There was a bang and a flash at their feet, and they jumped in shock. Leesha said nothing, but her face was a storm cloud as she pointed at the door. Both were gone in an instant. Jardir released Gared, and he, too, scurried out.

Jardir turned to Leesha and bowed long and deep. “I apologize, mistress, though I do not understand why I have given distress. I have come to you and your family honorably, yet you act as if I tried to carry you off after stealing a well.”

Leesha did not respond for a long time, and her anger was terrible to behold, such that Jardir had an urge to shield his eyes as if in a sandstorm. Slowly, she embraced the feeling, and her features grew calm once more.

“I apologize as well,” she said. “My distress is not directed at you, but at being the last to find out you had come courting.”

“Abban told your parents I would come immediately,” Jardir said. “I assumed they sent you word.”

Leesha nodded. “I believe you. My mother has a history of trying to make such arrangements without my knowledge.”

Jardir bowed. “If you need time to consider, you need not answer now.”

“Yes…,” Leesha began, “I mean, no. That is, I’m flattered, but I can’t marry you.”

You will, Jardir thought. You are destined to love me as I already do you.

“Why not?” he asked her instead. “Your mother says you are unspoken for, and I will meet any dower your family desires. Soon I will control all the Northland, and you with me. What husband could offer you more?”

Leesha paused for a moment, then shook her head as if to clear it. “It doesn’t matter. I barely know you, dowers mean nothing to me, and frankly, I don’t know that I want you ‘controlling’ anything.”

“Come with me to Everam’s Bounty,” Jardir said. “Come see my people and what we are building. I will teach you our language as you asked, and you can come to know me and decide what I am…worthy to control.”

Leesha looked at him a long time, but Jardir waited patiently, knowing her answer was inevera. “All right,” she said at last, “but with proper chaperone, and no decision until I am safely returned to the Hollow.”

Jardir bowed. “Of course. I swear it by Everam.”

Rojer paced the yard, staring at Leesha’s cottage. Gared’s clenched fists were like two hams, and even Wonda had fetched and strung her bow. Finally, the door opened, and Leesha followed Jardir out onto the porch. “Wonda, escort Mr. Jardir back to town,” she said. “Gared, you can finish cording the woodpile.”

Gared grunted and picked up Wonda’s axe as she and Jardir headed down the path. Rojer looked at Leesha, who nodded her head back to the door. She went inside, and he followed as she went right to Bruna’s rocker and put on her shawl. Never a good sign.

“How did he take your refusal?” Rojer asked, not bothering to sit.

Leesha sighed. “He didn’t. Told me to take my time and think it through. He’s invited me back to Rizon with him.”

“You can’t go,” Rojer said.

Leesha raised an eyebrow at that. “You have no more say over who I marry than my mother, Rojer.”

“Are you saying you want to marry him?” Rojer asked. “After a single tea and an awkward lunch?”

“Of course not,” Leesha said. “I have no intention of accepting his proposal.”

“Then why in the Core would you deliver yourself into his hands?” Rojer asked.

“There’s an army at our doorstep, Rojer,” Leesha said. “You don’t see value in looking at them with our own eyes? Counting tents and learning how their leader thinks?”

“Not at the cost of our own leader,” Rojer said. “Duke Rhinebeck doesn’t personally go to Miln to see what Euchor’s up to. He sends spies.”

“I don’t have any spies,” Leesha said.

Rojer snorted. “You have over a thousand Rizonans who owe you their lives, many who left family behind. Surely a few could be persuaded to return home and keep their ears open.”

“I won’t order people to put themselves at risk,” Leesha said.

“But you’ll put yourself?” Rojer asked.

“I don’t think Ahmann would harm me,” Leesha said.

“Two days ago, he was the demon of the desert,” Rojer said. “Now he’s Ahmann? What, do you just shine on any man who thinks he ’s the Deliverer?”

Leesha scowled. “I don’t want to hear any more of this, Rojer.”

“I don’t care what you want,” Rojer snapped. “You’ve heard how the Krasians treat women. No matter what that oily snake tells you, the moment you’re out of range of the Hollowers’ bows you’ll be his property, and anyone with you will get a spear in the eye.”

“So you won’t be coming with me?” Leesha asked.

“Night, haven’t you heard anything I’ve been saying?” Rojer demanded.

“Every word,” Leesha said, “but I’m still going. If that’s the kind of man Ahmann is, then war is inevitable and it doesn’t matter what we do. But if there’s even a chance he meant what he said at the table, then there’s a chance we can find a way to coexist without killing each other, and that’s worth more to the world than the fate of Leesha Paper.”

Rojer sighed, plopping down in a chair. “When do we leave?”

SECTION 4

THE CALL OF THE CORE

CHAPTER 26

RETURN TO TIBBET’S BROOK

THE PAINTED MAN’S MOOD was black as Fort Miln receded in the distance. Any happiness he had felt upon leaving Ragen and Elissa’s manse was swept away by the meeting with Jaik. The conversation played out over and over in his mind, all the words he should have said presented themselves too late, and did little to dispel a nagging doubt that his friend was right.

To take his mind away, he read through the book Ronnell had given him, but that brought no comfort. Laid bare were Leesha’s coveted secrets of fire, with metalwork diagrams to turn their force into tools of precision killing. Tools designed for killing not demons, but men.

Did the corelings drive us to the brink of extinction, he wondered, or did we do it to ourselves?

He caught sight of a ruined keep off the side of the road as the sun began to set. One of Euchor’s predecessors had kept a garrison there, but the keep had fallen to demons and never been rebuilt. Most Messengers, convinced it was haunted, gave it a wide berth. A rusted gate hung bent and torn from twisted moorings, and great holes had been broken in the outer wall.

He rode into the keep, staking Twilight Dancer in a warded circle. He stripped to his loincloth, selecting a spear and bow. As darkness fell, the stinking mists began to seep up between the shattered stones of the courtyard. Corelings rose thickly in unwarded ruins, instinct telling them the odds were good prey might one day return. Fifty men had died when the wards of this keep fell, likely killed by the very demons rising now. They deserved vengeance.

The Painted Man waited until the demons spotted him and charged before lifting his bow. In the lead was a flame demon, but his first arrow blasted the life from it. Next was a rock that took several shots to put down.

When the rock fell, the other demons paused, some even backpedaling to flee, but wardstones the Painted Man had placed around the gaps in the wall and gate kept them trapped in the keep with him. When he was out of arrows, he charged with spear and shield, eventually abandoning that as well and fighting with bare hands and feet.

Heonlygrewstrongerasthenightworeonandheabsorbedmoreandmore magic. Lost in the killing frenzy, he thought of nothing else until at last, covered in demon ichor that sizzled on his wards, he found no more demons to kill. The sky began to lighten soon after, the few remaining corelings in the area fading into mist to flee the sun as it burned their taint away from the surface world.

But then the light reached him, and it was like fire on his skin. The glare stung his eyes, leaving him dizzy and nauseous, and his throat burned. Standing before it was agony.