Elsabet
Belmany, Princess of Malgasi, heir to the Phoenix Throne, sits and gazes into the dark corners of the temple cella. It is quiet, the only noise from the Maze outside, and the sound of Janos’s and Bagomer’s boots as they pace the floor upstairs.
If there is one thing she despises—and in truth, she despises more things than she can count—it is waiting. And the pain of the waiting only grows stronger as the goal approaches.
Soon they will lay hands on the Sword Catcher. Not even his Prince will be able to help him after tonight. The pleasure of that thought buoys her up, as does the blaze of the fire in the brazier. She shivers a little, looking at it from her seat across the room. How warm it would be in the heart of that fire. How glorious...
Then she sits up straight as an awful sense of wrongness washes over her. She presses her hands against her stomach, gripped by sudden nausea. What is wrong?
All her life she has been alone in her power, her Source-Stone a single burning star in the darkness. But the darkness is beginning to flood with a terrible light, and is—afraid. So this is what fear feels like. This gnawing, cold dread, like a dying snake thrashing in her belly.
She staggers to her feet, then nearly falls down the steps of the altar. As she weaves drunkenly through the cella, her shoulder hits the edge of the brazier, tumbling it to the ground. Hot coals roll across the floor, sparking with fire that spreads quickly to the wooden rows of seats facing the altar. Dimly, hears the crackle of flame, but it is lost against the pulse of her own blood in her ears.
It would never occur to to warn her guards, even if she were thinking clearly. She is thrashing toward the door to the temple as a diver might thrash upward toward air and light. As she explodes out into the night, the noise and smell of the Maze hit her like a blow. Yells and cries, the raucous shouts of whores and moneylenders, the stench of liquor and sweat. And above, the sky turned orange by flame.
spins around, trying to locate the source of the blaze. The temple of Anibal is burning, she knows, but no flames are yet visible from the outside. And this fire—this is no ordinary burning. This is magic. And it is coming from the other side of the great wall that rises behind the temple. From inside the Sault.
is no longer looking at the Maze. She is in a dark room, and opposite her is a young woman with bright-red hair and a determined expression. recognizes her immediately: the girl who had been with the Aurelian Prince in the Palace library. Around her neck glitters a pendant, the hollow circle of the magal. Of course, thinks, you would be a filthy Ashkar.
The young woman’s face changes, her eyes hardening. The Source-Stone she wears on a silver pin fastened to her dress seems to blaze up with light, wiping away ’s vision. She is back in the Maze now, and the wall of the Sault is dissolving, great stones crumbling away as an unearthly fire chars them to rocks and dust. And through the gap they make pours a raging fire that surrounds the temple of Anibal.
is sure she can hear Janos and Bagomer screaming, their cries dissolving into the sound of the fire, the avalanche of stones. She turns to run, but the fire is at her heels in seconds, like a hungry animal leaping for the kill.