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holding no warmth, one which very seldom ever did, racked over her scathingly. High Priest Lord Calto Morlon, the queen’s personal advisor, a distant cousin on her father’s side, and worst of all, head of the extended family, stood like death himself in the doorway.
    Instinct kicking in, Simta lobbed a small statuette of Anothosia at the priest while diving for the window, but when she shoved on the panes, instead of swinging easily out, she found them locked— and shuttered . Panic flooded her mind like a great sea swell.
    Lurching away from the impossibly locked window, she grabbed at the only other things available to her and started chucking books from the case lining the west wall. Only one left her hand before a blast of light struck her full in the chest, sending her careening backward into the bookcase. Heavy tomes of leather bound misery rained down upon her head, knocking her nearly unconscious.
    The world became fuzzy. The room tilted from side to side. A gruff hand grabbed her mask and ripped it from her face, causing her to slide sideways to the hard, polished wood floor. To Simta’s fuddled brain, the cool surface almost felt good against her fevered skin, but not for long.
    “Simta, how very disappointing. It will grieve me to strike your name from our family tree.” Calto’s voice drifted to her from far away, sounding less than sincere in its regret.
    Putting her hand down, she tried to rise when she was jerked upright and dragged across the floor. Calto shoved her hard into the desk chair, nearly spilling her over backwards when he shoved it toward the middle of the room. Vertigo hit her in waves as she finally gave up trying to hold her dinner down. Doubling over, Simta hurled over a new rug she knew the Evertrue’s had recently purchased from Illian.
    Good, the smug bastards deserved it for inviting Calto into their home.
    It seemed like forever before she could sit upright and not have everything spin. The sight greeting her didn’t make it any better. Leaning on the edge of the desk, holding a gleaming white leather bound book big enough to club someone to death, Calto stood rigid with anger in his white, long priestly robes. In his right hand, he held a replica of Anothosia’s staff of truth complete with a moonstone set atop it. The stone glowed so brightly it made the brazier’s fire seem dull in comparison. Calto regarded her with cold, emotionless blue eyes, eyes so pale they appeared to be ice, but not ice made of water— more like ice on fire .
    Trembling, Simta sank deeper into her chair. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t real. Calto wasn’t even supposed to be in Yylse. She had recently heard he was in Grace, the king’s city, visiting Queen Elise. Did he know she was coming? Had he the sight , or did she just have a case of bad luck on this job?
    “How dare you.” Calto’s voice emerged as a bare whisper, but it held all the sting of a slap to her face.
    Simta flinched.
    “Do you have any idea what you were stealing? By all the laws of church and state, I could have you publicly hanged for this attempted theft?”
    Each word stabbed her with Calto’s righteous anger, scalding and tearing at Simta unmercifully, making her whimper and cringe. Gods, she hated him for making her feel this way, cheap and pathetic, like filth beneath his feet. Tears stung the back of her eyes, but she refused to cry in front of this bigoted bastard. She would at least die with some pride.
    “Answer me!” Like an erupting geyser, Calto leapt from the desk’s edge and stormed over to her, standing before her like a towering white flame. The aura previously possessed only by his staff’s moonstone now radiated from his body as well. Calto appeared to be a blazing white pillar of godly power, ready to smite her where she sat.
    Crying out, Simta protectively flung her hands over her face.
    “If you will not willingly tell me the truth, I will pull it from you painfully.” Extending his