Prelude

THE OLDER ONES IN THE HOUSEHOLD had hunted the missing boy for an hour without result, but his sister knew where to look.

"Surprise," she said. "It's me."

His dark hose and velvet tunic gray with dust and his face streaked with grime, he looked like a very sad goblin. "Auntie 'Lanna and the other women are all making a great fuss, searching for you," she said. "I can't be¬lieve they didn't look here. Don't they remember anything?"

"Go away."

"I can't, now, stupid. Lady Simeon and two of the maids were just be¬hind me-I heard them coming up the corridor." She set the candle be¬tween two paving stones in the floor. "If I go out now they'll know where you're hiding." She grinned, pleased with her maneuver. "So I'm staying, and you can't make me go."

"Then be quiet."

"No. Not unless I want to be. I'm a princess and you can't give me or¬ders. Only Father's allowed to do that." She settled in beside her brother, staring up at the shelves, seldom used now that the new kitchens had been built closer to the great hall. Only a few cracked pots and bowls had been left behind, as well as a half-dozen stoppered jars whose contents were so old that opening them, as Briony had once said, would be an experiment dangerous enough for Chaven of Ulos. (The children had been thrilled to learn that the household's new physician was a man of many strange and fascinating interests.) "So why are you hiding?"

"I'm not hiding. I'm thinking."

"You're a liar, Barrick Eddon. When you want to think you go walking on the walls, or you go to Father's library, or… or you stay in your room like a temple-mantis saying prayers. You come here when you want to hide."

"Oh? And what makes you so clever, strawhead?"

It was a term he used often when he was irritated with her, as though the differing color of their hair, hers golden-fair, his red as a fox's back, made some difference-as though it made them any less twins. "I just am. Come, tell me." Briony waited, then shrugged and changed the subject. "One of the ducks in the moat has just hatched out her eggs. The duck¬lings are ever so sweet. They go peep-peep-peep and follow their mother everywhere in a little line, as though they were tied to her."

"You and your ducks." He scowled as he rubbed his wrist. His left hand was like a claw, the fingers curled and crabbed.

"Does your arm hurt?"

"No! Lady Simeon must be gone by now-why don't you go play with your ducks or dolls or something?"

"Because I'm not leaving until you tell me what's wrong." Briony was on firm ground now. She knew this negotiation as well as she knew her morning and evening prayers, as well as she knew the story of Zoria's flight from the cruel Moonlord's keep-her favorite tale from The Book of the Trigon. It might last a while, but in the end it would go her way. "Tell me."

"Nothing's wrong." He draped his bad arm across his lap with the same care Briony lavished on lambs and fat-bellied puppies, but his expression was closer to that of a father dragging an unwanted idiot child. "Stop look¬ing at my hand."

"You know you're going to tell me, redling," she teased him. "So why fight?"

His answer was more silence-an unusual ploy at this stage of the old, familiar dance.

The silence and the struggle both continued for some time. Briony had moments of real anger as Barrick resisted her every attempt to get him to talk, but she also became more and more puzzled. Eight years old, born in the same hour, they had lived always in each other's company, but she had seldom seen him so upset outside of the small hours of the night, when he often cried out in the grip of evil dreams.

"Very well," he said at last. "If you're not going to leave me alone, you have to swear not to tell."

"Me? Swear? You pig! I never told on you for anything!" And that was true. They had each suffered several punishments for things the other twin had done without ever breaking faith. It was a pact between them so deep and natural that it had never been spoken of before now.

But the boy was adamant. He waited out his sister's gust of anger, his pale little face set in an unhappy smirk. She surrendered at last: principle could only stretch so far, and now she was painfully curious. "So, then, pig. What do you want me to do? What shall I swear to?"

"A blood oath. It has to be a blood oath."

"By the heads of the gods, are you mad?" She blushed at her own strong language and could not help looking around, although of course they were alone in the pantry. "Blood? What blood?"

Barrick drew a poniard from the vent of his sleeve. He extended his fin¬ger and, with only the smallest wince, made a cut on the tip. Briony stared in sickened fascination.

"You're not supposed to carry a knife except for public ceremonies," she said. Shaso, the master of arms, had forbidden it, fearing that Briony's angry, headstrong brother might hurt himself or someone else.

"Oh? And what am I supposed to do if someone tries to kill me and there are no guards around? I'm a prince, after all. Should I just slap them with my glove and tell them to go away?"

"Nobody wants to kill you." She watched the blood form a droplet, then run down into the crease of his finger. "Why would anyone want to kill you?"

He shook his head and sighed at her innocence. "Are you just going to sit there while I bleed to death?"

She stared. "You want me to do that, too? Just so you'll tell me some stu¬pid secret?"

"So, then." He sucked off the blood, wiped his finger on his sleeve. "I won't tell you. Go away and leave me alone."

"Don't be mean." She watched him carefully-she could see he would not change his mind-he could be as stubborn as a bent nail. "Very well, let me do it."

He hesitated, clearly unwilling to do something as unmanly as surrender his blade to his sister, but at last let her take it. She held the sharp edge over her finger for long moments, biting her lip.

"Hurry!"

When she did not immediately comply, he shot out his good arm, seized

her hand, and forced her skin against the knife blade. It cut, but not loo deeply; by the time she had finished cursing him the worst of the sting was over. A red pearl appeared on her fingertip. Barrick took her hand, far more gently now, and brought her finger against his.

It was a strange moment, not because of the sensation itself, which was nothing more noteworthy than the girl would have expected from rubbing a still-sore finger against her brother's, smearing a little blood across the whorled fingertips, but because of the intensity in Barrick's eyes, the way he watched that daub of red with the avidity of someone witnessing some¬thing far more arresting: lovemaking or a hanging, nakedness or death.

He glanced up and saw her staring. "Don't look at me like that. Do you swear you'll never reveal what I tell you? That the gods can punish you horribly if you do?"

"Barrick! What a thing to say. I'm not going to tell anyone, you know that."

"We've shared blood, now. You can't change your mind."

She shook her head. Only a boy could think that a ceremony with knives and finger cutting was a stronger bond than having shared the warm darkness of a mother's womb. "I won't change my mind." She paused to find the words to convey her certainty. "You know that, don't you?"

"Very well. I'll show you."

He stood up, and to his sister's surprise, clambered onto a block of wood that had been used as a pantry stool since before either of them could re¬member, then scrabbled in the back of one of the upper shelves before pulling out a bundle wrapped in a cleaning rag. He took it down and sat again, holding it carefully, as though it were something alive and potentially dangerous. The girl was caught between wanting to lean forward and want¬ing to scramble away, in case anything might jump out at her. When the stained cloth had been folded back, she stared.