The breeze of a late summer’s night grew chill, slipping low along the ground. Kerian, robed in moonlight, shivered. Gilthas sat up and wrapped his shirt around her. He followed that with his cloak, green edged with gold. He found the rest of his clothing and dressed himself, reminded of cold now. He took back his cloak, slipping her own blouse over her head and tying it at the throat. He gave her the rough trews she’d come to him in, thick wool the color of chestnuts, torn and much mended.

Silence, then the owl’s triumphant cry. Kerian hadn’t heard the cry of the prey, but she saw it now in the owl’s talons, a squirrel in its last twitching struggle.

The king said, “That will be us if this treaty between elves and humans and finally dwarves is not well made: dying, twitching in the talons of the dragon.”

She knew it. It had been the reason she’d gone out into the woods to harry the tribute-bearers, the reason she’d killed Knights and seen her friends die. To buy time for this treaty, for dwarven deliberation. Now, it seemed, more must be done.

“Perhaps it will be good if you go away for a while,” he said gently. “Let Thagol wonder. Let the nighmares subside. Live to fight another day, and-”

“I will go to Thorhardin for you, my love, but how will we know that Thagol won’t follow my trail?”

“There’s a way.” Gilthas lifted the flap of his saddlebag and scooped out a small pouch. This he opened into her hand, spilling out an emerald pendant. Shaped like a leaf unfurling, it glinted in the moonlight “Nayla and Haugh traveled on this magic when my mother’s need sent them far outside the kingdom. The talismanic magic that protects your sleep, the magic in this relic, isn’t so trusty as it used to be, but I’m told that if you keep your mind strongly focused on where it is you need to be, you’ll surely get there.

He leaned closed and kissed her gently.

She lifted the pendant and watched the emerald leaf twirl as the golden chain spun straight. “How do I do it?”

Gil took the necklace and slipped it over her head. Again, he combed his fingers gently through her hair, waking the woodland scent clinging to the honey lengths. Oaks and autumn and cold mountain streams, earth and wind and the memories of old campfires, this was her perfume now. With a lover’s hand, he smoothed the chain along her neck, settled the emerald upon her breast.

“It’s a matter of concentration. Keep your mind focused on where you want to be. It doesn’t matter that you’ve never seen Thorbardin-you know Thorbardin exists. That is the thought you must hold firmly.”

The emerald warmed her skin. Kerian observed that it would be a good idea not to suddenly pop in on the high king while he was having his bath.

Gil smiled. He filled his hands with her hair, all the forest-scented locks spilling through his fingers. She went close to him, lifting her face to kiss him. Between them now was only the question she had not answered.

“My love,” she said, “you’ve asked me another thing.”

He put a finger on her lips, gently. “Hush,” he said, his breath warm on her cheek.

It was in her mind to answer, to tell him no, to refuse the king’s offer of marriage. She would be a lightning rod as his queen, a Kagonesti woman to sit beside him, a servant raised up, a lover led from his bed to his throne. Rashas would run wild with the notion, would discredit Gilthas in the first week of his marriage and use the indignation of the kingdom to wrench him from his throne.

No, she meant to say. No, Gil. I can’t, you know it wouldn’t be the right thing.

She said nothing like that. She lifted the emerald from her breast and held it in her hands. She felt the gem tingling against her fingers, warming the flesh.

“Concentrate?”

His voice gentle, the king said, “Concentrate. Keep it firmly in your mind where you want to go.”

Kerian took a breath, and the emerald throbbed against her fingers. She gripped it, its energy stung, and she loosed it again. Cradling it now, as though it might fly away or bite, she closed her eyes, trying to clear her mind of all thoughts. She slipped into her senses, smelling all the forest, the oaks, the stream rilling beyond the grove, the sweetness of the rich earth, and the ferns cut from the brakes that had made their woodland bed soft. She heard the whistle of a thrush, the whisper of wind, and on her skin she felt the sunlight. She thought of Thorbardin, the fabled city she had never seen. She thought of the legends she knew of the place, the tales she knew of Tarn Bellow-granite himself, the High King of the Eight Clans.

Around her, the world grew suddenly sharp, all her senses keen-edged. In the moment she realized it, she felt the oak grove fading, dissolving underfoot, around her.

“Thorbardin,” Gil said, his voice level, firm. “Thorbardin, Kerian.”

The word rang in her thoughts, chiming like a deep-throated bell.

She cried, “Gil!” as the whirlwind came roaring out from the forest, up from the ground, down from the sky. “Gil!”

Whatever he shouted, whatever word or cry, became lost, torn apart by the whirlwind, changed into a terrible roaring, a bellowing so deep, so loud it was as a storm with no beginning, no end.

From that storm came a voice, one lone voice speaking with unreasonable calmness about curses.

“Ah, now y’know there’s all kinds of curses,” said the dwarf. “Man’s a fool who doesn’t reckon that”

Kerian fell out of the whirlwind to find herself on her knees, the echo of magic’s bellowing still in her ears, her body feeling as though it had been hurled right across the Kharolis Mountains.

Kerian didn’t see the speaker, down on the floor of what she knew to be a tavern by the smells of ale, dwarf spirits, and roasting meat, of sweat, smoke, and fire. She was, though, relieved to realize that the dwarf was using his native tongue, the rough-hewn language of Thor-bardin.

All right, she thought, that’s a good sign.

She tried to stand and failed.

The dwarf who spoke of curses continued to speak. His fellows continued to listen, eight or more dwarfs bellied up to the bar. Other than those drinkers, the tavern was empty. It had the feel of a place just opened, the regulars perhaps having been waiting at the door, the rest of the night’s custom coming later.

“There’s big curses and minor ones,” said the dwarven expert, “the curse of your mother-in-law and the curse of an unchancy god.”

“No telling which of those is worse,” said an old dwarf at the end of the bar. His fellows laughed, and one said he reckoned he knew.

Kerian’s belly felt loose and dangerous, as though she might heave up the last fine meal she’d eaten, the pastries, wines, and thinly sliced fruit, the braised duck, the … She dared not think on that now. She tried to breathe slowly through her mouth and tasted the tang of metal, steel and slag. The odor of sweat drying on skin and wool stung her nose. Quietly, she groaned and wished she hadn’t, yet no one seemed to notice her there on the floor.

Where in the name of all lost gods am I? She glanced right, she glanced left, and out of the corner of her eye she saw a doorway into a brighter place where people- dwarves-walked by, some alone, others in pairs or groups. Their voices washed in through the door and washed out again as they passed by.

“Eh, there’s all kinds of curses,” the dwarf said, now with the air of one who had just done with his subject.

Kerian tried to stand again and failed again. Ah, gods, her head hurt!

The dwarfs listeners at the bar variously laughed, grumbled, or questioned, and one youngster opined that he supposed this was how the tavern got its name. “Because it’s cursed.”

“Nay,” said another, his voice tight with impatience. Kerian winced at the thud of something hitting wood, like a filled pitcher being set down heavily. “The tavern isn’t cursed. Can y’not read, lad? Or did they shoo you right off to shovel coal for the forges thinking you didn’t have the wit and a half needed for the skill and wouldn’t want it there anyway?”