"The invasion?"

"Of your lands. They will beat the winter traveling over the north, Numrek showing the way." He leaned in and whispered, "These honored ones will have the most fun. The rest of the Auldek will follow to complete the work."

"Why?" Rialus asked.

Devoth looked at him.

"I mean… that-that it need not be war that comes of this. I could help make a new treaty with Queen Corinn." As he said it, he knew it was true. She would be angry and he would suffer her wrath first, but in the end he would be able to convince her to see reason. They could avoid war. Of course they could. Sometimes great sacrifices needed to be made, but better that than complete destruction. He continued, hope already quickening his speech. "The league could be appeased and the trade continued. I daresay you could win even better terms-"

"Terms?" Devoth said this with an open-mouthed grimace, as if the word were a dead mouse he had just discovered on his tongue.

"Why make total war when you could negotiate peace? The queen wouldn't like it, but you could convince her to give you a toehold in the Known World. The Numrek have had such. I could ask as your-"

Devoth had heard enough. "Nah. You don't know anything, leagueman. We've been too long alive. Too long without real war. We haven't lived as our ancestors did in many, many years. Time that we do.

"The Numrek may have done what you say, but they are the weakest among us. Cowards. Lowborn."

This was certainly said loud enough for Calrach and Mulat to hear, but neither of them turned or acknowledged it.

"We true Auldek know that nothing matters but bravery in battle. We were robbed of this when the Lothan Aklun gave us everlasting life. You think that's a gift? They who gave us life denied us immortality. Made death something to fear. This, Rialus Leagueman, has been our shame. That ends now. The Auldek will go to war. We will die in glorious battle, and our women's wombs will quicken with life. That's immortality, leagueman. To die and live on also. Perhaps you don't understand this, but the outcome doesn't matter. Talk no more of negotiation, of terms. We will take the world, Rialus Leagueman, or we will die with blade bloodied. Either way is joy for me."

And doom for us, Rialus thought. Doom for us.

Devoth leaned back, looking down at the field. "We have asked you many questions already," he said. "You have answered well. Because of you, we trust the tale Calrach tells, we believe in the boy Allek. Because of you, we will embark on this journey. I thank you for that, but now is when your work begins. You will help us shape our plans. You will answer many more questions about your nation. Tell us the geography. Draw us maps. Tell us customs, name the powers, name the people we will meet. You will prepare us so that nothing-nothing-will surprise us. You will find the things that we have overlooked and you will tell us that as well." He paused, tented his fingers before him, and turned to Rialus. "Am I right in saying that you will do these things?"

Rialus recognized that, no matter how plainly it was put to him-the ramifications of his answer were enormous knots upon knots upon knots, all of which should be untied before any answer was arrived at. He knew all that was true, but he also knew he could never untie all those knots. Better just to answer.

So he did.

C HAPTER

Mor had not seen this vessel messenger before. That made her nervous, no matter how often she told herself it did not matter. It was not him she would be speaking to about the important matters. He was but the vessel, and of course vessels were interchangeable. Only the contents within mattered. But still, she had first to look into a stranger's eyes and search for a loved one. This was not something she had ever grown accustomed to.

They sat across from each other on a hillock in the barren stretch between two walls. Once, the area had been a park, but that was long ago. Now it was abandoned and overgrown with briars, home to rats and other scurrying things. They were alone save for the few guards who stood at a distance, on the lookout for the unlikely patrol of the divine children. They had planned the meeting to avoid this.

"Hello, Mor Avenger," the man said. "It honors me to meet you, as it honors me to carry an elder within and his message from the Free People." He bowed his head as he spoke, showing her the short bristle of a few weeks' hair growth across his crown, the skin visible beneath it and dotted with the heart-shaped imprints of the sky bear. Unusual, for the Fru Nithexek was not a numerous clan.

Mor answered him formally. "The honor is mine. May this vessel never crack."

The man looked up. His wide-spaced eyes were large, brown, and intense. He smiled. "I have not cracked yet, Mor Avenger. I won't today. You can rest assured of that. Before I begin, tell me, is it true? Do we hold a prince of the Akarans?"

Mor nodded.

"Could he be the Rhuin Fa?"

"Anything could be," she answered, feeling suddenly testy in addition to uneasy. It was inappropriate for him to waste time feeding his own curiosity. "Whether he is or not isn't for me to say."

Pursing his lips, the messenger said, "Nor for me to ask, judging by your tone. Forgive me. For us in the Westlands, though, we are hungry for hope. We hear rumors, but we've heard rumors for hundreds of years. Nothing yet has come of them."

"I didn't take you as that old."

The man smiled again. "You are anxious to begin. I understand. Shall we?"

Despite her impatience, Mor scanned the overgrown walls before answering. She made eye contact with Tunnel, who stood with his arms crossed, leaning against the arch through which they would exit. He acknowledged her with a lift of his chin. Like everything about him, it was a gruff gesture, but it was comforting as well.

"Yes," she said, "do begin."

The messenger cleared his throat. His gaze flicked to Mor, amused just a moment longer, and then his arms went limp in his lap and he seemed to focus his entire consciousness on his breathing. Eyes closed, he inhaled and exhaled. Every so often he let out a low moan. For a time his head dropped forward as if he were asleep. And then it seemed he really was asleep, his moaning nothing but faint snoring. That was how it always was. Mor waited, watching him, curious, as ever, about what was about to happen.

Then, the moaning ceased. The man's breathing stopped. For an uncomfortably long few moments it was as if the sleeping man had passed into death. And then he looked up. He gasped and blinked his eyes open. His now blue eyes-the whites veined with a crimson lacework of age, yellowed and tired-were not the messenger's eyes anymore. Nor was his voice the same.

"Dearest," his mouth said. The voice coming out did not fit the shape or the movement of his lips. A dry voice, slow and patient and heavy with melancholy and love, it was a voice she knew well from her girlhood but had not heard from the actual man in some years. "You are not my little girl, are you?"

Her first impulse was to refute that. Yes! Yes, she was his little girl. Of course she was. That's all she ever would be. It was cruel for him to say otherwise. But she had said that on other occasions, and it did no good. Instead, she swallowed and said, "No, but I am the one who was that little girl. Now I am the woman who remembers that girl and remembers you. Hello, Yoen."

The messenger smiled. His eyes closed for a moment. Opened. Yoen's voice said, "Hello, dearest. I wish my eyes could truly see you, at least once more before I fly. That would do my heart good."

"Let it be so. Let us make it so." A tear welled from Mor's left eye and raced down her cheek. She had not known there was a danger of this. She wiped at it, embarrassed, flooded with memories she rarely allowed to surface. Yoen, the nearest thing to a father she had ever known-more than that, he was father and mother both, and a balm for the loss of a brother. Life was cruel and cruel again, to take everything from her as a child and make her relearn herself under this man's care. And then, later, to ask her to be whole unto herself when he escaped to join the elders in the Westlands, on the Sky Isle. It was too much to bear.