Ove ran through the hall, away from the tea room and the old paintings of long-dead rulers. It was an honour to be trusted with the life of the Prince, however much she wished she did not need to be. The Queen would have a man flayed alive for harming her son. Well, she might. No one had ever dared, but stories told that sort of temper was in their blood. She muttered a prayer for mercy to Maze, the Mother of Descendants.

She only travelled a short way to the outermost corridors to find a window. Ducking under the dark drapes she dragged herself up to the wide sill. Each massive window was made up of nine thick panes of glass, each larger than she was and reinforced with a thin wire mesh.

She imagined her soul, filled with mana like a cavern overflowing with darkness, softly vibrating with a low hum. She drew the mana out and poured it into the shadows around the window panes to make them tangible to her hands, and pulled them apart like a membrane. She took a deep breath and climbed into the void.

Endless darkness pressed against her. There was no air, and no sound. It was like swimming; she could move in any direction she wished and felt the pressure of the darkness around her. But using shadows to travel required a person to have a flawless sense of orientation, or they could end up somewhere unexpected, stuck, or lost in the void. Without her senses, Ove had to keep track of where she faced and how far she travelled as she wiggled through the heavy unseeable matter of the void. Her path around the window pane was further in here, about three times the distance, but with the whole world cloaked in the dark of night, precision was less necessary as a miscalculation would still let her out somewhere. It was during the day that she would worry; there was no exit if your position in the void had no correlating shadow on the outside. She reached out with her hands and mana to pull apart the dark, opening the shadows to the world outside precisely where she intended and pulled herself free.

She stood outside the window, overlooking the sprawling city of Manataklos. She released her breath and fresh, salty sea air washed over her and filled her lungs. Manataklos was a lake of blackness hundreds of feet below, punctuated by slivers of reflected starlight on the edges of high rectangular structures of black puresteel. Seven interior walls reached in massive arches from the corners of the Citadel through the Queen’s Wall like arms to grasp the King’s Wall on the horizon, dividing the City into seven districts and suspending the Citadel above the city basin. During the day, she would have seen the Night Quarter’s crooked structures like jagged black ice ahead. Chains wide as two men abreast came from the depths of the Citadel and bound each district at its center, rattling the air alongside the grinding internal gears and the slapping of ancient pistons.

She looked up at the Citadel. There was only one floor above, where she prayed she would find the Prince tucked snuggly in his sheets. She focused her mind outward to the mana in the air and pulled it, stirring the wind to catch her open wings and lift her up. She watched the Tower of Manataklos as she rose. Standing impossibly high, it seemed like a road to the heavens themselves.

She folded her wings just as she passed the sill of a window on the sixtieth floor and landed gently upon it. Wiggling through the shadows under the panes again, she dragged herself out into the hall. Her eye nearly poked out on the tip of a blade threatening her face as she emerged, dangling upside down from the wide sill with her taloned feet still stuck in the shadows. Her head pressed awkwardly against the rug as she twisted for a look at the men standing above her. Spellwards, one bearing crests of Dark and Sound, wiggling his sword at her, and another wearing the crests of Light and Air. Good, Athen should be safe.

“Can you move that?” Ove said, waving a wing at the blade. “This is quite uncom-fortable.” her beak snipped her words.

“Mistress Ove,” the Ward to her right said. She turned her head to him. He had his sword drawn as well, but he held it to the floor. He was a thin man, with long blonde hair and round grey eyes. “This is no way to approach His Highness’s chambers. What are you plotting? Cake again?” He turned to his partner, “Two gold says she brought cake.”

“No way,” the man with the sword on her chin said. “It was cake last time. I’m betting on cookies.”

She pushed the blade from her face with her arm, but the Ward swung it back into place before she could move. “I must collect the Prince,” she squawked with irritation, “for the High Queen.”

“The Queen is asleep at this hour.”

Irritation clacked her beak. How much should she tell them? Surely the Spellwards had not been bought by whomever had planned this assassination. They were paid too much for a common bribe to buy their loyalty, the Queen had seen to that. Both men looked experienced, and Spellwards with years behind them knew better than any what the Queen had done for them.

Ove pulled herself free, toppling like a doll to land uncomfortably on her knees. She hopped to her feet, ducking past the sword as she did. “There are stalkers in the halls,” she said.

The Ward swallowed his unspoken protest and they stepped back to flank the door to Athen’s bed chamber. “A stalker?” They exchanged a look. “Those little gangly things that mums tell of to scare their kids to bed on time? There’s been nothing of the sort up here, and if there was, they would not make it past us.”

“There were many of them,” she said pointedly. “There could be more.”

They nodded, and the man trained in Light waved his hand in the air. The lamps brightened to squash the shadows from the hall. He gestured to the next pair of Spellwards further down and they did the same, drawing their blades. They watched her approach the door, and take the lever with both hands. As hard as she pulled, she could not get it down. She felt as though her arms would pop off if she pulled any harder.

“You had better not be tricking us again,” the man said, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. He took the lever without turning and pushed it down with one arm. Sometimes, her weakness still annoyed her. But she made up for it in other ways.

She commanded the man attuned to Light and Air to follow her with a wave of her hand. “Obvi-ously, if any one asks, I was not here and the Prince is asleep in his chamber.” She turned to glare at them. “Not because of cakes this time. The enemy should not know our move-ments.” They conveyed their grasp of the threat in her eyes by nodding, and she stepped through the door before it was fully open.

He followed her through. “Name’s Dag,” he said.

“Shut up, Dag,” she answered. Her annoyance at the man would burn for a while. “Light the room.”

She stood at Athen’s beside and watched Dag do as he was told. He cast the same spell Queen Lyrua had in the tea room and the chamber filled with a gentle light. The Prince lay in his bed, buried beneath his goose-down comforter. Little ducklings sitting and rolling were embroidered all over it. His bed was so large she had to climb onto it to reach him, and she pulled back the blanket to see his face. His cheeks were plump with youth and begged her to pinch them. The sweetness of the boy melted the frustration that iced her heart from the guards.

Concentrating on the image of the Queen in her mind, she weaved Sound mana into her words to send them to her. “No danger. Boy safe. Spell-wards here.” She took a moment to catch her breath. A difficult spell to cast for such a simple effect; sound did not like to travel through steel. The Queen was not attuned to Sound, so Ove did not wait for a response.

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In her shadow pocket, she found something the Prince would like and set it on his bedside table. A moist bite of chocolate cake she had baked with her best flour and blueberry frosting. The Queen could not scold her if he was not supposed to be sleeping anyway. “My Lord,” she pushed him by his shoulder. “My Lord!”

He rolled onto his back, grinning in his sleep, blissful and ignorant, dreaming of whatever little lads dreamt of. “Mother will not know…” His bangs curled to one side, long enough they nearly covered his eye, like his mothers’.

“Yes she will, she found out already. Wake up my Lord!” She shook him harder.

Athen whined, rubbing his eyes. “Why is it so bright?” he squinted behind his hand.

“We must go. There will be time to explain along the way.” She hopped off the bed.

His room was enormous, decorated with tapestries of animals and pale red and purple rugs. A portrait of his mother hung where he could see it from his bed. It was painted when she took the throne, but she was a bit plumper now. Lyrua had not wanted to see it hung with the others, and Athen loved to see his mother even when she was not there with him.

“Why are we going?” He was sitting up in his bed, still trying to rub wakefulness into his eyes.

“We’re going on an adven-ture. I don’t know where or for how long, but you can ask your mother when you see her. You want to go on an adven-ture, don’t you?” She pulled a shoulder bag from her shadow pocket and began looking for things to take along. “You should begin with—My Lord!” The Prince lay folded face down in his blankets. She pushed him over, and he groaned in protest. “Caw!” she screamed. His eyes shot open. “Caw!” She knew that very little was as aggravating as the call of a corvid. She continued cawing until he rolled all the way out of bed and onto the floor, dragging half his comforter with him. “Dress your self!” she called down from the bed to him. He popped out of his bundle like a hatching duck, tiny and disoriented, he waddled towards his dressing chamber.

She looked at the high oak shelves lining two of his walls, packed end to end with books. He would need something to read, so she chose two of his favourites. The Candor of Caitilie Kirkegaard told the tale of the Goddess’ epic world-rocking battle of wits and strength against Beelzemark, the Dracolisk King, and his eventual imprisonment inside the Island in the Wind. As told by some author who completely fabricated all the details. Only the fact that the battle occurred was truly known. The other was Daetan’s Army, which told of Daetan’s fiery war against the Yawning Sun. Athen enjoyed history, fictional or otherwise.

She lay the books flat at the bottom of the bag and left it on the bed. Athen was in his dressing chamber pinching at fancy, princely tunics. She tried not to think about him pulling the lever on his own as she entered.

He hung his head back as if trying to sleep standing right there. “I cannot decide what to pick.” His arms swung loosely at his sides in annoyance. “Where are we going? How did mother find out about the cake?”

“I told you she always finds out. You should've eaten your dinner if you did not want to be caught.” She pointed with her wing to a chest squatting in the back of the chamber, covered with a lacy white cloth and crowded with stuffed toys.

He rolled his eyes. “I cannot wear those, you know. Commoners made them.”

“Exactly. You remember The Wilting of the Moonflower? Maybreth Freyrill could not just go about adventuring in her frilly pink dresses or everyone would know she was a Princess.”

“Yes, I remember the book,” he said, perking up. “She wore frilly pink blouses instead, and everyone recognized her anyway.” He trotted to the chest and pushed the animal toys to the floor in a heap. “Can I wear something pink?” The thick clamps clicked with a push of his thumbs, and he lifted the lid to lean against the wall.

“You don’t own anything pink,” she said. “Almost no one does. Why not take some thing red? I know you like those baby ducks.”

All his little teeth showed in his grin as he pulled a couple of red tunics out. One was embroidered with ducklings along the hem, and the other with badgers. “These were made by Candelaire from the Dust Quarter, you know. Mother taught me to always remember who gives you a gift.” He beamed with pride at remembering. The entire chest was stuffed with clothes given to him by common folk. All very well made, but not regal enough for a prince. “I bet this red cloth cost her three months’ pay, you know.” He handed her the duckling tunic and pulled his nightshirt off. “Mother says people with little are always more giving than people with everything.”

“Do you believe that?” She folded the tunic, two others, and a few pairs of trousers into a neat stack.

“I believe what mother says. Do not trust nobles or something. Or they give things because they want something too. Something like that. But I am seven, so I do not have to give them anything.” He finished pulling the tunic over his head and sat to tug on a pair of brown trousers.

“I’ll get a few toys,” she said, leaving him to finish dressing. She stuffed the stack of clothes into the bag on top of the books and scanned the room for his toys. She clacked her beak. He never left them out where they were easy to find. Digging through the chest at the end of his bed she pulled out some of his favourite dolls. She made him a new one every year, and used them to perform puppet shows for him. He never tired of those, and never would as long as she had new stories to tell. She already had some in her shadow pocket, so she only packed Tith the Decayed, who should not have been left with Athen to begin with, and his lover Osadelse.

Athen came out of the room dressed, the badgers dancing along his shirt just low enough for him to touch the embroidery. His hair was tidy and his grin was wide between yawns. “I finally get to wear these,” he said, rapping his chest with both palms. Then he noticed the cake and hurried over to it. “Why is this here?” He lifted the plate up to his face, but he was still looking at her from behind it.

“I don’t know.” She draped a simple hooded cloak over his shoulders. It was sized for her, so it fit him nicely. “And if you don’t say any thing, neither will your mother.”

As she turned to the door, something caught her eye. High on a shelf of trinkets, taller than he could reach, a simple dagger was on display. A silkite dagger. She flew up and snatched the dagger from the shelf. The sheath was grey-blue and soft like leather, but she knew better. A white pommel capped the end and she knew the blade was the same before she drew it. It was one single piece of silkite. The sheath and the wrap around the hilt were silkite as well, though they felt like leather and the blade like steel. If the sheath were not made of silkite, the blade could slice through it.

“That was a gift from Queen Aeotis,” he said proudly around a mouthful of cake. Fists on his hips, he was nearly the image of his mother. Of course the dagger came from her. The Island in the Wind was the only place where silkite was found. Even Aeolis the Everlasting brought gifts for the Prince of Manataklos. If Marden Teradon still stood, likely the docks would clog with their ships come the anniversary of his birth. His mother was right, every person in a position of power wished to garner favour with the impressionable young prince, heir or not.

She strapped the blade around his waist, fastening it to a belt she found in her shadow pocket, squeezing a squeak from him as she tightened it. “This is for pro-tection only,” she said, wiping blueberry from his mouth with a damp cloth. She puffed up her feathers to try and look taller than him. “It is sharp enough to cut steel. Never draw it unless you must.”

“I’ve had lessons,” he said shyly, his lack of confidence showed in his eyes avoiding hers and he began playing with his collar absentmindedly. “But only with short swords.” He rubbed the pommel with his thumb.

“No fidgeting with it!” He turned with embarrassment as she brushed his hand away. “A dagger is shorter and harder to knock out of your hand. Other-wise, almost the same. But do not play with it.”

She poured him a cup of water from a decanter on his table. “Rinse your mouth.” He swished the water around his teeth before swallowing it, and she took his hand to lead him towards the door, stopping to address Dag. “Seal the door behind us.”

“We need to alert the rest of the Spellwards,” Dag said as the door sealed. He held his hand out to the other Ward, and the man placed a couple of coins in his hand with a frown.

Ove ignored the exchange. “Torfinn is down there some where,” she said, “I’ll send him a message if we don’t see him.”

“Fine,” Dag shrugged.

Athen smiled brightly at her. There was only one place they could be certain not to find stalkers, so she would have to take Athen there until the Queen was ready. She would have to get over it.

She retrieved a harness from her shadow pocket. “Do you recall when I took you gliding?” The edge of her mouth turned up as much as it could in spite of her beak. It took great amounts of fun or excitement to wring a smile from any birdfolk, and she was excited to glide with him again, but for some reason his face drained of colour.