Chapter 16: Grey Wood

The first order Nimeriel sealed with the dark wooden disc was one line long.

"No cup, bowl or vial goes into the Emperor's rooms unless a white guard has tasted it first."

She pressed the seal into the wax, and the wax took a ring of leaves.

The captain of the Emperor's white guard read it on the tower stair, and went the color of his own tunic.

"Highness. I've been asking for that seal for a year."

"Then you have it now," said Nimeriel. "Send the Chancellor's physicians home."

He went down the stairs two at a time.

The yard at the foot of the tower was full of grey guards who did not dare cross the roots.

They moved aside when she walked through them with the seal in her fist and four men at her back.

Ru walked on his own two feet, with one hand on Ashgar's shoulder.

He had refused the litter.

He had refused the bed.

"You'll go back and lie down," she told him.

"Eventually," said Ru.

The forge was warm and smelled of coal.

On the workbench stood a plate of honey cakes, still steaming.

Ashgar took one without asking.

Brannoch watched him eat it, and something in his big face loosened.

Then he turned to the back wall, where the four hundred festival collars hung in their rows, and took one down.

"I have to show you something," he said. "And I have to say I'm sorry first."