“She meant for you to come, the Fallen House, she wanted you here.” In as few words as possible, Dhulyn told him about the old woman’s death. “The One-eye wanted me; but the old woman had her own plans all along. I was to tell you to be ready, that Lok-iKol had been cursed.”

Parno blew out a deep breath. “That is what has been bothering you? Not the fall of the Tarkin, but this? You thought I might turn back into a son of House Tenebro?” To her surprise, Parno grinned his old, loose grin and pulled her closer, resting his forehead for a moment against her hair.

“Forgive me. This is not the first time such a thought has crossed your mind since I began to speak of Imrion, and I said nothing. You came young to the Brotherhood, with nothing but pain and loss behind you, and it has been-as you have reminded me often enough-your whole world, your whole life. I came to the Brotherhood a man grown, with a world and a life behind me. So that though I am longer in the world than you, my heart, you are the Senior in Brotherhood. I know what you’ve thought. You’ve wondered if I value the Brotherhood less, because once I was of a House, because I once had family, servants, people to command, a place in an ordered life. You’ve thought, once or twice, that I would not have come to the Brotherhood had my life not undergone such a change by force.” He took hold of her shoulders, looking her in the eyes, his own clear under his golden brows. “Could I not say the same of you? Would you not even now be away in the cold south with the Red Horsemen, if they still rode? Tell me, what have you lost that I have not also lost?”

Dhulyn shut her eyes tight, only opening them again when Parno smoothed her brows with his thumbs.

“I am not a Tenebro. I am Parno Lionsmane, the Chanter. I was Schooled by Nerysa of Tourin, the Warhammer. Since we first met at the battle of Arcosa, here in Imrion as it happens, since you skewered that westerner who was trying to skewer me, I have been your Brother. And you mine.” The grip on her shoulders tightened painfully. “And you mine. You’ll have to kill me to be rid of me. And though I have no Sight,” he said, “I tell you that is not how it happens. Neither the Tenebros, nor even the Tarkin himself is the reason that I counsel you to speak.”

Her anger, and the fear that caused it, had drained away, leaving her limp, muscles trembling with fatigue. She leaned her forehead against his shoulder, breathed in his scent of leather and sweat. “Why should I speak, then? If not because you love him, then why?”

“Not because of the Tarkin, but because of the Jaldeans. You’re right. The Tarkin is just one person or another, and we’re Mercenaries. And if there’s war? What’s it to do with us who sits on the Carnelian Throne, besides more work and better pay?” He kissed her knuckles and placed her hand gently on the woven bedcover. He pulled his legs up beneath him and sat cross-legged, facing her from the end of the bed.

“I don’t say we should fight for the Tarkin, I’m saying we should fight against the Jaldeans.” From habit, Parno lowered his voice to a murmur that went no further than the bed they sat on. “You have never made any great show of your Mark-”

“Even if I wanted to, you know I cannot-”

“Hush for once and listen to me, woman.” The bare injustice of this silenced her. She was not the talker of the two of them, and Parno knew it. “The Mark is an old problem for us, one we might easily have lived with forever. The Jaldeans have changed that. Your Mark is now an active danger, not merely a nuisance. Where will we go, my heart, if the Jaldeans come into such power, here in Imrion?”

“Imrion is not the world-”

“Imrion is the seat of the old civilization, and there are many places which still look to it for guidance. And there are Jaldean Shrines everywhere besides Imrion, in the desert, even in the Blasonar Plains. How long until this New Belief reaches there?”

“Small shrines, a monk or two…” Even she could hear the lack of conviction in her voice.

“They were small shrines here in Imrion, if it comes to that,” he pointed out. “Look how they have grown.”

Dhulyn frowned. Parno was right. If what she had Seen came to pass… try as they would, they could not hide her Mark forever. And she would endanger Parno as well, not just herself. Perhaps even the rest of her Brothers.

“But my counsel to you would be the same, even if you were not a Seer. This killing of the Marked is wrong of itself. What tells us the Jaldeans will stop with the Marked?”

That brought Dhulyn’s head up again.

“The New Believers gather power and importance to themselves by turning the world against useful, talented people who provide a service for a fee. Can you think of any other groups of whom these things might be said?”

Dhulyn sat up straighter, put her hand on the hard muscle on Parno’s thigh. “The Scholars,” she said. “That’s obvious. But we also. The Mercenary Brotherhood is also such a group.” She pulled her lip back from her teeth. “In the Marked, the New Believers remove a source of competition, an alternate center of power. They make the people a sword, and once the sword is sharpened, they can use it to cut anyone.”

“True words, Dhulyn, my soul.” Parno nodded.

“We’re not so few as the Marked,” Dhulyn said. “And better armed than the Scholars.” She dragged her lower lip between her teeth. “But we’re spread thin, so thin. It would take some time to kill us all…”

Parno nodded. “But kill us all is how it would end.”

“No.” Dhulyn shifted away so she could look Parno directly in the face. She tapped the air between them. “You are right. It ends here.”

“So we will warn the Tarkin.”

“If we’re to die with swords in our hands, why delay it?” Dhulyn smiled. “You are wrong about one thing, however.”

“I am never wrong.”

“This time you are. It occurs to me, Parno, my soul, that it does matter to us which man is on the Carnelian Throne.”

“It does?”

“Yes,” Dhulyn let her lip curl back from her teeth. “It may be anyone except that one-eyed piece of snake’s dung. Anyone except Lok-iKol Tenebro.” She opened her eyes and looked at Parno’s grinning face. “I witnessed his mother’s curse, that twisted turd, I cursed him with Pasillon myself, and it’s Pasillon he shall have.”

“They have what?” The menace and anger in Lok-iKol’s voice was enough to stop in their tracks the two servants who were busy ferrying out the Fallen House’s rugs and tables, now unwanted since the new Tenebroso had taken possession of the office that the old woman had used as her sitting room for so many years.

Dal-eDal had spoken to his House in a practiced murmur that would not carry beyond the worktable at which Lok-iKol sat, but now he pointedly looked at the servants and waited until Lok-iKol had waved them out of the room before he spoke again.

“They have gone, my House,” he repeated. “Escaped.”

“Impossible. Who freed them?” His hands were fists, and the scarring stood out bone-white from the rest of his face.

Dal had never seen Lok-iKol so angry. Fear could take a man that way, but somehow Dal doubted what he saw in Lok’s face was fear.

“Your pardon, my House,” he said, keeping his voice neutral. “No one needs to free Mercenaries; they free themselves. The cell was found locked, but empty.”

“The cell?-Etkyn! Etkyn, here!” One of Lok-iKol’s personal guard charged in from the anteroom, sword drawn. “Go to the east room immediately and check it.”

“But, my House-”

“Don’t argue, GO!” The man ran from the room.

Dal remained standing at the side of the worktable, watching Lok rap his knuckles against the tabletop. As Heir he was entitled to a chair, but he knew the answer Etkyn would bring, and he thought it best to remain on his feet.