Excerpt:
It was dark down in the cellars.  Keela had never known such darkness.  The Palace of Cobwebs was always lit, by moonlight or filtered sun, or by thousands of candles.  But this was thick, choking darkness, hot and stinking of fear. 

Keela patted herself all over.  She was unhurt, but in the scramble to safety she had lost her shoes, and her beautiful gloves were in tatters.  The gods alone knew what she must have looked like!

Now that the roar of destruction had stopped, Keela could hear whimpers of panic, moans of pain, and weeping from the other trapped survivors.  She had lost Immel, lost her friends; they were separated from her by fallen walls.  Keela was not afraid.  It would be only a matter of time before her followers came to find her.  They couldn’t all have been killed!  She was alive; others were alive.  She had only to wait.  Though she had never been good at waiting…

Far above came a rumble of falling stone as part of the ruins settled.  Keela winced.  If only she had managed to hold on to that chanter child!  He would have been able to shift all these rocks and burrow their way out in an instant.

Something shifted in the blackness nearby.  “Who’s there?” called Keela sharply. 

“Lord Haigen, First General, Fourth Division of the Imperial Army, born into the Clan of the Darru!” a gruff voice barked out. 

“Who goes there, woman?”

“Mind your manners, sir!  You’re addressing the Third Princess of the Imperial House!”

“I beg you pardon, my lady.”  There was a pause.  “Never fear, my lady.  My soldiers will be here presently to dig us out.  Stay close to me, my lady.  I’ll see you’re looked after as you deserve.”

Keela almost laughed aloud.  She could hear it all in his voice, in his crafty, stupid, soldier’s voice.  He wanted to use her, this general; like all those ambitious men, he thought he could wear her like a jewel to enhance his own power.  It never occurred to these men that Keela might have ambitions and plans of her own, that she could use them.

“Oh, General!” she purred.  “I’m so glad you’re here, I’m so glad there’s a strong man her to take care of me!  Where are you, Haigen?  Let me hold your hand!”

“I’m afraid I’ve mislaid my gloves, my lady,” confessed the general. 

“Never mind about that.  We have survived a catastrophe.  We mustn’t let a little thing like gloves stand between us.”

For a time they sat in the dark, hand in hand, flesh against flesh.  Keela could hear the general’s breathing.  She moved a little closer, aware that Haigen could smell the perfume of her hair, her clothes, her skin.

“Do you know what caused this?” she murmured.  “An earthquake?”

“I won’t lie to you, my lady.  It was not earthquake.” The general’s voice swelled, became important; like all men, in Keela’s experience, he loved to explain things to a woman.  “The rebels from the sea-towns are behind this.  Nothing more certain.”

“They must be very strong to destroy the Palace!”

“Not sop strong that we can’t defeat them.”

“But you couldn’t have expected this!”

“Our intelligence did not rule out the possibility of an attack,” said the general, but there was a glimmer of uncertainty in his tone.  “Though an attack on this scale seemed – improbable.”

Keela fell silent.  She must be very careful now.  It was clear to her that the sharp-tooth little nadu, Calwyn, must have been working for the sorcerers and not the rebels.  Only the sorcerers knew about the children.  Had they plotted to assassinate the emperor and remove the children, to bring down the Palace?  They might have suspected that Amagis had betrayed their secrets, and ordered the little nadu to kill him too…In the darkness, she began to stroke the back of the soldier’s roughened hand.  At last she said, “Perhaps the rebels had help from elsewhere.  From the sorcerers?"

The soldier stiffened.  “And what does my lady know of sorcery?”

Keela squeezed his fingers.  “What will become of us?” With the emperor gone, and the Palace destroyed?  It grieves me to say it, but my brother, the First Prince, is not fit to take my father’s place.”

The general’s voice was very cautious.  “The Army will ensure that the stability of the Empire is maintained.”

“Of course…” They both jumped as a thunder of falling rubble sounded overhead.  There were muffled shout, and someone screamed.  Keela held the general’s hand firmly in hers.  She said, “Do you know the Hatharan ambassador?”

“I have met the man.”

“He an I were very good friends.”

“Indeed?”

“He told me certain things, secrets that only the emperor and the sorcerers know.  Would you like to hear them?”

“My lady,” breathed Lord Haigen.

“I can make you a powerful man, sir, once we get out of here.  First among generals.  Even able to choose the next emperor.  But – ” Her fingers tightened warningly around his.  “I have my price.”

“What price is that?”

“I will share you power.”  She did not say: Until another comes, a greater man than you, who will brush aside whichever puppet you have chosen, and make me his empress.

The soldier sucked in his breath as he considered.  “Very well,” he said abruptly.  “It shall be a you wish.”

“Do you swear it, by the blood of your fathers?”

“I swear.”

So she told him, there in the darkness, her mouth close to his ear, as they waited for the soldiers to come.  She told him everything that Amagis had told her: the ancient bargain between the emperors and the sorcerers, the chanter children who had held the Palace up with ironcraft.  She told him about the Black Palace, deep in the barren lands of Hathara, where the sorcerers nursed their strange powers and where, no doubt they had plotted to overthrow the Empire.  She promised him the support of three of the Seven Clans, all she could speak for.