Another hour passed and he began to worry that they'd somehow missed each other. Alec could have taken refuge, as he had, under an outcropping or in the forest. Or had an accident or been recaptured. Reining in these dark thoughts, Seregil sat down on a damp block of stone to catch his breath.

His arrival dislodged a small nation of striped periwinkles, which clattered and rolled away like a cascade of marbles into the tide pool at his feet. A gull circled down to drink on the opposite side.

"I'll find him," Seregil sighed aloud, resting his head in his hands. "He's here and I'll find him."

The gull regarded him with one skeptical yellow eye, then flapped off with a derisive jeer.

Turning his head to watch it, Seregil froze in disbelief. A wan, battered spector stood looking down at him from a shelf of rock not twenty feet away.

"Alec!"

Thin, bruised, and naked, Alec swayed visibly as the wind buffeted him. Despite his obvious exhaustion, however, he was poised for flight.

"Alec, it's me," Seregil said more gently, watching hope and fear warring in those dark, narrowed eyes. What had put such deep distrust there?

"What's wrong?"

"What are you doing here?" Alec croaked, and the wariness in his voice went through Seregil like a knife.

"Looking for you. Nysander's here, too, and Micum. They're back that way."

"Nysander's dead," Alec said, taking a step backward.

"No, he almost died, but he's alive, I promise you. We know what Mardus is up to now. We were right, Alec. We are the Four-you, me, Nysander, and Micum. We're all here to stop him."

Alec shivered miserably as the wind whipped his hair across his pale face. "How do I know it's you?" he mumbled faintly.

"What are you talking about?" Seregil asked in growing confusion. "What did they do to you? It's me! I'm coming up to you now, all right? Don't be afraid."

To his amazement, Alec turned and fled.

Scrambling up the rocks, Seregil dashed after him and caught him in his arms, holding Alec tightly as he struggled.

"Easy, now! What's wrong?" He could feel

Alec's heart hammering beneath his ribs. Panting, Alec twisted around and gripped the side of Seregil's face in one hand. Fighting back his own sudden fear, Seregil loosened his hold.

Alec gingerly touched his hair, shoulders, and arms, his expression almost feral in its intensity and distrust. After a moment, however, the look disappeared, replaced by the most wondrous look of relief Seregil had ever seen.

"O Illior, it is you. You're alive," Alec gasped, tears welling in his eyes. "That bastard! I should have guessed, but the blood, your voice, everything. But you're alive!"

Shuddering, he grabbed Seregil in a fierce embrace.

"Last time I looked," Seregil rasped, his throat tight with emotion as he hugged Alec to him.

The boy was trembling badly now. Releasing him just long enough to get his cloak off and swing it around Alec's bare shoulders, Seregil helped him down in the lee of a large rock and held him close as the boy trembled and wept.

"I thought you were dead," Alec exclaimed hoarsely, still clinging to Seregil as if terrified that he'd disappear. "It was Vargul Ashnazai. He made me think you'd come to rescue me, and he killed—" Alec let out a harsh sound between a sob and a laugh. "But I killed the son of a whore!"

The story that spilled from him was broken and confused, but Seregil was able to piece enough together to begin to guess what kind of torture Alec had been subjected to. Tears of helpless rage stung behind his own eyes as he stroked Alec's hair, murmuring softly to him in Aurenfaie.

Coming to the end of his tale, Alec rested his head wearily on Seregil's shoulder and drew another shuddering breath. "The worst of it—When Ashnazai killed you, tricked me into thinking he had—he said things—" Alec squeezed his eyes shut. "I thought you died believing I'd betrayed you."

Seregil stroked a strand of hair back from Alec's forehead and kissed him there. "It's all right, tali. If it had really been me, I wouldn't have believed him. I know you too well for that."

"And I never told you—" Alec's pale face flushed crimson. "I don't understand it, but I—"

He faltered and Seregil pulled him closer. "I know, tali. I know."

It was Alec who brought their lips together.

Seregil's first reaction was disbelief. But Alec was insistent, clumsy but determined. It lasted an instant, an eternity, that one awkward kiss, and it spoke silent volumes of bewildered honesty.

The moment that followed was too fragile for words.

He's exhausted, confused. He's been tortured past the point of endurance, Seregil warned himself, but for once, the doubts refused to take root.

Father, brother, friend.

Lover.

He closed his eyes, knowing that whatever grew up between them, it would be enough.

Alec was the first to break the silence. Wiping his face on the corner of the cloak, he said, "We'd better keep going. If I fall asleep now I don't think you'd be able to wake me again. Mardus is on his way."

"You'd better get some clothes on." Seregil stood to pull off his tunic and felt the weight of the black dagger he'd carried inside it.

"I almost forgot, I've been saving this for you."

Taking the knife out, Seregil unwrapped the scarf he'd wound around it. He held it a moment, his symbol of both defeat and hope through the long days of their separation. At last he tugged the knotted hank of hair loose from the hilt and let the wind snatch the golden strands from his fingers, scattering them over the rocks and into the sea.

48

Irtuk Beshar rode to the front of the column and fell in beside Mardus. Captain Denaril, leader of the land force that had met them upon landing, gave place with a barely concealed shudder.

Mardus greeted her with a gracious nod. "Good morning, Honored One."

"And to you, Lord Mardus. Have your scouts returned?"

"Yes. They report no interference. We'll make camp by late afternoon today and be well in place for the final ceremony tomorrow."

"The will of Seriamaius is with you, as always, my lord." Irtuk studied the dark man's comely profile. "I must say, you seem remarkably sanguine, given the death of Vargul Ashnazai and the escapes last night."

Mardus shrugged eloquently. "Ashnazai brought his death on himself, despite all my warnings. Losing Alec was regrettable, though. What a remarkable young man."

"But the prisoners?"

"My trackers say the Skalan raiding party numbered less than a dozen riders and that they fled east. No, the Helm will be restored and I shall serve Seriamaius as the Vatharna."

Mardus' cold smile broadened perceptibly.

"Not a shabby attainment for an Overlord's unacknowledged bastard, eh?"

"I have foreseen this day since you were a child at my knee," the dyrmagnos said fondly. "Even now the young Overlord suspects nothing. When the time comes he will be forced to give place to you, his trusted half brother. With the Helm on your brow and the hand of Seriamaius over you, no one can contest your claim to the throne."

"And how is young Thero this morning?"

Irtuk Beshar gave a dry, whispery laugh.

"Subdued. Most subdued."

The second scouting patrol was larger. Watching from the shelter of several large boulders, Micum counted a dozen Plenimaran riders moving up the track toward the temple site.

Stealing back to the salt pine, he found Nysander listening calmly to the scouts calling back and forth to one another as they spread out through the trees behind the site.

"What are they saying?" whispered Micum.

"From the sound of it, they are looking for a place for an encampment."

Before long the Plenimarans backtracked to a sloping meadow a quarter of a mile back the way they'd come.