Free The Lord-Protector's Daughter by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Page B

around her and eased the door open and then closed behind her. The guards didn’t even look as she slipped along the side of the corridor and down the main staircase, and along the west corridor toward the rear of the palace.
    The staircase guard at the rear of the main level posed another problem because he was stationed almost directly before the door she needed to unlock. That had to be her father’s doing, and that meant he’d questioned the guards closely. She shook her head. She’d been right about suspecting that he wouldn’t want her roaming the palace at night.
    She thought for a moment, then moved to one of the study doors along the inside wall of the corridor—a door directly in the guard’s line of sight. Using one of her master keys, she unlocked the door, then depressed the lever and gave it a gentle push, moving away and hugging the side of the wide hallway. She stopped a good two yards short of the guard and flattened herself against the wall, waiting.
    Several moments passed before the guard saw the open door.
    â€œWho goes there?” He took several steps forward, peering through the dimness only faintly illuminated by the light-torches in their bronze wall brackets, not that all of them worked.
    The corridor remained silent. Unseen behind her sight-shield, Mykella eased toward the stairwell door. Behind her, the guard advanced on the open door. Mykella slipped the key into the lock, then opened the staircase door, slipped through it and closed it, quietly locking it behind her.
    She took a long and slow breath before she started down the stone steps. At the bottom, she looked around, but the long corridor that led past the Table chamber was empty, as it should have been. She moved quietly forward.
    When she entered the Table chamber, she had the feeling that something had changed, although at first glance, everything seemed as it had. There was the faint purple glow of the Table, as well as the blackish green that lay beneath the stone floor.
    As she stepped toward the square stone that rose out of the stone floor, a purplish mist seemed to rise from the mirrored surface of the Table. Slowly, the air began to feel heavy and slimy. She wanted to turn and run. She didn’t, but instead kept moving toward the Table.
    Before she could even think about what she might wish to see, the swirling mists appeared, followed by the visage of the same Alector she had seen before.
    You have returned. Excellent. The violet eyes fixed on her.
    â€œWhere are you? In Alustre?” She avoided looking directly at the Alector, sensing that was what he wanted.
    Alustre? That would be most unlikely at present. But you are in Tempre, are you not?
    â€œWhere else would I be?” Mykella tried to feel what was happening with the Table.
    You could use the Table to see all of Corus, and with my help, you could rule it all.
    Mykella distrusted those words, even as the wonder of the possibility that mastery of the Table could create that kind of power washed over her.
    You could rule like no other.
    She glanced up, only to see a pair of misty arms rising from out of the Table itself, arms and hands that began to extend themselves toward her, arms that exuded a cold and purple chill. With absolute certainty, she understood that if those arms ever touched her, she would be dead. Her body might live, but what was Mykella would be dead.
    She stepped back, but the arms kept moving toward her. She created a sight-shield between her and the arms. The arms pressed against the shield, pushing it back and forcing Mykella to retreat from the Table as more purpleness flowed from it into those icy extensions that threatened her.
    What could she do? Frantically, she tried to add another layer of sight-shields, trying to make them stronger, welding them together.
    She could feel herself being squeezed, pressed against the stone wall, but she could not give in. She had to hold on. Abruptly, the flailing of the