Free Requiem for Anthi: Anthi - Book Two by Deborah Chester Page A

who have come in spaceships?”
    “What do you know of those?” demanded Aural sharply.
    Dame Agate smiled and turned over her hand. Her palm was crossed with thin scars. “My rings of sight are strong, noble leiis. I require no yde to help me see what is happening around me.”
    Aural drew in her breath with a hiss, unable in that moment of fury to speak.
    “The houses must unite around the infant. We must bargain a truce with the Bban tribes in order to face whatever has come to our world.” Dame Agate paused, a frown creasing her face. “The last time a ship came to Ruantl, Asan was the result. And thyself.”
    “And the destruction of Altian.”
    “Complex patterns,” said Dame Agate, turning her head as someone shouted within the reception hall. Then she stared right at Aural. “Our world is our own, noble leiis. Do not give it away.”
    To be read as easily as though she were a Henan slave…Furious and somewhat alarmed, Aural gathered her cloak around her and seizerted to the central chamber of the citadel. The safest, most defensible area, normally it held a generator to power the stronghold, but none of the equipment worked without Anthi. It had been converted into a nursery, with two attendants stationed there at all times to regulate the fires burning in the braziers and to care for Cirthe’s needs.
    The attendants were gone. She knew that even as she materialized in the oval room hung with tapestries and carpeted with white borlorl fur. Her feet sank into the thick fur, and she almost stumbled as she ran to the tiny bed carved from rose quartz. Lined with the softest, costliest fabrics in the Mura-an treasury, it too was empty.
    Cirthe was gone.
    “No!” shouted Aural.
    Panic snapped her rings apart. She stood there blind and shaking, unable to think. Unar could have sent a servant to fetch the child. Just because Aural planned to spirit Cirthe away did not mean that another had done so first.
    Drawing in a deep breath, she focused herself, forcing calm to her rings as she re-formed them one by one. She quested first through the reception hall, delicately, well aware of the agile minds gathered there who could sense her intrusion. No, Cirthe was not there.
    Again a sense of panic destroyed her concentration. She cursed and continued her search, level by level, desperation making her faster and less cautious.
    Cirthe!
    It was as though the infant had ceased to exist. There was not even a ghost ripple of Cirthe’s patterns fading among the overlapping structures of time and essence. Where could she be? More importantly, who had taken her? Who was strong enough to conceal Cirthe’s unique patterns?
    The answer whispered through her mind, a vision of the Soot’dla scar entwining with her thoughts. She clenched her fists inside her wide sleeves. While Dame Agate had delayed her with conversation and insolence, Cirthe had been abducted.
    Aural’s lip curled. She would teach the old woman to meddle.
    Gathering herself, she seizerted into the reception hall with a flash of blue fire. Startled, several warriors stumbled back from her, their hands reaching for weapons they had removed before entering the citadel’s inner walls.
    On the dais at one end of the hall, Unar shot to his feet in spite of the hand Dame Pasau clamped on his forearm.
    “ Lea’dl , noble leiis! What is this—”
    “Treachery!” said Aural, her voice ringing out. She swung, pointing at Dame Agate, who sat encircled by her warriors, hands folded, eyes glittering. “She has taken—”
    A tremendous clap of sound, like thunder only sharper, cut her off. The walls shook, and several people cried out in alarm. The noise grew louder, rumbling overhead as though the heavens themselves were falling upon the citadel. Torches snuffed out with loud pops.
    Suddenly Aural couldn’t breathe. She gasped, struggling with lungs that were paralyzed. Around her men began choking, their hands at their throats, shaking themselves from side to