"The trial," the Marat woman said and turned back to Tavi. "Well, Aleran? Did you recover the Blessing?"

Tavi shivered and felt abruptly stupid. He had forgotten. In all the excitement and confusion, he had forgotten the trial. He had forgotten that he had used the mushroom he'd needed to win on Kitai. And though he may have saved the girl's life, he had lost the trial. His own life was forfeit. And the Marat, united, would ride against the people of his home.

"I…" Tavi said. He reached toward his pouch-and felt warm fingers inside.

Tavi looked down and saw Kitai drawing her hand back out of his pouch. Her eyes blinked open once, toward his, and he felt more than saw the silent gratitude in them, the respect for his courage.

"But it was so stupid," she whispered. Then she closed her eyes again.

Wordlessly, Tavi reached inside his pouch and found the second Blessing of Night where Kitai had left it. He drew it out on fingers already pricked and bleeding and offered it to Doroga.

Doroga knelt down on both knees in front of Tavi and accepted the Blessing, his expression grave. He looked down at the mushroom, then at Kitai's thigh, the yellowish venom drying there. His eyes widened with sudden realization, then went back to Tavi. Doroga's head tilted to one side, staring at him, and the boy felt certain that Gargant headman knew exactly what had happened in the alien valley below.

Doroga reached out and laid one huge hand on Kitai's pale hair for a moment, eyes gentle. Then he looked back at Tavi and said, "I loved her mother very much. Kitai is all I have left of her. You have courage, Aleran. You risked your life to save hers. And in doing so, you have saved not one, but two whom I love. Who are my family."

The Marat rose to his full height and reached down his hand to Tavi. "You have protected my family, my home. The One demands that I repay you for that debt, Aleran."

Tavi drew in a sharp breath and looked from Doroga to Hashat. The Horse warrior's eyes gleamed with a sudden excitement, and she drew in a breath, laying one of her hands on the hilt of her saber.

"Come, young man," Doroga said quietly. "My daughter needs to rest. And if I am to repay you, I have work to do. Will you come with me?"

Tavi took a breath, and when he spoke, his voice sounded, to him, to be deeper, more steady than he'd heard it before. For once, it didn't waver or crack. "I will come with you."

He took Doroga's hand. The huge Marat headman showed his teeth in a sudden, fierce smile and hauled Tavi to his feet.

Chapter 35

Amara took off her belt in pure frustration and used the buckle to rap hard against the bars in the tiny window of the cell she'd been thrown into. "Guard!" she shouted, trying to force authority into her tone. "Guard, come down here at once!"

"Won't do any good," Bernard said, stretched out on the pallet against the far wall of the room. "They can't hear anything down here."

"It's been hours," Amara said, pacing back and forth in front of the door. "What could that idiot Pluvus be waiting for?"

Bernard rubbed at his beard with one hand. "Depends how gutless he is."

She stopped to look at him. "What do you mean?"

Bernard shrugged. "If he's ambitious, he's going to send out his own people to find out what's going on. He'll try to exploit the situation to his advantage."

"You don't think he is?"

"Not like that, no. Odds are, he's got Gram put in a bed somewhere, and he's dispatched a courier to carry word to Riva, informing them of the situation and asking for instructions."

Amara spat out an oath. "There isn't time for that. He'll have thought of it. He's got Knights Aeris around the perimeter of the Valley to intercept any airborne couriers."

"He? The man at the ford. The one who shot at Tavi." Though his tone didn't change much, Bernard's words held a note of bleak determination.

Amara folded her arms over her chest and leaned against the door, exhausted, frustrated. If it would have helped, she'd have started crying. "Yes. Fidelias." The bitter venom in her own voice surprised even her, and she repeated the name more quietly. "Fidelias."

Bernard turned his head to look at her for a long, quiet moment. "You know him."

She nodded once.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Amara swallowed. "He is… he was my teacher. My -patriserus."

Bernard sat up, frowning. "He's a Cursor?"

"Was," Amara said. "He's thrown in with someone. A rebel." She flushed, her face heating. "I probably shouldn't say any more, Steadholder."

"You don't have to," he assured her. "And call me Bernard. As long as we're stuck in a storage closet together, I think we can skip the titles. There won't be room for all of us."

She gave him a weak smile. "Bernard, then."

"He was your friend, this Fidelias."

She nodded, looking away from him, quiet.

"More than that?"

Amara flushed. "If he'd have let it happen. I was about thirteen when I started training with him, and he was everything. He didn't though. He didn't…" She let her voice trail off.

"He didn't want to take advantage of you," Bernard suggested. At Amara's flustered silence, he said, "I can appreciate that in a man."

"He's good," she said. "I mean, skilled. One of the Crown's best. He's got more missions on record than any Cursor alive, and there are rumors of many more that were never recorded. Some of the things he's done are in textbooks. He's saved the lives of thousands of people who never even knew he was there." She swallowed. "And if you'd asked me a week ago, I would never have dreamed that there could be a man more loyal to the Realm." She heard her voice grow bitter again. "A patriot."

"Maybe that's the problem," Bernard said, pensive.

Amara frowned and looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"There's two kinds of bad men in the world. I mean, there's all kinds of ways for a man to go bad, but when you get right down to it, there's only about two kinds of men who will hurt others with forethought. Premeditation. Men that don't figure there's anyone else alive who matters but them.

And men who figure that there's something that matters more than anyone's life. Even their own." He shook his head. "First one is common enough. Petty, small. They're everywhere. People who just don't give a scorched crow about anyone else. Mostly, the bad they do doesn't amount to much.

"The second kind is like your patriserus. People who hold something dear above their own lives, above anyone else's. They'll fight to protect it and kill to protect it, and the whole time they'll be thinking to themselves that it has to be done. That it's the right thing to do." Bernard glanced up at her and said, "Dangerous those. Very dangerous."

Amara nodded. "Yes. He's dangerous."

"Who said," Bernard rumbled, eyes steady, "that I was talking about Fidelias."

Amara looked up at him sharply.

"It all comes down to people. You can't have a realm or an ideal without people to believe in it. Support it. The realm exists to protect people. Seems kind of backward to me to sacrifice people to protect it."

"It's just not that simple, Steadholder."

"Isn't it? Remember who taught you," Bernard said, his voice gentle, the words clear, firm. "Right now, he's out there and he probably thinks he's doing the only thing he can. Crows, he probably thinks he's doing the right thing. That he's in a position to know when others don't, and so its his choice to make and no one else's."

She pushed her hair back from her face. "How do I know that he hasn't made the right one?"

Bernard stood up and moved toward her. He put a hand on her shoulder, eyes earnest. "Because a sound tree doesn't have bad roots, Amara. No enterprise of greatness begins with treachery, with lying to the people who trust and love you."