“I’m glad,” I said. “And I do not think you are a fool at all, my lady.”

Lifting her head, she smiled a crooked smile. “Even though I still love him?”

“Especially so,” I said firmly. Getting to my feet, I extended my hand to her. “It takes courage to love.”

Erdene took my hand and rose. Her gaze was clear and earnest. “I don’t want Bao to die, Moirin. You’ll do your best to find him?”

“I will,” I promised.

Surprising me again, she gave me a hard, fierce hug. I returned the embrace, wrapping my arms around her small, stalwart figure. Short as she was, the top of her head barely came to my chin.

And I understood why she had kept my things as a reminder of Bao. We shared a connection to him. This was as close as I would get to my stubborn peasant-boy for a long, long time.

And I had a long, long way to go.

With a sigh, I released her. “Unless you have more wisdom to impart, I should be going.”

She shook her head. “No, no more.”

I bent and kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”

“May all your gods be with you, Moirin,” Erdene said soberly. “I fear you will need them.”

So did I.

FORTY-EIGHT

For once, my impulsiveness had not led me astray. Without Erdene’s directions, it was very possible I would have wandered into the desert, underestimating its rigors, and found myself trapped there. Wary of the Great Khan’s enmity, I’d become accustomed to avoiding people. I felt safer alone, especially since I had discovered the secret of fixing anchor-stones to conceal my campsite beneath the twilight while I slept.

But when at last I reached the far verges of the southern steppe, my first glimpse of the stony, barren expanse of the empty desert that lay beyond the grasslands convinced me that Erdene was right.

I turned eastward, riding along the edge of the barren desert, following my memory of the map that Bao’s abandoned Tatar bride had sketched in the dirt.

Erdene had guided me well; I had been right to trust her.

So it was that many days after our encounter, I found myself amidst a sprawling caravanserai on the outskirts of the desert, where traders from Ch’in, the Tatar territory, Bhodistan, and even Khebbel-im-Akkad bartered and traded, arranging for passage in a babble of competing tongues.

As used as I’d become to solitude, it intimidated me; and too, there was the lingering fear that someone loyal to the Khan would recognize and betray me. There weren’t many women among the caravans, and my green eyes and half-D’Angeline features marked me. I thought of summoning the twilight to hide me while I took the measure of the place, but it was difficult to navigate through dense crowds unseen. And, too, it would only be delaying the inevitable. So I made camp some distance from the vast city of tents and gers, and entered it warily on horseback.

People, so many people! And there were milling horses, and tall camels with two humps on their backs, an animal I’d only ever seen before in a royal menagerie. Scents from scores of cook fires filled the air, and there was a steady stream of folk watering animals and filling skins and barrels at the river that seeped sluggishly into the barren desert.

I had to own, it was all a bit overwhelming; and now that I’d seen the desert, the task ahead of me seemed more daunting than ever. There was a part of me that yearned to turn tail and flee.

It was possible. I wasn’t far from the Ch’in border. I still had the Imperial seal in my possession. I could travel east to the nearest gate in the Great Wall and present it, and all my difficulties would be over. To be sure, the Divine Emperor was a pragmatic fellow who thought of his country first. Having survived a civil war that could have torn his empire apart, I knew he would not risk sparking a fresh conflict by launching a quest into Tatar territory and beyond to retrieve one errant peasant-boy-but he would see me safely home.

That much at least, he owed me.

All I had to do was abandon Bao.

The Imperial army would grant me an escort to Shuntian. It would be a great pleasure to see Snow Tiger again. She was more than a friend, and she would understand the profound sense of loss I would feel better than anyone else in the world. And I had no doubt that for my services rendered to the Celestial Empire, her father, Emperor Zhu, would commission a greatship to take me home, carrying me thousands and thousands of leagues across the sea.

And, yes, Jehanne was gone; but at least in Terre d’Ange I would be reunited with my lovely, gracious father.

And across the Straits, in Alba, my mother. My private, taciturn, much-beloved mother, who had sent her only child off to an unknown destiny. If I died in the desert or the mountains, she would never know what had become of me.

If I gave up, I would see her again. See her face alight with joy, hear the lilt in her voice as she called me by the old, familiar endearment in my birth-tongue, a tongue I’d not heard spoken since I left.

I’ve missed you so much, Moirin mine.

Just the thought of it brought tears to my eyes-and yet my diadh-anam flared in violent alarm.

Far, far to the south, its missing half flickered feebly.

I couldn’t give up. As appealing I might find the notion in a moment of weakness, I couldn’t. I couldn’t turn away from the call of my diadh-anam. I couldn’t leave Bao to suffer and die at the hands of this bedamned Falconer fellow and his Spider Queen.

So I gave myself a moment to wallow in self-pity; then I wiped my eyes and summoned my resolve.

Emerging from my reverie, I realized there was a Tatar boy some twelve years old staring at me with disturbing intensity, his dark eyes scrutinizing every detail of my person. When I returned his gaze, he turned around and raced away, dashing through the corridors of tents.

That didn’t bode well.

My thoughts were a jumbled mess. I glanced around, spotting the nearest encampment of Ch’in traders, wondering if it would be wiser to flee, or to ask them to grant me sanctuary based on the Imperial medallion. Technically, I was still in Tatar territory, but this was land that had been often disputed and currently existed in a state of uneasy truce for the purposes of trade.

If I fled…

I could summon the twilight and conceal my camp, but for how long? And how would I ever cross the desert if I did?

Torn between bad options, I hesitated too long. Quicker than I thought possible, the boy returned, tugging a much older Tatar man by the hand. Sighing inwardly, I unslung my bow and nocked an arrow. “If you mean to betray me to the Great Khan, I am warning you, I will go fighting!” I said in a fierce voice.

Both the boy and the old man raised their empty hands in a peaceable gesture, shaking their heads hard. The old man clicked his tongue and made the “Ha, ha,” sound the Tatars used to soothe animals.

“No, no, no!” the boy said. “You don’t understand!”

I lowered the bow a fraction. “What do you want?”

The old man peered at me, his eyes rheumy. “I do not see colors so well anymore, but my grandson says you have green eyes, as green as grass, and a blue-green jade bangle around your wrist. Some months ago, we escorted a rather desperate young man across the desert. He was looking for a young woman of your description.”

My heart gave a leap. “Oh?”

They nodded. “He described her to every trader we passed,” the boy said. “No one had seen her. But it sounded just like you. Was it? Are you looking for him?”

“Why do you want to know?” I asked.

The elderly Tatar rubbed his hands together. “He paid very well for a swift passage, the swiftest we could manage. Instead of coin, he paid with a tonic made from a dried root worth more than gold or gems. I was able to sell it at great profit, after I tried it myself to see how potent it was.” A gleeful grin split his wrinkled face. “My wife was very surprised!”