Strange the way some people spend their time, Delivegu thought, and finally walked on.

He found the messenger bird shop with surprising ease. He was seated on a beach a little way down from it when it opened its doors. The street was much the same as its counterpart on Acacia. His stomach was set grumbling by the scent of onions boiling in seasoned oil and water, a soup for the common folk. He clamped a hand over his abdomen and breathed through his mouth. He had not eaten commoners' food in years and did not plan to start again, no matter the lure.

He saw several birds descend toward the coops around the back of the building. One of them, he was certain, carried his message. He watched a few people enter the shop, but none drew his attention until a blond-haired boy strolled on to the scene. He would have ignored him, for he seemed as aimless as any street urchin. Up until the moment he bolted inside the shop. That he did with sudden purpose. When he left a few moments later, he feigned a casual air. Delivegu didn't buy it, and he blended into the crowd in pursuit of the boy. He followed him toward the outskirts of the town, near enough to the farmlands that he could smell the cow and hog dung. He nearly turned back in disgust, fearing he had gotten something terribly wrong even as he continued forward. He was rewarded for staying with his hunch.

The boy met a man who appeared to be nothing but a farmer. The boy handed him something and stood a moment, conversing with him. And then Delivegu understood. B! There he was. There he really was! The infamous Barad the Lesser, the old rabble-rouser of the Kidnaban mines. The sight of him and the recognition of each detail-his bulky, stooped frame; the boulderlike head atop his thick neck; the low grumble of his voice, audible even from this distance-almost caused Delivegu to stumble over his own feet. The good fortune of it was too much to be believed. The man had been wanted for years. There had once been a bounty on his head. That was years ago, but he was still an enemy of the empire, Grae and Barad in secret conspiracy against the queen. Here was the key to all his desires, found walking down a street in a nothing crap hole of a village outside Aos, conversing with a shoeless peasant boy, leading a goat behind him.

With a few deft moves, he could capture the empire's most elusive agitator and bring shame on Grae at the same time. These two strokes, he was sure, would strip away the queen's haughty facade, and then there would be nothing between him and the rest of her. Delivegu walked on, his mouth flooded with saliva, a carnivore seeing a kill in reach.

C HAPTER

It was always small things about his earlier life that Dariel thought of, moments that had otherwise been forgotten. Perhaps it was because they had been forgotten that they had the stealth to slip into his mind unbidden. He thought of the first time he had seen Aaden laugh. His nephew had been but a baby, propped upon a maid's lap one afternoon. As he had done so many times before, Dariel danced about in an attempt to entertain the boy. But this time Aaden did not simply watch him. This time the boy's mouth tilted with mirth, and the strangest barrage of sound escaped him. At first Dariel thought he was coughing, but then Aaden tilted his head back and waved one arm in the air in an unmistakable gesture. He was laughing! Never had that simple act seemed such a revelation of humanity.

Or he remembered a pair of felt slippers he had once bought as a gift for Val and then lost before actually giving them to him. How frustrating! Or he thought of how, as a boy, he had always stared at Aliver when he was not looking. More so than full-grown men, the shape of his brother's arms and shoulders and ease with which he handled his training sword had shot Dariel through with admiration.

And instead of remembering Wren in battle aboard the Ballan, entwined with him in lovemaking, climbing over the railing of the league warship she helped destroy, or standing beside him during the wind-whipped funeral ceremony for his father and brother, he recalled swimming in the upper garden pools with her one blazingly hot afternoon. Saying she had had enough, she kissed him and rose out of the water and walked away. He watched her body, displayed as it was beneath a thin swimming shift that was somehow more erotic than actual nudity. But once she was out of sight his eyes fell on the line of dark footprints on the pale gray stone. Such perfectly curved imitations of her feet. The footprints had faded so quickly in the sun that he breathlessly watched them disappear.

Such were the things that crept into his mind now during the long hours of caged solitude. Each time he realized that he was daydreaming-and further realized where he was-it was like suddenly remembering something so bad that he could not believe he had forgotten it even for a moment. There really had been an entire sea full of corpses! He could have dived in among them and swum from one to the next to the next and never reached them all, not even if he came up for breath a hundred times. Long had he feared the Lothan Aklun; now he wished desperately that he had gotten the chance to speak with even one of them. Perhaps it was silly, but he could not help feeling they might have had important things to tell him about the world he was now trapped in.

When and how would word of this reach Corinn? Surely the Ambergris had sailed with news of the treachery. He did not have her gift for political wrestling, so he knew not how she might choose to respond. A small group sent back to parley with the Auldek? An army prepared to invade? What would the league men tell her? Even if they told the truth, the league did not know what had happened to him. In addition, they had every reason to transform the entire situation into some fanciful version that would suit their needs-whatever those were. Though Dariel worked himself into knots thinking about it, he could not imagine what was happening on the other side of the world. When he thought of Mena or Wren being told that he was dead or missing, it filled him with anguish.

Mor had come to him a second time. She entered, rigid with control, moving deliberately. Tunnel hovered near him, almost seeming like a protector should Mor attack him again. She said something to him in Auldek. The large man responded in the same language, shrugging as he spoke, ending with something that must have been a joke, since he grinned at his own words.

Mor did not acknowledge any humor. Dragging a stool in front of Dariel, she sat down and faced him directly. She switched to Acacian. "If it were up to me alone I'd just as soon feed you to the snow lions."

"Is that an option?" Dariel asked. "Are there lions around here? I'm not saying I'd want to be eaten, but it's possible the lions would treat me better than-"

He flinched when Mor reached for him. She clamped her hand over his mouth and said, "Shut your mouth and let me say what I must. Then I'll go, and you can prattle on in your ignorance. Tunnel will listen. Won't you?"

"He makes good prattle," Tunnel said, tugging on one of his tusks.

"You cannot tell me anything right now," Mor said. "Let me tell you a few things. Will you be quiet?"

Reluctantly, Dariel nodded. He would rather listen to whatever she had to say than have her turn away in anger again.

"Good." She drew her hand from his lips. "I am going to assume that you know nothing. Let's start at that point and nothing will be missed. You are in Ushen Brae, the place you call the Other Lands. We are in the tunnels beneath the city of Avina. I'm not entirely clear what happened when your party met the Auldek, but I can tell you that your people were slaughtered. A handful fled back to the league boats, but not many. You're the only one we have. And who are we? We're not the Auldek. I am Mor of the Free People. You know Tunnel and Skylene. We are all of the People. The 'People' are those you might refer to as quota. We are the slaves you sent here. Many of us are still in bondage. Some of us fight it." She pressed her hand to her chest. "We are those who fight it. The Free People. You may think that this side of the world is just a place where you discard unwanted children. We don't think so. Not anymore. Ushen Brae is the world. It's here we make the future."