The stone of the Sandhold surrounded her, limiting her percipience. The very walls seemed to glare back at her as if they strove to protect a secret cunning. And at the edges of her range moved the hustin like motes of ill. The miscreated Guards were everywhere, jailers for the Chatelaine as well as for the company. She had watched the courtiers at their banquet and had discerned that their gaiety was a performance upon which they believed their safety depended. But there could be no safety in the donjon which the Kemper had created for himself and his petulant gaddhi. Her troubled mind longed for the surcease of unconsciousness. But underneath the wariness and alarm which the Sandhold inspired lay a deeper and more acute distress. The memory of the Kemper’s geas squirmed in the pit of her heart. Kasreyn had simply looked at her through his ocular, and instantly she had become his tool, a mere adjunct of his intent. She had not struggled, had not even understood the need to struggle.
