Arya sat in stunned silence.

"I wield powers beyond your world. You cannot understand." He opened his eyes and looked at her. "Having never died, that is."

"How do you know a priest has never raised me from the grave?" asked Arya with a raised eyebrow and a tiny smile.

"The same way you know I have not known many women," said Walker. "I can tell by looking at you."

Arya conceded the point. "If not parents, then who taught you these powers?"

"My teacher is not as important as her teachings. I feel the pulse of the earth, the power in every leaf, rock, and tree. It is not the vibrant life, but the opposite, the spiritual energy of the dead. You cannot see the spirits around you, but they are there. I see them at all times-even now, in this very grove, all around us. Dozens."

"The souls of the dead? Ghosts?" Arya's face went pale as she looked around the grove in vain. She could see nothing but the forest-even the doe and her fawns had bounded away.

"Not ghosts," explained Walker. His voice sounded almost clear. "The departed are not fully departed. They wait for something to be resolved-unfinished business. Just as I have unfinished business with Dharan Greyt."

The comparison sent a chill through Arya.

The noon sky darkened as the clouds that had merely been lurking before asserted their presence over the sun.

"Rarely, I find wraiths, specters, haunts-all things men call the undead," Walker continued. "These are not the same spirits that surround us, but dead people, fully formed in spirit. They grow jealous of the living and malevolent. These spirits avoid such as I, for they have no new secrets to tell, no new horrors to show us that we do not know. But the other spirits-they are always there."

Arya shivered. "And these monsters… surround us all the time?"

Walker's eyes flicked back to her and he shook his head. "They are not monsters. The spirits that surround us-spirits most cannot see, even with magic-are mere figments of departed souls. They are tiny echoes of those who have lived, loved, hated, and died. They exist so long as someone lives to remember them, so long as someone listens to their whispers, and so long as someone looks for them." He smiled wistfully. "As I do."

Arya's heart fluttered at that smile. Describing the mysterious spirits as though they were his children, Walker seemed almost happy. She felt her body grow warm all over.

Hardly aware that she was doing it until she had done it, she reached out and placed her hands over Walker's ears, pulled his face to hers, and pressed their lips together.

At first, Walker sat in stunned shock, then the kiss took on a mind of its own.

Then he seemed to remember himself and pushed her away. Arya fell back onto the ground and gasped, finally aware of what she had done. Her cheeks flooding with heat, she grinned sheepishly and stammered an apology.

"I'm-I'm sorry, I didn't-"

He wrapped strong arms around her and pressed his lips against hers, and she lost herself in that embrace. For a sweet moment, as he held her, she felt safe and secure for possibly the first time in her life.

And for just one thrilling moment, she felt exactly where she was meant to be.

As though realizing what he was doing, he broke the kiss and scrambled away. She sat there for a breath, held in the lingering sensation of his lips, before her senses returned.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"No," said Walker. "I cannot."

Arya sat back, weighing him with her eyes. Walker made no move, except to look away into the darkening sky. His words had been simple, short, and seemingly empty, but expressed a pain that tore at her heart.

"Will you do something for me?"

"Perhaps," replied Walker.

"Sing."

The druid courier paused on her mare, furrowing her brow.

There was nothing unusual about the road, at least nothing she could see. The sun was shining and a stream trickled water down a side path. The wind was not overly cold today-it was, perhaps, the first warm spell Quaervarr had known in a long time.

"No worries, girl," Peletara said to her mount in the druidic tongue. "Just thought I heard something, that's all."

The chestnut mare snorted.

A crossbow bolt flew out of the boughs of a tree farther up the road, driving into one of the horse's eyes. The mare, killed instantly, fell, trapping the startled druid beneath her. The huge weight fell on her leg, snapping it, and Peletara gasped in pain. She looked all around for her attacker, struggling to draw her sickle.

A black boot stepped on her hand.

She looked up, following the length of black breeches to a mottled green and gray cloak that had, until just then, blended in perfectly with the trees.

Peletara recognized him.

"Lord…" she said. "Lord Meris?"

He smiled. Even as his sword scraped out of its scabbard, the attacker bent down and traced a finger down her cheek.

The touch of death.

Walker stiffened, as though something had gouged him. Arya reached out, but he shook his head.

With a troubled look, Walker turned to her.

"What?"

"Sing for me," she repeated.

Walker hesitated. Then he shook his head. "My song was ended," he said. "Fifteen years ago."

When he was distracted, Arya kissed him. She pressed her lips against his cold mouth, kissing him gently at first, then in passion and hunger. She could feel the heat that lurked beneath his icy lips, felt it begging for release.

She pulled back, staring into his eyes, and placed her hand on his cheek. "I want to hear the song they tried to end."

Then she was away from him again. He had pushed her back. "I cannot," he said. His voice was sad. "Not now. Not ever."

"But Walker…" Arya said.

Then, as though helpless to reply, he began to sing. Voice broken, song discordant and ragged, still there flowed a certain beauty through its shape, in the rise and swell of his music. Arya heard, rather than saw, the man he might have been, a golden god who had once sung in these woods but now walked in darkness.

After a moment, she became aware there were words to his song, words that flowed and ebbed with a melodious disharmony that was inexplicably balanced. They were in Elvish, and she did not understand them on a conscious level; the words cut to her soul.

There was pain, hatred, and vengeance. Walker sang of his death, sending images into Arya's heart that sent chills through her body. Without realizing it, she reached out to take his hand, as though to comfort him.

He ripped his hand out of her grasp so quickly the silver ring came off in her hand, but he did not notice in the singing, and she did not notice in the listening.

She found herself wrapped in the melody of his voice. Torn and shattered, leaping between notes no bard would play together, and perfect. The haunting melody enfolded her like a cool, dark blanket, and she felt her senses floating free of her body.

Walker's voice trailed off, but Arya, lost in his art, hardly realized it. Her heart was throbbing and breaking all at once. It was simultaneously the most blissful romance she had ever heard and the saddest tragedy she could have imagined.

When she finally looked up, she perceived, through tear-blurred eyes, that he was staring at her.

"Is that not ugly?" he asked. He had misinterpreted her.

"Walker-" she started.

"I am lost to you, Arya," Walker said, interrupting her. "All that remains is my task, and when it is done…" He trailed off, and the silence was palpable.

Bitter emptiness welled within her. "Walker," she said. "That's not your name, is it? What is it, your name, so that I can-"