In his mind’s eye, he built her face as it had been, little by little, loving the curve of her shoulder and the odd pale color of her hair.

Proud, he thought, she had been so proud. It was in the stubborn set of her chin, raised in defiance of the men in that tavern. He could see the bruise on her wrist where the innkeeper had grabbed her and yanked her out of bed.

He’d been intrigued by her then, he thought as he had before. In the clear light of his memory he could see how young she’d been, little more than a child, and yet they’d been married less than a season later.

Eschewing the luxuries his cell now offered, Tier sat on the floor and set his back against the wall. He remembered the very moment that he knew he loved her.

Two days after Jes was born, Tier came back from the barn to find Seraph sitting on the end of the bed, back straight as a board, with Jes held protectively in her arms.

“I have something to say to you,” she said, as welcoming as an angry hedgehog.

He took off his coat and hung it up. “All right,” he’d said, wondering how he’d managed to offend her this time.

Her eyes narrowed, she told him that their son was a Guardian. She explained how difficult Jes would find it to maintain a balance between daytime and nighttime personalities.

“If he were a girl, he would stand a better chance,” she said in the cold, clear voice she only used when she was really upset. “Male Guardians seldom maintain their balance after puberty. If they become maddened, they will kill anyone who crosses their path except for those in their charge. Once that happens, they must be killed because they cannot be confined.”

Jes began to fuss and she set him against her shoulder and rocked him gently—keeping Tier at a distance by the force of her gaze. “I had a brother who was a Guardian, adopted from another tribe. Often Guardians are given to other clans to raise because the normal anxieties of birth parents seem to add strain to the Guardian’s burden. It is an honor to raise a Guardian child, and no clan would refuse to take him.”

Give up his son? The shock of the suggestion ripped cleanly through dismay that had encased him as he realized the terrible thing that the gods had laid upon his small son. How could she think that he’d entertain a suggestion that they throw Jes away because he was too much trouble? How could she consider deserting her child?

She wouldn’t. Not she. She who fought demons for people she didn’t even know, would never, ever, shrink at anything that would threaten her second family.

“How old was your Guardian brother when he died?” asked Tier finally.

“Risovar was thirty,” she said, her hands fluttering restlessly over Jes, as if she wanted to clutch him close, but was afraid she might hurt him if she did. “He was among the first who died of the plague.”

“Then you know how it is done,” Tier said. “Jes will stay with us, and you will teach me how to raise a Guardian who will die of ripe old age.”

Her face had come alive then, and he saw what it had cost her to be honest with him. When he cradled his family against him, mother and child, she’d whispered, “I’d have killed anyone who would have tried to take him.”

“Me, too,” Tier had said fiercely into her moon-colored hair. No one would ever separate them.

“Me, too,” said Tier, in his cell in the palace at Taela.

How best to weather this captivity? The answers came to him in Gerant’s dry tenor. Know your enemy. Know what they want so you know where to expect their next attack. Discover their strengths and avoid them. Find their weaknesses and exploit them with your strengths. Knowledge is a better weapon than a sword.

He smiled affably when Myrceria entered his room.

“If you would come with me, sir,” she said. “We’ll make you ready for presentation. After the ceremony you’ll be given the freedom of the Eyrie and all the pleasures it can provide you.”

The women who’d tried to bathe him once before were back in the bathing pool, and this time Myrceria wouldn’t let him send them out. They scrubbed, combed, shaved, trimmed, and ignored his blushes and protests.

When one of the women started after his hair, Myrceria caught her hand, “No, leave it long. We’ll braid it and it will look properly exotic.”

They persuaded him into court clothing, the like of which he’d have never willingly put on. He might actually have refused to wear them, even with his resolution to be a meek and mild guest while he gathered knowledge of his enemy, if it weren’t for the fear in their eyes. He could see that, if they didn’t turn him out pretty as a lady’s mare, it wouldn’t be him that suffered. So he protested and made rude comments, but he wore the silly things.

There was a polished metal mirror embedded in the wall, and the women pushed and shoved him until he stood in front of it.

Baggy red velvet trousers, tight at waist and ankles, were half-concealed by a tunic that hung straight from shoulder to knees. From the weight of it, the tunic was real cloth of gold. Under the tunic, his shirt was blood-red silk embroidered with metallic gold thread. They’d shaved his face smooth, then oiled his hair with something that left flakes of metal in it that caught the light as he moved. Then they’d braided it with gold and red cords that gradually replaced his own hair so the braid hung down to his hips, where it ended in gold and red tassels. On his feet were gold slippers encrusted with bits of red glass. At least he hoped it was glass.

After looking at the full effect, he hung his head and closed his eyes.

“Lassies, if my wife ever saw me like this she’d never let me live it down.”

Myrceria tapped him playfully with one manicured finger. “You look handsome, admit it. We did a good job, ladies, although he wasn’t so bad to start out.”

Tier looked at himself in the mirror again. If he looked carefully, he could see how the outfit might have been inspired by Traveler’s garments. They wore the loose pants and the knee-length tunic—but one of the things that Seraph liked about Rederni clothes was the bright colors. Her own people wore mostly undyed fabrics or earth tones.

Tier sighed, “I’m glad there’s no one here who knows me. I’d never live this down.”

They covered his magnificent gaudiness with a brown robe and pulled its hood down to hide his face.

“There now,” said Myrceria. “You are ready.” She hesitated, and the practiced manner of a court whore faded a little. “You’ve made our job easier,” she said. “Let me help you a little. The wizards will be waiting when we take you out the door. Go with them quietly; they won’t hurt you. They’ll escort you through the Eyrie—the largest room that belongs to the Path. It’s an auditorium tonight, but usually it is just a room for people to gather in. The wizards will take you to the stage at the end and introduce you to the Passerines and whatever Raptors decided to come.”

He took her hand in his and bent to kiss it. “Thank you for your kindness, Myrceria. Ladies.”

There were four men in black robes waiting for him, just as Myrceria had promised. Like him, their hoods were pulled over their faces.

Tier hesitated in the doorway, unprepared for the fearful reluctance he felt at the sight of them and the sudden conviction that he’d seen the knobby hands of the man nearest him holding a small knife wet with blood.

He repressed his fear and the anger it called. With a small smile he set himself in the center of the procession.

“Shall we go, gentlemen?” he said pleasantly.

The Eyrie was made up of broad shelves of level flooring with short drops between sections; the level shelves narrowed as they neared the stage at the far side of the room.

The uppermost section, where Tier and his escort entered, was mostly occupied by a bar laden with food. Behind the bar was an open doorway where servants appeared with trays of food or armloads of ale mugs.