Ergund’s eyes darted to the shaman’s face, and then away.

“I don’t want it,” he said quickly. “I’m not, this isn’t—”

“I know, I know.” Soothing now. “You have always been content to tend your herds and your family, Ergund.” And be driven and harried by that nagging, malcontent bitch of a wife. “To raise your voice in council only where necessary and otherwise stay out of such matters. You are a man who understands his strengths, the paths the powers have laid out for him. But don’t you see, that is what makes you the perfect intermediary for those powers.”

A hard stare. “No, I don’t see that at all.”

“Look.” Poltar tried to quell a rising sense of moment, of destiny that must be handled with painstaking care. “Suppose one of your brothers had come to me with this, Alrag, say, or Gant. Then, I would have to question whether this dream were true or—”

“My brothers don’t lie!”

“Right, of course. You misunderstand me. I say true in the sense of meaningful. Truly sent by the Dwellers. Alrag is an honorable man, of course. But it’s no secret he’s always wanted the clan mastery for himself. And Gant, like you, questions Egar’s suitability to lead, but he is not circumspect like you. He speaks openly of these things. The word in camp is that he is simply jealous.”

“Ungoverned women’s tongues,” said Ergund bitterly.

“Perhaps. But the fact remains that both Gant and Alrag might well dream such a dream because it speaks to their own personal desires. With you, I know that’s not true. You want no more than what is best for the Skaranak. Through such vessels, the Dwellers speak best.”

Ergund sat, head down. Perhaps he was dealing with the weight of Poltar’s words, perhaps simply with the unwelcome idea that a steppe wolf really had gotten up on its hind legs and walked out of the darkness to find him. When he finally spoke, his voice shook slightly.

“So what do we do?”

“For the moment, nothing.” Poltar kept his tone carefully neutral. “If this is the Dwellers’ will, as it seems it is, then there will be other signs. There are rites I can perform for guidance, but they take time to prepare. Have you spoken to anyone else about this?”

“Only Grela.”

“Good.” It wasn’t—you could trust Grela about as far as you could herd campfire smoke. But Poltar knew she had little enough love for Egar. “Then let’s keep it that way. We’ll talk again, after the ceremonies. But for now, let all three of us be servants of the Sky Home with our silence.”

LATER, WHEN THE CHILDREN HAD FACED DOWN YNPRPRAL WITH THEIR grinning, freshly greased firelit faces and their pummeling barrages of half-delighted, half-terrified shouting and their running about at their parents’ urging, when they’d chased the ice demon from his flapping, haunting circuits of the great bonfire and back out into the cold dark he belonged to, when all that was done and the Skaranak had settled to their customary drinking and singing and tale telling and staring owlishly into the spit-crackle warmth of the flames . . .

. . . then Poltar crouched out in the windswept chill of the steppe, staying later away from the camp than he could remember himself doing for a dozen or more years, biting back his shivers and hugging himself beneath his father’s wolf-skin cloak, muttering under his steaming breath and waiting . . .

Out of the darkness and bending grasses and the wind and the cold, she came walking. Bandlight broke through cloud and touched her.

Grinning, tongue lolling, all sharp white puncturing fangs and eyes, balancing back on legs never made for walking upright, wrapped head-to-foot in wolf the way she had in Ishlin-ichan wrapped herself in whore.

She did not speak. The wind howled on her behalf.

He rose, the chill in his bones and on his face forgotten, and he went to her like a man to the marriage bed.

CHAPTER 15

Gingren was installed in the western lounge when Ringil got in, pacing noisily up and down and barking at someone whose responses were much softer. They’d left the door ajar, which seemed invitation enough to eavesdrop. Ringil hovered for a moment in the corridor outside, listening to his father’s gruff tones and a low, diffident voice that he made as that of his oldest brother, Gingren Junior. A cold memory gusted through him at the sound.

A long corridor . . .

He was about to slip away when Gingren, showing a quite remarkable sixth sense, looked up and caught him there.

“Ringil!” he bellowed. “Just the man. Get in here, will you!”

Ringil sighed. He took a couple of steps inside the room and stood there, barely over the threshold.

“Yes, Father.”

Gingren and Gingren Junior exchanged a glance. Ringil’s brother was sprawled on a couch by the window, rigged for the street in boots and court sword, clearly on a visit from his own family home over in Linardin. It was the first time Ringil had seen him in nearly seven years, and changes weren’t flattering. He’d put on weight and grown a beard that didn’t really suit him.

“We were just talking about you.”

“That’s nice.”

His father cleared his throat. “Yes, well, Ging’s been saying, we can probably nip this idiocy in the bud. Kaad doesn’t want it any more than we do, looks like Iscon just went overboard on his own account. It’s not the right time for the notable families of Trelayne to be squabbling over trivia like this.”

“The Kaads are a notable family now, are they?”

Gingren Junior chortled, then shut up abruptly as his father glared at him.

“You know what I mean.”

“Not really, no.” Ringil looked at his elder brother, and Gingren Junior looked away. “You come to offer yourself as a second, Ging?”

An awkward silence.

“I didn’t think so.”

His brother flushed. “Gil, it’s not like that.”

“No?”

“What your brother is trying to say is that there is no need for seconds, or any other element of this ridiculous charade. Iscon Kaad will not fight, and neither will you. We will resolve this with intelligence.”

“Yeah? What if I don’t want to?”

Gingren made a noise in his throat. “I’m getting tired of this attitude, Ringil. Why would you want to fight?”

Ringil shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s your family name he insulted coming here the way he did. Threatening steel on the premises.”

Gingren Junior bristled forward in his seat. “It’s your family, too.”

“Good. We’re agreed then.”

“No, we are not fucking agreed!” Gingren yelled. “You cannot just fucking cut your way through everything with that cursed sword of yours, Ringil. That’s not how we do things here in the city. Not anymore.”

Ringil examined his nails. “Well, I’ve been away.”

“Yeah.” His father clenched a fist at his hip. “Maybe you should have fucking stayed away.”

“Hey—blame your gracious lady wife.”

Ging came to his feet. “Don’t you dare talk about Mother like that!”

“Oh, shut up.” Ringil closed his eyes briefly in exasperation. “Look, I’m fucking sick of this. Are you in on this Etterkal thing as well, Ging? You keen to stop me looking for our cousin Sherin, too, in case it puts too many lucrative backstreet deals in the lamplight? Upsets too many of our scummy new harbor-end friends?”

“Sherin always was a stupid little tart,” said Ging bluntly. “We all told her not to marry Bilgrest.”

“Stupid little tart or not, your honored mother wants her back.”

“I told you—”

Ringil grinned wolfishly. “Shame she had to work her way down all three brothers before she found one with the balls to do what she asked.”

Gingren Junior surged forward. Ringil went to meet him. He was still shaken up from the events at the gate, would welcome the chance to hit something.