Damien left the bound men under his bed and turned to Lane. “I’ll turn us invisible. Stay close and keep quiet.”

“What about the guards?”

“They won’t be a problem.”

Lane favored him with that horrified look again. You’d think he’d said he was going to drown kittens or something. Was she really so worried about a bunch of killers? How many people had these bandits murdered over the years? Yet she was looking at him like he was the bad guy.

Damien scanned the hall outside and found the way clear. He wrapped them in invisibility and they slipped out into the hall. The barons’ chambers were in another section of the keep. With each step the hard soles of Lane’s boots clicked on the stone floor. No way they’d be able to sneak up on the guards at this rate.

He stopped and Lane asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Your boots are making too much noise.” He held out his hand. “Hang on.”

She gripped his hand and Damien conjured a floating disk under them. Lane stumbled, but he caught her. When she’d settled in Damien willed the disk down the hall. They made no more noise than a whisper of wind.

This late at night even the servants slept, allowing Damien to zoom along the halls at a good clip. Several twists and turns later found them at the end of a long hall that branched left and right. Ten doors lined the far wall and a guard stood in front of each one. They reminded Damien more of jailers than protectors.

He turned left and drifted to the last door. None of the guards reacted when they ghosted past. Damien studied the men in passing and soon realized they weren’t the same group he’d seen guarding the barons during the day. Those men were probably sleeping. That worked out well for Damien as none of the night guards were warlords.

Damien wrapped the last guard in an invisible binding. The unfortunate young man couldn’t even twitch without Damien’s permission. He looked a little stiff, but unless one of the others came to talk to him he should pass inspection.

With the guard bound and helpless, Damien conjured a screen between them and the remaining guards so they could work without fear of being spotted. Lane gave the door a tug and shook her head. Locked.

That was no problem. A dark blob of energy the size of his finger appeared in the air and slid into the keyhole. Damien concentrated, shaping the key to the lock then twisting it. The tumblers snapped into place and they slipped through the open door.

Inside, the baron’s room was pitch dark. Damien wrapped the room in a sound barrier then conjured a small light. Despite being in another section of the keep, the bedroom looked almost the same as Damien’s, though the bed was a little bigger and had four posters. There was also a small fireplace for really cold nights.

A snoring heap of blubber lay sprawled on the bed, thankfully wearing a silk sleeping robe. Damien crossed his arms and stared at the man. “Which one is this?”

Lane grimaced. “Baron Marris. I thought you were going to kill the guard.”

“Why?”

“You said—”

“I said the guards wouldn’t be a problem, you assumed the rest.”

She managed a weak smile. “I suppose I did. What now?”

“Now we wake the disloyal turd and see what he has to say for himself.”

Damien conjured a needle and stuck the baron in his giant ass. The man yelped and sat up. He spotted Damien and Lane and glowered. “How dare you enter my—”

Damien silenced him with a soul force gag. “Baron, we know about your deal with the Bandit King. You’re going to provide me with details then I’ll decide if I should kill you or not. What did he offer you that made you betray your country?”

Damien removed the invisible gag so the now-trembling man could answer.

“Please. We didn’t have a choice. They took our families, my wife, my son, and two daughters. He said if I did what they wanted everyone would be returned. I ne—”

The baron choked on whatever lie he was about to tell. The bit about his family, at least, was true. If the bandits had taken the barons’ families it explained a lot.

“Trasker told me they left their wives and children at home because of the tension with the kingdom,” Lane said. “And I bought it.”

“No reason you shouldn’t have. Under the circumstances it made a reasonable enough explanation. The real question is how did they grab the families, and where are they now? How about it, Baron? And don’t try to lie to me again.”

Marris cleared his throat. “I don’t know where my family is and I don’t know who took them. I saw a man, at least I assume he was a man, with pale skin, and black lines running under his skin like overfull veins. His eyes were crimson pits. He came to my castle, landed right in the courtyard. My guards tried to stop him, but he swatted them away like insects. We tried everything—swords, axes, arrows—but nothing fazed him. He wrapped my family in a black bubble and said unless I did what he wanted I’d never see them in one piece again.”

“What, exactly, did he want?” Lane asked.

“He told me to leave the kingdom and swear allegiance to him. I said I needed to talk to the others and he gave us until our annual meeting to decide. My family has been gone for three months.”

“That’s too simple,” Lane said. “The kidnapper had to know the king wouldn’t just let you leave the kingdom.”

“Unless the king was dead.” The assassination attempt was starting to make more sense to Damien now. “If the assassin had succeeded it would have taken Karrie and her mother months to solidify their authority. By then who knows how many bandits might have crossed the border or how much damage they might have done.”

Lane stared at him, her eyes wide.

“Didn’t your mother tell you about the assassination attempt?”

Lane shook her head. “Apparently a couple of things slipped Mother’s mind when she briefed me about this mission. What now?”

“We need to talk to the rest of the barons and see if we can learn anything else. Where’s Trasker?”

Marris chewed his lip. “The opposite end of the hall. Please, don’t let the guards know I talked. If word gets to the Bandit King my family’s dead.”

“How are we going to sneak past the guards to see the other barons?” Lane asked.

“I thought we’d take the direct route.”

Damien pointed at the connecting wall and a golden beam lanced out from his finger. He sliced a disk out of the wall, pulled it out, and leaned it beside the hole. “See, no problem.”

Damien and Lane visited the next eight barons and received almost identical stories. Their families had been taken and unless they did what they were told they’d be killed.

Before he approached the last wall Damien turned to Lane. “What do you think Trasker will have to say? He’s the one that was supposed to have hired the assassin.”

“If he was willing to leave the kingdom to keep his family safe I see no reason he wouldn’t hire an assassin if so ordered.”

“I suppose. Well, he can tell us himself in a second.”

Damien sliced through the wall just as he had all the others. Trasker lay sleeping in his oversized bed. Lane was starting toward him when shouts sounded from out in the hall. Sounded like someone was raising the alarm. Damien poured power into the sound barrier changing it into a solid wall. That would keep the barons safe.

The door to Trasker’s room burst open and a pair of guards charged in, their swords drawn. Damien wrapped them in golden cocoons. The guards fell to the floor, completely immobilized.

The baron sat up, sputtering. “What’s going on here?”

Damien gagged him with a band of soul force. The baron mumbled unintelligibly and pawed at his mouth.

When no more enemies presented themselves Damien walked to the door and poked his head out. The hall was empty.

Where’d the other guards go? Even the one he bound had disappeared.