I thought I knew what death was. I had seen it over and over in my father's memories after he killed the mercenaries who stole Asmine. A soldier and three bird-men died during the attack yesterday, one right before my eyes. But this is different.

In the mind-world the sky has cracked and the heavens rage. A storm of memories shake like thunder. Memories so vivid, so detailed, moving faster than an arrow in flight. As though in the last moments of death, every detail of the life lived is emptied out and left behind. I stumble after Tug, half-blind and overwhelmed by so much information.

The first level of the palace is an open network of halls, libraries, galleries and reception rooms. Spaces are separated by Corinthian columns, arcades, and windows. Mirrors on the walls reflect light into the deepest recesses.

Tug stops. The clashing swords and cries and shouts of the real world trickle through my awareness. I lean against a wall as he peers around it to check the arcade ahead.

It's then I notice a soldier slumped against the opposite wall. He has dragged himself from the fighting leaving a trail of red smears across the veined marble. His eyes are open, his breathing labored. His hand presses against his chest wound.

As I stare, his body shudders and his hand slips slowly to his side. A fork of lightning passes through me. It takes only a second, but his whole life flashes on my inner-eye. Everything he has ever experienced. Each act of selfishness, cruelty, consideration, kindness. And not only from his own perspective, but the same events from the perspectives of all the lives he has touched for better or for worse. It is over in an instant.

I come to myself, huddled on the floor. The soldier's empty eyes stare across the dim corridor. I gaze back in shock. Tug is speaking, but I cannot command my body to one place, one time, one viewpoint from which to understand the world. It is as though I have been spread across a thousand lives.

"Mirra, stay with me." I try to look at him but my eyes are locked on the soldier. "Mirra, can you hear me?"

"He was Uru Ana," I whisper. From the corner of my vision I see Tug's face shift to take in the dead soldier. "In death, he became Uru Ana."

Tug's large, strong hand wraps around mine, and he pulls me away from the carnage. Movement drives me back to my body, my heaving chest, the cumbersome dress, the weariness of my muscles, the ache in my ribs.

A smell of burning oils and flowers wafts through the hall we have entered, replacing the scent of death. I grow more aware of our surroundings. The ceiling is vaulted, the windows pastel colored.

"On guard!" I hiss, pulling Tug's wrist. He raises his sword. At the same moment two soldiers appear at the other end of the hall. Their uniforms are stained and tattered. Specks of blood color their pale cheeks. They jog towards us.

"Whom do you fight for?" One of them demands.

"The Baroness of Tersil," Tug answers. I step out from behind Tug's huge frame.

"Take her back to her chambers. The palace has been closed."

"Closed on whose command?" Tug asks.

"Prince Jakut, heir to the throne of Caruca."

It is a lie. When we left the Prince he was about to descend to the King's departing ceremony. He will be trying to stop the bloodshed, not trap everyone inside the palace.

Tug steps wide, pushing me back, arcing up his sword to fight.

"No," I say, reaching for him. "If it is the Prince's wish, we will return as we have been asked." Tug holds the soldiers in his fixed glare. He could take both men. But I do not want their deaths on my hands.

Finally, he lowers his sword and we step back slowly across the central ruby stairway. The men quickly lose interest, hurrying off in the direction of the throne room, and the fighting.

"Come," I say to Tug when they can no longer see us. We turn about, quickly exit the vaulted hall and continue, keeping to the darkest passages and galleries, moving more cautiously to avoid other encounters.

Minutes slip by as we search for an exit away from the throne room. I have the sense we are going in circles and getting nowhere, when we enter a corridor with peacocks painted on the walls. I recognize it from the Duke's memories. At a silver-leafed door halfway down, I stop to try the handle. After a beat, Tug realizes I have stopped and pulls up a few paces ahead.

The door is locked.

"In here," I say. He joins me, launching himself at the door with his shoulder. The wood around the lock splinters. The door swings open.

We tumble into a bright room with miniature chairs and tables, colorful wooden toys, and animal paintings on the walls. Six beds are lined up by the windows. Two cots sit in a curtained-off corner. Two young maids stand to face us, trembling but defiant. I sense seven other minds in the room but can see no one. I quickly shut the nursery door.

"We will not harm you," I whisper to the children hidden under beds and in cupboards. Then I hurry to the arched windows on the far side and climb up onto one of the waist-high ledges.

We are on the western side of the palace. Below, lay the palace gardens surrounding the barracks. I crane out to look at the entrance gates. Beyond the tall sunburnt walls, an army winds up the adobe city, carrying emerald flags. A green snake slithering though a red desert.

There is a four-metre drop to the gardens below. I am in no state to try jumping. Tug joins me on the ledge. Then he strides back inside and begins stripping sheets from the children's beds and knotting them together. The maids stare at us as I go to join him.

"I'll do this," he says. "You change." His eyes shift briefly to the thick drape cornering-off the baby cots. Two minds are crouched behind it.

"Would you help me with my dress?" I ask one of the maids.

Trembling, she ushers the children out from behind the curtains, pulls the drapes closed around us, and helps me unfasten my buttons. By the time I am wearing my trousers and tunic, Tug is tying a long strand of knotted bed linen to a window pillar.

He nods at me. I climb up on the ledge, catching the eye of a boy around Kel's age who has braved peeping from his hiding place to watch. I hesitate. What will happen if Lord Strik takes the palace? What will happen to the children?

"Mirra," Tug says. His deep voice sends a rumbling reminder through me. Save Kel. The rest comes after.

I sit down, grip the first sheet and lower myself over the edge. My arrow injury near the shoulder burns as I dangle, taking all my weight on my arms. I move slowly. My back faces the gardens and the palace wall, so I only have my awareness of movement in the mind-world to alert me of danger.

Tug holds the sheet wrapped around the pillar in case my weight loosens the knot. Once I am halfway down, I can no longer see him. He is obscured by the wall and window ledge.

A small trickle of something runs across my arm and along my back. I focus on the gardens, and potential threats. On whether my shaking muscles can take the strain.

The sheet runs out. I glance down. My feet are suspended above a grassy square of lawn, part of a patchwork of squares chopped up by stone paths. Ordinarily, I would jump without hesitation, but my bruised ribcage flares with pain at the smallest of jerky movements, and I'm worried about landing.

I hang for a moment. The muscles in my arms are turning to mush, and the moisture gathering at the waist of my tunic, making my back sticky, is growing denser. I have no choice but to let go.

My feet hit the ground. I bend my legs to buffer the impact. Pain shoots through my ribcage like a fist of knives. My legs buckle and I fall on my side. I shove my fist in my mouth to muffle the agony pouring from my throat. I want to twist and writhe but that only makes it worse.

Within seconds Tug has made a herculean descent and is crouched beside me.

"Don't hold your breath. Breathe, Mirra." My eyes prick with tears. Tug's hands gently check my ribs. I push them away, unable to take any more pressure.

"You have to get up."

"I can't." He wraps an arm beneath my shoulder on my injured side. I grunt, lean into him for support, but standing plunges me into a black pit of agony.

"Give me the Nocturne Melody."

"There is poison and the antidote coursing through your blood. The effect will be unpredictable."

"Give it to me!" I hiss.

He takes out the phial bottle, pops off the lid, and holds it to my lips, allowing a small sip.

I clench my jaw, tears falling freely, washing my lips in salt. He helps me to stand again. We stagger forward two steps before he stops, hands me the bottle of painkiller. I drink until it's empty. Until the agony softens to a misty haze of distant pain.

Down on the ground, the palace gates and the fighting seem a long way off. We are surrounded by ferns, lush green bushes, hundreds of brightly colored flowers, tall hedges, and little fountains. This corner of the vast mountain gardens is a haven for private walks away from the bustle of the Ruby Court. If it is possible to access the soldiers' barracks from down here, then the entrances are expertly hidden.

We head for the palace wall, stopping to let me catch my breath, or when I sense others encroaching on our whereabouts. Our search for an exit, a tunnel, a secret door, is accompanied by the rumbling drums of Strik's army growing closer.

My mind joins my body to drift in the Nocturne Melody fog. I think of the snowy mountains in the north. The sky full of scintillating stars. The black-market town of the Hybourg stretched out in the valley below.

"What were you thinking?" I ask Tug. His arm is wrapped around my waist. I feel his breath on my cheek but I cannot open my eyes wide enough to see if he has heard my question. I am not sure I have even spoken it out loud. But then he answers.

"When?"

"After I almost threw your wolf dog over the cliff. You stood looking out over the Hybourg, not even watching to see if Brin brought Kel back." He leans me up against a wall. Chalky, rough stone scratches my cheek. I sense him turning to face me, one arm still wrapped against my side.

"I was wondering if I'd already lost."

"Lost?"

"This strange game we are all playing. I was wondering if I'd already lost and was too blind to see it."

I fight the weight on my heavy eyelids. His face appears to me as a blur of beast tattoos over weathered skin, dark eyes, lean, well-cut features.

"You can win my game for me," I say, the tears in my throat choking my words. "Return to the barracks, steal a soldier's uniform. There is no other way out."

"And what about you?"

"Alone you have a chance of escaping the Red City, sending word to the Duchess and going back for Kel."

"While you stay here?"

My eyes are closing. I slump further into Tug's arms. He lowers me carefully to the ground. It is obvious to us both now. I'm not going to make it.

His rough hand sweeps back the hair from my cheek. "I'm not good at living with regret," he murmurs.

"Then don't regret anything. Keep Kel safe."

"Stay alive. I will come back for you."

I shake my head. "Just Kel."

"Stay alive, Mirra. You hear me?"

"Yes," I murmur.

But his voice is far away. I am floating, riding a boat down a river, and on the riverbank, Carucan priests in flowing white robes pray to the gods. Candles burn in a spiral of light. The King lies dead on his pyre and a strong wind blows a hundred flags, their white silk bleeding blood red.