She thought that he had entered just to stop them, but it was clear from the look of casual interest on his face that he was surprised to see the children flailing at his feet. Several more like him in size and bearing followed him, companions chatting as they stepped across the threshold. While she was still stunned and stumbling back, the Lothan Aklun rushed forward, snatched up Ravi, and dragged him, with more strength in them than she had imagined, toward one of the stone slabs. Mor's gaze snapped back and forth from Ravi to the Auldek. Thus, she saw the Lothan Aklun strap Ravi down to a slab. She saw him wrestling to be free. She saw that once he was strapped down, the rectangular box dangling from the ceiling lowered to cover him. She heard him scream her name, just before the stone cover touched the floor and the cry was cut off. The moment passed, and Lothan Aklun hands pulled Mor out of the Auldek's way. Mor was shoved against the wall once more, and there she screamed. Ravi was inside that box. Pale stone. Sharp edges.

The shirtless Auldek exchanged words with the Lothan Aklun. He seemed to want to see under the box that covered Ravi, but they would not let him. Instead, one of them pointed to Mor. He spoke in a guttural tongue she could not understand. Her breath escaped her completely when the Auldek turned and stared at her. He walked closer. His hand came out and touched her chin. She flinched, but his grip pinned her to the spot. He turned her face upward and studied her, even as she stared at him. His visage was a mask for a long moment, creviced and sharp, with eyes as unreadable as a snake's. And then he smiled and said something that stirred laughter in his comrades.

He released her, spun away, and climbed onto the second slab of stone. He slapped the sides with the palms of his hands, as if urging the Lothan Aklun to hurry. The other Auldek moved to the far side of the room and stood in a spot one of the Lothan Aklun gestured them to. The Lothan Aklun busied themselves again. Soon the rectangular cover above the Auldek also lowered, closing around him and cutting off the last few remarks he shouted out.

Mor stood transfixed, her hands clenched together now, working nervously at each other. She remembered the moment, but she could not recall what she had felt. It was a blank space about which the frantic motion of her hands and the things witnessed by her eyes told her little. Ravi was encased in stone. She knew why now, but what had she thought then? It troubled her greatly that she did not remember, and that whatever Ravi went through he faced alone, while she stood, wringing her hands.

And the moment passed. There was no loud noise, no blast of light, no roar or blood or confusion. There might have been a sound that she felt through her feet, something like music, but she was not even sure of this. She watched the cover above the Auldek rise. The Lothan Aklun hurried to him. When they stepped back a moment later, he rolled off the platform. He planted his feet and growled. He pumped his fist in the air, a grin splitting his face. He was the same, save his skin now glowed as if a light burned in his chest and illumed him from the inside out. The other Auldek howled back at him, all of them animated as they swarmed around him, smacking him with their palms. The Lothan Aklun carried on whatever it was they were working at, their backs turned to the Auldek as if they were no longer there.

The other lid-the one that covered Ravi-remained closed. She never saw Ravi's face or knew what was left of him after his soul was pulled from his body and thrust into that Auldek's. For that was what had happened. She would not understand this completely until sometime later, when Yoen explained it all to her in his gentle, honest way. That was why she knew the truth now. That was why her mind had come to accept what her spirit had told her. Ravi was not yet gone; he was a prisoner in another being's flesh.

There was one other thing she did know for sure. She had never forgotten the name of the Auldek who received her brother's soul. She heard it on Lothan Aklun lips and recognized it to be a name, something different from the rest of the foreign words.

Devoth. His name was Devoth. One day she would get to him, find him unprotected. Then she would kill him and let her brother free.

C HAPTER

Standing in her private chambers as her servants made her up for the Blood Moon banquet, Corinn mulled over the strange letter she had received from her sister. It pleased her to learn that Mena had been found alive and well. Corinn did not, however, care for the flippant tone of mystery in the note Mena had dispatched to Acacia via messenger bird. It said, simply, I am found, sister. All well. I'm winged! Will fly to you. Look up. What in the Known World did that mean? Perhaps Mena had suffered an injury after all, one to the head. Even if she remained of sound mind, Corinn did not like the triumphant tone of it. All well. Never, in Corinn's experience of rule, was all well. Mena might have dealt with all the foulthings, but there would be something else to occupy them soon enough. She would have to drill this into her sister when she returned.

"Please, mistress," a thin-limbed servant said, "would you lift your arms?"

The queen did so, and the servant wrapped her vest around her and fastened it in place. Technically, the gown was a version of the garment that tradition dictated her to wear at the Blood Moon banquet, which commemorated the fifth king's-Standish's-suppression of the first mine revolt in Crall. A cruel act, though one the histories praised. As with her other clothes, Corinn had had the tailors cut the dress to the contours of her body. This changed the look of the garment considerably. Corinn would hardly be able to eat or drink anything at the banquet, so snug was the fit, but that did not matter. The maroon dress displayed her breasts and the slimness of her torso and the flare of her hips all to startling effect, an unnerving combination of ancient authority and sensuous beauty.

Her sister's were not the only words written by one of her siblings that roiled around in Corinn's head. She had also spent part of the morning with several volumes open on the great wooden tables in the library. She had gone there, as she had several times before, to read in solitude about the ancients: Edifus, like a wolf fighting for dominance among a pack a snarling competitors; his son, Tinhadin, who built upon his father's shaky legacy with a mastery of god talk so complete that he came to fear he might utter it in his sleep and wake to find the world altered; Queen Rabella, four generations after Tinhadin, who rose to power and held it until her death, no king to rule her. She outlived six male consorts, but never agreed to wed. A smart woman, Corinn thought, and a documented argument against the conniving climbers who wished to bed her on their way to the throne.

She read these old texts to try to discern who her ancestors had really been, how they had succeeded, and what they could teach her. Ironic, but increasingly she reached back to those long dead for guidance while shielding her thoughts from those around her. She also read, searching for insights on the Santoth. Though she came across passages about them often, she never felt she understood them any better. They remained shadowy figures, like beings standing at the edge of her peripheral vision.

This morning, though, it had been a newer volume, one on her brother Aliver, that drew her in. Strange to read words that were supposed to be his. The transcripts of his speeches had about them a hint of the same formality that flavored the old texts. Though the book purported to be a transcription of his words, the shaping of scholarly hands was all over them. Rarely did she catch in them any hint of the brother she had known. But, of course, she had not known this adult Aliver, this warrior prince leading an army and stirring the masses to revolt.