07



He woke in late morning, long after everyone else. He hadn’t dreamed. His neck ached from sleeping against Mikah’s shoulder all night, but despite that he felt oddly well. Alert, alive, and calm. When he opened his eyes to see Tanner staring at him, he wasn’t embarrassed.

As soon as she saw him looking, she grinned at him. “If you two’ve made up, then I know we’re doomed.”

Mikah chuckled, making Kastor’s head bounce. “We haven’t, never fear. We’ve simply set aside our enmity for a time. Isn’t that right, my strife?”

“Yeah. Leggo.” Kastor sat up, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Gods, I’m filthy. Tell me there’s water.”

Magda offered a pitcher. “There’s a bit of breakfast left, too, though I’m afraid it’s not very good.”

Kastor wet his cuff in the water and wiped his face until they told him he’d removed all the dirt and dried blood. His satchel had been taken, so he couldn’t shave or comb his hair. He grimaced at the cold remnant of a pot of potato stew. “I guess I’d better eat, huh?”

“It would be wiser, yes.” Magda polished a wooden spoon against her sleeve and gave it to him. Apparently there was only the one.

The stew wasn’t as bad as it looked. Salty, at least, and it tasted like the cook had waved some meat in its vicinity. When he was finished, Magda asked Lucien to go to the opposite corner, and attempted a few healing charms. No miracles occurred, but Lucien didn’t start on fire, and the ache in Kastor’s head abated. Magda told him that a cut on his forehead which had been a bit infected was now healing clean, which was something anyway.

“Good enough,” he told her. “Don’t make Lucien hide over there for too long. Sorry, Luce. I know that’s got to be inconvenient for you.”

“I don’t mind,” the wizard said meekly.

“Since they don’t seem to be hauling us out to behead us just yet, I guess I have time to make a little speech.”

“A speech, Kas?” Tanner scuffled closer and dropped crosslegged before him. “Front row seat, for me. What kind of speech?”

“Well, you can probably see why I was a bit reticent about my past. It’s not just that it’s painful; it’s all snarled up, it’s really hard to describe so that it makes any sense. But considering you all got caught in my trouble, I figure you have the right to know. I’ll try to keep it simple.”

Magda reached to touch the back of his hand. “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.”

“I know. I want to. I think I have a little perspective on it now.” He glanced at Mikah. The Mara was giving him that emotionless look again, so he turned back to the others. They wouldn’t understand with the scalpel-sharp merciless understanding Mikah had shown. They needed a lot more words from him. He had a brief urge to reach out for Mikah’s hand, for support, but imagined how stupid he’d look if Mikah didn’t give it to him, and didn’t move.

“I mentioned before that I’m a bastard,” he began. “What I didn’t say is that there’s a good chance my father wasn’t human. I don’t know what he was. Everyone says he was a demon, but no one has any proof, and Mother’s not telling. Now Mikah tells me he wasn’t a demon -- so we just have no idea, right? I told you I was something of an outcast. Fact is, I was pretty much feral, up until I turned sixteen. Sometimes I’d come pester my mother, spend part of the winter with her. One of those times, she got a visit from her husband’s niece. Alys. My cousin, by a dissolved marriage -- our actual blood tie is much more distant, through a great-grandparent, but she called me cousin. She had some excuse, something about my mother’s feltwork being considered for a festival competition, but the real reason she’d come was to see if I was there.

“Alys was maybe twenty-five then. Her father was ill, everyone knew he was going to resign soon. Alys is... religious. She takes the Duality very seriously. Both thrones have to be occupied. The female ruler is the representative of the Herder, the male represents the Hunter. Sometimes the male rules and the female is consort, and sometimes the other way. Each reversal of this is called a cycle. Alys knew that the cycle was going to change any day now, making her Gethanein, putting the Herder in the ascendant, and she knew she’d be about the strongest woman to hold the Mare’s Throne in centuries. She was determined to find a consort who wouldn’t just give lip service to being her balance; she wanted a man who was the Hunter, in essence. I caught her eye. Because I was wild, I guess. There wasn’t a civilized bone in my body.

“So she went to visit my mother, and I squatted by the fire with dirt on my face and blood under my fingernails while she asked for my hand in marriage. I thought at first she was making a joke at my expense. She wasn’t.

“Her idea wasn’t a bad one, honestly. I’m not diplomatic, but I’m not ungovernable, and I don’t make a box of rocks look any smarter. Within the first week, three separate bards came up with odes about how right I looked, perched on the edge of the Horned Throne as if I was about to jump off and bite them, but I was still young enough to be ruled by her. She could have handled the fact that I’d been in some nasty, unsanctioned duels, and the rumors about my demon father, and even the fact that women don’t really -- how’d you put it, Tanner? -- float my boat. Some people worried that I wouldn’t be able to sire an heir for her on account of that, but I was enough in awe of her that I didn’t have much trouble with my part of the bargain. And I think she could even have handled the fact that I started acting less and less like a wild man as time passed, got a taste for baths, spent all my time reading, pestering seers and bards and priests with questions of philosophy. But it all added up.

“And then Charis was born.” He took a long breath, tempted to leave it there, but there was no point beginning if he wasn’t going to finish. “My symbolism was already suffering. When my son was born with a withered right arm and leg, it was taken as an omen. Not just by shepherds and priests. Alys is, as I said, very religious. She influences people. I don’t think there was anyone who believed my son’s deformity was plain bad luck. Everyone believed it was my influence, my demon blood -- I’m not sure I don’t agree. The law says a Thane has to be whole -- just a missing finger will disqualify an heir, so Charis never had a chance. His arm and leg are withered and small, he can barely use them. He’ll never ride well, never fight well, never walk without a crutch. And this was the birth that was to symbolize the hope of all the Kyri. You understand.

“Someone had to bear the blame. Feanod -- that’s Alys’s father -- argued that I should be sacrificed to appease the god whose throne I’d occupied so badly. A majority of the Thanes agreed with him. But Alys was Gethanein by then, and she had the veto. She exiled me. At the time, I thought this was the more cruel punishment, but after a few years I changed my mind. Life’s not a bad thing, even when you believe you’ll never see your child again -- at least you know he’s alive. And now I’ve seen him again. I’m finished here. It’s time for us to go.”

There was a moment of dead silence. Tanner broke it with an awkward wave of her hand. “Just like that? How?”

“I have one card to play. It might work, or not. Lucien, move over.”

Lucien scrambled out of the way, and the others copied him as they began to suspect what he intended. He set his shoulders against the back wall of the wagon to get as much of a run as he could. Gathering speed in four long strides, he slammed his boot heel against the edge of the door.

Among the boom of the blow, he heard a brief squeak of twisting metal. Startled sounds from the guards outside followed. He didn’t give them time to figure it out, but backed up and did it again. This time, the brackets that held the bar outside the door popped loose from the elderly wood. The bar clattered to the ground, and the door swung free.

Kastor stepped out into white, foggy day, and nearly ran onto the points of two spears. The man and woman holding them looked frightened, but determined. Kastor didn’t give them time to speak.

“Take me to my wife,” he ordered. “And quit poking those things at me, before I take them away from you.”

The male guard glanced to the female one. He said, in a voice that was too loud in his effort to keep it from shaking, “Get the Arthane. I’ll hold him here.”

The Arthane -- the Consort. Tamiris. She couldn’t be allowed to bring him; he wouldn’t be impressed enough by Kastor’s little show of force. As she took a step back, Kastor grabbed her spear just behind the point, and the other’s too, and with a little shove and twist took them away. He stepped clear of the wall of the wagon, spinning the spears as if to see whether they were worthy of his use, forcing the guards to back away. The prison-wagon was set far from the encampment, in a muddy field away from anything else. There was, however, a pile of junk wood about fifty feet off to the side, which would make an adequate target. Kastor hefted the lighter of the spears and threw it.

It split the board it struck, driving deep into the pile, half burying itself. Kastor didn’t let his face show any surprise; he hoped the guards wouldn’t realize that the wood was rotten, and would think him posessed of godlike strength. That way, they might not make him hurt them. He propped the other spear against his shoulder.

“Take me to my wife,” he repeated. “I want to talk to her.”

His display had worked. They nodded nervously and led him toward the encampment. He heard Mikah and the others following, heard Jennet’s approving whistle when she saw the spear buried in the woodpile.

When his escort reached another set of sentries, older and calmer, they attempted to pass on the problem. “He says -- he says he wants to see the Gethanein,” the female guard said. To her dismay, the other sentries agreed.

“You can’t take that in,” one told him at the entrance to the council tent, reaching for the spear.

“Oh -- I suppose not.” He gave it back to its owner.

“The foreigners will have to wait outside.”

“Not a chance.” Kastor reached for the tent flap.

The man reached for him -- to argue, maybe. Kastor caught his wrist, and allowed the memory of a vulpine snarl to cross his face. The sentry yanked his hand away and let Kastor through.

Inside, he could just make out the shapes of startled men and women rising from kneeling cushions, and the glitter of Alys’s headdress at the far end of the lamplit gloom. He didn’t let himself hesitate, but strode toward her.

She stood, jangling. “How did you come here? If you’ve killed anyone --”

“No, just scared them a little. I got tired of waiting so I let myself out.”

“Who allowed this criminal into our presence?” she demanded inclusively.

He could make out the glare of her icy eyes now, but he made himself speak confidently. “I’m still your husband, Alys. That mark was never erased from me. No one here has the right to oppose me but you. I still have a place at this council.”

An indignant voice: “I am Arthane now, demon-kin, not you.”

“Back off, Tamiris,” Kastor snapped. “I’m not going to dispute my place with a strutting bantam like you. I’m going to get this business sorted out, and then I’m going to leave, taking these people with me.”

“Are you, now.” A hint of superior amusement was creeping into Alys’s voice. It was a tone he remembered well, her response to his every attempt to be something better than a wild animal. “Do you propose to fight your way out, Kastor? Even if you’ve lost all loyalty to your kinsmen and are willing to kill them, I think you would not succeed.”

“I don’t have to fight them all. Just twelve of them.”

A murmur ran through the tent at this. He could see the Thanes well enough now that his eyes had adjusted. Familiar faces. Not much had changed here, in his years away. He saw the old Thanes with their stubborn wisdom, men and women he’d wanted to learn from, who had not believed he could be taught. He saw the young Thanes with their bright eyes, men and women he’d wanted to ride beside, who had feared to be tainted by his companionship.

He did not see Charis. That was a mercy.

He put his meaning clearly, in case anyone wasn’t paying attention. “I demand to prove myself by ordeal. It’s my right to be tested. I didn’t call for it seven years ago, because you all had me so convinced I was hellspawned -- but I’ve learned since that whoever my father was, he was not a demon, and I’ll no longer be your scapegoat.”

On his left, the barrel-chested Thane of Urdwen said, “You can’t have an ordeal after your trial, boy. You’re already judged.”

“Falsely, by those who know no more about the matter than they do about the flavor of stars. You all judged me without even considering whether you were right or wrong. You only knew someone had to take the blame, and I looked like the best candidate. I agreed with you at the time. I can’t agree with you now. My son is not an ill omen, he’s a person, and it’s time you stopped looking at him as a blight on your honor.”

“Ah.” Alys came closer. She was a head shorter than he, but she managed to give the impression of towering over him. “So that’s what this is about. You wish to convince us that your poisoned seed is worthy to inherit, despite the law.”

“He’s your son too, Alys.”

Her face gave no warning before she struck him. Her slap rocked him, numbed his jaw, set his ear to ringing. For a moment, he held himself rigid against the need to retaliate; in the quiet part of his mind, he reflected that he must fear her a great deal, for a mere gesture -- however stinging -- to tickle his bloodlust. But he didn’t strike her. He gave his answer in words only.

“Whether he inherits is for this council to decide. I only want you to stop using him as an excuse for every bit of ill luck that befalls you. Whether you love him or not, Alys, someday he’ll be a man, and he’ll be great. It’s been foreseen. What sort of greatness he grows to may depend on how you look at him. In any case, though you may raise him to hate me, he will never hear that I died like a coward or a criminal. I claim ordeal.”

The Gethanein stepped back from him, nostrils flaring. After too long a pause, she said, “The council will consider your request.”

“It’s not a request. It’s a right. There’s nothing to consider except who you’ll choose for your champions.”

“We must consult the law.”

“You know the law.”

She looked around, somehow managing not to look as if she was hoping for a rescue. The Thanes were murmuring, shaking their heads.

“I hate to say it,” said one, “but he’s right.”

“It’s the law.”

“You never divorced him, after all.”

“Should’ve had an ordeal in the first place.”

Alys grasped at straws. “The law prohibits the use of sorcery in ordeal-by-combat. Your swords are sorcerous. You’ll find no one else to lend you weapons.”

“I bet Tanner would lend me hers, if it came to it.” He glanced back to catch the Legionnaire’s eye, but realized she wouldn’t have understood him. She looked puzzled to hear her name. He turned back to his queen. “But that’s beside the point. I won’t be the one fighting. It’s my right, if any condition prevents me from fighting on my own behalf, to choose a champion to fight for me. My blood-madness makes it impossible for me to fight without killing, and I won’t kill my countrymen, so I invoke that right.” He waited until the questioning murmurs peaked and died before naming his champion. “Mikah the Mara, Angel-Kin, Ancient One -- will you fight in my place?”

The council tent fell silent. No one had been expecting anything like that. Alys gaped open-mouthed, the first time he’d ever seen her lose her composure in public. Hers wasn’t the only dropped jaw, either.

All eyes followed Mikah as he stepped forward. He seemed to glow like a candle flame, attracting all the light in the room and leaving the watchers in darkness. His face betrayed no hint of a smile. “Yes,” he said. “I will fight for you, Kastor Auberlane. In accordance with law, I will defeat twelve champions of the council’s choosing, without sorcery, without rest or healing. And -- because you ask it -- without killing, though I can’t promise not to maim a few. After I have done that, Revered Lady, you will relinquish all claims to Kastor, and allow him to come and go as he once did, before you ruined his wildness with your avarice.”

“How dare you!” Her face looked oddly yellow in the lamplight. “Mara you may be -- though I don’t believe it -- but your acting as his champion gives you no right to make further conditions. Go now, and prepare for death, because our --”

“No.” His voice was quiet, but it filled the tent, smothering all other speech like damp sand on a fire. “They are not conditions. They are what will come to pass. I am no respecter of persons or powers. It saddens me to be opposed only because those who oppose me are trampled. Believe this, Queen of the Kyri, and live.” He bowed, turned, and walked away. The flames of the lamps twisted at his passage, as if they wished to follow.

The Gethanein’s lips thinned to a line. She glared rage at Kastor. “Send me my raiders,” she ordered; speaking to her brother, though she didn’t look at him. “Send me the fearless, the vicious, the blood-drunk. We will answer this insult.” Then, softly, for Kastor’s ears alone: “I loved you, once. You were the only sky I would look upon, the only wine I tasted. It is humbling, to know I could be so wrong.”

He shook his head once, sharply. As quietly, he answered. “You never knew me.” He wanted to say more, but he didn’t know what. He’d already spoken more today than he liked. He just gave her another headshake and turned away.

As he turned, though, he caught a glimpse of something beyond the lamps at the Gethanein’s end of the tent: the silken hangings swinging, a tiny hand retreating. How much had Charis heard? No -- later. He’d think about that later.

No one prevented him and the Semnians from leaving. They followed the path Mikah’s passage cut in the crowd. Some force was pushing people away from him, and those touched by it didn’t move for some time after he passed. He walked through the encampment to the edge where they’d entered, and kept walking, well away from the smokes of the tent city. At last, once the curious had stopped trailing him and there was no one near except a few dutiful mounted sentries watching from a distance, he stopped on a knoll where the grass was bent flat under its own weight. He sat down on the ground.

Kastor sat beside him. Magda, Tanner, and Lucien sat as well, but less easily, looking around. They were waiting for an explanation.

Mikah went back to speaking Semnian. “You could have given me a bit of warning.”

“You might have refused.”

“I might still, and wouldn’t that be embarrassing for you.”

“You won’t back out. If you do, I’ll enter the ordeal unarmed, and I’ll be slaughtered. Then your plan will fail. Unless you were just blowing smoke last night, about it not succeeding without me.”

Tanner let out a sudden yell of frustration. “Kaley’s tits, man, are you going to explain or not?” Then she flushed. “Oh, sorry, Magda.”

The nun gestured forgiveness. “I don’t understand, Kastor. Have they let us go? Will they give our baggage and our animals back?”

“No. Not yet.” He gazed into the north, where the line of pale cliffs that held winter camp were barely visible through the mist. Typical spring weather. The smell of the air was beating him with a goad of nostalgia; he wondered, for a moment, what he would have been like at this age if Alys hadn’t noticed him when he was sixteen.

Dead, probably. I was always half dead back then.

He explained. “I had a right that I didn’t exercise when I was exiled, and I just called it in. As the Gethane’s husband, since she never officially divorced me, I can’t legally be condemned, either by her or the council, without an ordeal. An ordeal is a test by endurance. Depending on the crime you’re accused of, it can be anything from fasting for a week while food is waved in front of you, to sticking your arm in a pot of boiling water without screaming, to what I’ve just dragged Mikah into. The most extreme trial-by-combat the law allows is the trial of twelve men. The accused, or his champion, has to defeat twelve champions chosen by the council. He has to do it between sunrise and sunset of one day, without pausing for rest, without healing, and without the use of sorcery. To top it off, he has to leave the circle under his own power afterwards for it to count as a victory, which means he has to be able to walk at the end of it. It’s tough, but it’s been done.”

Tanner nodded understanding. “I’ve had more than twelve fights in a row before. That’s not the big deal. But these fellows aren’t going to be infantry worn out from marching, is the problem. They’re going to be the toughest guys the queen can get, am I right?”

“Yes. Still, I might have been able to do it. But not without killing. And for all I know, Alys intends to enter the ring herself. Even if I could beat her -- which I’m not sure of, not in a fair fight --”

“You’re not serious,” Magda said. “I’ve seen you fight.”

“She was my teacher. I mean, I could fight before -- you couldn’t keep me from it, in fact -- but she taught me the science of it. Taught me the double-sword style, since her consort couldn’t very well go around punching people in the head and biting their ears off. The only reason she’s not acclaimed as the best in the Sei is because her rank prohibits her from entering contests. She’s a master.”

They digested this. Lucien said, “You’re afraid you can’t win without killing her. So what will you do? You said you dragged Mikah into it...?”

“I’ve named him my champion.”

Tanner barked a laugh. “Brilliant!”

“But --” Magda frowned. “Not that I don’t want you to win -- the Mother knows I want to leave here alive -- but isn’t that a bit unfair? He’s immortal.”

“But not indestructible, my little saint,” Mikah said with a crooked smile. “A blow hard enough, or lucky, or enough blows in the same place, will split my skin as well as it would yours. I bleed. I feel pain. I’m not a golem. Did you realize that, Kastor my cruelty, when you put me forward? No, of course you did. Pain isn’t much to you, is it?”

“Nor to you.”

“Nonsense. I’m a big baby. I squeal like a pig. But I see your reasoning. Even if I’m torn to bits and eaten by dogs, my bones which they shit out will find their way back together, and in a hundred years I’ll be as good as new.”

Lucien put his hand over his mouth, looking green. Magda blanched. Tanner, by contrast, gave a loud hoot of laughter. “What I wouldn’t give for that kind of backup plan! You must’ve gotten yourself into so much trouble when you first figured out nothing’s permanent for you.”

“That I did,” Mikah grinned. The grin faded. “I’m being too vague in my warnings. What I mean to say, Kastor, is that I’m no warrior at all. However durable I am, it may not be enough to win. Think: if I get my head cracked, so that I sleep past sunset, I’ve lost by forfeit. Do you expect me to abide by your agreement, and let you die here, and all of us with you?”

“No, only me. Take the others and leave. Use that pushing thing you just did. Why didn’t you do that when we were taken prisoner?”

“It decieves the will. Determined attackers wouldn’t be affected.”

“Or put them to sleep --”

“One at a time. We’d be swarmed.”

“And you’ve got no other tricks like that?”

“Not that would help here.”

“I don’t believe you. If you’re afraid, Mikah, I can fight the ordeal myself. I’ll use wooden swords. I hope I won’t be able to kill with those.”

“Nonsense. You’d be even more deadly, knowing the fight was stacked against you. I said I’d fight for you and I meant it. Despite your fixed idea that I lie, my distortion, I have never broken my word to you.” The Mara’s amber eyes narrowed. “Which is why I haven’t promised to abide by your decision in case of a defeat. We will try to escape, if that happens. Or you will, all of you, if I can’t continue. Run west, look for a place where your skin tingles -- and Lucien’s hair starts on fire, no doubt. I’ll hope they don’t burn me or mince me too fine, and join you when I can. Better that my plan is set back a year, or a decade, better that it fail entirely than we lose any one of us.”

Kastor felt his eyes widening at this uncharacteristic speech. In his vehemence, Mikah sounded much as he had last summer, when -- but now he didn’t have much reason to lie, did he? “You sound almost like you care for us personally, not just as cogs in your clockwork.”

“Is that so hard to imagine, my brutality?”

Surprisingly, it was Magda who said, “It is, a little bit, Mikah. You seemed in such a hurry, before. And even if your main intent is a private matter between you and your brother, the matter of demons running about -- and the other dire things you hinted at -- well, it’s serious. I hope you won’t think me callous when I say that our lives don’t weigh much against that.”

“I need all of you,” Mikah said. “If one dies, we all fail. Kastor, you should have killed that blustery little peacock and his patrol and dealt with the guilt later.”

“He’s my brother-in-law.”

“As you say. It’s no longer relevant. When will this begin?”

“Tomorrow. Dawn. I doubt they’ll delay.”

“Right. Then I’d better get my strength up. Bully some food out of someone, will you?”



Curious people came to look at them from time to time, but kept their distance. Rumor had made them interesting, and apparently frightening. There were a few jeers, and one or two children who pelted them with handfuls of gravel and then ran away, but for the most part their watchers were silent. When Kastor demanded food, several unrelated groups brought it separately, so that there was far more than they needed. Magda and Lucien made a point of pantomiming gratitude. This show of politeness affected no one; the offerings of food were sacrifices to the Hunter, a part of the ritual of the ordeal, not a display of solidarity. After a few hours, the curious grew bored; then there was no one watching them but the Arthane’s patrolmen.

Just before sunset, they had a visitor of a different kind. Kastor had been lying on his back, watching the sky, and didn’t see her coming. Lucien’s tentative shake of his shoulder roused him. He sat up, blinking drizzle from his eyelashes. He recognized the dreamy gait, the loose long hair streaked gray at the temples, the robe that was ostentatiously Auberlane blue. He stood to greet her.

“Mother.”

“Son,” she said, with the same formal stiffness. Her eyes flicked past him, their guardedness flashing wider in sudden wounding before returning to their natural wary state. They were not like Kastor’s eyes. They were hazel, and impenetrable. There were more lines around them than he remembered. “And my son’s guardian angel.”

Mikah came up beside him; the Mara was the sight that had caused that expression to cross her face. He bowed. “Madam. I sense that you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

“I have not. That one was night and mist. You, I can see, are an angel of fire, wearing my son as a shadow. There are angels of the gods, and then there are angels of other things. My son is the angel of rats. Kastor, they will kill you if they can. Even now that woman gathers the demonslayers, the wyr-hunters. If there is a way to kill an elemental like this champion of yours, they will do it, and then you are dead.”

Kastor had thought his memory had exaggerated her. If anything, it had smoothed over some of her strangeness. He gave her half a grin. “I’m so glad you came to encourage me, Mother. I was just thinking to myself -- all we need now is a prophesy of doom.” He stood aside, gesturing welcome. He said in Semnian, “Everyone, this is my mother, Nhedra Auberlane, master seer and smoke-gazer, source of any weirdness you might discover in me. Mother, this is Mikah; this is Sister Magda, a holy woman; Jennet Tanner, a soldier; and Lucien Farach, the world’s worst wizard. Hungry?”

“Hollow with it,” his mother answered in decent Semnian, plopping herself down by their extorted feast. She took up a bowl and a loaf, and began dipping the bread in the broth with imperial bad manners.

Clearly, the others didn’t know what to do with her. It was Lucien who had the breeding to fake it. He knelt beside her with a kind of shy dignity, offering her dishes and wine, drawing her into a discussion of the food. This allowed them all to join in; as much for politeness as hunger, they finished the food, which had seemed too much before Nhedra joined them. Kastor only had some wine. He was a bit off balance, seeing her again, but mostly amused. She had always amused him.

Now, though, he saw something in her that he’d missed when he was younger. He’d always thought her scattered, ineffectual, somewhat mad. Clinging to the symbols of her high birth and dishonored rank with a tenacity that seemed laughable. All this was still true. What he hadn’t realized, when he’d refused to rely on her or behave as a proper son to her, was how much strength it took to do this. Her blue silk sleeves were frayed and mended, but not so much that it could be her only garment -- she had ways of obtaining things. There was a silver ornament in her salt-streaked black hair, which she could not have bought with her own efforts. She had allies, it seemed; or at least, people who felt sorry for her.

Kastor wondered whether he ought to feel bad for never trying to get a message to her. If he’d thought about it hard enough, he could’ve found a way to send money. The Kyri didn’t rely on currency so much as the Semnians did, but gold would still buy things. He knew he wasn’t sorry to have left her alone for so long. He’d only ever been a burden to her. He’d been spending months at a time away from her since he was eight or so, anyway. And it wasn’t as if he’d had much choice.

He remembered his pay from the convent. He didn’t think he’d have any use for it now. When Nhedra set down her wine-cup at last, delicately dabbing her mouth with the corners of her long feltwork vest, he reached for her hand.

She scowled at the heavy, clanking little bag he put into it. He closed her fingers over it anyway. “I’ve missed a number of your birthdays,” he told her.

“You’ve been prosperous, out among the city people.”

“This isn’t so much.”

“What have you been doing, child? Trading? Fighting in their armies? Thieving? Are you still a thief, boy, or did your time as a prince cure you of that?”

“I was guarding travellers.”

She nodded. “It could be worse.” She put the gold in her sleeve. “Have you been alone? These are new friends, I can tell. Their threads to you are thin, nothing but spiderwebs. Except for the angel, of course. He has a noose of gold around your neck.”

Kastor inadvertently touched his throat, as if he could feel her vision there. He shook his head. She didn’t always mean anything by what she said. “Alone -- yeah, mostly. I was never the most social animal, you know that.”

Mikah put in, “You must stop calling me an angel, Madam. The word does have a specific meaning, you know. I’m a Mara, which is different.”

“Of course it is,” she said scornfully, dismissing him. “Kastor, have you seen my grandson?”

Kastor nodded. “I haven’t spoken to him. He didn’t recognize me.”

“He will now. That woman instructed him in his hatred of you. She has taught him to blame you for his lameness. That is a teaching not easily broken. I have attempted to show him the error of it, but I can speak to him only rarely.”

“Do you... watch over him at all?”

“What kind of watching does he need, my child? He’s a prince. He is never hungry, never cold, never disobeyed even while his wishes are disregarded, he is steered into wanting what others want for him. He is safe.” Her twisted smile told him what she thought of this kind of safety. “He would be better living as you did. He wouldn’t be a great hunter, no -- a stray dog at the fire. But better a stray than a pet.”

“Does he listen to you, when you do manage to talk to him?”

“He knows I’m his grandmother. I follow the Gethanein’s retinue, insinuate myself, form alliances. Old men and young women come to me for potions and prophesies. Yes, he listens.”

“Will you go on trying to look out for him, Mother? If I escape this time, I can’t come back again.”

She looked at him narrowly. “You want me to defend you to him? Teach him to love his father?”

“I don’t see that working, honestly.”

“Neither do I. You should fight your own battle tomorrow. Valor, he could understand. This is too complex for him. If you kill Tamiris and Alys, your cousin Shehan will be Gethane.”

“What, a seven-year cycle and then the Hunter ascendant? Shehan was a hothead last I saw him. He’d have the Legion in the Sei within the week.”

Tanner hadn’t understood much of this, he could see the uncertainty on her face, but at this she nodded firmly. “No insult intended, Ma’am, but I could take this whole camp with a thousand pikemen and two century of horse, in a matter of hours. If this cousin of Kastor’s would start a war, then you can’t afford for anything to happen to the Queen.”

Nhedra smiled at Tanner as if she was pleased by this. “Are you a Legion, woman?”

“Legionnaire, is the word. Yeah. Sergeant, Fifth Royal Engineers.”

“And what do Engineers do?”

“Well, among other things, if it came to a war, we’d find your sources of water and secret exits when you holed up in your cliff fortress, poison the water and block the escapes, smoke you out, collapse your tunnels, dig under your fortifications, and open you wide for the Specials and infantry to finish you off. I’d have to get a look at the place before I could tell you how long it would take, but I’ve never heard of a siege lasting longer than three weeks once the Engineers got there.” She rubbed her nose, grimacing. “Wouldn’t like to do it. Hope to all the gods it never comes to it. For all she’s nasty to Kastor, the queen seems like a sane woman. She knows she can’t take Semnia head-on. Kastor’s doing the right thing.”

Nhedra shook her head ruefully. “Someday, Kastor, you will have to conquer your feaheledd. It cripples your choices.”

“Yeah, I did sort of notice that.”

She nodded, satisfied, as if she’d finished her business here. “Tell me what I can bring you. Surely the angel doesn’t mean to fight with that dainty little sword.”

Mikah glanced at his side, as if to confirm that the smallsword wasn’t there. “You’ve seen our baggage, I take it. Curious, how they took our food and spare clothing but left us our purses.”

“Tamiris is too proud to steal money. He will steal only power.”

“Yes, well, I couldn’t use that sword anyway. It’s enchanted. What I’d really like is a pair of batons, hard wood, about arm’s length.”

“I see,” she said disapprovingly. “You won’t kill them either.”

“Kastor’s requirement.”

“Why are young men so sentimental?”

Mikah looked shocked for a moment, then laughed. “Madam, according to my calculations, I’m roughly four thousand years old.”

“Your form defines you. Your immortality only means you’ve never outgrown that stage -- you’ve never had to. I suppose you can afford sentiment. I’ll get you what you want.” She stood. Waited for Kastor to stand as well, so she could give him a formal embrace, cool with lack of motherly affection. She left without another word.

Tanner pantomimed a shiver. “She’s spooky. No wonder you’re weird, Kas.”

“Thanks a lot.”



When they slept that night, Mikah reversed his previous night’s offer to Kastor, making it a demand: “Give me back the comfort you took from me. I don’t sleep often, but in this case I ought. Wake me when it’s time to get ready.” Wrapping himself in his cloak, he settled his head on Kastor’s thigh and released wakefulness as if falling asleep were a simple act of will.

Kastor arranged his own cloak around him where he sat crosslegged, draping one side of it over Mikah, settling his arm around Mikah’s side. It was an odd feeling, to be holding him as a mere matter of utility. He could feel the warmth of Mikah’s body through the thin wool of his shirt.

Tanner, as she settled in, gave them a wry look. “You’re getting awfully cuddly, considering how much you were fighting before. You sure you haven’t made up?”

“I don’t think we have,” Kastor answered her seriously. “It just doesn’t seem relevant at the moment.”

“Huh. Well, I don’t mean to play matchmaker here, but it looks to me like you’re a couple already and just won’t admit it. What’s your grudge, anyway? You guys were together before -- right? Have I guessed it?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It never is.” She chuckled. “Don’t let me sleep through the fight.” She closed her eyes, but after a moment opened them again. “Speaking of getting a little human comfort when times are bleak...” She got up and moved closer to Lucien, who looked a bit confused by this. “Come on over here, Magda. It’s damn cold out tonight.”

“I don’t intend to sleep, Jennet. I’m sorry if that deprives you of warmth.”

“No worries.” Tanner snuggled up to Lucien, oblivious to how this made his back stiffen. Before the wizard’s embarrassment subsided, she was snoring gently.

Magda spent the night praying. She wasn’t ostentatious about it, didn’t even pray out loud. Just worked her way around and around her prayer beads, lips moving. The tiny click of the beads was comforting.

Kastor let his thoughts wander. He remembered things. His childhood was a blur, but there was the occasional frozen moment, and these he flicked through like a book. His memories came in black and white. He remembered catching wild chickens with a weighted line, being so proud to bring dinner to his mother. He thought about snow, what it had meant when he was small and cold and fierce, how different it had felt to him in Ytris with a warm cloak and a rented room to hide in. He remembered sleeping with Alys, how he’d closed his eyes in the dark to focus on the sensations that helped, and ignore the sensations that reminded him of her womanhood. He’d forgotten how she’d adored him. He’d been her treasure, her glittering toy, her wild horse to break. He knew that feeling of possessiveness now, and how losing could shatter everything. It seemed, in retrospect, that her anger at him might have less to do with Charis than he’d thought.

He remembered being thirteen, fighting with a boy whose beauty angered him. He couldn’t remember the boy’s name, that first, reluctant lover, but he remembered the nervous smell of him. How their punching and biting had become grappling and kissing, in a moment of unconscious agreement that had been without affection, only fumbling lust. The boy had sought him out a few more times after that, but Kastor hadn’t been able to withstand the change in him -- the shackles of growing familiarity -- and had fled to the foothills to hunt. He wondered whether that boy remembered him. Maybe remembered him better than this, remembered his name and the color of his eyes.

After a few hours, the clouds blew away in thin streaks that left the moon bare and the air icy. By that light, Mikah glowed. His golden skin was smooth as new snow. Even in sleep, he looked a little mischevious; something in his brows and the curve of his lips that remained even when his face was relaxed.

What can you do with a beauty like that? Kastor thought. You can’t have an opinion about it. Not like a mortal beauty with flaws that can be ignored or appreciated; he doesn’t need my regard, or anyone’s. No wonder he dismissed me so easily. Anything I give him, he takes as his due. Perhaps it is his due. He’s an immortal, after all.

I once dismissed people that easily too. I did it from fear. Pride, but pride has its roots in fear. He does it from -- what, boredom? Disdain? I guess that’s not any worse, or any better.

Clear and stinging night, clear and stinging thoughts. Kastor wished for his book. He would have written this, and be damned to his resolution not to dirty the pages with cheap poetry anymore. They were just hemp paper, after all.



When the sky was pale enough that he judged it a half hour before dawn, he gave Mikah a little shake. “Wake up. It’s time.”

Mikah woke instantly. He got up without any yawning or stretching. “Is there such a thing as breakfast?”

“No.”

“Well, I ate enough last night. Tell me, does the ban on sorcery extend to using it to make your armor fit me?”

Kastor thought about this. “Not if no magic hangs about it.”

“Let’s try it. Give it to me.”

“The word you want is ‘please’.”

“You didn’t say please when you asked me to fight for you.”

“All right, all right.” While Magda roused the others, Kastor got his leathers off and put them on Mikah. The breastplate and backplate were a bit loose, the shoulder pieces a bit too wide; and then, suddenly, it all fit perfectly. He helped the Mara buckle on the bracers, serruptitiously comparing their wrists. Mikah’s were definitely far thinner, but the buckles didn’t even have to be fastened on a different notch. “Is it going to be too small for me when you take it off?”

“I can tell it to go back to how it was. This wouldn’t work if it were metal. Leather remembers being skin, and skin remembers growing. I wish my boots were a little thicker.”

“So do I,” said Kastor unguardedly, then suppressed the rest: I wish you were wrapped up in ten sheets of steel, I wish you were a thousand miles away, I wish I could fight this myself.

Magda tapped Kastor’s shoulder. When she had his attention, she took his hands and turned them over, examining his wrists. She touched the faint trace of a scar, which had been hidden until he took his bracers off. “This was new when I first saw you. I noticed it the first day. It looked red and tender. The marks of teeth, I thought.”

“Yeah, a dog decided it wanted my lunch, a couple days before you met me. What about it?”

“Scars don’t fade that fast.” Her look made it into a question.

“On me they do.”

Mikah stood and posed. “Do I look very fine now? I mean to be impressive.”

Kastor looked at him appraisingly, trying to imagine how the spectators at the fight would see him. How his opponents would see him. Though he was a couple inches shorter than Kastor, he was still tall, and the armor mitigated his slenderness somewhat. The rusty color of his sleeves contrasted enough with the armor to point up its presence, a hint of gold thread showing here and there, calling out the glitter of his hair. His beauty, his confidence, the wry quirk of his mouth and the arrogant set of his chin, were perfect for the purpose. He looked, Kastor had to admit, like a myth made flesh. But then, that was pretty much what he was. “You want to redo your braid. Bits are coming out all over.”

“Make me a Kyri topknot, then. It will look strange to them, in yellow.”

“With what comb?”

“What do I need a comb for?” He released the ruby clasp, ran his hand down his braid, and his hair swung loose in regular waves. Kastor didn’t want to touch it, afraid he’d take fistfuls of it and bury his face in it and embarrass them both. He steeled himself and gathered Mikah’s hair atop his head, used the jeweled clasp to fasten it in the high tail that signified a Kyri warrior.

“Too bad your hair’s too short for that, Kas,” Tanner said, watching the process. “It would remind them who you used to be to them.”

“I don’t know if I want to do that.”

“Why’d you cut it off, anyway?” Mikah demanded, as if this was suddenly very important. “It looks terrible, short like this.”

“No it doesn’t,” Tanner said.

“What’s it matter what it looks like?” Kastor said. “Anyway, cutting it wasn’t symbolic or anything. I caught a fever last winter and it got all snarled up. It was so matted by the time I got well enough to comb it that it just wasn’t worth the trouble, so I chopped it off. I like it short, it’s less work.”

Mikah tilted his head curiously. “A fever, my brutality? How did you manage that?”

“What are you talking about?”

He didn’t answer. “Here comes our escort. Everyone look fearsome.”



Despite the earliness of the hour, a crowd was already gathered around the roped circle. A platform had been erected beside it. The two Thrones were on it, the Gethanein and Arthane occupying them. There was the Mare’s Throne, carved with galloping horses, their manes gilded, their eyes jeweled, and lower animals on the lower parts, cattle, sheep, goats -- rams’ heads with curled horns for handrests -- and all other manner of domesticated animals emerging from the polished wood. And there, beside it, was the Horned Throne, where Kastor had once made an uneasy attempt to look regal; the fighting bucks whose antlers gave it its name arched over Tamiris’s head now, Tamiris’s hands rested on the snarling bears’ heads, he was the one supported by all the wild beasts of the Sei. The bison carved in a bit too much relief would be poking him in the kidneys now. Kastor smiled.

This levity was possible because Charis was nowhere to be seen. There weren’t that many spectators, either, though probably their numbers would grow as the day wore on. The Arthane’s men who escorted Kastor’s group led them to a lower platform opposite the Thrones, with folding stools to sit on. Maybe that was meant as an insult, but Kastor had always preferred a camp stool to a throne; besides, the seats of the stools were fine gold-tooled leather, so if it was an insult it wasn’t much of one.

Nhedra was waiting for them. She offered Mikah two lengths of black wood, varnished until they looked like jet. They had a slight taper, and knobs on the ends a bit like sword pommels. Kastor raised an eyebrow at her.

“Where’d you find such nice clubs, Mother? Who’d bother making wooden weapons so pretty?”

Her lips quirked. She leaned in close and whispered: “Table legs.”

Kastor laughed.

A gong sounded, high and brassy, calling for silence. Alys stood, and Kastor noticed that under her violet mantle she wasn’t wearing her ornamental scale mail, but useable armor of blue leather. So she meant to take the field. He glanced at Mikah to see if the Mara had noticed this, but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

“We are gathered here,” she intoned, “to witness the trial-by-combat of Kastor Auberlane, former Arthane of all the Kyri, demon-kin, for the crime of returning from exile. Should he defeat the twelve champions, between sunrise and sunset of this day, without rest or healing, without the use of sorcery, and leave the ring under his own power, his sentence of death will be retracted. Should he fail the trial, but survive, he will be executed forthwith before the eyes of these witnesses. Should he die in the trial, justice will be considered done. Kastor Auberlane, are you present?”

Kastor suppressed the urge to shout ‘here!’ like a child at lessons. “I am, Revered Lady.”

“Then enter the ring, or declare your champion.” This was a formality; everyone could see that Mikah was armed and Kastor wasn’t.

“By reason of my condition of ruagh feaheledd, which prevents me from fighting without killing, I declare a champion. Mikah the Mara will fight in my place.”

“The council accepts your choice. Mikah the Mara, enter the ring.”

A sentry was moving to unfasten one of the ropes, but Mikah didn’t wait for that; he took a standing leap from the platform into the ring, clearing the top rope by at least a yard. The crowd shouted surprise at this, and it took some time for the murmurs to subside. Mikah clacked his batons together and then bowed to the Thrones.

“The council has chosen twelve champions to represent its honor. Defenders of justice, enter the ring.”

A rope was unfastened at the Gethanein’s end. The council’s champions filed in and lined up to salute the Thrones. Kastor recognized a few of them -- Ardi Splitface, a trophy hunter from the Hurddhu clan, seamed hairline to chin from an insane attempt to attack a young dragon; Elirny Calaon, a lancer who really ought not to be here without her horse; Seamus an Seamar, a foreigner from somewhere up in the mountains who’d been in mercenary service to the Auberlanes most of his life. But there were only ten champions. Alys would fight, but who -- ah, Tamiris was armored as well. They were both willing to risk themselves to see Kastor dead? What kind of monster did they take him for?

Alys confirmed this after announcing the names of the ten in the ring. “The eleventh champion is my Arthane, my beloved brother, Tamiris Auberlane. I will be the final champion. Make all ready; the sun is rising.”

The champions filed out of the ring, all but the Calaon, who only went to the edge to have her husband put her helmet on her. Mikah came back toward Kastor’s side, so Kastor went to meet him.

“She’s a lancer,” Kastor said. “She’ll be awkward on the ground. Use that, if you can. But she’s fast with that spear.”

“I’ll do my best to avoid being perforated. Aren’t you going to give me some kind of token?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, a scarf or something. It’s traditional.”

“Not here. Besides, I haven’t got anything. What did you do with that earring you stole from me?”

“Not telling. Let me have the other one.”

Kastor rolled his eyes, but he didn’t want to deny Mikah any encouragement. He unhooked his remaining diamond and put it into Mikah’s ear.

“Good. Now I want a kiss for luck.”

“You’re insane. In front of all these people?”

“Exactly. What, you want them to approve of you?”

Trying not to think about it too much, Kastor leaned down from the platform, intending a quick peck. Mikah grabbed him by the back of the neck and gave him a long, solid kiss that left his head spinning. The Mara grinned.

“That ought to be lucky enough.” Still grinning, Mikah bounced to the center of the ring and banged his batons together again. “What are you waiting for?”

Elirny Calaon looked to the Gethanein. Alys was glaring at Mikah, cold eyes bitter with hatred. Around the crowd, Kastor saw expressions ranging from disapproval at the sight of two men kissing, to plain excitement for the fight, to laughter for no reason he could discern. The Gethanein looked as if she wanted her look to burn holes through Mikah’s head and bore out his brain.

“Begin,” she said.