"Watch your mouth!" whispered the second. "Just be thankful you and yours aren't blood kin to a traitor. I for one can't wait for spring. At least then I can take my goods and caravan away from this place for a while."

Leesil stood slowly, dropping the fork before he realized it. He didn't look back to see the men's faces and said nothing to his father as he pushed out the inn's front door.

He walked quickly through the night streets. By the time he entered Favor's Row, he was running for the house. He slipped in through the kitchen door and stared out the window at the keep upon the lake.

"Leshil?" a soft voice called from behind him. "What is it?'

Leesil spun about. His mother stood in the kitchen doorway with Chap beside her.

Only Nein'a called him by that name. His more common one was simpler, less memorable to any who overheard it. Her speech was tainted by her own native tongue and made anything she said both lyrical and guttural. Leesil wondered if this was just her or if all her people sounded this way.

And he wondered why she'd returned so early from her duties at the keep.

She wore a deep tan gown that matched her skin, its vine-and-leaf pattern wrapping about her tall form. A midnight-green cloak with ermine trim hung over her shoulders, its hood down.

Chap whined softly, staring at Leesil with perked ears. His tail stopped wagging.

Mother wasn't often affectionate, but when she stepped close to Leesil, her slanted eyes showed concern.

"What is it?" she repeated. "Where is your father?"

Leesil still wouldn't speak, but the fear faded from her expression.

Nein'a's amber eyes looked into his. Her thin lips pressed together as a shadow of sorrow passed over her face. She finished a slow blink, and the sorrow was gone. She became her controlled and poised self once again.

"You have heard something, yes?" she asked.

She reached out with a soft hand. Slender fingers that seemed too fragile brushed Leesil's cheek, and her warm palm settled against his face. She seemed to know what churned inside of him.

"Never seek to know the fate of those your actions affect. We serve, and we survive. You, your father, and I live for one another. Think only of us and yourself, for now, and do as you are ordered. Let go of all else, for it will do you no good."

She brushed white-blond hair away from his face, and Leesil nodded, showing his understanding and acceptance. That nod was the first lie he'd ever told her.

The next few days were quiet. He watched the street from his house or while wandering the city with his cowl pulled forward around his face. He left Chap behind when he went out, though the dog growled and barked each time he was locked inside. Leesil watched for the ones on horseback, fine men in armor or rich dress with their retinue. Days passed, and he began wondering if his mother was right. He headed home at dusk one day, passing before the mouth of the bridge gatehouse.

Coming out along the bridge was a tall man with red hair and lightly freckled skin riding upon a bay charger. Mounted men in leather armor and yellow surcoats followed behind him. Leesil crossed the way quickly, putting the gatehouse behind as he headed for home, but he heard the horses turn his way into Favor's Row. He ducked into the first house's vvalkway though it wasn't his own home. He didn't like having anyone at his back and waited for them to pass.

The red-haired noble ignored Leesil, as did his men. A smaller figure on a roan horse rode between them. Her fur-lined cloak was pulled fully around her, hiding even her hands, and her mount's reins were held by the nobleman. The man led the girl's horse under his own control. Anyone would have thought her a daughter. Anyone who hadn't seen the portrait of Baron Progae and his family.

Hedi Progae's vacant eyes were sunken in dark rings from many sleepless nights. Her cracked and dry lips were slack, slightly separated. Whereas the guards breathed clouds of vapor in the cold air, her breath came out in a slow, thin trail. The life in her simply leaked into the winter air.

The nobleman rode on, his property in tow.

Leesil stared after Hedi Progae. He went numb inside.

She was property. They were all property here. Obedient slaves who did what was necessary in order to live one more day.

The procession passed out of sight beyond the distant bend in the road.

Leesil didn't remember stumbling home until he stood in the kitchen. His mother didn't come to him, or even his father. There was only the sound of scraping claws on the floor, as Chap raced toward the kitchen to see who'd returned.

Leesil frantically looked about as he heard the dog coming. He wanted no one near him. He lifted the cellar hatch and dropped through the hole, then jerked the hatch shut. With no light at all, it was pitch-black even to his half-elven eyes. He scurried to the cellar's back, far from the hatch, and huddled in a corner.

Chap clawed at the hatch, and his muffled whines filled the cellar. Leesil ripped his cloak off. He clamped his hands over his ears and sat shuddering in the dark, in the cold, waiting for numbness to spread from his flesh into his thoughts.

Until he felt nothing at all, finally numbed inside by his mother's counsel, and he could go on and…

168 • BARB and). C. HEN DEE

Do what is necessary.

He had done it again, and once more, and then yet again. He'd kept on killing for Darmouth for another six years.

Silence surrounded him.

Leesil realized he was sitting on the bed in the room he shared with Magiere.

Everything became mixed and muddled as he broke out in a sweat. Was this Byrd's inn? Or was he still in the cellar?

Leesil backed away from the bed in uncertainty. It didn't make sense. Magiere hadn't been in the cellar in the dark. He couldn't hear Chap scratching overhead in the kitchen. He looked up to a timber ceiling. The floor under his feet was wood planks, not the dirt of a cellar.

Still, he should be in that cellar, where he could stay numb. He was so hot, and what he wanted was the cold. He pulled at his shirt clinging to his chest from sweat until it came off and chill air surrounded him.

The room was black, and his elvish night sight caught only the barest details.

And it was wrong. There was no crate, barrel, or sacks of vegetables. There was no narrow bed he had slept in with Magiere. He now saw dark columns of a large four-poster bed, and heard the deep breaths of a man sleeping there,

He had to protect the lives of his mother and father. He had to do what was necessary. Crouched in the corner, he wondered why the walls looked too close for a traitor's bedroom, but he knew where he was. He knew why he was always here in the dark listening to someone's last breaths.

It didn't matter what happened to Hedi Progae. It didn't matter what became of the mother and two younger daughters. He'd always do what was necessary,

Leesil jerked a stiletto from the sheath on his wrist.

Magiere stood in the upper hallway of the inn with a small lantern in her hand. There was no light coming from the crack under the door, so Leesil hadn't bothered lighting candles. If he was already asleep, she didn't want to wake him. Sleep was seldom peaceful for Leesil, but it was still some relief from all he'd faced in recent days.

She closed the lantern's shield to smother its light, then steeled herself as she quietly cracked open the door. The dim glow escaping the closed lantern revealed the shadowy form of an empty bed in the dark room.

"Leesil?" Magiere whispered.

Movement to her left. Something skittered, quick and low, to the bedside.

Magiere's sight widened instantly as her dhampir instinct surged up. A dim shadowed form became distinct.