered much better than 'all right,' " she murmured, "but in truth-I think so, Glarsimber. I… hope so."

With more weariness than grace, she found her feet, turned away again, and took a few exploratory steps. "Nothing broken, at least," she announced, shaking her head so that her hair fell back around her.

Then she sighed, spun around with her hands on her hips, and asked, "Hawk? Are you-?"

"Alive, or I'd not be hearing you," the armaragor groaned from beneath the hands he'd flung up to his face, to rub at eyes and brow. "For more than that about my present hurts, best ask the gods!"

For some reason Embra found this very funny. She clapped a hand to her mouth and giggled as she went to her knees by Hawkril's head and added her gentle hands to his. He peered at her from between two fingers, and her mirth deepened into a chuckle-ere she bent to kiss him.

His hands reached up to her shoulders, and their embrace tightened, Embra's hair cascaded down to conceal their faces, and she made a delighted, wordless sound. Hawkril growled just as wordless a reply, almost as if he was purring.

"They're safe, I see," a familiar voice said in mocking tones, from close beside Glarsimber. "I couldn't help but fail to notice, mind you, that no one came running and calling after me?

The baron grinned.

"That, my Lord Overduke Craer," he said, turning to regard the longtime thief, "is because we all had every confidence that you were fine-moreover, that your recent journey along yonder wall was no harmful and involuntary matter, but a skillful tactic of some sort on your part!"

"Three Above," Craer replied, rolling his eyes, "make them barons and they soon learn to talk like barons, do they not?"

"I learned," Brightpennant told him, drawing himself up in mock dignity, "from the best. I listened to thieves-ah, pray pardon: procurers?

"No doubt," Craer agreed, showing his teeth in a mirthless grin. "No doubt. Too many barons have listened to procurers these last score of years, and brought Aglirta to"-he gestured around the ruined throne chamber-"this."

"The king," Raulin said abruptly from behind them both, the rich Castlecloaks voice trembling on the edge of tears, "is dead. I saw him-kill himself."

"Aye," Sarasper called grimly from a goodly distance down the room. "So did l-we?

Glarsimber and Craer turned to see the reason for that last word. Sarasper and Tshamarra Talasorn stood mute, eyes locked. They'd suddenly found themselves staring at each other, both in awe of what they'd seen.

"That was," the Talasorn sorceress started to say, a quaver in her voice. She stopped, swallowed, and started again. "That was the greatest-"

"The Serpent-priests have struck down Kelgrael's bindings!" Embra said sharply, her voice snapping across the room like the crack of a drover's lash as she scrambled up from Hawkril, her hands rising in alarm. "They'll be here soon-I'll need all the magic I can get, to have any hopes of standing against them!"

Six faces stared at her-Hawkril's from right beneath her-and the Lady Overduke said crisply, "If the king has fallen, Aglirta has not, and he left us all-save you, Lady-with sworn duties. I need your service, my lords!"

Embra's tone made it clear that she was a little