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Wounded guards and refugees were climbing the huge spiral stair up into the King's Bastion and a thick white pall of smoke from pistols and muskets hung in the air. Out of the confusion, Thomas spotted the Cisternan Commander Vivan. He stepped forward and caught the other man's arm. "What did we lose?"
Vivan ran a hand through his dark hair and didn't seem to notice when it came away bloody. He said, "They're in the Gallery Wing, and probably all of the east side."
Thomas kept the shock off his face. "What about the King's Bastion?"
"Secure. Everything inside the inner wall is secure, They didn't come through there."
"The wards," said Galen Dubell, who was suddenly standing beside them. "They have drifted away from the newer structures of the palace, but the foundations in the older sections act as keystones themselves and are holding the wards in place there."
Thomas nodded. "Good, it'll give us breathing room." What he wanted to do most was slam Vivan up against a wall and demand to know where Ravenna and Falaise were, but there was no time, and no sense in it. He knew Lucas and Gideon were on duty and for now he would just have to trust that they had gotten both Queens to safety. He said to Vivan, "You're trying to push them back so you can close the siege doors at the top of the stairs?"
"Yes, If we fall back now, they'll push forward and we'll all go, but the sorceress said--"
Thomas stared. "Who?"
"The sorceress said if we gave her some time she could keep them back long enough to let us retreat."
"Where is she?"
"At the barricade." As Thomas started away, Vivan called after him, "Thomas! They're throwing elf-shot."
That explained the ominously still forms that bore no visible wounds.
Thomas spotted Kade's tattered form crouching near the center of the barricade between two Cisternan guards firing muskets. He began to make his way over to her.
She had drawn some kind of design on the floor and was dripping wax