Free The Heir of Night by Helen Lowe

she could to rally those behind the fighting lines, forming the stewards and any others who were willing into squads. Those with weapons and some ability to use them she sent forward to support the guards while she, together with the rest, organized medicine, bandages, and a place to tend the wounded. They had been more than busy as the long hours dragged by and the High Hall became a nightmare of blood and gaping wounds, voices that cried ceaselessly for aid, and the groans of the dying. And there had been too many for whom nothing could be done, except to send their cloak-covered bodies on to the Hall of Silence.
    It was dawn, a gray creeping dawn, before Nhairin had time to take stock of the battle’s bloody aftermath. Now she picked her careful way along a corridor strewn with splintered wood and broken doors that marked where Asantir and the Honor Guard had hacked and fought their way forward. Debris and bodies were piled on either side, and Nhairin’s heart sank as she realized that the wreckage was growing worse as she approached the Heir’s quarter. The floor was sticky with blood and there were far too many of their own amongst the black-clad bodies of the intruders. The faces of the guards standing watch over the Heir’s rooms were drawn in the pale light; they turned their faces away as she limped up, avoiding her gaze.
    It should have warned her. It did warn her. Even so, Nhairin staggered, her stomach heaving, when she saw the carnage in the Heir’s chambers: Doria and Nesta with their throats torn out, the dismembered bodies of the pages, the blood sprayed across every wall and soaked blackly intofurnishings. She could see how those of the household who had not died immediately must have stumbled and crawled to dodge blows, although it had not saved them. Nhairin rested one hand against the wall for support, closing her eyes against the horror. Blood roared in her ears like the ocean, but finally she found the strength to grate out the one, vital question: “Where is the Heir?”
    The guards exchanged a look, their expressions bleak. “Not here,” one told her, anger and the echo of her own horror in his voice. “Nine knows, we’ve searched, but there’s no body with the dead and no word of her amongst the living.”
    “But given the night’s events,” the other added, “we fear the worst.”
    Appalled, Nhairin sought out Asantir, finding her amidst the wreckage of the invaders’ last stand. The Honor Captain was surrounded by a tattered remnant of her guard and what seemed like a small army of the main keep garrison. One guard was binding up a bloody wound to the captain’s shoulder while a sergeant pored over plans spread out on the floor. Asantir leaned over his shoulder and nodded as his finger stabbed from one corridor to the next. The grim and weary troops surrounding them were either watching, too, or occupied with their own hurts and battered gear.
    Nhairin hesitated as Asantir turned away from the plans to deal with fresh dispatches coming in. Sarus had secured the Temple quarter, one runner reported, but it was very bad there, as badly hit as the Heir’s quarter, or worse. The attackers had been determined and merciless, despite nearly all those they killed having been unarmed. Worse, though—and here the whites of the runner’s eyes showed—there had been some kind of demon loose. Mind and soul, it had sucked its victims dry.
    A low, disturbed murmur ran through the surrounding guards, but Asantir held up her free hand, checking them. “The point,” she said calmly, “is that it has been driven off. Does Sarus need more troops?”
    The runner shook his head. “He said it was not essential,Captain, although more would be welcome if you could spare them.”
    Asantir nodded, turning to one of the guards beside her. “Kyr, take another twenty and reinforce Sarus. Tell him I’ll be along myself as soon as I’m done here.”
    She turned immediately to the next runner, who gasped