He was dying.

Alec was dying, and not even Sebrahn could help him now.

With a ragged scream of pure rage, Seregil scrambled to his feet, gripped his sword in both bloody hands, and ran to meet his own death.

Kari was lifting the lid from a kettle when a terrible chill rolled over her. She dropped the lid with a clatter and sank down on the settle.

“What’s wrong?” Illia cried, kneeling beside her and wrapping her arms around her mother to keep her from falling. “Are you sick?”

“No,” Kari said faintly, pressing a hand to her brow. It was wet with cold sweat that hadn’t been there a moment before. “I don’t know. A goose must have stepped on my grave-” She’d meant it lightly, but suddenly she was clutching her daughter to her breast and sobbing. “Oh my heart! Something…Where are the children? Are they safe?”

“They’re in the yard, Mama. Please, don’t cry! They’re safe, I promise. There, you can see them through the doorway.”

Gherin and Luthas heard the commotion and ran to her, terrified.

“Mama, what is it?” Gherin wailed, burying his face in her skirts.

Kari gathered both little boys into her arms with Illia, but the grief was just as strong. Oh blessed Dalna, please! Not when he’s so far from home!

In the deepest recesses of the caverns beneath the Temple at Sarikali, the Dragon Oracle laughed.

Beyond the peaks called Ravensfell by the Tír, a dark-eyed half-breed woke in her hut with tears on her cheeks.

The Plenimaran coastline was a dark line on the horizon sight. Micum was too restless to sit still now, and divided his time between pacing the deck and standing watch at the forward rail. It seemed that no matter how the hours passed, the land remained as far away as ever. Their captain promised that he’d have them ashore somewhere near Riga by midnight, but the winds were changing and Micum could tell that he and the mate were worried.

And once we get there, where to start? Micum wondered, admitting to himself at last what he could never say to Thero.

Just then the wind went colder and the hair stood up on the back of his neck. Turning slowly, he gripped the rail in one hand to keep from staggering. “Oh Illior, no!”

Chilled and discouraged, Thero had retired to their cabin to rest. Despite all his assurances to Micum, he knew it might be impossible to find them, even if they were able to get ashore. Every sighting had failed. It was as if Alec was veiled from sight. And Illior only knew what their reception at Riga would be, even with the Gedre traders to vouch for them.

Lying on the narrow bunk, he threw an arm across his eyes, hating this feeling of helplessness. He could only imagine Micum’s agony; the look of disappointment in his eyes, every time Thero failed with his magic, haunted him. To lose Seregil and Alec like this, never knowing what had become of them…

To fail them like this!

He sat up, blinking away tears. I can’t give up. I won’t!

Composing himself cross-legged on the bunk, he closed his eyes and brought his hands up in the figure of seeing as he threw his mind’s eye once more into flight toward Riga.

Give me some sign. Anything. Lightbearer, I beg you, guide my eye!

He held the spell until his head throbbed and his breath gave out, and then broke it, gasping, to find blood streaming from his nose in twin rivulets. That had never happened before. He must be more exhausted than he thought. In fact, he was shaking badly and felt chilled to the bone. And when had the sun gone down? The room was so dim, and so cold!

Thero…

Startled, Thero looked around the little cabin. There was nowhere for anyone to hide, yet the faint, tremulous whisper seemed to come from all around him.

Thero, help…

“Who are you?” he whispered.

Thero, can you hear…

He knew that voice. Thero pressed his palms together, opening his mind’s eye again, but this time within the confines of the cabin.

It was a strong spell for such a small space. Every detail of the tiny room appeared with razor-edged clarity behind his closed lids, and there in front of him stood Alec.

Thero had seen only a few ghosts in his life, and never one so clearly. No shredding, rippling shade, this. Alec seemed almost as solid as life, except for the fact that Thero could see the faint outline of the door through him, and the edge of the window. He was dressed in strange clothing, and his chest was soaked with blood. His lips were moving, but Thero couldn’t hear him now.

“Alec!” Thero’s voice broke but the spell held. “Please, let me hear you!”

Alec faded almost out of sight, but his voice returned. Help him! Save Seregil and the child.

“Child? Where are they? Can you show me?”

Show you! Alec reached out and clutched Thero’s spirit by the hand in a crushing grip and suddenly they were flying, the sea and sky a blur around them, then the land under them. Not Riga. No, someplace miles to the east and south.

I was looking in the wrong place all along!…hurry!

Thero could see the coastline from here and far below, a few tiny specks of riders hemming something in.

No, someone.

He could see Alec on the ground now, pitifully splayed in death, with arrows in his body. He saw Seregil running, sword in hand, at more men than he could hope to bring down alone. And someone else, a blur of white, so indistinct, yet the sight of it sent a shudder through Thero’s very soul.

What is that? Even from here I can feel it!

Alec’s shade looked at him with such sad eyes, then he was falling, falling-

“Thero, look at me!”

Thero opened his eyes to find himself sprawled on the cabin floor with blood running down the back of his throat from the nosebleed. Micum was crouched over him.

“Alec!” There was no sign of the shade now. The deathly chill was gone and sunlight was streaming in through the window.

“You saw him, too?” Micum was looking panicked now, something Thero had never seen before.

“I know where they are!” Thero told him, and burst into tears.

“You fool!” Yhakobin shouted, not at Seregil but at the slave takers. “Kill him! Kill him now, but don’t touch the rhekaro or I’ll have your skins!”

Seregil felt the arrows that struck his thigh and shoulder with no more concern than if they’d been gnat bites. His throat hurt, too, and perhaps he was screaming. Some part of his mind was aware of other shafts hissing around him, and the shouts of the men dismounting to stop him, but his vision had narrowed to one long dark tunnel and at the end of it all he could see was Yhakobin, sitting his horse with one hand raised as if to fend off the certain death bearing down on him.

Two swordsmen dismounted to block his headlong rush. Seregil sliced the head off the first one with a single swing and plunged his poniard into the chest of the other. Not caring if he was dead or not, Seregil trampled him underfoot and kept on running.

The alchemist tried to rein his mount aside, but Seregil sprang at him, dragging him from his horse. Throwing Yhakobin to the ground, Seregil hacked off one upraised hand, then plunged the point of his sword into the man’s belly and yanked it hard, spilling his guts on the ground in his fury. He could see the man’s mouth open, and guessed that he was screaming, but all he could hear now was a single clear, ringing note, too pure and piercing to come from a living throat.

He turned slowly, still caught in a nightmare. The rhekaro was standing over Alec’s body, his mouth stretched in a perfect O. The sound was coming from him, and mingling with it were the screams of the slave takers and the cries of the horses as they reared and bucked.

As Seregil watched, the remaining riders fell from their saddles, screaming and bleeding from their eyes and ears and noses. One by one they went still and silent, and only when the last one was dead did the rhekaro’s deadly song die away.