The ceiling above him was stone. He knew this because he spent what felt like a very long time staring at it before any other thought entered his mind. Gray stone, each block cut to tolerances that would have impressed a modern mason. There was a crack in the third block from the left. It ran diagonally, northeast to southwest.

  He catalogued these details because they were the only things that did not hurt.

  Everything else hurt.

  His ribs sent sharp protests with every breath. His left leg throbbed with a constant ache that suggested bruising down to the bone.

  But the right arm was the worst.

  He could not feel his fingers.

  He tried. He lay there on what he slowly recognized as a cot—wooden frame, straw mattress, rough wool blanket—and he tried to move the fingers of his right hand. And nothing happened.

  He tried again.

  Nothing.

  His left hand worked. The knuckles were scraped raw and the nails were cracked but the fingers opened and closed at his command. He brought it across his body and touched his right arm.

  The arm was wrapped from shoulder to fingertip in layers of linen bandage. Beneath the bandage, several splints, bound tight against the limb to hold it immobile.

  The bandages were spotted with dried blood in three places.

  Eirik let his left hand drop.

  How long had he been unconscious?

  The light in the chamber came from a single window. The angle of it told him afternoon, but which afternoon he could not say. The room was small—a sick-bay of some kind, with three other empty cots arranged along the opposite wall.

  Two men sat on stools near the door.

  Guards. Dragon-masked helmets resting on their knees. And they were watching him.

  Eirik met the nearest guard's eyes.

  The man looked away.

  That was unusual. The Black Guard did not look away from anything. He had watched them hold formation against his magic without flinching. Looking away was not in their training.

  "How long?" Eirik's voice came out raw.

  The guard who had looked away glanced at his direction.

  "A full day, my lord."

  My lord.

  Eirik filed that away. He had been "Lord Stormcrow" to the soldiers before. "My lord" carried a different weight.

  A full day. Cassius was either carrying out his instructions or had been caught and was hanging from the walls.

  "Water," he said.

  The second guard rose and brought him a clay cup. Eirik drank with his left hand. The water was cold and clean and the act of swallowing it made him aware of how badly his throat had been damaged. He drank the entire cup and asked for another.

  While the guard refilled it, Eirik looked at his right arm again.

  The splints ran from above the elbow to the wrist. The bandaging extended further in both directions—up to the shoulder joint, down to cover the hand and fingers entirely.

  Whatever had happened to the arm during the transformation and the fall, it had happened thoroughly.

  "The physicians," Eirik said. "What did they say?"

  The first guard shifted on his stool. "They've been in three times, my lord. The bone is broken in two places. The shoulder joint was displaced. They set it as best they could."

  "And the hand?"

  Silence.

  "The hand," Eirik repeated.

  "They could not say, my lord."

  Eirik tried again to move his fingers. Still nothing.

  A broken bone could heal. A displaced shoulder could be set. But nerve damage was a different matter.

  "I'm not going to end up like Corvinus, am I?" he said. "The one-handed version?"

  He had meant it as a joke, yet no one laughed.

  The two guards looked at him with expressions that held too many things at once. There was awe in it—he could see that clearly enough. But there was also confusion.

  "No?" Eirik said. "All right."

  He lay back and stared at the ceiling.

  The crack in the third stone block was still there. He found this mildly comforting.

  He thought about the General.

  By now, the man would have woken. Unless Cassius had administered something to keep him under. If the General was awake and confined, he would be furious. If he was awake and free, Eirik was already dead. The fact that guards sat at his door rather than executioners suggested the former.

  Eirik's thoughts were interrupted by movement at the door.

  The guard nearest the entrance had risen from his stool and was looking through a gap where the door stood slightly ajar. After a moment, he pulled it open wider.

  Three men stood in the corridor outside. Black Guard, all of them. They wore their dragon-masked helmets and their swords hung at their hips and they did not enter the room. They stood there and looked at Eirik through the open doorway.

  Then they turned and walked away.

  "That's been happening," the second guard said quietly. "All day. They come to take a look at you."

  "How many?"

  "Hundreds, my lord. More since word spread that you were waking."

  Eirik closed his eyes.

  So it had begun. When something extraordinary happened in a closed community—an army, a besieged city—the people needed to see it with their own eyes before they could begin to process it. They were coming to confirm that what they had witnessed was real.

  More would come. And after the soldiers, the officers. And after the officers, the politicians.

  The door opened again.

  This time, the man who entered did not look and leave.

  He was tall, thin, and hairless. Eirik had met this man once before. During his formal meeting with the General.

  The Eunuch.

  Septimus. Corvinus had mentioned the name once in passing. The General's political advisor.

  Septimus stood at the foot of Eirik's cot and looked down.

  "Where is the General?"

  The words were spoken without preamble.

  Eirik said nothing.

  "I will not ask nicely again." The Eunuch's voice did not rise. "Where is the General? And Lyanna. Where are you keeping them?"

  Eirik looked at the crack in the ceiling.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Septimus exhaled through his nose.

  "Not the talkative sort." He unfolded his hands and placed them behind his back. "Do you understand the atrocities you have committed here? I don't care that you claim to come from the future. I don't care about your ice, your dragon, your little display over the Khorath camp. You do not simply arrive in this city and kidnap the most important man within its walls, steal his power, abduct his daughter, and expect to walk away from it. You cannot do this."

  Again, nothing.

  Septimus smiled.

  "I suspect you are feeling very pleased with yourself right now. I suspect you believe yourself the hero who descended in shining light and saved us all." The smile held. "Let me disabuse you of that fantasy. What you have committed is treason. High treason. And there is only one outcome for treason in the Sunless City, Lord Stormcrow. An outcome considerably worse than death."

  He turned to the two guards.

  "Seize him."

  The guards did not move.

  Septimus waited. His smile faded until the thin line of his mouth flattening until it was no line at all.

  "I gave you an order. Seize the prisoner."

  Nothing. The guards sat on their stools and stared at the far wall and did not acknowledge the Eunuch's words by so much as a blink.

  "Are you deaf?" Septimus's voice climbed half a register. "Take him. Now."

  Neither man moved.

  Septimus turned to the corridor. Three more Black Guard stood there, who had come to look and left without words.

  "You." Septimus pointed at the nearest. "Enter this room and restrain the prisoner."

  The soldier looked at him. Then he looked past him, at Eirik. Then he looked at the wall.

  The Eunuch stood very still.

  This had never happened to him before.

  The Black Guard obeyed the General. They obeyed Corvinus, who spoke with the General's voice. They obeyed Septimus, who managed the General's political apparatus. These were the three authorities that governed the Sunless City, and in his many years of service, not a single guard had ever failed to carry out his command.

  Until now.

  Septimus turned back to Eirik.

  "Very well."

  He crossed the room in four strides. His right hand closed around Eirik's bandaged arm and pulled.

  The pain was intense.

  It began at the shoulder where the joint had been reset and it traveled down through the fracture points and into the hand and it was so immediate that Eirik's vision went white. A sound left his throat, which he could not have suppressed if he had wanted to.

  The pulling stopped.

  Eirik's vision cleared. Septimus's hand was still on his arm, but the Eunuch was no longer pulling.

  A guard—one of the two who had sat motionless through three direct commands—had risen from his stool and crossed the room and placed his hand on Septimus's wrist.

  The guard said nothing. His grip was firm and his face was blank and he did not look at the Eunuch. He looked at the floor.

  Septimus's face went red.

  "Release me."

  The guard's grip did not change.

  "I said release me. That is a direct order from the General's Hand."

  The guard knelt. His knee touched the stone floor with a quiet sound. But his hand remained exactly where it was, wrapped around the Eunuch's wrist, holding it still.

  Septimus tore his arm free—or tried to. The guard's grip held. The Eunuch pulled harder, twisting his body, and for a moment the two men were locked in an absurd contest of strength that the bald politician had no chance of winning.

  Septimus yanked his hand away and lunged for Eirik's arm again.

  A second guard stepped between them.

  He was taller than Septimus by half a head, and this one did not kneel.

  Septimus stepped back.

  The fake smile was gone now. His chest was heaving.

  "Do you know what you are doing?" His voice had gone high and tight. "All of you. Do you understand? This boy kidnapped the General. He kidnapped Lyanna. He stole the Dragon's power—our General's power—for himself. And when the General returns—and he will return—every man in this room will be flayed alive alongside him. Every one of you. Is that what you want?"

  The guards did not release their positions.

  Septimus reached for Eirik one more time. His hand never got within a foot of the cot as a voice from the corridor interrupted him.

  "Septimus."

  The wheelchair appeared in the doorway. Corvinus pushed himself forward with two practiced strokes.

  Septimus turned on him.

  "Corvinus. Are you here to end this mutiny, or are you here to join it? Because I assure you, if it is the latter, I will prepare a full accounting for the General the moment he is—"

  "What accounting?" Corvinus's voice was calm.

  "Treason! This boy—this stranger—has committed crimes that would warrant execution a dozen times over. I don't care how many Khorath he killed. Abducting the General is treason of the highest order and you know it."

  Corvinus wheeled himself to the center of the room. The guards parted to let him through.

  "I don't know about treason, Septimus. What I know is this: you and I would both be dead right now if it were not for this boy."

  The Eunuch opened his mouth.

  "Twenty thousand Khorath," Corvinus continued. "In a single day. Every man on the walls saw it. Every soldier in the garrison, every officer, every merchant, every woman and child in the inner city who climbed to the rooftops to watch. Twenty thousand enemy dead, their supply lines burned, their siege engines destroyed. It is the only thing anyone in this city is talking about."

  "I don't care how many—"

  "You should. Because the men you just ordered to seize this man were also on those walls. They saw what he did. And you are standing here asking them to put him in chains."

  Septimus's jaw worked.

  "Whatever you say, this is betrayal of the highest order—"

  "What would the General find himself more betrayed by?" Corvinus asked. "A city with no clear path forward against forces ten times our number, starving behind walls that cannot feed it? Or a city with almost half its enemy's strength gone in a single day—a city where he could return to command and lead us to final victory?"

  The Eunuch pointed at Eirik. His finger shook.

  "That is a play of words and you know it, Corvinus. The General will not let this go."

  "The General wants what is best for this city. And if you cannot see what is best for this city, then I will not allow you to obstruct it further."

  Septimus went still.

  "You will not allow me?"

  "There was no kidnapping." Corvinus spoke the words with a deliberateness. "The General shared his power with his clear blood descendant from the future for the good of the city. The result exceeded every expectation. There will be no other narrative. You will not poison the morale of men who have just witnessed the greatest single victory in the history of this city."

  He wheeled himself forward, closing the distance between himself and the Eunuch until they were close enough to touch.

  "You will not speak to this man as a criminal. He is a hero. That is a fact visible to every person in this city whose eyes are not clouded by their own schemes and their own pathetic scrambles for position. If one more word about a fabricated kidnapping or any other falsehood leaves your mouth, Septimus, I will be forced to take action."

  The room was very quiet.

  Septimus stared at Corvinus.

  "Corvinus." His voice had dropped to a near-whisper. "Do not play this game with me. You know as well as I do that the boy clearly kidnapped the General and stole his—"

  "Guards."

  The word cut the air.

  The response was immediate. The four guards who had stood immobile through Septimus's commands moved as one. They closed on the Eunuch from four directions and utterly without hesitation.

  Septimus's face went white.

  "Treason!" The word tore from his throat as hands gripped his arms. "Mutiny! You are all dead men! When the General hears of this—every one of you—I will personally—"

  A leather gag appeared in one guard's hands. It was fitted between the Eunuch's teeth until Septimus's screams became muffled. His body twisted against the hands that held him and made no difference.

  The guards marched him through the door. The muffled sounds faded down the corridor until the only noise that remained was the quiet creak of Corvinus's wheelchair as the crippled man repositioned himself.

  Corvinus waved once.

  The remaining guards filed out. The door closed behind them.

  The room held two men. One in a wheelchair. One on a cot.

  "Well," Eirik said. "That was certainly something."

  "It was."

  "You're going to ask me those same questions now, aren't you?" Eirik said. "One man comes in screaming. The other comes in reasonable. But you should know I'm not going to say anything."

  "Then you won't." Corvinus's gaze moved to the splinted arm. "Do you understand the condition you're in? That arm, specifically."

  Eirik looked at it. "Are you going to do anything about it?"

  "I won't." Corvinus paused. "But I suspect someone might."

  He raised his left hand and clapped twice.

  The door opened.

  A figure entered. Short. Wearing white robes that were slightly too large for her frame. Her hair was pulled back in a braid that had begun to come undone, stray strands framing a round face with wide, bright eyes that resembled a house cat.

  She saw Eirik.

  Her entire body jolted as if someone had run a current through her.

  "LORD COMMANDER!"

  The sheer volume of it made both guards outside flinch.

  Seraphina Brighthollow crossed the room in three bounding steps. She stopped at the edge of his cot, her eyes enormous and shining with a wetness that was already threatening to spill.

  "Oh no oh no oh no—look at you! Sister Mara said you might be a little reckless but she didn't say—and your arm! Your arm is all wrapped up and the bandages have blood on them and you're so pale! Are you eating? You need to eat. I brought food! Well, not food exactly, more like rations, but they're good rations, Sister Mara's recipe, very nutritious, and I also brought healing supplies, and—"

  "Sera."

  "—and I walked through the scary ghost fortress just like you said and it was actually not that scary? Well, it was a LITTLE scary, there was one part where I thought I heard my mother calling me but my mother is alive and well in the Everwinter Peaks so I knew it was a trick, and I told the ghost, 'That's not my mother, my mother has a much nicer voice than that,' and then it went away! And then Leif—Lord Fenrir—he was VERY brave, he held everyone together, and only four people had bad reactions and I healed them right there on the spot, and—"

  "Sera."

  "—and then we came through the pool, which was VERY weird, it felt like being turned inside out and then right-side-in again but not quite in the same order, and we came out here and there were soldiers everywhere and everything was on fire in the distance and Lord Corvinus found us and he was in a chair which I thought was very brave of him because chairs are hard to move in snow and—"

  "Sister Seraphina."

  She stopped.

  Her eyes, still wet, focused on him with a sudden and total attentiveness that was startling in its contrast to the torrent that had preceded it.

  "Please," Eirik said.

  Sera looked at his arm.

  The brightness in her expression dimmed. She reached forward and placed her palms above the bandaged limb, close enough that Eirik could feel the warmth radiating from her skin but not touching the wrappings.

  She closed her eyes.

  The tingling began immediately.

  It was different from Mara's healing. Where Mara's power had been meltwater—constant, patient, wearing—Sera's was something else entirely. It came in pulses, warm and bright, each one pushing deeper into the damaged tissue than the last. The first pulse found the fracture above his elbow and Eirik felt the broken edges of bone respond. The second pulse moved lower, into the forearm where the second break waited, and the third pushed further still, down into the wrist and the hand and the fingers where sensation had gone to die.

  Eirik felt his index finger twitch.

  It was small. But the relief that flooded through him was so vast and so immediate that he had to close his eyes against it.

  Sera's face was tight with concentration. The brightness and chatter were gone. What remained was a woman doing work that demanded everything she had, the tendons in her forearms standing out as she held her hands steady above the ruin of his arm.

  The warmth deepened.

  Eirik lay still and let it come.

  From the doorway, Corvinus watched for a moment. Then, without a word, he took hold of his wheels and pushed himself out of the room.