Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [49]
“Yes, in front of her,” the elder dowager lady said with a sigh. "I'm tired of this. Next you'll be telling me that old tale about her sleeping with Pyramus again!"
"Yes!" Nalanna squeaked.
Margort nodded, and said fiercely, double chin quivering, "That's it exactly! She's here to try to steal the vale and the keep and all away from us!"
"What?" Pheirauze shot an incredulous look down the table at Storm, who shrugged and spread her hands in a baffled gesture.
"There she goes!" Margort cried, bouncing up and down in agitation and pointing with a wrinkled hand whose wrist dripped long ropes and hoops of gems. "Acting all innocent! Why, I caught her sitting up in the Twilight Turret with Pyramus-late one fall, it was, when the sunsets were long. And they didn't even act ashamed!"
Heads turned all along the table to look at Storm, who smiled faintly, and waved a polite reply to all the curious stares.
"I confronted him, later, with Nalanna, and-"
"Yes!" Nalanna said, bobbing her head up and down in violent assent. "With me!"
"-he said they were lovers, and that he was going to marry her!"
"So you fear we have a Lady Storm Summerstar in our midst," Pheirauze mused aloud. "I'm sure the aunts have only the interests of our family at heart," she said to her guest. To save a lot of time and sidelong comments, could you satisfy them-and, I confess, the rest of us-by telling us straight out if any such wedding ever did take place?"
Storm looked down the table, from the fascinated faces of the war wizards to Shayna's fearful gaze, and saw the young heiress clasp her mother's band. She smiled inwardly at the two aunts, who were practically falling into their platters as they leaned out impatiently to hear what she'd say. Then she shrugged. In cases like this, the whole truth, however brutal, was best.
"Pyramus was very kind, and both a good man and a good lover," she announced clearly, "but we did not marry. How could we, after he'd secretly wedded Princess Sulesta, Rhigaerd's daughter?"
In the uproar that followed, the Dowager Lady Zarova quietly fainted and fell on her face into her soup. The Dowager Lady Pheirauze looked as if she wanted to, as well. Across the table, Storm could see at least three war wizards struggling not to laugh.
*****
"S-Storm, help me!"
The scream cut through her reveries. Storm leapt out of bed, thrust both feet into her boots, and sprinted for the door, snatching up blade and gown from the table as she went.
She was well along the passage, with startled Purple Dragon armsmen pounding along in her wake, when she looked down at herself and realized that she wasn't yet wearing anything to belt the scabbard to.
Not that she was going to be in time. Her spell had shown her a dark and dusty room somewhere in the Keep, and a beautiful woman's face-for just an instant, before flames leapt from both its eyes. The magic was shattered.
Shattered with a backlash that made her head nearly split. Hundarr Wolfwintr’s brain was now ashes.
She sprinted on into the darkness anyway, snatching her blade out of its scabbard just to be safe. A moment later, she tripped over the wizard’s sprawled body.
Parchments flew from Hundarr’s dead hand-some of Athlan’s notes, by the look of them-and as she rolled over and came up running again, Storm twisted and snatched one out of the air.
"The dragon of the keep, watching over me," she read-and then flung it away as something large slashed at her with talons. She dodged and ducked and drove her sword through glowing nothing. It was an illusion.
Cold laughter welled up ahead of her. She sprinted toward it. A moment later, the floor gave way beneath her boots. She was falling. A deep, grating rumble overhead told her that the stones tumbling down on top of her were no illusions at all.
There were six-no, seven. All of them were as big as she was. Storm hit rough stone, and bounced bruisingly. She struck once more and felt ribs splinter like kindling. Then the first of the huge blocks crashed down on top of her.