The Kickstarter topped the $40,000 mark. That’s over 400% of goal with 47 hours left to go. Thank you.

It seems my Kickstarter campaign made the list of io9.com’s crowdfund recs, which is a whole barrel full of awesome.

Welcome, io9.com readers. If you like the sample chapters, I should also mention that a pledge at the $12 level will get you the first book in THE GREAT WAY trilogy, called THE WAY INTO CHAOS (those are the sample chapters you’ve been reading) along with an ebook of my TWENTY PALACES prequel (cleverly titled: TWENTY PALACES) along with some other fiction mentioned in Kickstarter Update 5.

If you’ve already backed mine, check out some of the other project featured in that io9 article; some of them look pretty hot.

Here’s part of chapter 6 of THE WAY INTO CHAOS, on sale now.

Just in case you missed them: Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

---

Cazia

Cazia couldn’t help it; the idea of learning to fly a cart thrilled her.

Then she saw Lar scrabble across the gray tiles and she flushed with shame. He slipped and fell to one knee but quickly regained his footing, heading toward the chimneys at the front of the building. His red coat looked almost comical, and she wished he’d chosen something that would not stand out like a rose in the grass. Col followed close behind; Timush must have been still climbing on the rope.

She couldn’t look away from them. Yes, she’d just been promised a lesson in flying–flying–but the one person she loved most in the world, her own brother, had just rushed onto a battlefield—and he’d brought his two best friends. A strange feeling she couldn’t identify filled her like wind blowing into a tent. She felt hollow and fragile, as though the next misfortune would make her pop like a bit of froth, destroying her completely.

This is the feeling that comes just before grief. You are about to see your brother murdered in front of you because he is trying to be a hero which is your fault because this was your idea. This is how you feel just before grief overwhelms you and makes you wish you could die with him.

The screams from below became more intense, distracting her. The creatures tore through the crowd, knocking people about like brooms. Each victim received a terrible bite wound, some instantly fatal but not all, as the monsters battered their way through the mob. Men, women, and children fell before them. One of the city guard pushed against the surging mob in an effort to shut the Little Gate, but there was no hope of that.

Lar scrambled toward the chimneys at the front of the house. As he moved, he started to strip off that long, gaudy coat, but it tangled on the strap of his quiver.

“Here!” Col yelled. He slid out of his gray-and-red jacket, then tossed it to the prince. Lar held it by the collar and let the hem hang over the far edge of the roof where Cazia could not see. A moment later, the two of them heaved it back up but, only now it had a girl clinging to it.

It was the Indregai princess: pale, tiny, and severe in her white house robe. Cazia knew she was a few years older than Jagia, but she looked shockingly young. The princess scrambled handily onto the peak of the roof, then began chattering at the prince, pointing back the way she’d come.

Lar did not seem not interested in taking orders. He scrambled to his feet, pulling Colchua upright with him. Timush shouted at them, waving them back toward the dangling tether, and Cazia hissed at the noise he was making. Lar practically shoved the princess toward the cart, and a renewed chorus of screams from below made her do as she was told.

An iron dart cracked the tile roof near the chimney. The sound startled Cazia, but she drew a spike from her jacket pocket without thinking about it and began to cast.

One of the creatures had dragged itself over the edge of the roof. The clerk had cast at it, missing, but Doctor Warpoole had begun a spell of her own.

“Great Way,” Treygar prayed, his voice tight, “protect the prince. Keep him on your path.”

Doctor Warpoole’s dart flew with surprising speed, but it struck the creature low on the back, practically on its hip. Cazia did her best to lead with her own spell, just the way she had to lead the hoops during Doctor Twofin’s lessons. She struck the beast on its high back below the neck. It sprawled on the tiles and tumbled down the steep roof slope.

Cazia started another spell right away. A second creature appeared at the top of the southernmost chimney. The clerk fired another dart, striking the brick just below the creature’s furred hind hand. At least she was getting closer.

Cazia wasn’t going to finish her spell in time, and Doctor Warpoole hadn’t even started a new one yet. Lar had a quiver of his own, of course, but his back was turned. Cazia kept her hands moving, her mind falling into the necessary state, despite the fact that she knew it was futile. The only way she could avoid this awful grief would be if the creature hesitated.

It didn’t. It leaped from the chimney at the prince. Cazia could feel tragedy flying at her like a volley of arrows.

---

Oh, no! not a cliffhanger!

Yep. That’s the last of this particular story I’ll be releasing free on the blog. If you want to know what’s going to happen next, be sure to order a copy.

| Amazon (print & ebook) | Apple iBooks (ebook) | Barnes & Noble (print & ebook) | Books-a-Million (print) | CreateSpace (print) | IndieBound (print) | Kobo (ebook) | Smashwords (ebook) |

Here’s chapter 5 of THE WAY INTO CHAOS, on sale now. If you missed the earlier installments:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

---

Tejohn

The weight of the creature astonished him. It slammed against the side to the cart with a sound Tejohn was sure signaled the death of them all, but the wood held.

Tejohn’s shoulder, however, did not. Great Way, the whole city must have heard it pop. The creature’s momentum dragged him down until the rail gouged deep into his dislocated armpit and the whole cart dipped like a rowboat about to capsize.

The driver must have anticipated that, because the cart didn’t turn over. Tejohn felt the others fall heavily onto his back, pinning him to the rail for a moment, until the cart rocked back the other way and they fell away from him. The pain was intense. Manageable, but intense.

The beast had hold of his bracer with its right hand, then reached for a higher grip with its left, hooking its claws into his flesh below the elbow. It was climbing his arm toward the prince, its jaws gaping.

Tejohn didn’t think, didn’t pretend he had time to strategize, didn’t waste his time on regret or resentment. He did his duty. He straightened his legs, sliding his torso over the rail. It wouldn’t take much. They were already overbalanced and the monster’s terrible weight would easily pull him over the edge. Fire and Fury, but his arm felt like it might tear right off. At least hitting the paving stones would be a quick death.

Tejohn would never see his children again.

There was a dizzying moment when he felt the full weight of both bodies drag him over the edge. His injured arm jerked, nearly shaking the beast free, but that didn’t matter, because it was already too late, he was going over–

Hands clasped onto him, pinning him to the wooden rail. Lar planted his feet against the rim of the cart, taking hold of Tejohn’s other hand. The Freewell boy slid down onto his legs.

“No!” Tejohn cried out. “No, don’t—”

But other hands were grabbing him, and someone–probably the Freewell girl–cried out “Col!” as though the boy was about to fall, too. The side of the cart dipped again; the driver cried out from the strain of keeping it upright.

The Freewell boy leaned over the rail with one of the scholar’s spikes in his hand. The creature pulled itself up again, its gaping fangs about to bite off Tejohn’s fingers, but the boy stabbed the point of the dart into the bottom joint of the monster’s thumb.

It lost its grip. With its other hand, it caught hold of a spoke as it fell. The wheel spun and the wood snapped. The creature plummeted away from the cart with an agonized roar.

The driver finally managed to tilt the cart back to fully horizontal, and they all flopped onto the floor and benches, one atop the other. Tejohn tried to keep his feet, but the prince still had hold of his good hand and they went down together. “Is everyone still here?” Lar shouted. “Did anyone fall out?”

“Pagesh isn’t here,” Timush said sulkily. Jagia threw her arms around Timush’s neck.

Tejohn gritted his teeth, determined not to cry out as the others bumped and jostled him. His forearm may have been bloody but it was his dislocated shoulder that was truly painful. What had seemed manageable in the face of imminent death now seemed to triple in power. He rolled away from the others, laying his face against rough wood. At least his shoulder was off the floor, and no one would bump him as they tried to crawl out from under him.

“Doctor!” Lar called. “Look to Tyr Treygar.”

Doctor Warpoole urged Ciriam out of the way, then she knelt beside Tejohn. She had the same flat, chilly expression she always wore. “I’m not much of a healer. The First Gift is the most complex, and unless your injuries are life-threatening, it would be safer to find a true medical scholar or a sleepstone.”

“You don’t need magic to yank my shoulder into the socket,” Tejohn said.

Doctor Warpoole looked nonplussed, but Lar came up behind Tejohn and took hold of his shoulders. “Col, take his wrist.” Lar’s voice was very close behind Tejohn’s ear, and it made him uncomfortable. “Don’t fret, my tyr. I may not have learned healing magic, but I’ve certainly done this before.”

The Freewell boy took hold of Tejohn’s bracer. The old soldier nearly snapped at him to let go, but the prince was so close and the tyr was nearly helpless with pain. “Don’t worry, my tyr,” Freewell said. “This will feel like a kiss from a beautiful girl.” He pulled.

Tejohn’s shoulder slid back into the socket; a wild rush of pain ran through him, then subsided. Tejohn cried out but he managed not to curse or swear, so it wasn’t too embarrassing. His shoulder joint felt as though it no longer fit together, but that was to be expected. With his good hand, he grabbed the Freewell boy’s wrist. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now let’s get Lar away from here.”

“Yes,” Tejohn grabbed the rail and pulled himself into a sitting position. “Driver, set a course to the northeast. We need to reach Fort Samsit before dark.”

“No,” the Freewell girl said flatly. She looked at Tejohn strangely, as though he’d just sprouted horns. “We have to rescue the princess.”

Song only knew what the girl was talking about; Lar didn’t have a sister. What princess?

“Fire and Fury,” Lar said. “She’s right.”

“She’s a hostage,” the girl continued, “and she’s the only thing keeping the Alliance from crossing the Straim in force.”

The Straim. She was talking about the prince’s betrothed, the little Indregai girl. She’s a terror.

If the Indregai Alliance marched on the empire in force, the first place they would strike would be East Ford, where Tejohn had sent his wife and children. The thought of Teberr, his youngest, being devoured by one of the Indregai serpents made his skin crawl.

But the next words he said were, “We can’t risk it. We have to get the prince to safety.”

Lar leaned over the edge of the cart, looking down at the city streets. Tejohn did the same. Everything was blurry to him, but he could see moving colors that had to be fleeing commoners and the bounding, purple-furred monsters chasing them from building to building. The beasts crashed through windows and doors, falling onto young and old alike. The city was full of terrified screams.

“Lar,” the Freewell girl said, “Not even Peradaini spears can fight enemies on the inside and outside at once.

“Caz is right,” Lar said. “Driver, change course toward Eastgate. She’s in a high-peaked house on the eastern square with two chimneys in front.”

Tejohn suddenly felt terribly weary. The cart was already overfull, and they had to get free of Peradain now or lose the chance forever. “My prince, you must withdraw. The princess has her own people; let them be responsible for her.”

“She is betrothed to me,” Lar said as the driver angled the cart eastward. “I am one of her people, and she is one of mine.”

Back toward the palace, Tejohn could see several dark smudges against the sky that looked like columns of smoke. There were no scholars to suppress the fires; they had more pressing things to do.

The cart flew low and close enough to the city wall that Tejohn could just make out the soldiers stationed along the top. None carried spears or bows—had the clerk in the Scholars’ Tower failed to get her message out? The beasts hadn’t made it this far yet, but the streets were in a tumult. Citizens milled about, some fleeing with sacks full of possessions, others loading oxcarts with clothes and other minor treasures, others pleading for news. A crowd of thirty men and women marched toward the palace with hammers, billhooks, hatchets, and other makeshift weapons. They didn’t know what was happening, but they were going to confront the threat.

Of course, the gates had been closed for the Festival. Only foot traffic was allowed through the Little Gate, and that, too, would soon be shut.

Tejohn’s throat became tight. What were they doing? He wanted to shout at them to drop everything, grab their children, and run.

He shut his eyes and fought back a rising wave of rage and fury. Tejohn had not wanted to parade his wife and children in front of Co and the other Evening People as though his life was just another mime for them to enjoy, so he’d sent them east. But if he had not?

They would have been down in the courtyard with the rest when the portal opened. Fire and Fury, he would have lost another family, and this time, he would have seen it happen. It was simple luck that had saved their lives.

“There it is!” Lar shouted, pointing to a building on the other side of the cart.

Tejohn struggled to his feet. The pain of moving was intense and getting worse. He needed a sling.

“Are you sure this is correct?” Doctor Warpoole asked. “Everything looks so different from up here.”

“I can’t land on that,” the driver said. Then he added, as a nervous afterthought, “My prince.”

Tejohn craned his neck to look at the house. It had been constructed in the high mountain style of the southern Indregai people so the princess would feel at home, but the driver was correct. There was no flat place to set down, even if the clay tiles could support their weight. “We can’t set down in the street,” Tejohn said. “The people would mob us.”

“No matter,” Lar said. He gestured for the tether rope at the front of the cart, and the clerk uncoiled it for him automatically, as though he’d given her a command. “Just get us low enough.”

The last Italga prince, dangling on a line high above the city? No. Absolutely no.

“I’ll go first,” the Freewell boy said.

“Then me,” the Bendertuk put in.

Bittler Witt, crouching quietly in the corner, reluctantly began to stand but Lar waved him back. That boy couldn’t climb down a rope, let alone climb up again. “I will go first,” the prince said. “She’s my betrothed. Col and Tim can come with me, but Bitt and the scholars will stay with the cart.”

He dropped the rope over the side. Tejohn didn’t like this at all. “My prince, you mustn’t—”

“I hope you aren’t offering to go in my place,” Lar said with a glance at Tejohn’s shoulder. The prince’s tone was sharp.

“Of course not, my prince,” Tejohn said, changing tactics quickly. “But we don’t need to lower anyone down, just the rope. Let her grasp it and we will pull her up.”

The Freewell girl leaned over the rail and shouted, “Get a ladder and send the princess up to the roof! Quickly!” The woman she was shouting at, a guard in a snow-white Alliance uniform, looked startled, then ran into the high-peaked building.

The prince nodded at Tejohn. “You make sense, my tyr. I’m just worried that they will send their entire entourage.”

The white-clad woman ran back out of the house, this time with several other guards. They tilted their heads up to stare at the cart, but there was no ladder in sight.

“The roof!” the Freewell girl shouted. “Get the princess on the roof!”

Several others began to shout the same thing. The Indregai guards milled around and looked confused. People poked their heads out of the windows, looking up at the cart as it floated down toward the building. Tejohn recognized their body language and expressions: they looked like villagers gossiping about the local madmen.

One of the monsters charged into view, racing around the side of the building with the speed of a grass lion on the attack. Everyone in the cart cried out in fear and despair. In the street, there were new screams of terror. They crowds surged toward the Little Gate as the Alliance guards threw themselves against the monster.

It was no good; the creature knocked them aside like empty cups, then ran among them, biting each of them, one after another.

A second monster charged out of another alley toward the Little Gate, and a third burst into the gate house.

“We’re too late!” the driver said, his eyes wild with fear. “We’re too late!” He started to raise the cart into the air.

Lar threw his leg over the rail. “Lower us to the roof! Now!”

The Freewell girl snatched four spikes out of Doctor Warpoole’s quiver and handed one to Tejohn. “I don’t think I have what it takes to bully him,” she said.

Bullying? Clearly, the girl didn’t understand what it meant to command. Tejohn took the dart in his good hand and held the point a few handwidths from the driver’s belly. “What is your name?”

The calm in Tejohn’s voice seemed to capture his attention. “Wimnel Farrabell, my tyr.”

Both men watched the prince move below the cart and out of sight, his quiver full of darts jangling. The Freewell boy climbed on after him. Tejohn’s guts were bound as tightly as a criminal bound for the gibbet but he kept his voice calm. “Farrabell, eh? The Farrabells were Sixth Festival, as I recall. Tyrs in the west?”

“It was the west then, my tyr, but it’s all Waterlands now. My people were nobles, chieftains, and generals until the Battle of the Fish Pens. Stripped of our rank, my tyr, but always loyal.”

Tejohn knew the story. “Loyal but not brave,” Tejohn said. The Bendertuk boy went over the rail onto the rope. “With a good name to secure a safe, cushy job for you.”

The driver took a deep, shaky breath. “I will do my duty, my tyr. I will.”

“Then teach this girl how to operate these levers,” Tejohn said, “I want someone to know how to fly the prince to safety if I have to ram this spike into your heart.”

---

Read Chapter 6.

| Amazon (print & ebook) | Apple iBooks (ebook) | Barnes & Noble (print & ebook) | Books-a-Million (print) | CreateSpace (print) | IndieBound (print) | Kobo (ebook) | Smashwords (ebook) |

Here’s chapter4 for THE WAY INTO CHAOS, on sale now. If you missed the earlier installments:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

---

Cazia

Without any warning, a creature burst through the portal, bounding onto the stone dais and sniffing the air. It was as large as a mountain bear, but its frame was almost human. Its long arms and legs both ended in monstrous hands, and it was covered with pale purple fur.

It roared at them, displaying the fangs of a grass lion.

Cazia glanced up at Treygar, absurdly hopeful that she would see him smiling as though this was the most normal thing in the world, or maybe a prank they played on the young folk every Festival, but he was gaping in stunned surprise like everyone else.

Someone screamed. The beast glanced around the dais, roared again, and launched itself onto a scholar. The man fell back as the creature sank its fangs into his arm, then tore it from his shoulder.

Panic erupted in the courtyard. Bear men began pouring through the portal like water from a leaking bucket. Guards in civilian clothes charged forward in a line, swinging their bracers at the creatures’ heads.

But the monsters knocked them flat like they were rag dolls. Men and women screamed as the creatures bit into them. More beasts bounded over the line, landing directly in plumes of fire erupting from the scholars’ hands.

The creatures fell back from the wall of flames, letting the scholars advance. Could the scholars push them back through the portal? If only I could be down there with them, defending the king and queen.

Then one of the beasts lifted a guard over its head and threw him into the jets of fire. He struck two scholars, knocking them completely off the dais. Beasts charged through the gap and swarmed the scholars from all sides, tearing them apart with their teeth and claws. Goose bumps ran up and down Cazia’s whole body and she suddenly felt lightheaded.

Servants, merchants, performers, all of them mobbed the gates or jammed the entrances to the palace in panicked mobs. Screams came from everywhere.

The king stood between the queen and the creatures, swinging his heavy chair in a powerful downward stroke. At the same moment, a jet of bright fire shot from the queen’s hands, so focused that it cut one of the creatures in half. The long spears of the so-called athletes in the yard suddenly thrust through the confusion, stabbing into the monsters surrounding the king and queen. A scholar, wounded but still alive, created a huge stone block–bigger than any Cazia had ever seen–between the royal couple and the beasts.

It didn’t matter. One of the bear men, though punctured with three long spears, knocked the king aside with a swipe of its claw. He fell into the surging mass of creatures. The queen stepped backward, fell off the dais and landed on her neck.

“MOTHER!” Lar screamed. Cazia saw the shock and anguish on his face. For a moment, the pain was so clear in his expression that he looked as if he had been murdered, too.

Treygar grabbed hold of him to stop him running out of the garden into the melee.

Cazia realized she had been frozen in place, watching the chaos and brutality as though it was just a mime. The king had vanished. The queen lay still in the dirt. The creatures bounded from the dais into the yard with the speed and grace of grass lions, running down those too slow to have escaped. Cazia had to do something. Anything. She was in danger. Her friends were in danger.

“My prince,” Treygar shouted, “we must retreat!”

“I can help!” Lar shouted back.

“We can help!” Colchua said.

“NO!” Cazia shocked herself by the force behind her response.

“My prince, we are overrun! You must withdraw!”

Timush and Pagesh grabbed Lar’s arms as though they were about to drag him away. Cazia heard scuffling on the stone below the railing and began the motions for a flame spell of her own. Out of habit, her hand motions helped bring out the correct clarity of thought, the colors, the swell of emotion the spell required.

One of the beasts reached the top of the railing, pulling itself up and roaring. Cazia finished just in time, feeling the flame rush from the space between her hands into the creature’s open mouth.

Treygar spun, moving much faster than she would have thought possible for such an old man, and slammed his bracer down on the creature’s head.

The beast’s gray blood splattered over them both. These creatures are full of magic. I can feel it. For one absurd moment, Cazia was overwhelmed with dismay over her ruined dress, then she glanced over the rail. The creature was still plummeting to the paving stone below, but two more were climbing up.

She turned back to the others but didn’t have to say anything. Her brother seemed to read her mind. He and Timush grabbed the ends of a stone bench and lifted.

Treygar grabbed the prince’s arm again. “No!” Lar said. “I can’t abandon everyone!” Colchua and Timush dropped the bench over the railing. Painful yelps and heavy crashes followed soon after.

“Lar!” Cazia shouted at him. “Stoneface is right! Do what he says or you’re going to get us all killed!”

Treygar pointed at Pagesh. “You’re in charge of the little girl! Let’s move!”

Pagesh scooped up Jagia, who immediately burst out crying. The courtyard was filled with screams, prayers, and monstrous roaring. Treygar began to run eastward through the garden, heading toward the promenade and the graveyard menagerie. Did he plan to go into the palace and escape through the Sunrise Gate?

“Stop!” Cazia called. “We can’t go that way; they’re already inside the palace. We have to go there.” She pointed toward the Scholars’ Tower, pulling Lar and the others after her.

Treygar didn’t argue. He pushed forward, letting the young people run ahead. Col and Timush led the way, sprinting toward the tower door. Lar ran just behind them, with Treygar close on his heels. Pagesh was a strong runner, but not when she had a hysterical child to carry. Treygar glanced back at her, clearly worried, but he didn’t pause to help. Cazia ran last, regretting her decision to wear this big, beautiful dress and ignoring her hat when it blew off her head.

I am running for my life inside the Palace of Song and Morning.

This was happening. It was happening right now. Cazia almost stopped to look around; she’d just seen the king and queen murdered, and she might be next. This was a moment for histories, songs, and plays, and she was actually living it. She felt strangely detached and incredulous.

The servant girl who had tried to dump dirty water onto her feet—an Enemy—ran by them, her eyes wild with terror.

“Don’t you shut that door!” Col shouted. A weedy-looking scholar was pushing the heavy door to the Scholars’ Tower closed. His eyes bulged in terror, and for a moment it seemed he wouldn’t obey. Treygar shouted at him, and he hesitated long enough for Colchua to throw his shoulder into it and fling the door wide.

“To the top!” Treygar yelled. Good. He’d already figured out why Cazia had chosen the tower. A pair of frightened old scholars demanded someone Explain Everything Immediately, but Timush shoved them aside. They all ran for the stairs.

“Bar that door!” Cazia yelled back at them. Doctor Whitestalk’s desk was empty. “Shutter the windows!”

“Wait!” Pagesh shoved Jagia into Cazia’s arms. Her eyes were wild and a little sad. “I’m going to find Zilly.” She sprinted out of the tower, shouting, “Bar the door behind me!”

One of the old men slammed the door and threw the bolt. Lar, Col, and the other boys had already vanished up the stairs. No one but her and Jagia had seen Pagesh go. Zilly? It took a moment for Cazia to remember that was the name of her maid.

Jagia’s face was uncomfortably close to her own: the girl had stopped crying, but she looked pale and stunned.

Cazia set her down. “Can you run?” She nodded. “Go! I’ll be right behind you.”

“My prince!” a voice farther up the stairs shouted. “What can we do to help?”

The girls caught up with the others in the administration chamber, and Cazia was the last to push inside. The speaker was Doctor Warpoole, the Scholar Administrator for the entire empire. She was more of a functionary than a spellcaster, but she had been formidable in her younger years. Cazia didn’t much like the woman but she hoped to be her someday, or at least serve the empire in her place.

Two other young women sat at desks beside her, styluses in hand. They looked utterly stunned. Cazia knew their names–Ciriam Eelhook, Barla Shook–but she had never spoken to them. They were Enemies, and right now, they were terrified.

Lar looked at Cazia blankly. Great Way, he’d just seen his parents die.

“The Evening People did not come through the portal,” Treygar said. “We’ve been invaded by some kind of monster. The king and queen were lost within moments. The palace is overrun and the prince must be flown out of the city at once!”

Doctor Warpoole spun on her heel and yanked on a braided cord beside her desk. “That will summon the cart. What else can I do?”

“Can you shut the portal?” Cazia blurted out.

“Alas, child, I don’t think I can.”

Cazia yanked a quiver of iron darts off the wall and tossed it to the prince. He caught it and, as if shocked out of a trance, slung it over his shoulder. Cazia took down a second quiver, then a third.

“Those are relics,” Barla said, “Tyr Cimfulin Italga used them in the Clearing of Shadow Hall.”

Cazia had heard that story, hadn’t she? Something about a scholar soldier and a swarm of giant spiders. “Lar and I are his descendants,” she said. It occurred to her that she had campaigned for one of these clerk positions last fall, but Shook had been chosen instead. “Let’s say we inherited them.” She slung the quivers over her shoulder.

Treygar started pushing Lar toward the stairs. “Uncover your mirror, doctor. Tell the commanders stationed outside the city to arm themselves. Then—”

There was a loud boom from the bottom of the tower. The creatures were trying to batter their way in.

“Go!’ the administrator yelled. “Barla, send an alert to Beddalin Hole and have them spread the word. Ciriam, you’re with me.”

Treygar had already herded the prince up the stairs, with Colchua shoving Timush and Bittler after. Cazia had been left in charge of the little girl again.

Barla and Ciriam exchanged looks. One had been ordered to flee with the prince and one had been ordered to stay behind, but the shocked expressions on their faces were identical.

Cazia pushed Jagia up the stairs; Ciriam and Doctor Warpoole followed. Cazia heard the cloth being yanked off the mirror behind her, but she did not look back. She did not want to see Doctor Shook’s expression again.

Cazia and Jagia ran upward, passing one empty floor after another, not daring to pause long enough to do more than glance through the narrow tower windows at the chaos below. The rest of the tower seemed empty; everyone had gone down for the Festival.

There was a sound of shattering wood from below, followed by roars of flame and screams. Ciriam shrieked, “Hurry! Hurry!”

The muscles in Cazia’s legs burned, but the thunder of heavy footsteps below urged her onward. Jagia started to flag as they came near the practice room; Cazia was tempted to scoop the girl up, but she knew that would be slower still.

There was another scream from below, a woman’s this time, and much nearer. Doctor Warpoole, who was bringing up the rear, barked, “Don’t look back!” and Cazia knew she wasn’t talking to her.

The last few flights of stairs were made of wood and the noise of their stamping was oppressive and alarming. They might as well have goaded the bear-things to chase them. “Almost there,” Cazia said to Jagia. “Keep going.” For some reason, offering encouragement to the little girl made her feel stronger. It gave her hope.

She heard Treygar shout from the effort of throwing open the heavy trap door. It slammed against the roof with a boom that echoed through the entire tower. The grunts and roars and heavy treads on the stairs below grew louder and louder. Treygar ran out of the top of the stairs into the gray daylight, and the Prince stumbled out behind him, wheezing and clutching his sides. Col, Timush, Bittler, then Jagia and Cazia and the two scholars all spilled onto the slab roof. Bitt fell to his knees, wheezing and pale. Cazia and Col raced around to the far end of the trap door and lifted it.

“Not yet!” Doctor Warpoole yelled. She started a spell Cazia had never seen before: her gestures were elaborate and unusually constrained. What was she doing? Then she pushed her palms outward as she exhaled, and a plume of green mist billowed down through the trap.

The wooden stairs dissolved like snow thrown into a boiling pot. One of the beasts leaped upward into the daylight, fanged jaws gaping. The moment it entered the mist, the fur and flesh of its face boiled off its skull. Its bloody bones fell into the gap made by the missing stairs and it disappeared down into the tower.

Doctor Warpoole nodded at Cazia and Col, but her brother was the only one to shoulder the heavy door into place. Cazia could only stare in shock.

That was not one of the Thirteen Gifts. Doctor Warpoole, the scholar administrator for the entire Peradaini empire, had just cast a wizard’s spell.

The trap slammed into place and Timush threw the bolt home. Then he grabbed Cazia’s elbow. His black hair was matted with sweat. “Where’s Pagesh?”

There was a floating cart fifteen feet from the edge of the tower. It wasn’t large–a six-person design, at best, but the single black disk above it was huge. It would be fast, and it would fly high.

However, the driver looked at them with blank, terrified eyes. Tyr Treygar shouted orders for the man to pull into the dock to let them aboard, but he didn’t respond. The driver seemed to be frozen in shock.

Timush’s huge, dark eyes were just as wild and sad as Pagesh’s had been before she ran out of the tower. “Out there. She—”

“WHAT?” He yanked her arm painfully, spinning her around. “You left her behind? How could you leave her behind!” His face was right beside hers as he screamed, and she could see the patch of pimples on his forehead.

“Pagesh abandoned us!” Jagia shouted. “She left us all alone!”

She left to save Zilly, Cazia almost said. She chose to risk everything to save her rather than flee to safety with you. But she couldn’t say that to Timu. Everything was already too awful. Cazia yanked her arm out of his grip. “Jagia loved Pagesh as much as you did. Maybe you two should look after each other.”

“Oh, this will not do,” Doctor Warpoole said. She stepped up to Cazia and lifted both quivers over her head as though taking a sharp knife from a child. She gave one to Ciriam and, as she slung the other over her shoulder, drew out a long, nasty-looking spike.

The driver may have been terrified out of his wits, but he knew better than to defy a scholar with a quiver full of darts. He angled the cart so that it floated toward the tower deck.

Cazia ran around the perimeter of the tower, looking down the sides. Three beasts were climbing the pink stone wall. “Clerk!”

After receiving a nod from Doctor Warpoole, Ciriam ran to Cazia’s spot on the western end of the tower. “Ciriam, right?” Cazia asked, immediately remembering that she should call her Doctor Eelhook. Too late now. “That one is highest. Start with it.”

The clerk looked dumbfounded. Cazia slapped the outside of the quiver the scholar had just taken from her, and the woman jolted into action. She drew a dart and, leaning queasily over the crenellation, shot it down the side of the tower.

It went wide, skipping off the pale pink stone. Ciriam drew another, did the spell again–more shakily this time–and shot a spike over the beast’s shoulder.

Cazia plucked a dart from the quiver at the girl’s hip and shot it down the side of the wall, letting her frustration and anger lurk behind the carefully built mental state required for the spell. It struck the beast’s shoulder, sinking into its torso so deeply that it vanished.

The creature roared, and for a moment, she thought it wouldn’t fall. When it did, Cazia turned to the clerk and held out her hand.

Ciriam was about Pagesh’s age and height, but where Pagesh was tanned and strong from endless days spent outside in fields, the clerk was pale and squint-eyed, with weak, bony hands. She didn’t even know how to aim a dart spell properly.

But she wasn’t about to give up that quiver.

“Let’s go!” Treygar called. He ushered the prince onto the cart first, of course, then let Bittler, Timush, Jagia, and Col climb on. Doctor Warpoole waved at Ciriam and Cazia, and they sprinted toward the cart.

Cazia took the opportunity to pluck three more darts from Ciriam’s quiver.

As they climbed into the cart, the driver screwed up his concentration and forced it upward. They swung up and out, all of them packed in elbow to knee. Timush crouched in the front corner with Jagia in his lap, both gripping the rails with white knuckles. Bittler and Col were jammed into the back, almost falling onto the driver. The doctor shrugged, squeezing Cazia into the corner; apparently, she didn’t like to be crowded. Old Stoneface gave Doctor Warpoole a dark look as she settled in; clearly, he would have preferred to have someone else in her place.

The wheels of the cart passed over the crenellation just as the first of the beasts reached the top of the tower. Doctor Warpoole drew a dart from her quiver and began her spell, her hands moving faster than any spellcaster Cazia had ever seen. Ciriam followed her example, but Cazia was behind them and couldn’t help.

The beast bounded to the edge of the tower, then leaped at them. Doctor Warpoole’s spike struck the beast on the crown of its head, gouging its scalp but otherwise bouncing off. The clerk didn’t lead the beast enough and her shot passed uselessly behind it.

The monster seemed almost is if it could fly, clawed hands reaching out, fanged jaws gaping. Cazia thought the whole world fell silent, although she knew the beast must have been roaring, and the people around her must have been screaming. She had no time to cast a spell of her own and no space to make the gestures.

The beast—with its bristling fur, impossible size, and nearly human face—was going to make it into the cart with them.

Stoneface shoved the prince aside and swept his arm backhanded at the beast’s outstretched claws. He managed to batter its hands aside, preventing the monster from getting a grip on the rail, but it caught hold of his forearm instead.

The beast slammed against the side of the cart with a crash so loud, Cazia was sure the planks would shatter, then the whole thing tipped to the side.

There were screams and cries of anguish all around her–Cazia might have screamed herself, she wasn’t sure. Everyone fell toward the lowered rail of the wagon, and it was only Timush’s quick hands that kept Jagia in the cart.

Doctor Warpoole knelt low, keeping her center of balance below the rail. She held Ciriam down with her, but Cazia’s weight nearly sent them both over the edge.

Treygar fell flat on his stomach on the edge of the railing, clearly being dragged down by the tremendous weight of the beast. The only one still standing was the driver, and that was because he had been tied into place. His face was twisted in concentration as he tried to right the cart and gain altitude.

Cazia couldn’t see the beast below the level of the cart, but she heard it roar. She pulled her dart from her sleeve. She didn’t think she had time to cast a full spell before the creature climbed over the rail, but she knew what to do with the sharp end of a spike.

Lar and Col reached for Stoneface to drag him back into the cart, but the old man lunged upward to throw himself over the rail.

---

Read Chapter 5.

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