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I WON THE battle to stay conscious, but just barely. Stars and dark splotches danced across my vision, and for several seconds I couldn’t muster the strength to fight whoever had grabbed me. He got both my arms behind my back and pinned them painfully high with one strong hand. His other arm snaked around my neck, and I felt the press of a knife edge under my left ear, the blade poised to slice across throat.

A male voice let out a dark, triumphant chuckle near my ear. “I knew it was you.”

I carefully twisted my head around and looked up, and my mouth dropped open at the sight of my blood father’s tall, bulky brother. “Darion?”

“That’s right, niece.” He punctuated the last word by kneeing me hard in the kidney.

I grunted and my knees weakened. My mind whirled as I focused on summoning enough strength to draw magic. After a second or two, my power flooded me in a warm wave and pushed to the surface of my skin, where it formed a thin layer of rock armor. A little flash of victory surged through me. With my neck protected, Darion couldn’t cut my throat. But my success was short-lived. With a growl, Darion let my arms go. I stumbled at the sudden release of pressure, and before I could recover, he boxed me violently in the ear with a roundhouse punch.

My legs went weak, and I pitched forward to my knees, my ear ringing and my head screaming. If I’d had my full reflexes, I might have spun quickly enough to dodge the punch, but Darion was a career military man of large stature. And he hated me with the passion of a thousand suns for nearly killing him in the Battle of Champions.

My lungs labored as I tried to breathe through the pain and keep from passing out. By the grace of the gods, he didn’t attack me again. I slowly tipped my head back to peer up at him. Everything swam as I fought to bring Darion’s face into focus. The eye on the side he’d hit seemed to be spasming. I blinked hard a couple of times.

“Periclase isn’t going to be happy to find out you’re abusing one of his blood daughters,” I said, my words a little slurred.

Darion sneered at me. “You’ll wish I’d taken you back to Daddy’s palace.”

I pulled my right hand back on the dirt, slowly, intending to go for the sword that hung from my belt. I wasn’t stealthy enough.

“Oh no you don’t,” Darion said.

I tried to scuttle out of the way, but I was too slow. His boot stomped down on my hand, which wasn’t protected because stone armor didn’t extend all the way down my hands. I screamed as bones crunched and white-hot pain took over.

He roughly pulled me up by the armpits, pulled my broadsword from its sheath and flung it away, and hauled me over his shoulder like a sack of flour. My breaths came out as wheezing moans. I wanted to struggle, but I had to give myself a moment to recover from the fog of having my head bashed and the excruciating pain radiating from my crushed hand. I looked down, trying to gauge whether I could reach any of Darion’s weapons. I was slung over his left shoulder, and he wore his short sword on his right hip. I stretched my fingers toward it, but it was out of reach. I couldn’t get to the karambit in my boot without his notice.

Then I realized he was taking me through the gate in the wall that protected the luxury suite, the one where carts were being stopped for searches. I squinted, trying to make sense of my surroundings from my upside-down viewpoint. Not far away, a hooded figure stood near one of the cart horses, petting the animal. When she turned my way, she tipped the hood of her cloak back a bit and met my eyes. I caught my breath. It was Bryna. She’d surely seen what’d happened.

She placed a finger against her lips, a signal for me to stay quiet. Then she looked beyond me to the gate, pointed to her chest and then to the gate, and nodded. I was pretty sure I understood what she meant—she was going to follow and, I hoped, help me escape Darion’s clutches.

I flipped my fingers at her in acknowledgment and sent up a prayer that I was interpreting her signals correctly.

“Eh, what’s this, Lord Darion?” a male voice called.

Darion’s boots scuffed to a halt. “Too much drink and she’s injured herself,” he said. “Horse crushed her hand. She needs a medic.”

I watched through slitted eyes as a guard came around to inspect my mangled hand. He sucked a breath in through his teeth. “Aye, she does need medical attention. Carry on, my lord.”

Darion was on the move again, taking me through the gate. Bryna wasn’t far behind as she pretended to be part of the cart caravan the guards were waving through.

“Don’t try anything, princess,” Darion hissed at me. “I won’t hesitate to stab you through the eye. Just try me.”

I grunted in response. My hand was already tingling intensely as my stone blood began to speed-heal my bones. It’d probably take half a day to heal completely, but I was banking on the fact that Darion didn’t know how fast I could get better. I stayed limp over his shoulder and moaned a couple of times for effect, wanting to seem worse off than I was. Not that it was a huge stretch. My head was pounding like a bass drum, and I was pretty sure the punch to my ear had somehow damaged my eardrum because my inner ear was tingling like crazy, too.

I focused on gathering my strength and trying to figure out where the hell we were in relation to where Jasper and Eunice had entered. Not far behind, I spotted Bryna peeling off from the carts to tail me.

I let out a low moan and then coughed for good measure. “Where’s my father?” I asked in a raspy, weak voice. “I demand to see Periclase.”

“Daddy had to go oversee things at the Summerlands.”

I let out a sad little noise for effect as my thoughts spun. Darion was walking with purpose. Where was he taking me?

We started up some stairs, and I lost sight of Bryna. I wasn’t sure whether she was trying to stay back so she wouldn’t be spotted or she’d gotten held up. Either way, I didn’t want to wait for her. I flexed my injured hand, and my knuckles cracked as bones realigned themselves. It was weak and tender, but I could use a two-handed grip if I had to. I just needed a damn weapon.

I thought about taking my chances and pitching myself over Darion’s back, but if I landed on my head, I wasn’t sure I could stay conscious through another blow.

I awkwardly peered around for anything that could assist me in my escape from my blood uncle’s huge hands. It was extremely inconvenient to be in a position where I could only see things after we’d already passed them. Not that there was much around that I might’ve used. We stopped climbing stairs, and Darion hauled me down a hallway with numbered doors, like a hotel. I guessed we were in the apartment section of the luxury accommodations, where the guest of honor’s entourage stayed.

Darion stopped at a door. I had to make a move. I couldn’t risk getting locked up somewhere. There was the sound of a latch releasing. As soon as Darion took a step, I swung to the side, curled my fingers around the doorjamb, and kicked for all I was worth, hoping my boot heels would find Darion’s face.

He cursed and clamped his hand around my ankle, but I managed to slide off his shoulder. With one foot on the ground, the other locked in his grip, and my hands desperately clinging to the molding around the door, my body became the prize in a tug-of-war.

“Let go of me, you asshole,” I ground out through clamped teeth. My injured hand was quickly losing strength and punishing me with white-hot pain as I tried to force it to grip the doorway.

Darion responded by yanking my leg hard enough to rip my fingers off the doorjamb. My upper body fell to the floor, and I flopped and kicked, trying to force him to let me go. But I was losing the battle as he began to drag me into the room.

“Help me!” I screeched, hoping nearby guests might be alarmed enough by my cries to investigate. “Help!”

“Hey, you stupid Duergar! Look over here, ass hat!” The female voice sounded familiar. I looked around but didn’t see the source of the voice.

Darion glanced up but then went back to trying to pull me around the half-open door.

“Darion! I’m talking to you!” came the voice again, this time sounding as if it were only a few feet away.

He paused at the sound of his name, straightening to look up and down the hall. Suddenly, he roared and dropped my leg. I pulled my feet under me and hopped to a crouch. A knife handle stuck out of his shoulder, blood already staining his shirt. I sprang at the short sword on his belt. He tried to bat me away, stiff-arming my attack. I turned my head, and his arm smacked into the stone armor protecting my shoulder. He caught a handful of my hood, and I twisted out of the cloak to the sound of ripping fabric. Strands of hair got yanked from my scalp as my wig was torn away.

Still crouching, I curled my left hand into a fist and rammed it up into his crotch. Cheap shot, yeah, but I was in a pickle and wasn’t above fighting dirty. Another knife appeared out of nowhere, whizzing past my face and burying itself in his thigh, and his roar of pain rose in pitch. He listed sideways, crashing into the doorjamb. I stole the second of distraction and ripped the short sword from the scabbard on his belt.

“Petra!”

I whirled. “Bryna?”

The hallway was empty. Then I saw a shimmer like a heat mirage half a dozen feet away, and my half-sister materialized. A ball of silver sparks balancing on her palm sputtered and winked out, leaving only a rising wisp of smoke and a small chunk of metal in her hand.

“I was saving that obfuscation magic for our escape,” she said irritably, tossing the metal away. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice. With the short sword clutched in my good hand, I raced after her. Bryna’s feet seemed to barely touch the floor as she flew down the stairs, her long pale hair swinging out behind her. We reached the ground floor, and she took a sharp left.

“Jasper and Eunice are somewhere this way, I think,” she said.

I wasn’t sure how she knew where to go, but I followed her with blind faith as she turned through the corridors. We got some strange looks, but most people we encountered were too inebriated to be very concerned about a couple of young women racing past. At some point I realized my disguise had been destroyed in my struggle with Darion. My cloak and wig were both on the floor where he’d tried to drag me into his room. I reached up and plucked the Sylph-long fake eyelashes from my upper lids. No point in subjecting myself to their discomfort at that point.

Bryna steered us into a corridor that was open to the sky overhead, and just as I was about to remark that I thought it was the area where Jasper and Eunice had come in, we rounded a corner and nearly crashed into them.

Eunice screeched and then slapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes bugging as she silenced herself. Jasper caught me by the shoulders before I could go sprawling. After the blows to my head, my balance was a little off.

“Darion tried to kidnap me,” I said breathlessly. “Bryna pin-cushioned him with a couple of daggers, but they’re not mortal wounds. He’s pissed.”

“Here,” he said, taking off his cloak and throwing it around me. “Put the hood up. It’s better than nothing.”

I gulped air, my heart racing. “We need to get deeper in before Darion alerts someone.”

Jasper nodded grimly and then tipped his head back, scanning the sky. A black bird swooped toward us and glided down the hallway, back the way we’d come.

“Drifte will lead us to where we can find Finvarra,” Jasper said. “Let’s go before anyone tries to detain us.”

With my heart in my throat, I nodded and we set off at a swift pace, following Drifte as he disappeared around a turn.