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Karigan bristled "Your welfare depends onhim well and healthy"

Silk looked amused "If I were you, Miss G’ladheon, I would focus more on your performance than on absurd threats Look around you, and perhaps you will recall your situation"

The corridor was populated by a large nuuards ore no-nonsense expressions on their faces and were aruns They looked well-trained and disciplined

Silk grabbed her wrist with his unnatural hand, concealed in its black leather glove, and squeezed bones and tissue that had healed not so long ago in the refuge of the professor’s house The even, rip strained her wrist, threatening to re-break it Her knees buckled, and she sank to the floor, tears slipping down her cheeks She gasped in pain

"Re over her, "who isshe knew, he had released the pressure and was helping her rise He offered her a handkerchief, which she refused, holding her throbbing wrist to her body

"Noe do not wish to go before the ens of distress, do we?" Silk reached to dab her tears himself, but she jerked away

"Miss G’ladheon," he said sternly, "have you not yet learned your lesson?"

"You won’t ruin your gift for the emperor"

He raised his eyebrows "I won’t? I always do what is necessary It would be unfortunate to dae you, of course, but there is always the Eletian to please His Eain She used her sleeve to wipe the tears, and she glared at Silk

He leaned down and said in a low voice, "In the history we do not speak of, it is said the Green Riders were stubborn, very difficult to track down and kill Intractable under torture, causing therief There is no sense for you to h I see the Green Rider character runs true"

Karigan clenched her fists, forced herself to re Green Riders, her friends, no e at him and rip his throat out Patience, she told herself Silk would pay She was going to get Cade and herself, and Lhean, too, home, and she would make sure Lord Amberhill never came to power The future of her land and others would never have to know the iron-handed rule of the eold door opened Cold air pushed into the corridor, and a man in a fur coat and hat stepped out "Dr Silk, we are ready for you now" His face barely poked out from the fluffy fur, and it would have been funny except for the circuan, "no reason to ht, she decided After all, he was nothing coy on hih the doorway and into the throne roo

She was startled by how frigid the room was and looked around in amazement at the crystalline frost that coated the floor, the walls and colus They grew fro like stalactites The stream they had followed in the corridor continued into the throne room, but was sealed in black ice A fountain’s water had frozen inan otherworldly sculpture of ice Why was the room kept so cold?

They walked atop a runner that prevented the on the floor At the far end of the roo styles of fur and hats, soil in the rooarbed warmly The only two men ere not dressed for the cold were Lord A relaxed in a well-cut suit, and the Eternal Guardian in his light armor and leather

Silk paused, and she halted obediently behind hih the room and the floor vibrated as a section of it retracted, breaking away a layer of ice

"Right on ti on the size of a horse reared out of the opening on a platforears underneath The platform was encircled by numerals, just like the professor’s chronosphere but on a er scale, and the inlaid ivory all scored with scratches Was this a giant chronosphere?

"I do like to on lifted its head, the sound ofinside it Its eyes flashed red, and it unfurled its wings with an ingenious belt and pulley systeers fashioned of chain on’s tail lashed with articulated an juh its nostrils

"Don’t worry," Silk said "It won’t hurt you It’s just a time piece"

Just a time piece? Even if its ly crafted To pick out the tion scratched the numbers with a forefoot, roared and spouted flame once more, and withdrew into the floor It was certainly a dra track of time

They proceeded toward the throne till they were abreast of the seated men in their furs, about a dozen of them Amberhill’s inner circle, his Adherents

"Bow to the ean didn’t immediately obey, Mr Howser shoved her to the floor, so that she lay sprawled before the throne She rose on her elbows, but Howser’s foot to her back pushed her back down