In his youth, he'd seen shorter, single-handed versions used by Lord Dartmouth's mounted riders to disperse crowds. Whoever didn't fall beneath the horses' hooves had their heads split open by those swinging iron-shod clubs.

Adryan had come here to kill Magiere.

Leesil stepped toward him, lifting his one blade.

"Get gone," he rasped out. "If you want to live."

Adryan stood there a moment, claw marks on his face, his shirt and vest shredded and stained with his own blood. Leesil saw the remnants of a strange hope in his eyes, and then it faded as the broken staff dropped from his grip. He put his hands to his head, turned, and fled into the trees.

Leesil turned toward Magiere and remained perfectly still. She clawed wet earth to pull her feet under herself and get up.

"Magiere… come back," he whispered.

Face soiled from the ground, her head jerked around at the sound of his voice.

Black irises fixed upon Leesil. There was blood on her mouth, in her teeth. Her hands were stained, as well, and her fingers were hooked, ready to grab for him. Beneath the blood, her nails appeared extended beyond her fingertips.

Leesil knew she didn't see him. Not him… just some thing in a predator's path.

"Please," he said softly. "Come back to me."

Ever so slowly, he crouched downward, reaching with his free hand for the shod end of the broken staff.

"Magiere… Magiere," he whispered over and over.

With hands outstretched toward him, she froze there, and Leesil stopped, too.

The creases of her snarl faded from around her eyes. Her mouth closed until only her long canines were visible between parted lips. She looked down with her black eyes at her bloodied hands and began to shudder.

"It's all right," Leesil said. "Let it pass."

He started to rise again, and she flinched. She saw him. He tensed and swallowed hard, knowing what returning awareness would bring to her.

Still feral in all her features, Magiere's expression twisted in horror as she looked at him and at her own hands. She began backing away.

"No… Leesil. Not again."

Her words were barely understandable with her mouth so altered. She choked between whimpers and collapsed to her knees before Leesil could reach her. Hunched over, she covered her head with her forearms rather than hands. Leesil dropped before her, tilting her up by the shoulders.

He saw the change pass over her.

Between clenching spasms of her jaw muscles, Magiere gagged as if trying to clear her mouth and throat. She bucked in dry heaves each time, and all he could do was steady her and wait for it to pass. Her teeth receded until only the canines remained slightly long. It was her eyes that shifted last, color flooding in from the outside edge of her irises. Magiere stared back at Leesil, her face stained by tears, soil, and blood.

She began pawing at him frantically.

She pulled his shirt up, nearly tearing it apart. Everywhere she touched left stains of blood from her hands, and that increased her frenzy.

"Enough!" he said, and grabbed her wrists to stop her. "It's not my blood. I'm all right."

Magiere closed her eyes and leaned forward until her head thumped against his shoulder. It didn't take long for her pull away again. "Adryan?" she asked weakly.

"Still alive," Leesil answered. "But there's another body across the clearing. Did you… kill him?"

Magiere jerked her arms out. Leesil was startled how easily she broke his grip. She ran across the clearing, and he followed. When she couldn't bring herself to touch the prone figure, Leesil put his hand near the man's nose and mouth and detected shallow breathing. He gave Magiere a quick nod of assurance.

"Leave him," she said. "Let him wander home on his own."

Leesil picked up his scarf and cloak from where they'd fallen. Magiere sat down and leaned tiredly against the tree, dragging the falchion to her from where it lay nearby.

"If this ever happens to me again," she said, "stay away from me."

"I can face you," he answered, "any way you-"

"I can't," she cut in. "I couldn't face hurting you again. And I don't want to even think about what you saw in me tonight."

"I've told you more than once, I'm not that easy to kill… and I can face you, any way you are."

Leesil crawled over to kneel before her. Now that she was safe-from herself, as much as anything else-his fear faded to be replaced by anger.

"What I can't face is why you came here," he said. "Where's your mother's grave? What did you do?"

Magiere looked out through the ruined graveyard, markers shattered, broken, and uprooted.

"I couldn't find it," she whispered.

At first Leesil wasn't certain of her answer. But if she'd done what he'd feared, vision or not, he believed he would have seen its aftermath in her face.

"I have to know if it was Welstiel," she said.

"Not like that. " He shook his head. "Whatever happened, you don't want to feel your mother die in your hands. And you don't even know where she died. What were you going to do, wander the entire keep?"

Magiere's gaze was still distant. There were clear paths through the grime and blood on her face, and Leesil realized she was silently crying.

"You saw what was in that chamber," she said, and turned away from him as if hiding in shame. "What am I?"

Leesil knew it wasn't a question she expected him to answer. He shifted closer and grasped her arms, turning her toward him. Using his scarf, he tried to wipe some of the blood from her lips. When he'd done as much as he could, he leaned in and kissed her softly on the mouth.

He sat back and looked in her astonished eyes.

Chap watched from the thicker forest beyond the graveyard as Leesil led Magiere away. Panting in the darkness, he hung his head in relief and licked the remnants of blood from his jowls.

He had nearly run out to Magiere and given himself away when the scarred man appeared. So fixed upon Magiere and her opponent, he had not even sensed the approach of the others. When the two skulking peasants tried to hold Magiere against the tree, he rushed in from behind to seize the one holding her sword arm by his leg. Grinding flesh in his jaws, he dragged that one screaming into the woods. He released the man to hobble away only when he was certain the peasant would flee rather than return to the fight.

Chap then ran through the trees around the clearing, trying to find an avenue to strike Magiere's opponent without being seen by her. His evasion of Wynn's questions had already stretched everyone's patience. If Magiere saw him in this place, or anywhere near her mother's grave, she would expect an explanation.

Leesil arrived, and Chap pulled back as the fight ended, but he kept Magiere and Leesil in sight.

Neither of them should be here… in this place, on this path. The further Magiere pressed on into her past, the less likely it was that Chap could ever stop her. As she and Leesil left the graveyard together, Chap circled back once again to a marker left lying in the woods.

It was strange how mortals clung to the dead. To remember them was one thing; to hold on to them like a possession was another. For Magiere it presented a temptation he could not allow. Seeing her mother die as if by her own hands could strip Magiere of hope. And then, even Leesil's presence might not be enough to keep her from falling into darkness.

So Chap had raced ahead of Magiere to the graveyard and found what she had sought. He did not understand the spoken language of this land, but its written markings and symbols were similar enough to those of Belaski. Speaking furtive wishes to the grass, he asked the blades to grow and creep. They filled in and covered the hole left at the grave's head, and he dragged Magelia's uprooted marker into the forest.

Chap stepped into the ruin of the graveyard, markers toppled and broken all around from a conflict of festering old hates and anguish. When he passed Magelia's grave again, all signs of its presence or the missing marker obscured, he paused on instinct and sniffed the earth.