The shadows.

They had changed, too. Looking upon them, he understood what had been given to him, and he accepted.

With a smile, Levictus wrapped his cloak around him. As the deep, cool blackness fell around him, his body lightened and he flew on the night winds, back to Othir to sow the seeds of destruction.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

cold wind flogged Caim as he crouched behind the neck of his stolen steed. He pushed the animal all the way from the city, cutting cross-country between villages to save precious minutes. The moon, full and red, tracked his progress over the plains. A blood moon, the sailors called it. Night of ill omens.

The wound he'd received from the sorcerer's knife, scrawled like a streak of bloody charcoal down his forearm, burned like the blazes, but the pain was nothing next to the rage boiling in his chest. He knew where he had seen a wound like the earl's and like Mat's.

He stood in the center of the corpse-strewn courtyard. A large man slumped at his feet. Strings of red-black blood ran from the wound in his chest. A tremor ran through Caim as the corpse opened its eyes, black spheres without irises or whites. A whisper issued from blue-tinged lips.

He had been presented with an opportunity he never thought to have in a hundred lifetimes, to avenge his father's death, and he had let it slip through his fingers like wet sand. Damn Ral. It was clear the man had made some kind of deal with that creature, Levictus. But what drew them together? What plan had they hatched, and how did it involve Josey? Caim knew Ral. The man's dreams were grandiose, but teamed up with one who could conjure the shadows, how far could he go? The questions haunted Caim all during the harrowing ride.

When his first horse foundered, he sidetracked to a wayside roadhouse and stole another. The second horse proved hardier, if not so fast as the first, but after an hour of cantering the beast labored for breath. Caim felt sorry for the animal, but he didn't let up as evening approached in deepening strands of purple and blue. Nothing mattered except reaching Josey.

He reached the first stand of trees. The path was an inky band that snaked through the woods. He slowed the horse to a walk as they passed under the roof of branches. Ral had sent people after Josey. Even now they could be at the cabin. For the hundredth time he cursed himself for not killing Ral when he had the chance. The man was a fiend, not fit to live among humanity.

The same could be said for me.

True enough, but he would gladly go to the gallows as long as Ral went before him. If anything happened to Josey, he'd never forgive himself. He should have gotten her farther away, hidden her in another city where she'd be safe. The recriminations battered at him as he peered through the forest's gloom. The cabin was not far off the path. If Kas had left a fire burning, he should see its light soon.

Caim almost passed by the cabin before he picked out its white lines of wattle in the darkness. He yanked his mount to a halt and was running as soon as his feet hit the ground, knives drawn. The front door hung open on loose hinges. Beyond it, darkness swathed the interior. Not a sound disturbed the stillness of the forest.

Caim leaned across the entrance. His gaze darted to the corners of the front room. The place had an empty feel, devoid of life. The hearth had been allowed to go out; the dying embers were sunken beneath a bed of ashes. The few pieces of furniture were scattered about in shambles. Pieces of clay dishes littered the floor amid half-dried pools of dark scarlet. A sharp odor hung in the air. As he stepped over the threshold, Caim spotted the still mound of a body.

Kas.

Three strides took Caim across the room. A pike with a shortened shaft lay beside the old man's limp hand. Caim looked down at the man who had raised him and didn't know how to react. Titanic weights pulled at his insides; conflicting emotions congested in his vital organs. The walls of the cabin closed around him, cutting him away from the night. The wind's whisper vanished like ghosts of years past as the stink of blood and burnt leather filled his head. For a moment Caim allowed himself to feel remorse for the way he had left things between them. He had loved this man, and yet hated him for not being his true father. With an effort that showed in the whites of his knuckles, he shut those feelings away and turned his mind to more immediate matters. Blood stained the weapon's point. So the old man hadn't gone down without a fight. Good for you.

Caim knelt beside the body. The blood was sticky, not yet fully dried. The rest of the room was empty. No sign of Josey. It looked like the bulk of Ral's men had entered through the front door, and one by a broken window. What he thought was blood spattered across the sill turned out to be wine.

The door to the back room was half closed. He nudged it open. Scant moonbeams fumbled across the crude floorboards. A garment was laid over the disarrayed covers of a crude cot. An icy fist closed around Calm's heart at the sight of Josey's borrowed gown. It had been slashed to bloody strips. He flinched as identical wounds made by imaginary swords and daggers pierced his flesh.

He searched the entire cabin for the body, but found nothing. He went back outside to make a sweep of the yard. There were marks in the dirt where one or more bodies had been dragged amid a crowd of hoofprints. Caim was no tracker, but he could see they had come from the direction of Othir and returned the same way. He must have just missed them. Of course, they would stay to the main roads, secure in their numbers.

Calm's breath burned in his throat. Rage filled his thoughts, at Ral, at himself, at the gods if they existed. The Brotherhood had Josey. A thought flashed through his head. If they were riding with wounded, he might still be able to catch them.

He started toward his steed, but stopped after a few paces. The horse shuddered like it had an ague. Strings of milk white foam drooled from its mouth. The damned thing was blown. Useless. It wouldn't run again tonight, if ever.

Caim gave the animal what mercy remained in him. He stripped off its bridle and saddle, and dropped them on the ground. A wasted effort. It would probably drop over dead before morning. He had failed them. Josey, Kas, Mathias, his parents-they were all gone now. He was alone. Grief sliced up his insides like a river of broken glass. He wanted to scream to the heavens, but the cry lodged in his throat. He had nothing left. Then, a whisper-light touch settled on his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, Caim."

The words tickled his ear as Kit alighted beside him. Her inner radi ance surrounded him like the light of a thousand fireflies. He wanted her comfort, wanted it more keenly than he had ever wanted anything in his life since the day his father died, but he couldn't accept it. The rage had rendered all his tender feelings down to a lump of useless, hardened tissue.

"Where have you been?" He made no effort to temper his tone. "Out in some meadow, picking flowers and dancing with starlings?"

She floated around to face him. Tears trickled down her face like falling stars. "I was here, Caim."

"Yet you did nothing."

"I couldn't!" she cried. "I saw them kill Kas and drag the girl away, but there wasn't anything I could do."

"You could have come to find me. I could have stopped it."

"Would you have listened?"

"Of course I would-"

"No." She retreated a few steps from him. "You stopped listening to me a long time ago, and it only got worse when you met that girl."

"Her name was Josey."

"If you want to know where they took her-"

"Say her name!" he screamed.

Kit wiped at her face with the back of her hands. "Josey, okay? Her name is Josey, but she's not dead."