“Shall I call your men?” Jordan asked.

“Not until I see what’s in the treasure room. You both shall accompany me.” Nebrov added to Jordan, “I wouldn’t think of denying you the pleasure of seeing what you’ve striven to find all these years, Draken.” He climbed back to the floor, pulled his pistol, and gestured toward the waiting darkness. “After you?”

Jordan started down the steps.

Nebrov turned to Marianna. “And now you.”

She tried to keep her expression impassive. “If we’re all to go, then we’ll need another lamp.”

When he nodded curtly, she lit the second lamp on the sacrament table, turned, and started down the steps.

Jordan was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs. “What a strange scent there is down here,” he murmured.

He knew!

Or perhaps not, for he took a step back, training his eyes on Nebrov.

Nebrov gestured with the pistol. “Go on. Straight down the main tunnel, no branching off.” His glance was eagerly flicking back and forth as he followed them down the dark corridor. “The treasure room was on the left,” he muttered. “Where the devil is it?”

“We haven’t gone very far,” Marianna said. Jordan was hesitating in front of her. No, he mustn’t stop now!

She deliberately stepped on the back of his boot to nudge him forward a few more steps. “Perhaps it doesn’t-”

“There it is!” Nebrov’s gaze was on a dark square opening now on his immediate left. “You fools, you would have gone right past it!”

“It’s too dark down here,” Marianna said plaintively. “I can’t see anything.”

Nebrov was already in the middle of the room, lifting his lamp high. “Chests,” he said excitedly, looking all over the large room. “Chests and… kegs! His eyes widened in fear as he realized where he was standing. He started to back from the room.

“Run!” Marianna shouted at Jordan as she hurled the oil lamp to the ground. “Back to the chapel!”

The gunpowder she had spread across the threshold exploded into a wall of flame imprisoning Nebrov within the room!

Jordan grabbed her elbow, and they tore down the corridor toward the steps leading to the chapel. “Christ, there was no treasure room, it was a powder magazine.”

“Hurry!” she gasped out. “Those kegs will explode soon. I spread gunpowder for a little distance down every branch of the tunnel. The timbers supporting the tunnel will catch fire…”

A shrill scream that chilled her blood caused her to glance over her shoulder.

Nebrov had plunged out of the room, but he was engulfed in flames as he tottered after them like a horrible creature from a nightmare.

“Don’t look at him!” Jordan pushed her toward the stairs now just ahead of them. “Get up those steps.”

A whoosh like a breath of wind went through the tunnel, and she knew the burning Nebrov had ignited the trail of gunpowder in the main tunnel. Another hideous scream and Nebrov was lost to view in a sea of flames.

“God!” Jordan was trying to beat out the flames that leaped from the tunnel floor and reached the skirt of her gown.

“Stop it! You’ll burn your hands.”

Jordan continued to beat at the flames with one hand while he pushed her the final few steps to the surface. “Did you have to seed the entire tunnel? Wasn’t the ammunition room enough?”

She pulled herself onto the floor of the chapel. “I had to be certain.”

Jordan slammed down the stone door. “And nearly got yourself burned to death.”

Her breath was coming in harsh gasps. “Had to be-”

“Certain,” Jordan finished. “How close is the powder room to this palace? Are we all going to be blown to bits?”

She shook her head. “It’s halfway down the hill. Your hands… let me see your hands.”

He ignored her. “It seemed closer.”

“I don’t think-”

An explosion rocked the palace!

Jordan grabbed her and rolled with her until they hit a wall. She lay there watching as a long, jagged crack snaked across the marble floor and explosion after explosion followed one another.

She heard crashes and screams of panic from the hall, but no one ventured into the chapel.

At last the explosions stopped, but the chapel was filling with thick black smoke, curling up from below through the cracks in the floor.

“We have to get out of here,” she whispered. “All the tunnels below the palace will be on fire by now.”

“Is there another way out of here?”

She shook her head. “We’ll have to go out through the palace.”

He stood up and pulled her to her feet. “I doubt if anyone will try to stop us. From those screams I’d say Nebrov’s men are concerned only with saving themselves.” He propelled her down the aisle toward the door. As she stepped over the gaping crack in the marble, she could see the glimmer of flames below like a glimpse into the bowels of hell. Nebrov was down in that inferno, and she had condemned him to a horrible death.

She was in a holy place and should not feel this deep sense of satisfaction.

“It’s done, Mama,” she whispered.

“Come on.” Jordan threw open the door. The corridor was empty as he had predicted and filled with clouds of black smoke. Her eyes were stinging by the time they reached the foyer, and she could barely discern the crystal chandelier that lay shattered on the floor.

Then they were outside, and clean, cold air was in her lungs. There was smoke here also, and half the hill seemed to be in flames. The courtyard was in chaos, with panicked horses and soldiers running about shouting shrilly.

“There you are,” Gregor said, relieved, as he appeared suddenly beside them. “I was about to dash in and rescue you. It is kind of you to save me the trouble. Nebrov?”

“Dead.” Jordan’s arm tightened around Marianna’s waist as they dashed across the courtyard. “Let’s get out of here. The fire is going to break through the floor of the palace any minute. Are all the men safe?”

Gregor nodded. “Why shouldn’t they be? There was no battle. The moment the explosions started, everyone was in a hurry to get out of the palace. They thought the end of the world had come. I sent our men down the hill with the horses away from the flames.” He grimaced in disgust as he nodded at the screaming men in the courtyard. “These are not soldiers.”

By the time they were halfway down the hill, the palace was engulfed in flames. Marianna looked back over her shoulder, and sadness overwhelmed her.

“He deserved to die,” Jordan said quietly. “If you hadn’t done it, I would have.”

She stared at him in surprise. “I wasn’t thinking of Nebrov.”

“No?”

“Grandmama’s work. All her beautiful windows…”

Gregor chuckled as he and Jordan exchanged glances. “Of course, you would think of the windows instead of that vermin. It is entirely natural, eh, Jordan?”

But Jordan was no longer looking back at the burning palace but down the hill at the gaping cavity caused by the explosion. He would not let her blame herself for Nebrov’s death, but she knew he would hold her at fault for the destruction of the tunnels he had wanted for Kazan. “I had to do it.”

“No, you chose to do it,” he said grimly. “There’s a difference. You must have spread the gunpowder in those other branches of the tunnel before Niko even caught sight of Nebrov and his men.”

“Don’t you see?” she asked, desperate to make him understand. “Grandmama created the Jedalar. She was part of that horror in the tunnel, and she had to make it right. She made Mama and me promise that the tunnel would never be used to kill anyone again. She even planned exactly how it could be done. She was the one who spread the rumor about the treasure room. She knew the czar planned to use that room for arms and gunpowder and-” She stopped as she saw Jordan’s face was completely expressionless. She had not thought he would forgive her. She said wearily, “Yes, I chose to do it. Even if I had made no vow, I would still have destroyed the tunnel.”

“Why?” Gregor asked.

“Because my grandmother was right. War is evil, and the tunnel was a weapon of war. Go fight your wars with the weapons you have.” She gazed steadily at Jordan. “I’m glad I did it.”

“Well, I’m not glad. I’m furious with you.” He took her elbow and pushed her down the hill toward the waiting troop. “But I can wait to express my displeasure until we get you to the inn and see if you have any burns.”

Great heavens, she had momentarily forgotten those flames that had nearly devoured them. “I’m not burned. It was you who-” Her glance had dropped to the hand holding her elbow, and she inhaled sharply. Angry red weals crisscrossed the back of his hand; his palms must be even worse. “You’re hurt!”

“Hurt is an accurate description.” His lips thinned. “And pain doesn’t tend to make my temper any better.”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I never meant for you to suffer.”

His expression did not soften. “Then you shouldn’t have blown up that tunnel. You may have hurt a great many people with one stroke.”

She shook her head. It was useless to argue with him on a subject on which there could be no agreement.

“I have a medicinal cream in my saddlebag that will help,” Gregor said.

She again glanced back over her shoulder at the burning palace. She wished there was a medicine that would ease the pain from the wedge she had just driven between them.

Why was she mewing like a mournful cat? she thought impatiently. She had known what she was doing and what the result would be. Now, she had to accept it.

Dear God, she wished the pain would go away.

When they arrived at the inn in the village, Gregor took charge. His booming voice sent the innkeeper and servants scurrying to arrange for rooms, baths, and food for all of them and clean bandages for Jordan’s burns.