“Wait here,” Kerian said, firmly as though the idea of looking were her own. She snatched up a handful of stones from the ground and pitched in one, then another. She stopped to listen, heard only the wind, and tossed in a third.

They peered into the darkness, the little cave smelling of ancient leaves and ancient earth. Faint and far, moonlight drifted through the cracks between the leaning stones, not sharp beams but a pale diffusion. Kerian took a moment to let her eyes adjust, then helped Ayensha to sit. She went outside, by moonlight found fallen boughs of fragrant pine to make a soft bed, and helped Ayensha to lie down. So weary was the woman now, so filled with pain, that she could not speak to say whether that helped her or to agree that it was good to be out of the wind or to say whether she felt a little warmer. She lay in silence, hunched over in pain. Once her breath caught in a small sob.

Kerian sat silent, her right arm throbbing, her hand on Ayensha’s shoulder. In the quiet, she heard wind, again the cackle of a hunting owl, again the sudden scream of a rabbit’s death. Shuddering, she held her breath and listened more closely to the night. As her heart quieted, she heard what he had hoped for-the faint, musical trickle of water sliding down stone.

“Ayensha,” she whispered.

Ayensha groaned.

“Lie still, I’ll be right back.”

Kerian found water behind the little shelter, a trickle shining with the light of the half-moon, like silver running.

She washed her wound clean of blood, washed her hands and dried them on her shirt. She had only her cupped hands to carry the water, icy and tasting like stone. Still, with two trips, she managed to soothe Ayensha’s thirst. She checked the woman’s injuries and knew at least one of her ribs was broken, maybe more. She could only hope that organs had not been damaged. Across Ayensha’s ribs Kerian saw the distinct print, in black bruising, of a hard boot’s heel.

“Brutes,” she muttered, helping Ayensha to lay straight.

“Worse,” Ayensha whispered, “and I’m glad you killed that bastard Barg.”

Yes, I killed him, thought Kerian, shocked that she had done it so easily and now felt so little regret.

Ayensha didn’t say more. She closed her eyes, and in the instant of closing, fell asleep.

A long time Kerian sat beside the sleeping woman. It seemed to her, there in the misty moonlight and the cold little cave, that she’d been gone from Qualinost for weeks. All her muscles turned to water from weariness.

I will never be able to go home again.

She had killed a Knight, and here in this cave she still smelled his blood on her hands, warm and spilling over the bone handle of the dwarfs knife.

Kerian rose and sat near the opening of their shelter, the little doorway. Wind slid around the stones, small creatures with night habits rustled through the bracken. Kerian sat very still, listening to the tiny sounds of a fox lapping moisture. To test her ability for silence, she slipped her knife from the sheath. The priek-eared fox bolted, slashing away into the dark.

Kerian reached for the golden chain hanging from her neck. She pulled it out, moonlight gleamed on gold, on the topaz of Gil’s ring. Without warning, tears spilled down Kerian’s cheeks, warm when all else was cold. She closed her eyes and saw tossing seas, whitecaps like bent-winged gulls, gulls like the peaks of whitecaps, each reflecting the other. In her ears, the forest breeze changed and became the sound of the sea. The piney scents changed into the achingly beautiful fragrance of home.

A long time ago, his arm around her, holding his little sister close as the sea grew dark and slaty, immense between the fleeing ship and the thinning line of Ergoth’s shore, Iydahar had said, “Turtle, we’ll never be able to go home again, but there will always be you and me. Always.”

Yet Iydahar had gone to the mountains and forests to fight for a prince who had lost his crown, she to live in the city. To be a servant, Dar sneered, to lords who handed over their kingdom piece by piece to a dragon’s Knights. Dar did not know her lover was the king, and grimly, almost with satisfaction, she thought, “Dar! What would you think of me if you knew that?”

She wished she could ask him now, to his face, but Bueren Rose said no one had seen him in a long while. Where was her brother? She wondered, was he well?

Late, an hour past moonset, Ayensha woke and pushed herself to sit Breathing hard, she asked for water. As she drank it slowly, she asked Kerian about herself. Kerian gave some detail about the lif e she had left behind, though by no means all. Finally Ayensha, her back resting against a stone, said, “Well, and here we are. I thank you for that What are you going to do now, Kerian?”

Kerian sat a long time silent, listening to the night. “I’ve come out of Qualinost to find my brother. He is Iydahar of the White Osprey Kagonesti, or so we were called when we lived on Ergoth. Perhaps we-they-perhaps we are still called that.”

Ayensha said she had not heard of the White Osprey tribe. “Nobody knows all the Kagonesti there are. Is he a servant, like you, your brother?”

“No. He never was. He and my parents have always lived wild. Our father is Dallatar. He and my brother fought for Prince Porthios.”

Ayensha moved to find more comfort against cold stone. “You should go back to the city, Kerian. It’s harder out here.”

Kerian looked at her long through narrowed eyes. “It is fair hard in the city these days.” Owls hunted the opportune night. Kerian closed her eyes. In private darkness, she said, “In Qualinost there are four bridges round the city. We have always loved them, for Forest Keepers used to walk watch on the silver spans and cry the hours from the watchtowers: All is well in the East! All is safe in the South! We are watchful in the West! We see all that moves in the North!” She breathed deeply, then opened her eyes. Ayensha’s face was a pale oval an arm’s length away. “All is not well in the east now. Upon the eastern bridge Lord Eamutt Thagol has piked the heads of elves killed Toy his Knights -”

Again, Ayensha shifted, still trying to find ease, still failing.

“One of the heads piked up on the bridge was that of our cousin. She was Ylania of the White Osprey.”

Ayensha’s breath caught, a hissing of pain as she moved. “Well, I don’t know your brother, and I didn’t know this woman Ylania.”

An owl sailed past the opening of the shelter.

“Perhaps someone of your own tribe does.” Kerian lifted her head, met the woman’s eyes coolly. “For the sake of what I did for you, I ask that you take me to your people so I can ask.”

Ayensha laughed, a low, bitter sound. “All right. I’ll take you into the forest and you can ask your questions, but don’t blame me if you get an answer you don’t like.”

Ayensha lay down again. Kerian sat the night out, watching owls.

Gilthas dripped honey onto both halves of the steaming apricot muffin on his breakfast plate. He took a long slow breath of the scent of the honey, of the apricots and minted tea in his cup. A wealth of strawberries filled the bowl at his elbow, waiting to be dressed in thick cream. From beyond the open doors, twinned and paned in dimpled glass, the scent of his mother’s garden drifted into the small breakfast room. Rich green scents of her herb garden, and the ancient perfume of autumn as leaves changed from green to gold.

It was the autumn he thought of: leaving, going, changing. Kerian shaped his mood and all his thoughts.

Stubborn woman! He shouldn’t have let her go. He should have held her, kept her. He was not only her lover, he was her king!