It’s not a child! he reminded himself time and again, but each day he wondered more and more what it really was.

Alec hadn’t seen Khenir in all that time, but one afternoon as he sat reading on his bed, the door opened and there he was. Alec regarded him with a new coldness, convinced that he’d taken the horn picks. But his heart ached a little, too, torn between conviction and regret.

Khenir noticed the change in his demeanor at once, of course. With a sigh, he sat down on the bed beside him. “You’re angry with me?”

“I think you know why.”

Khenir nodded slowly. “That day I saw that the spoon was missing and realized my mistake in leaving it behind. If Ilban had found out?” He shuddered. “You put us both at a terrible risk with such a foolish act. If you got away because of my carelessness, it would have been my life in payment.”

“I was planning to take you with me,” Alec told him.

Khenir stared at him in disbelief. “You’d really do that?”

“Of course!”

“That was very good of you. I never guessed-But you don’t think those splinters could really have worked in the lock, do you?”

Alec kept to himself the fact that they’d worked perfectly well. “Why are you here?”

“I’ve been worried about you! I was afraid Ilban was taking his anger out on you, as he has on me more frequently.” He lifted the hem of his robe and showed Alec a few red stripes across the backs of his calves.

“What’s he so upset about? He’s got his white creature and I’m keeping it fed for him. And those cries?” Alec hugged himself, feeling miserable and helpless. “By the Light, does he make them just to torture them? What is it he wants?”

Khenir sighed. “He’s pursuing a great secret, Alec. The rhekaro made from Hâzadriëlfaie blood are said to yield the necessary elements for a perfect elixir.”

“To do what? Heal the Overlord’s child?”

“Yes. That’s what he told me, at least.”

Alec narrowed his eyes at the older man. “You think there’s something else it does?”

“I have no idea, but I do know that he’s made many healing elixirs over the years without going to such lengths.”

“Say all you want about ‘alchemy’ it all looks like necromancy to me, and it causes suffering.”

“But for a higher purpose.”

Alec shook his head and looked away.

Khenir squeezed his shoulder and gave him a little shake. “I’m sorry about taking your things, but it was to protect you as much as myself. I keep telling you, you haven’t been a slave long enough to understand the danger.”

“And how would I, shut up in a cell for weeks on end?”

“I know it’s difficult for you. If only Ilban’s experiments work, things will surely change. In the meantime, I’ll ask if you can go out in the garden with me again.”

Alec had expected to work harder than this to get another chance at the garden. “Thank you. I’d like that.”

“Then you forgive me?”

Alec forced a grudging smile. “Forget about it. It doesn’t matter anyway. I guess I’ll have to settle for another walk on my chain, eh?”

CHAPTER 32 On the Hunt

MICUM AND THERO found horses saddled for them at the head of the escort waiting by the courtyard gate. There was a stone mounting block near the gateway, and Micum swallowed his pride and used it. Once he was on horseback, he was any man’s equal.

The khirnari was the next to use the block, climbing stiffly into the saddle of a fine chestnut mare. “I will be your guide.”

Thero bowed in the saddle and Micum did the same, glad of more time to get to know the man. Seregil had always spoken fondly of him.

They rode along a coastal road until dusk, and guested at a lonely farmstead. The farmer and his family were clearly honored to have their khirnari under their roof and made their Skalan guests welcome with every comfort they had.

The following morning they turned up into the wooded hills, following a well-traveled road. Micum kept one eye on the trees, but the khirnari assured him that bandits were rare in these parts. Micum nodded, but kept watch anyway; this was perfect country for an ambush. Wasn’t that why they were here?

They reached the ravine that afternoon and Riagil led them down to the spot where the bodies had been found. Thero seated himself on a rock by the stream and closed his eyes, intent on seeking any lingering energies that might be here. Micum left him to it and walked slowly up and down the bank of the stream. The soft ground was still marked by footprints, but not from a battle. It looked more like the bodies had simply been dumped here after they were killed.

“Why would they have turned aside?” wondered Thero. “That water doesn’t look good to drink, except perhaps for the horses.”

“Why indeed?” Micum dismounted stiffly and walked slowly up and down the side of the ravine. It had been weeks since the attack-weeks of rain and wind, but he could still tell that the attack hadn’t happened here. There was no sign of a fight.

Leaving his horse with one of the ’faie, he grabbed his stick and worked his way slowly back up to the road, following the faded signs that were left. The Gedre had mucked up much of it when they came for their dead, but he could still make out some drag marks, and the deep impressions left by men carrying a burden.

The trees were thick on either side of the road and would have provided ample cover for archers. Given the number of arrows found in the bodies, that must have been the main type of attack. Beginning with the ravine side of the road, he limped slowly into the forest, gaze and stick sweeping the ground. Fortunately, there wasn’t much undergrowth, and he soon found numerous groups of small depressions, where the archers had stuck handfuls of arrows into the ground, in easy reach as they shot. The tree cover had protected footprints better in here, and he guessed there had been at least thirty ambushers.

Going to the far side of the road, he found similar signs and a rusted knife of Skalan make, which he pocketed.

Chin on chest, he walked the roadside for nearly an hour, searching for old signs along the verge while the others milled about, trying to stay out of his way. He found nothing more on the far side of the road, so he crossed over and tried again on the ravine side.

He had better luck here. The grass was longer between the road and the trees and looked to have been trampled some time ago. He used the tip of his stick to brush it this way and that, looking for tracks. Instead, the tip struck something that gave back the clink of metal. Feeling around, his hand caught on something sharp enough to cut his fingertip. He drew back, then let out a low whistle of satisfaction. It was the hilt of a sword, and one he recognized by the curled, fern-head ends of the quillons. It was Alec’s, or what was left of it; the blade had been shattered. The remains of it, no more than a few inches long, were razor-sharp and darkened to an unusual blue.

A few moments more searching uncovered the hilt of Seregil’s sword in the same condition. It was Aurënfaie work, made by Seregil’s uncle to replace the one he’d destroyed killing Nysander. Not only was the blade of this one shattered and dark, like Alec’s, but the smooth round lozenge of Sarikali stone that had formed the pommel was gone, leaving nothing but the empty bezel.

He crouched for a long time, holding the hilts in his hands; this was where his friends had made their stand.

“Show me something, boys,” he murmured, smoothing his mustache thoughtfully. Neither would have gone without a fight; the swords were proof of that. And Seregil at least would have tried to leave him some sign. He always had.

Micum gave the hilts to Thero and continued his search. A few feet from where Seregil’s hilt had fallen, the point of Micum’s stick struck something small and metallic. He went down on both knees and parted the grass. There, half-buried in a small ants’ nest, glinted the ring Klia had given Seregil. He picked it up and polished the red stone on his sleeve, cleaning the dirt from the princess’s portrait. Oh my friend. If you let this fall, it must have been very bad indeed.