“Let’s rest here. Would you like to walk a bit?”

She jumped lightly to the ground. Regis was glad to stretch his legs. He’d been too long in the city and too little in the saddle. Joints and muscles unaccustomed to long riding would be sore tomorrow.

The child looked back on the city. “I’m not coming back, am I, Papa?”

What did Linnea tell her? Or what had Stelli herself guessed?

“Of course you are,” he hastened to reply. “I will come for you when the trouble is past.”

She seemed all at once bewildered and wise, terrified and unshaken. He did not want to frighten her with tales of men who would threaten children. He would have given anything to reassure her that the world was a safe place and everyone wished her well.

It would be a lie, as he himself had learned at an early age. When this crisis had passed, there would be other threats. No child of his could ever be carefree, not until the four moons fell from the sky. There would always be a compelling cause and a man willing to use violence to advance it.

This was why the Comyn had adopted the Compact, to limit violence to weapons that placed the user at equal risk. No clingfirewould rain destruction from the skies, no bonewater dust would poison generations to come. No laran-fueled inferno would turn cities to ashes and spaceships to crumpled wreckage.

Was Rinaldo guilty of another violation of the Compact by seizing little Ariel, who had no means to defend herself? Regis thrust the thought aside. He would deal with his brother once this precious daughter was safe.

While these thoughts jumbled in his mind, Kierestelli had been studying him. In her silvery gaze, he read trust but also a growing wariness. She understood, in a deep, wordless fashion, that she was being taken away from those who wished her harm . . . because the adults she depended upon could protect her in no other way. He wanted to deny it, to weep with helpless anguish.

“If . . . anything happens, no one must know who you are,” he said as they mounted up again. Thendara’s towers disappeared behind the curve of the sharply rising hills.

“Am I to have a new name? Am I to forget you and Mama?”

Such questions from so young a child.His heart ached.

“I hope you will never forget us as we will never forget you. But a new name is a good idea, don’t you think? A temporary name for the time you are away. Would you like to choose it?”

“I will think of one.”

Days passed, falling into a rhythm of travel. Skills Regis had not used in years came back to him: how to set a pace that both rider and horse could maintain, when to rest, where to find water and food. At first, they came upon an inn or small village at the end of each day’s travel. Here they found stabling for the horse, hot meals for themselves, and sometimes a bath. As the lands grew wilder, human dwellings became scarce. Regis was leery of using the public travel-shelters for fear of being remarked and remembered. They might also encounter bandits who, caring nothing for shelter-truce, would see him as one man to be easily overpowered, his goods and horse seized. In the end, he took the risk. If he had been alone, he might have chanced finding what shelter he could. The nights were still cold and wet with freezing rain turning into snow, and he decided the greater danger was to Kierestelli’s health. Fortunately, they never met other travelers. Some god—Aldones himself—watched over them.

They reached the River Kadarin on a sullen gray afternoon. The water was turbulent with its own storms. Froth laced the slate-dark water. The far shore was rocky, the trees leafless and stark as a thicket of thorns. A bitter wind whipped down from the Hellers. The dun tossed its head, tail clamped against rump. It didn’t like this place.

Me, either.Regis remembered stories of wolves ravening through the wild lands beyond the Kadarin. Human wolves roamed there as well.

The bank curved into a natural cove where a ferry boat was tied up at a wharf. A hut and outbuildings stood nearby, and a thread of smoke curled upward from a crude stone chimney.

Regis called out a greeting. An old man emerged from the hut in response. His beard was a wisp of river foam, his back bent, and his movements spare and nimble. He halted a few paces from the horse and swung his head from side to side in an odd searching gesture. Cataracts whitened his eyes.

“We seek river passage, friend. Is the ferryman about?”

“He stands here before you.”

Before Regis could stop her, Kierestelli jumped to the ground. She showed no fear, only curiosity. Awe lighted the ferryman’s weathered features.

“Forgive me, Child of Grace! I never thought to behold one of the beautiful folk!”

Kierestelli turned back to Regis with puzzlement in her eyes. “Papa, what does he mean?”

Blessed Cassilda, he thinks she’s achieri!

“We must cross the Kadarin as soon as possible,” Regis said.

“Aye, and on to the Yellow Forest.” The ferryman nodded, as much to himself as to anyone else. “Long have I searched for them, back in the days when I still burned with dreaming. But they would not be found. Not by me, oh, no, not by the likes of me. But you, you with this child I mistook for a moment . . .” He tilted his head, and Regis had the uncanny feeling that the old man saw far more in him than a tall man in a hooded cloak, that the ferryman saw through the Hastur beauty to the very heart of his cells and the chierilineage of the Comyn.

“. . . I think theywill find you.”

Uneasy, Regis glanced at the river. The ferryman was not only half blind, but half crazy as well. Still, who could tell about anyone who lived here, on the border of the wild lands? And who was the greater fool, the old man with his dreams of searching for a lost, ancient race in the trackless forest, or Regis for believing him?

Regis hesitated as the boatman shuffled off toward the ferry, gesturing for them to follow. Then Kierestelli pulled at his hand. She appeared to have no doubts. He decided to trust her instinct. In the end, what choice did he have? They could not cross the Kadarin on their own.

The boatman made the ferry ready and gestured for them to board. He turned his face toward the river, although how even a sighted man could make out anything in the shifting currents, Regis did not know. Kierestelli jumped, light and nimble, onto the ferry’s flat surface.

The dun snorted and balked at the edge of the wharf. Regis took hold of the reins and brought the horse’s head down. Speaking soothingly, he stroked the tense neck. As far as he knew, he had no trace of the Ridenow Gift of empathy with animals, but he had handled horses all his life. The terror in the dun’s eyes faded. Its muscles relaxed, and it dipped its nose. It moved forward, lifting each foot high. Its hooves made a hollow sound on the wooden deck

The boatman cast off the mooring lines and poled the ferry away from the shore. Seized by the currents, the craft rocked and tilted. The gelding tensed but held steady. Kierestelli positioned herself at the rail and peered over the purling waves.

At first, it seemed the currents were shoving and pulling the little craft and that all the boatman’s efforts had no effect. They would surely be carried downstream or overturned to drown. The old man showed no fear. His expression, eyes half closed, nostrils flaring as if to catch the river’s scent, resembled that of a hunter closing on his prey . . . or a lover wooing his lady.

The motion of the ferry changed. The sounds of water and wind blended like music. They glided across the river, slipping through the waves like dancers moving through the figures of a set. Kierestelli clapped her hands and the boatman grinned.