06



“That’s the wrong way.”

Everyone turned to look back at Kastor, who was balking on the road. He crossed his arms, making it clear he wouldn’t follow. From where he stood, he could see the road threading into the distance, climbing again to a higher pass at the edge of vision, into the true mountains of which the peaks they’d passed were only outriders. But Mikah wasn’t on that road; he’d turned them northwest, onto a sloping plain that spread gradually to the rolling hills of the horizon. He wanted to parallel the mountains rather than crossing them.

“Move along, my desperation. You’ve come too far to stop now.”

Between Mikah and Kastor, the others looked bewildered. Tanner called out, “What’s the matter, mate? We heading somewhere we shouldn’t?”

“That’s right. You’re going to get us all killed, Mikah. You’ll survive, I’m sure, but without us -- well, at the least, you’ll have to collect another crew.”

“Nonsense. Why can no one ever trust me? I say you’ll come to no harm. I sense that you may even be helped by the experience. In any case, you must come. Our path lies northwest; there’s no other way through.”

“I’m telling you, I’m not coming.”

Mikah waved a hand in airy dismissal. “Farewell, then. It was good to see you again, for a little while, even if we did spend it all fighting.” He resumed walking. The others hovered, indecisive, until -- one by one, Magda first -- they turned and followed the Mara.

Kastor still stood in the road. Somehow his defiantly crossed arms had turned to hugging himself, though the cold was nothing. He watched Mikah walk away, leading the others to doom. Those last words clattered in his head like stones. He thought of the walk back to Corathy. Then finding work to take him back to Ytris. Then... suddenly he was very tired.

He strode down the hill after them.

The looks on the faces of the other three mortals surprised him: gladness and relief. They had hoped he wouldn’t stay behind. He scowled to hide how this moved him. Mikah, of course, looked pleased his strategem had succeeded.

Lucien said, “I don’t understand, Kastor. Where are we going, that’s such a danger?”

Kastor pointed to the place where hill became high prairie, perhaps a mile ahead, where the circling arms of stone ended and the winds played free. “A few more minutes, and we’ll be on the Kyrith Sei. The Kyri Plains. Home of my people.”

Lucien appeared to be struggling with understanding. “And you don’t want to go back because... because you’re an exile.”

“Exile: one who has been cast out. Once I set foot on the Sei, I’ll be a criminal.”

Magda said, “Is this really a good idea, Mikah? We’re putting Kastor in danger.”

“We’re all in danger,” Kastor corrected. “Me least of all, in fact. Me, they might just throw out again. Foreigners, though, they’ll kill on sight.”

“What did you do to piss them off, then?” said Tanner. “You’re a grumpy fellow, but you don’t strike me as a criminal. Or -- that berserker thing of yours. Did you go off on someone?”

“No. I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Yes, but...” Magda turned to give him a fretful look. “I think it would be better if we knew, so that perhaps we could help. Maybe there’s some way we can mitigate their anger.”

Kastor shook his head, smiling bitterly. “Her anger, you mean. The Gethanein; the High Cheiftainess, I suppose would be the Semnian construction, though you may as well say Queen. And it’s more what I am than what I’ve done. I’m bad luck.”

“That’s it?” said Tanner incredulously. “They threw you out for being unlucky?”

“No. For bringing ill luck on others. A kind of ill luck the Gethanein is not prepared to be reasonable about. And she was the kindest of them, in arguing for exile; if her father were still Gethane, he’d have me pulled apart by horses.”

“Oh.” The soldier rubbed her nose thoughtfully. “Then I guess we’d better not meet any Kyri, huh?”

“That would be ideal, yeah.” Then, with a sigh, he grudgingly admitted: “Our chances of avoiding them are pretty good, actually. This time of year, most folks will be in low pasturage. All that’s up here is winter camp.”

Magda squinted ahead as if she might see it. “That’s a permanent structure, yes? Why put it in the heights, where winter is more severe?”

“It’s dug into a cliff. Winter camp used to belong to one particular clan, the one that’s now the ruling clan, the Auberlanes. Other clans would try to take it away from them periodically. Their posession of it is the reason the Auberlanes get to spawn the High Cheiftains, I guess.”

“So it’s a seat of government?”

“Well, that’s where winter councils are held, but I don’t know that you can think of it the way you’d think of a capitol city. It’s not a city. It’s just a warren where people huddle out the snows. Not everyone goes there every year. Mostly the Auberlanes and their herds, and if there’s any room left it’s first come first served.” Remembering the place was making him feel a little sick; guilt he’d thought he’d set aside years ago curdled his stomach. “Anyway, we’re not going to see it. There’s too much of a chance that someone will be there. We have to steer well clear of it. Mikah, where are we going? There’s nothing in this direction that’s worth going to, not on this side of the pass. I hope you don’t think you’ve got business with dragons, or anything suicidal like that.”

Mikah chuckled. “Even I fear dragons, my ruination. No, we’re going to visit an old friend of mine. I expect his hospitality will be lavish. You’ll enjoy it. The difficulty is in getting there; the path is five days’ walk west of here.”

Kastor closed his eyes for a moment, summoning his mental map of the region. He’d roamed freely as a youth, making an outcast of himself long before he was an exile. He knew every strange corner and hidden valley of the steppes. “There’s nothing there. No people, I mean. Good hunting, though.”

“His home is hidden,” Mikah said slowly, as if explaining to a dull child. “You would never have found it in a thousand years. Lucien, on the other hand, would no doubt have blundered right into it and been incinerated.”

The red-haired wizard blushed with shame. Kastor didn’t think Mikah had meant it as an insult, but it still added to the side of his mental scales that inclined toward dislike. “I doubt I want to meet anyone who would call you friend, Mara.”

“Hunting, eh?” Tanner stepped in, trying to defuse their hostility. “What sort of game?”

Kastor was getting a little tired of her doing that, but he played along. “Bear, caribou, the occasional wyr if you’re inclined to taking trophies.”

“Or skin. I’ve heard wyr skin makes good leather.”

“Hard to tan. You can’t use the normal process, the skin will just rot.”

“What do you use?”

“Ashes. You bury it in ashes, that keeps it from eating holes in itself. Once the ashes stop foaming on it, then you can tan it normally. It’s hardly worth the trouble, really; waxed horsehide is almost as tough.” He knocked on his breastplate by way of illustration.

“Oh. Bear, you said -- how do the Kyri hunt bear?”

“How do the Semnians?”

“Traps and boar spears. Mostly we don’t.”

“So you have to get pretty close, huh?”

“Well, an arrow’s not going to bother it much.”

“You need ruacharin -- bleeder arrows. And patience. You know what bleeder arrows look like?”

“Are they those four-bladed arrows, like you use against cavalry?”

“No, they’re long, triangular, like a stiletto blade. They make a hole that doesn’t heal. Sacred law forbids using them on humans, even in war. But it’s what you need for bear. Stick a half-dozen of those in it and run like hell. It’ll pull them out, but then over the next few days it weakens, and you can finish it off. One man can take a bear all by himself, if he can stay out of reach long enough.”

“Did you ever?”

“Sure. It’s how I bought my horse. Traded a bear for him.”

“You bought a horse? I thought --” She laughed. “I guess I thought you guys were born on horseback.”

Kastor shrugged. “Pretty much. But I was kind of cut out of inheriting, so to speak. Being a bastard and all. If my mother wanted to press her luck, she could’ve got me a pick from the third-string herd -- culls, and mares past bearing, and like that -- but I figured I could earn something better. Found out the Tamerun clan had put out a call for bearskin, so I made a trade.”

“What did you get?”

“Dapple stallion. He had a temper on him, and I never quite got him tamed, but he never actually hurt anyone. Just liked to threaten everyone.” Kastor snapped his teeth. “Like that. I named him Lightning. Bad pun. I was a kid.”

“Why’s that a pun?”

“My name means thunderstorm.”

“Oh.” She chuckled. “What happened to him?”

“Sold him in Charentis, first year I was exiled. Couldn’t afford to keep him.”

“That’s sad.”

“Yeah.”

“You miss him?”

“I miss riding. Walking’s for losers.” He laughed, and she joined in.

They passed a standing stone, brown with last year’s moss, just greening. A marker placed when the Council of Thanes agreed to accept borders. Kastor took a deep breath of the air of home: he was now breaking the law.

After a time, Magda spoke into the silence, immediately treading on sensitive ground: “Tell me about your family, Kastor. You mentioned your mother -- is she still alive?”

“As far as I know,” he answered, in a tone that he hoped would discourage further questions. It didn’t work.

“Do you miss her?”

“Yes. What about your family? Do you ever see them, or do your vows forbid it?”

Her small smile implied that she saw what he was trying to do, and was humoring his reticence. “I see them several times a year. They live in Ytris. I visit sometimes. Both my parents were healthy and well last time I saw them. My older sister is a widow, but she’s thinking of remarrying. My younger brother has a second child on the way. I have a nephew by him, and a nephew and four nieces by my sister. I have two aunts and an uncle on my father’s side. It’s a big family. There’s nothing special about any of them. The whole family is in the wool trade, weavers and dyers for the most part, though my brother’s begun to trade in foreign wools, and seems to be making a profit on goat hair from Nestria.”

Tanner asked the obvious question: “Why did you become a nun?”

“Because I’m religious,” Magda said lightly. Then she turned a shade more serious. “I have never been drawn to marriage. When I reached the age of twenty and still felt no inclination to marry or have children, I began to consider which of my other interests was driving me. I had occupied myself in watching and teaching my sister’s children, and in educating myself. I was devout, attending every service at Kaleya’s shrine and the more important ones at the Pantheonist temple. I discussed my future with my family, and decided that a life in religious service would offer me the best chance to be of use to others.” She gave an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry if you were hoping for something dramatic -- a tragic love affair or something of that kind.”

“No, no.” Tanner patted Magda’s back. “It’s good to know not everyone’s made a hash of their lives.”

“Is that directed at me?” said Kastor with mock-indignance.

“Nope. I mean Mikah. Look at him, no wife, no children, no trade, a complete dilettante. Nothing to console him but his apparently endless supply of gold.” She made a face at Mikah, who struck an indignant pose.

“Ah,” he said, “but I am a master dilettante. I waste my time in the most skilled manner. I hope we’re not all expected to trade our life stories now.”

“That’s exactly what we’re doing,” Tanner said. “Come on, Mikah. We even got Kastor to admit he has a mother. It’s your turn.”

“But I don’t have a mother.”

That caused the laughter to die away. Tanner sounded a little less hearty when she said, “Do you mean she’s dead?”

“No, I mean I never had one. We spring into being full-grown, born of air and sunshine -- didn’t you know that?”

“Then how can you have a brother?”

“He was made when I was made. The same day, the very same hour -- which is near enough to being the same person, when you consider the length of our lives. We learned life together. That is a brother, to a Mara. That’s why it concerns me so deeply to hear that he’s behaving recklessly. I would not like to have to harm him. He’s acting out of character; Stiaan was always the serious one, the responsible one. A creature of habit, too. Well, so are we all. Enough of me -- I tread on the edge of giving away secrets. Tell us about yourself, my soldier. You must have an exciting past.”

Tanner snorted. “You haven’t known a lot of army lifers, have you? My life’s been damn boring, most of the time. But the pay’s good.”

“Is that why you joined?” said Magda.

“Pretty much. See, I’m an orphan. Grew up in the temple orphanage in Verdichane. Got my last name out of a hat, if you can believe that, they just pick them at random. ‘Good morning, your name is Tanner.’ When you get to be apprentice-age, they start sending you to the hiring fair twice a year in the hope of getting you a trade. I never got one. Just bad luck, really. Too clumsy for the trades that want women, and not big enough for the others. I got some seasonal work, harvesting and like that, but it was always back to the orphanage for the winter. I was still growing, though. So when I was eighteen, I was about this tall already, and starting to put on some muscle, and I talked to an army recruiter who said he could get me into the engineers. On account of my schoolwork. He said enlisted men who can read and figure are pretty rare. So I joined up. Did all right. Got promoted up to sergeant in the first five years, and stayed there. You can’t go higher without a commission, and they don’t give those to commoners except in war. It’s not a bad life.”

Kastor said, “You’re a fine fighter, for someone who’s been a digger of ditches her whole career.”

“Practice.” She shrugged. “Not much else to do, when you’re on garrison maintenance.”

“So...” Magda had that look again, that said she was going to ask a personal question. “Did you ever marry?”

Tanner grimaced. She seemed to be thinking hard. At last she glanced at Kastor. “I’ll tell that story if our exile friend will fill out his tale.”

“Not fair,” said Kastor.

“That’s my condition.”

Mikah laughed. “Everyone is so reticent. It’s amazing. What do you fear, my fireflies? You seem to believe I’m leading you to your doom, yet you worry more about spilling the tales of your embarrassments. I learn something every day.”

“I don’t hear you reminiscing,” Kastor accused.

“My reminiscences are beyond mortal knowlege, and ought to stay there. For all I know the gods would be vexed with me if I told you.”

Lucien, who had been absorbing all of this in silence, cleared his throat. “If... if it helps, Jennet, I’ll tell my story. If anyone wants to hear it.”

“Of course I want to hear it,” she said. “But you’re not helping me pry Kastor’s past out of him.”

Kastor groaned. “Fine. Here it is in a nutshell: my mother screwed around, her husband found out and divorced her, and I’ve no idea who my father is. Not Kyri, not when he gave me this pale skin that doesn’t burn or tan. Mother refuses to tell. Can’t tell -- says she’s under an oath. So I was already sort of unwelcome because of my birth, and a bit of a wild dog, and a compulsive thief and liar, and inverted besides, and then I turned out to be ruagh feahar, so I was unwelcome and scary. I wasn’t real popular. Then I had a chance at acceptance and I blew it, by bringing down bad luck on people and being politically inconvenient, and they threw me out. Told me to never come back, if I want to live to get old. And I really don’t want to be walking through the Sei right now with you people, as if we’re on holiday. It just strikes me as a bad idea.”

Tanner sighed. “You take the fun out of everything.”

“He told,” Magda said.

“All right, fine. Yes, I married. It was a marriage of friendship, really. Not True Love or anything. Fellow named Will Brender. Special Division -- he’s a mage. Very smart, very funny. We got along well, and he didn’t expect me to give up my military career to be his wife, so we married. I got permission from my commander to take a year’s leave to have a child. We were planning to hire a nurse for the times we were on duty. Will could afford that. The pregnancy didn’t go well, though. Midwife couldn’t handle it, called in a temple healer, who called in a surgeon -- I have a great big scar from the attempt to save the baby, but it was no use. I just barely survived. The baby didn’t make it.” She told this ruefully, but without any tone of tragedy. She had already done her grieving. “It made me barren. Will really wanted children, so I released him from the marriage. He offered a legal divorce, so I could have gotten a third of his money, but I didn’t want it. I earn enough for my purposes. We’re still friends, when we see each other. He married a chandler, she’s a sweet little thing, I like her. Their kids call me Auntie Jen.”

“You talk as if it was a long time ago,” said Lucien.

“It was. I was twenty-one. I’m thirty-six. Fifteen years fades a scar pretty well.”

“You’re thirty-six?” Lucien said incredulously.

“It’s not that old!”

“No, no, I didn’t mean any insult. You just look younger than that. A lot younger.”

“Fresh air and hard work,” she grinned, but under her tan there was the hint of a pleased flush. “Flatterer. So how old are you?”

“Look out,” Kastor warned. “That’s her pickup line.”

“Shut up, Kyri, I’m talking to Luce.”

Lucien bit his lip on a smile, as if he wasn’t sure he was allowed to find this funny. “Either twenty-six or twenty-seven. What’s the date?”

“The third of Eras,” Magda replied promptly.

“Then I’ll be twenty-seven in nine days.”

“We’ll have to remember to celebrate it for you,” said Tanner. “Mikah can magic up some wine for us.”

“Can I, now? That’s a skill I didn’t suspect myself of posessing.”

“Sure, you can do anything.”

“I wish you were right, my soldier, I truly do. Then I could flit us past the high plains in an instant, and my fretful Kastor would stop worrying.”

Kastor raised an eyebrow. “I thought you enjoyed making me nervous.”

“Not at all. It’s too easy.”

“Hmf.”

Tanner laughed at Kastor’s sour look, so he couldn’t keep it up.

“What about you, Luce? You haven’t spilled your story yet. I want to hear it.”

“Oh, but... well, I’m afraid it will be a terse one, like Kastor’s. Not because I don’t wish to tell it, but there’s not much to tell. I’m the fourteenth child of Uther Farach, Count Jeremaine. I --”

“A Count!” Magda exclaimed.

“Fourteenth!” said Tanner. “How on earth --?”

“Third wife. My father was seventy years old when I was born.”

“Busy man,” Kastor said.

“Yes. I didn’t see him much. I was apprenticed to my second-eldest brother, who was in his forties at the time, and behaved, I suppose, more like a father than a brother. I had no difficulty with the academic aspects of wizardry; I am, I gather, an excellent astrologer, and I quite enjoy alchemy. But sorcery proper became more difficult as I grew older. When my curse began to manifest itself violently, I was... released from my apprenticeship. It was suggested that I try a naval career. Eighteen is too old for a midshipman. I declined. I determined to make my way on my own. It was a poor decision. I am unfortunately badly suited to menial work, and everything else requires either an apprenticeship -- for which I am far too old -- or contact with magic, or both. Thus I ended up as you found me, begging from the pilgrims in Corathy. I can’t say I enjoyed living on charity. I’m grateful for this chance to be of use, though I still can’t see what use exactly I can be.”

Mikah gave a wicked smile. “This morning didn’t make you feel useful?”

“No. Only frightened.”

“What’s that about this morning?” Kastor demanded. “You said -- what did you do to him? Lucien, what were you two up to?”

“It’s all right, Kastor,” Lucien soothed. “It’s difficult to explain, but I assure you it’s nothing... dodgy. I’ve no interest in men, and even if I did I wouldn’t try to steal Mikah from you.”

“That’s not --! Damn it, Mikah, you and your little jealous fit, you’ve got everyone thinking the wrong thing!”

Lucien looked embarrassed, Mikah amused, and Magda sympathetic. Tanner was the only one who laughed. “I don’t know, Kas, it sounds to me like he hit a nerve.”

“Like hell,” Kastor grumbled. He suspected his denial was a lie, but he didn’t appreciate it being everyone’s business like this.



He insisted on cold camps and constant watches when they stopped for the night. They were, he reminded them, in enemy territory. He renewed his sleep charm and took half the watches, leaving the rest to Mikah. He didn’t really trust the Mara to be alert, but neither did he have much choice. He had to be fresh if it came to a fight.

That thought ate at him as they travelled. He wasn’t at all certain he could bring himself to fight his countrymen, not even to save himself. In fact, if it was only himself at risk, he was sure he’d throw his weapons far away from himself so he wouldn’t be tempted to resist as he was cut down. He was breaking the law; whoever attacked him would only be enforcing the Gethanein’s edict. But the others -- his friends, or as close as he’d had to friends in quite a while -- he didn’t think he could stand to watch them slaughtered for the crime of being foreigners in the Sei.

He pondered it until even Lucien teased him about the lines setting into his brow, but he couldn’t decide. He prayed with all his heart that he wouldn’t have to.

His exile, however, meant that he no longer had the right to swear by hand and hoof; he was sure neither the Hunter nor the Herder listened to his prayers anymore. Perhaps they were even offended by the quiet sacrifice he made one night on his watch, the drop of blood and lock of hair thrown to the wind, as if anything of him might be pleasing to them -- in any case, the gods didn’t save him.

The party were spotted. He realized, in retrospect, that he’d known all along they would be.

It was their fourth day on the steppes. A cold drizzle had been falling all day, and all the night before. Everyone was tired and aching, having slept badly. They were walking through a region of steep, linear hills. At the bottom of each wave, they slogged through mud; at the top, the wind drove spatters of chill water down their collars. Both animals were being difficult, distracted by new shoots among the winter-killed grass, tired of climbing hill after hill. Magda was trying to lighten the mood by telling stories, but all her stories had morals, and only Mikah seemed to be enjoying them.

They came to the top of a ridge, one of an uncounted number of identical ridges, half asleep as they walked, and a muffled shout sounded from somewhere to their left.

They faltered, unsure. Kastor stopped altogether, stomach going tight, hands tingling with the rush of fear. Another shout came, ahead, and a rapid-fire series of orders. Only Kastor understood the words:

Who’s that?

Let’s have a look.

You go round the other side. They’re on foot. Surround them.

In the gray distance, he made out three dark shapes -- mounted men. He knew there would be five others. Not even a rabbit could get past them. Four humans on foot had no chance. One Mara might.

“Mikah,” he said softly, “if you’ve got any tricks up your sleeve...”

“I could kill them easily enough. Is that what you want, my devastation?”

He swallowed, trying to ease the dryness in his mouth. “No.”

“Then I have nothing to help you but my assurance that I see us surviving this.”

Tanner said, “Do we run, or fight?”

“Um...” Lucien patted himself down, and produced his table knife. “This isn’t going to be much good.”

Kastor shook his head, decision made in a rush of sick relief. “If you want to fight, you can. I can’t. They’re my kin.” He drew his swords, set them on the ground, stepped back from them. “I can’t kill them. And I can’t fight without killing.”

“Then what do we do?” Magda moved closer to Lucien, as if she could protect him, or him her. “Kastor, can you plead for us? Tell them we mean no harm, we’re only passing through.”

“I can try,” he said dubiously.

Tanner drew, considered her sword for a moment, and threw it down. “We’ll muddle through somehow. Mikah can see the future -- can’t you, Mikah? And he says we’ll be all right.” She waved broadly to the nearest of the mist-hidden riders. “Hallo! Nice day for it!”

The rider paused, as if taken aback by the sudden cheery shout. Then he beckoned to someone out of sight. The patrol began to close in.

Kastor’s throat was closed so that he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t remember his native language, couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Tanner elbowed him sharply in the side. He blurted out the first words of Kyri that came to mind.

“Have you fellows got any water? We’re running a bit low!”

Tanner hissed, “What did you tell them?”

“I babbled. We’re doomed.”

“Tell them we’re just passing through!”

“It won’t help.” But he dutifully repeated it in Kyri: “We’re only passing through. A few days’ walk to the west, and we’ll be out of your hair. I don’t suppose you can just let us pass?”

The leader of the patrol had gained the top of their ridge, and was riding along it toward them. He was wearing a rain hood that shaded his face, but Kastor thought his horse looked a little familiar. Not that there couldn’t be two black stallions with the same white double-blotch on their faces, but...

The leader laughed, low and gloating. “This is rich. Kastor Hellspawn, playing native guide for lowlanders. It’s perfect for you.”

Kastor groaned. “Tamiris.”

“Why have you surrendered, abberant? Aren’t you even going to fight for your unnatural life?”

“I won’t kill you, Tamiris. I’ve caused your family enough trouble without that. Look, how about you take me to the Gethanein, and let these other poor sods get on their way? They really have nothing to do with this.”

Tamiris, the Gethanein’s brother, tossed back his hood. He had been a child when Kastor had last seen him. He seemed to think he was a man now, but his dark skin still had the softness of youth, and his blue eyes were bright with suppressed excitement. He was busy thinking about the honor he’d gain by bringing the trespassers to justice; he wasn’t hearing a word Kastor was saying. By the gold chain looped across his brow, he was acting as his sister’s consort; according to sacred law, both thrones had to be occupied, or the gods would not listen to their people.

Because the highest among equals was a woman in this cycle, the Herder was ascendant, and Her more practical law would rule; there would be no sudden wars, the winter raid-revels would not kill the farmers they stole from. But Tamiris, as the Hunter’s representative, would be champing at the bit, yearning for blood.

Kastor understood this all in the moment that he saw the young prince’s eyes, and a cool peace settled over him.

“Gather them,” Tamiris said to his men, without looking away from Kastor. “My revered sister will decide their fates.”

As the riders closed in, Magda blundered back against Kastor’s side. “What’s he saying?” she whispered.

“He’s going to take us to the Gethanein. The queen.”

“Oh -- that’s good, right?”

“It’s better than being slaughtered on the spot.” That was the best reassurance he could come up with, and he was pretty sure it was a lie. His countrymen were creative about executions.



The journey to winter camp was humiliating and painful. The prisoners were shoved and jostled, tipped off-balance by spear-butts and laughed at for falling. Magda’s veil was snatched off, Lucien’s and Mikah’s bright hair pulled and picked at. The Mara came in for more than his fair share of battering; the more the young toughs of the patrol harrassed him, the more amused he looked, and this infuriated them.

One man, older and more scarred than the others, had a try at raping Tanner when they stopped for the night. He grabbed her, leering, one hand on her breast and one groping at her crotch under her tunic, scrabbling at the laces of her leather trousers. She cracked his jaw with her elbow, and when he got up howling, swinging wild, she knocked a tooth out of the other side of his face with a leisurely haymaker. Her expression didn’t betray a single moment’s panic or anger. The rest of the patrol had been watching the attack appraisingly, wondering if they wanted to get involved; at this, they decided not to bother. Tamiris chastised the man with the bleeding mouth -- as if he hadn’t been watching from the beginning.

Kastor, though, got the worst of it. He’d expected that to be the case, but it was still the work of his whole heart to fight down his fury. The blows that rained on him were not teasing. If he hadn’t been still wearing his armor, he was sure his collarbones and ribs would have been broken, and he wasn’t sure his skull wasn’t cracked. The unending drizzle didn’t wash away the blood that trickled down his scalp in multiple streams, it just spread it out so that it matted his hair and sheened his face, made his collar sticky and his eyes sting. The one time Magda attempted a healing charm, she was taken by the wrist and thrown down. The message was clear, even without Kastor’s translation: the exile was being beaten because he deserved to bleed. No mercy would be allowed.

Tanner, surprisingly, broke down to begging early on, though she directed it at Mikah rather than their captors. She couldn’t stand to see the others getting beat on like this, she said. Wouldn’t he please do something?

He repeated his question: should he kill their captors? That, he insisted, was the only thing he had the power to do. Humans were just too fragile.

“Can’t you do what you did to Nevbelis?” Magda whispered to him. “Ball them up and throw them home?”

“A mortal wouldn’t survive it.” Then he gave an impatient snort, because Tamiris had cuffed him for talking.

Their second day of forced march, they were kept moving after darkness fell. By this time they were too exhausted and afraid to comment aloud. Kastor thought he knew where he was, but his vision was blurred and his thoughts skewed from repeated blows to the head. When he saw the lights ahead, at first he thought they were fireflies. Thousands of them, dancing. He was puzzled, because fireflies could not survive in these heights. Then Tamiris spoke to a sentry, and Kastor understood. They were the lights of an encampment, spread out at the foot of the cliffs that housed the winter warrens.

Tall torches described a wheel pattern, making roads between clusters of tents. The prisoners were herded past tents that varied from simple felt cones to elaborate pavilions of dyed silk. Kyri watched their passage curiously, talking, whispering, shouting. Men and women were dressed for riding -- hardly any in night robes, even this late. Children awake past bedtime stared, owl-eyed, and sometimes screeched. Hunting cats and dogs had to be shooed out of the way. The occasional cage of chickens or leashed pet goat added to the cacaphony. Kastor’s already sore head began to throb as if it were splitting open. He looked to Mikah, wondering what the Mara was making of it. He saw that something, impossibly, had cut the golden skin of Mikah’s forehead, and a thread of blood traced down his cheek, red as a mortal’s. There was no mockery in Mikah’s amber eyes now.

Into the numbness that had gripped Kastor’s heart, a needle of fear inserted itself. It looked almost as if Mikah had decided to share their fate. Impossible -- the Mara didn’t understand honor -- but --

“Mikah,” Kastor murmured, knowing the Mara would hear him even through the noise. “You should go. It’s about to get bad.”

Mikah glanced at him, amusement assembling itself automatically. A slight headshake. No witticism. No genuine smile.

At the center of the rayed pattern of lights was a cleared circle, fenced with ropes, about thirty feet broad. The grass at its center was scuffed away. They’d been having games of some kind. Maybe children’s dances -- the circle was too small for much else. Unless --

Understanding dawned, and Kastor was suddenly furious that he was going to die, because something was going on, and he wanted to know what it was, and he wouldn’t get a chance. The circle was for duels and trials-by-combat, and the only reason to have enough of them at once to wear the grass away was if the council had decided to clear the honor of all the clans at once. And they would only do that if the Kyri were about to begin some great undertaking -- or under some terrible threat.

Now that he’d thought of this, he saw that the banners flying over the finest tents were of every kind, every color. This was not one clan gathered for some celebration; it was a representation of all the Nine Clans.

The gods, he reflected, had a marvelous sense of timing. They had brought him here just in time to pay his debt with his blood, and finalize the clearing of honor. He wondered if he ought to be grateful. He wondered whether, if he died well, he might earn some small place in Canagh na Ddheru after all. As a herd boy, perhaps.

Tamiris brought his prisoners to an open area beyond the dueling ground. It was broad enough for several hundred people to gather, and at least a hundred immediately did so. The horsemen made a cordon around the prisoners at the front of the open space, just below a platform made of disassembled wagons. The platform, about waist-high, covered enough ground that a large tent could be erected on it; the tent that stood over all the others by this means was made of midnight-blue silk embroidered with crimson dragons. From its central pole flew a banner of a red dragon on a blue ground, curling flames sprouting from its jaws. Au berlaihan -- dragon’s fire -- the symbol of the ruling clan.

In front of the tent, a portion of the platform was left open, paved with rush mats, a sort of porch or speaking platform. Two guards stood beside the tent flap, dressed in the Auberlanes’ crimson and blue. They were unmoved by the commotion. Their eyes didn’t even flicker. Kastor knew their names, could have listed the threads of relation that connected them to him. They would not have acknowleged him if he’d spoken.

A messenger in patrol-rider’s green spoke briefly with the guards and was admitted. A few minutes later he came out again. Then nothing happened.

Tanner leaned over to whisper to Kastor. “What’s going on? Is that the queen’s tent?”

“Yes. She won’t come out for a while, if she comes at all. She’s got to make a show of it. Ow!” That was for the rider who tapped him sharply on the back of the head with a spear butt. He glared. The man apparently didn’t approve of that glare, because he twitched his spear again, intending to repeat the blow.

Kastor caught the spear shaft before he could stop himself, barely refrained from pulling the man out of the saddle with it. The language of his birth finally burst from him without effort: “Hunter’s balls, man, would you give it a fucking rest already? You’re not impressing anyone! Goad the feahar into blowing up on you, what a bright idea! Make sure he has to be killed before the Gethanein can make a ruling, she’ll be so pleased with you.”

“Shut up,” the man growled, but he didn’t hit him again.

Tamiris turned in his saddle to frown at them. “Be quiet. I will not tolerate any disrespect for my revered sister.”

While he spoke, the yammering of the crowd went silent, but it wasn’t for him. The tent flaps were being spread and tied back by a pair of guard-handmaidens whose impractically well-fitted breastplates were inlaid with gold. These two women, matched in height and almost identical in feature, faces tattooed with the sigils that meant they had sworn life to their mistress and could speak for her, moved like dancers as they set out braziers for light at the edge of the platform. They drew their sabers and knelt, each with her blade across her knees, a symbol of loyalty glittering in the torchlight.

All was quiet now. Only the fluttering of tents, the occasional cough or quickly shushed child, the hissing of the spattering rain falling into hot coals. A faint jingling sounded inside the tent, rhythmic, as of footsteps. A hint of glitter became visible in the interior darkness, growing nearer, taking the form of a woman.

The woman stepped onto the platform, into the light. She was not tall, but her poise made up for her lack of height. She was dressed in a splendor of gilded scale mail, its chiming length draped over robes of midnight silk. Over her black hair, a gold-scaled headdress flowed down from the chain circlet of her office. Her beauty was rough and stern, hewn from hard wood. She was in her prime, past youth but nowhere near age, strong and proud. Her skin was dark, and it contrasted sharply with the pallor of her ice-blue eyes. She looked fit to rule not only the Kyri, but the world. Kastor remembered being so blinded with awe of her that he’d believed it to be love. His heart constricted at the memory.

And then came a sight which was a thousand times worse.

Behind her, haltingly, came a much smaller form. He hobbled into the light: a seven-year-old boy whose rich clothes could not quite hide the deformity of his right arm and right leg. He wasn’t looking at the crowd. His concentration was bent on moving his crutch forward a step and then stepping to meet it. His face was so much like Kastor’s, white and serious and narrow, that no one could mistake the resemblence.

Kastor’s anger shattered, and with it, his heart. He barely knew that he was whispering: “Charis. Gods. Charis.”

He was hardly aware of the Gethanein’s eyes drilling into him; he heard her voice only as a peripheral thing, a pinprick alongside a mortal wound.

“Ill-met, Kastor Auberlane. You should not have come here. We will be kind enough to give you a chance to explain yourself, but we cannot imagine what sort of explanation you could possibly produce. You knew the penalty you would suffer if you returned.”

After too long a silence, he dragged his eyes away from the child. He executed a shaky bow. “I’ll answer you, Alys, if that’s what you really want. If you don’t want to hear it, just say so. I’m ready to die.” As he said it, he knew it was not true. His glance, of its own accord, returned to the boy.

Charis was looking at him now, but without comprehension. The boy didn’t recognize him.

“We would not have asked,” the Gethanein said crisply, “if we did not wish to hear. But we did not give you permission to address us familiarly.”

Kastor blinked quickly. He couldn’t stop looking at the child. “Does he know, Alys? Have you taught him to hate me? It won’t serve, when he’s grown. Don’t make him watch this.”

“Who are these others, Kastor Auberlane? Why have you brought strangers into the Sei?”

At last, his anger began to return, just enough to strengthen him a little. He summoned an ascerbic tone. “Believe it or not, Alys Auberlane, there are all sorts of things going on in the world that have nothing to do with your sovreignity. These people are engaged on an errand that might decide the fate of the world. I suspect they’ll manage to continue whether you hinder them or not, because the gods have decreed it. What’s all this business with the dueling ground? Have you been having trouble with demons?”

“Enough!” Her eyes flared, and he felt shrunk to the size of a mouse. “Your babbling serves no purpose. Enough public spectacle.” She waved her brother forward. “You have done well, Tamiris. You have our gratitude. Pen them. Treat them mildly, but allow them no chance to make trouble. We will consult our councillors on this matter.”

With a chiming of armored scales, the Gethanein spun on her heel and strode back into her tent. The crippled boy took one last, puzzled look at Kastor, frowning as if he thought he ought to remember something but couldn’t. Then he followed his mother, methodically; crutch, step. Crutch, step.

Kastor couldn’t see. He stumbled where he was shoved. Between flickering lights that dazzled him, between swelling rills of crowd noise. Up some steps, cracking his head on a low doorframe. The sound of a door closing. Darkness. They were in a wagon-house. It smelled of ancient sweat and mildew. Moldy carpets sucked underfoot. The others were murmuring back and forth, but for the moment he couldn’t understand Semnian.

He groped ahead until he reached the back wall, let himself slide down against it. Pressed his cheek to the rough wood. Bent his head into his arms.

Someone knelt beside him, pressed a hand to his shoulder. “Kastor.” It was Magda. “What’s wrong? You’re crying! Who was that boy? When you looked at him, I could see -- who is he?”

Kastor sniffed hard, dragged his wrist across his eyes. He looked up, and in the dim light from the barred windows he could see them all looking at him. Pitying him -- all but Mikah. Mikah had no expression at all.

Tanner cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Some relation of yours, right? He’s pale like you are. Your little brother?”

Kastor gave an abortive headshake. For a long moment he couldn’t speak. He gulped down the salty knot in his throat and forced the words out:

“My son.”

Dead silence. He would have laughed at the effort it took them to digest this, if there were any laughter in the world anymore.

At last, Lucien said, “Then that makes her -- that makes the queen --”

“My wife.”

They wondered. He could see them itching for the story, but they wouldn’t ask. Not yet. Not while he was so obviously raw. He was grateful to them for that.

“I know you want to hear the story. I know. I can’t now. In a little while. Just now -- excuse me -- I can’t.”

Magda pressed his damp hand. “We understand, Kastor.”

They didn’t, but he knew what she meant. He nodded. Gently shook her off, buried himself deeper in the corner. Covered his head with his arms; made a private darkness in which to grieve.

Does he know? Will he have to watch? Will she make him watch his father die? Gods help me -- will he be glad to see it?

He wept quietly. His tears ran dry before long, though; they were both inadequate and inappropriate. He’d always known he’d have to pay someday. He’d always known there was no restitution in the world great enough.

Hours passed. He calmed. The sounds of sleep filled the wooden prison.

He had found a numbness that was almost like peace. He would have satisfied their curiosity then, if anyone had still been awake, but he felt no press to do so, was content to be silent. To hide inside the blackness of his arms, inside his eyelids, in a small place deep inside himself. He had already given up. He knew, somehow, that he would not be tempted to fight when they came for him tomorrow, that his blood-madness was not a danger to anyone.

A whisper of nearly noiseless footsteps crossed the rotting carpet toward him. From the small, quiet place in himself where he hid, he knew it was Mikah. He could smell the Mara’s strange scent, like new-mown hay and rain on hot stone. It crossed his mind, absently, to expect some casual cruelty, but he didn’t bother caring. It didn’t matter.

But Mikah did the only thing that could have possibly startled Kastor in his current state: he wrapped his arms around him, gently, without speaking, and silently held him.

The peace of surrender cracked open with an unbearable pain. Kastor let out a high, ragged sob, fingers knotting in his hair, trying to tear it out by the roots. He bawled shamelessly, and Mikah held him still. Eventually words came:

“My poisoned blood,” he groaned through his smothering arms. “I made him like that. The little crutch. Did you see --!”

“Ssh. I saw.” Mikah’s breath stirred the hair at the back of Kastor’s neck. “Your sorrow won’t undo it.”

“I know.” Misery where his anger should be. “You’re not trying to comfort me. Are you.”

“You wouldn’t want it.”

“No.” Taking a deep breath, he pried his aching hands out of his hair so he could turn and see Mikah’s face. The Mara was solemn, blank, without pity. “They say I’m half demon. They say my mother lay with a devil. That’s why I’m feahar. That’s why Charis turned out... wrong. I had warning. I should have known. I should have known better than to marry. The gods made me inverted so that I’d never pass on my twisted blood. I should have understood that, and refused her.”

“Maybe.”

“You’d know, wouldn’t you, Mikah? Can you smell the demon blood in me?”

“No. Your father was not a demon. That much I can tell you.”

Far from being reassuring, this yanked away the last pillar of his certainty and left him helpless in the face of his remorse. “Then -- what the hell am I? Why --?”

“Are the children of mortals never born crippled, Kastor my sorrow? Does bad luck never come without being called?”

“No. It can’t be that simple. That -- that ordinary.” He coughed up a shard of bitter laughter. “It was a fairytale. The princess fell in love with the wild hunter, raised him out of obscurity, forgave him his sins and made him her consort. She made everyone forgive me. Pretend they respected me. Then some old sin, some curse, caught up, and --” The moment of detachment failed him. It came out in a whisper: “Ruined my son.”

“His eyes are bright enough.”

“A Thane must be whole and strong. He must know already that he’s not his mother’s heir. She has to remarry, and she won’t divorce me, she won’t be satisfied until I’m dead. But -- gods -- don’t make him watch --”

“She will have to find another way. I’m not finished with you. My task will not succeed without you. Without your help, I will not reach my brother, or if I do, I won’t stop him. None of us are expendable.”

“You can’t kill. Not to save me.”

“You can’t die. Not for an imaginary crime.”

“Are you telling me --? Don’t you dare tell me it’s not my fault, just one of those things -- it has to be someone’s fault -- Charis deserves someone to blame --” He was breaking down again. Mikah tightened his arms, bent his head over, enclosing Kastor in the smell of a drought breaking. In a choked voice, Kastor accused, “You’re pretending again. It’s not helping.”

“No. That’s not what I’m doing. I won’t kill them, my bitterness, but I won’t let you surrender. Has it occurred to you that it’s possible to be the source of a wrong without being at fault?”

A long silence. “What does that mean?”

“Your blood is indeed strange. Perhaps not human. But I doubt it’s the cause of your son’s withered limbs. And if it is -- did you intend any harm? Cast any curses? Or was he conceived in -- well, respect and duty, if not love. Let go of this endless remorse. You insult your son with it. You excuse his mother of her scorn for him. I won’t allow you to surrender, my martyrling. The world has a use for Charis Auberlane which won’t be served by seeing his father grovel and weep in the dust.”

Kastor pulled away to study Mikah’s face. “Is this one of your vague prophesies?”

“Yes.”

“Charis will be... important?”

“I would go so far as to say crucial.”

“I want to believe you.”

“Then do.” Mikah narrowed his eyes appraisingly. He smoothed aside a lock of Kastor’s hair. Solemnly, as if in a ritual, he kissed Kastor’s bloodied forehead. When he sat back, still holding Kastor’s face in his hands, his eyes were bronze mirrors. “That’s all the absolution you can have, this side of death’s gate. Stop seeking it. It’s selfish.”

These words trickled into Kastor’s mind like cold water. They hurt, but they washed him clean somehow, blew away the fog of weeping and made him strangely strong.

“Was that magic?” he said at last.

“No. Just truth.”

“Good.”

Mikah opened his arms, offering. “Let us pretend we’ve nothing to be angry about. You may sleep here, if it helps you, and you needn’t forgive me.”

It was skewed logic, typical Mikah-logic, but it made sense at the moment. Kastor pulled up his knees and leaned his head against the immortal’s chest. The arms that enclosed him were light and warm. Mikah felt as solid as a stone. His heartbeat was very slow.

My blood is strange, but not a demon’s... what did he mean by that?

He was too far into sleep to think about it. He let the darkness swallow him.