He took a deep breath. “Papa, Willon told us why he ran from Jes and me that night in Taela. He wanted us to succeed. He sacrificed his people so Mother would get all the Ordered gems. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong with them, but he thought Mother, Hennea, and Brewydd might. He knew that Volis had the maps. When Mother and Hennea couldn’t fix the gems, he wanted them to come here. He attacked you to force us to come here. Hinnum knew how to make the gems work right, but he wouldn’t talk to Willon. Willon sent Mother to talk to Hinnum.”

“What good did that do?” asked Hennea. “We won’t talk to him either.”

“Mother has people she cares about,” replied Lehr. “Willon promised not to harm any of us if Mother fixed the gems so that they worked for him. He took Rinnie hostage and left us to break free of his spell and tell you what had happened.”

“He took Rinnie?” asked Hennea, crouching beside Kissel. “Then why is she here? Did Hinnum rescue her?”

“No,” Rinnie said. “That was Phoran. He broke free of the Shadowed’s spell and came up to rescue me.”

“Phoran rescued you from the Shadowed?” Hennea sounded incredulous.

“Not exactly,” said Phoran wryly.

Tier tightened his hand on Rinnie’s shoulder; he’d come so close to losing her. “What happened?”

“He broke free of the Shadowed’s spell and told us how to do it, too,” said Toarsen, with a respectful nod in Phoran’s direction.

“It was an illusion,” Phoran explained, giving Tier a sheepish grin. “Some parts of me aren’t very nice, sir. The idea that a peasant, trumped-up parlor illusionist with delusions of godhood would try and command me, the Emperor, just seemed wrong. I couldn’t believe it would work—so it didn’t. The others had broken free by the time Rinnie and I got back. I don’t know how.”

Toarsen laughed, though there were tears in his eyes. He’d sat on the road next to Kissel, and now he touched him lightly. “Kissel, broke free before any of the rest of us. He said anything you could break free of couldn’t hold him. He talked the rest of us free.”

Phoran nodded soberly. “I chased after Rinnie. There’s a stair carved into the cliff, just below that guard tower over there.” He pointed to the second tower to the south. “I met Ielian, who was coming down the cliff as I came up. I tossed him off the cliff—”

“Too bad,” murmured Seraph.

“He’s dead,” Phoran told her.

“Thank you,” she said. “But I could have made it more painful.”

Phoran half bowed. “The next one I will save for you. I couldn’t be bothered with him because I knew Willon had Rinnie.” He shrugged. “Not that I was much help. We exchanged a half dozen words, then he tossed me off the tower.”

Tier turned to look at the tower in question again. “Down the cliff, too? You look good for a man who just fell several hundred feet.”

“Thank you,” said Phoran. “I feel good, too—relatively speaking.” The Emperor tilted his head and looked at Rinnie with a smile. “I think it was Rinnie who saved me: we’ve been too busy trying to run to stop and exchange stories to make certain. But instead of being splatted unpleasantly on the ground, I was lying at the base of the cliffs trying to catch my breath, and Rinnie was there.”

“The Memory threw me off the guard tower after you,” Rinnie said.

“What?” Phoran’s eyes flashed, and his hand went to his sword hilt. “It did what?”

Tier was feeling pretty murderous himself.

Rinnie grinned, first at Tier and then at the Emperor, looking more herself. “It grabbed me where I was cowering on the stairway and threw me off and said, ‘Cormorant, fly.’ I think if it hadn’t said that, I’d have fallen and squished right on top of you. As it was, I wasn’t sure I had been soon enough for you. You weren’t breathing and I was sure you were dead. Then you sat up, and your eyes were bulging and watering—I thought you could have been the walking dead, like the ones last night. But no, you started breathing and grabbed me without so much as a thank-you.”

All in one breath, thought Tier. Amusement won over the horror of hearing that something had thrown his daughter from a tower. It helped that Rinnie had survived.

Phoran bowed. “Thank you, my lady. I was remiss when I forgot to thank you earlier—though I believe the fear for your life took precedence at the time.”

Rinnie looked pleased, and said smugly, “I can’t wait until I get home and I can tell people that I saved the Emperor’s life.”

Lehr smiled at her. “No one will believe you, pest.”

“Where is Hinnum?” asked Hennea.

“The Shadowed was coming,” said Jes, who had exchanged his wolf form for the mountain cat. “Hinnum was already hurt, but he wouldn’t let me go.”

“Speaking of which,” said Phoran. “Should we continue going?”

“No,” said Hennea. “What we do, we can do here as well as anywhere. Seraph, this is as good a time as any to see if that ring will work for you. Phoran, where are the names from the Owl’s temple?”

“Willon burned them,” said Toarsen. “He said he was sealing the temple so no one else could get them again.”

“I remember one of them,” said Phoran.

Hennea frowned at him. “You know how to read the language of Colossae?”

He smiled. “I’m not just a drunken sot, my lady. I am an educated drunken sot. I couldn’t read the maps or the gates, but the alphabet is the same as Old Oslandic, which I do know. If Toarsen has that piece of char still, I can write it on the stones.”

Toarsen fumbled in his belt pouch and handed Phoran the charred stick. Phoran wrote some odd lines on the ground that might have been letters.

“Do you know to which one the name belongs?” asked Tier.

Hennea shook her head. “I don’t remember.”

“Ah, well,” said Tier. “Either would work I suppose. So what exactly do we do?”

“The six of us, you, Jes, Seraph, Lehr, Rinnie, and I hold hands. Then you speak the name of the god—I’ll tell you how to pronounce it.” Hennea sighed unhappily. “The rest of it we’ll have to improvise, I don’t know what will happen. The Orders are not the gods of Colossae.”

“We should wait until Willon comes near?” asked Tier.

Hennea nodded.

“Is there something I can do?” asked Toarsen. “He’s not going to make it.” He’d lifted Kissel’s head onto his lap and he touched his forehead lightly. “Lost too much blood. I need to have a hand in the destruction of the man who killed him.”

Tier hunkered down beside the big lad and put a hand on his too-cold cheek. He looked at Seraph, who nodded.

“Don’t give up on him, yet,” Tier told Toarsen. “Kissel’s survived worse than this—and we’ll have a Lark to help him, eh, Seraph?”

“I don’t intend for the Shadowed to kill any more of ours,” said Seraph.

“So there,” said Phoran. “Seraph has said so—Kissel won’t dare to fail her.”

A faint smile appeared on Kissel’s face.

“See,” said Tier. “All men must bow to my wife’s whims. You’ll do, lad.” He looked up at Toarsen. “I think this battle will be beyond steel, but I’ve no objection if you keep your sword handy and use it if you see a moment to do so.”

Toarsen nodded solemnly.

“Seraph,” Tier said. “If you’re ready, Kissel has been doing his best to hold on, but he could really use some help.”

Seraph fingered the tigereye ring and closed her eyes, trying to feel what was different, but she felt the same as she ever had. Just the same as she had when she’d tried to work some healing upon Gura a few minutes ago.

She looked down for a moment upon the young man who’d fought by her side against the Path that night in Taela. When she settled next to Kissel, Toarsen looked up at her with all the welcome of a bitch guarding her pups from a stranger.

“I’m not going to hurt him,” she told him, though she wasn’t at all sure of that.

“There’s not much that will hurt me at this point,” murmured Kissel unexpectedly, with the subtle humor that he liked to employ. He always seemed best pleased when his audience wasn’t quite certain he was trying to be funny.