"I saw the dress, Kit."

"Listen, you idiot!" A deep crimson blush stained her cheeks as she propped her tiny fists on her hips. "She's still alive. They took her and rode off like a pack of demons. They left the dress so you would get all hellfire mad and go riding after them without a thought in that wooden head of yours."

He strode through her as if she weren't there, walked up to the door of the cabin, and stood on the threshold. The emptiness within yawned before him like a great mouth.

"I never wanted this for you." She came up beside him. "Neither did your mother."

"Don't, Kit."

Her ethereal fingers brushed his face. "I was happy in my world, Caim, but I had to come when I heard your mother's call. She understood it would be hard for you in this place, born of two peoples, belonging to neither. And I knew the first time I saw you that I would love you forever. That's the curse of my people. We never forget and we never die. We love forever, even after the ones we love die and pass into the great dark."

"Kit…" Troubled feelings rumbled in the depths of his soul. They chipped away at his resolve and made him feel weak and pathetic.

"Don't you think I mourned for your loss, Caim? Don't you think I cried myself sick after what happened to your parents? But you were a stone. You never cried."

"What good would it have done them?" But tears, hot and bitter, sprang to his eyes now as her words dredged up his past.

Kit rested her head on his arm. "We don't cry for them, Caim. We cry for ourselves. Kas understood that."

"And now he's dead, too."

"He died doing what he knew was right."

Caim thought of the bloody spear. Kas had died a hero. Would the same be said of him when his time came? The gloom inside the cabin beckoned to him.

"It's funny," he said. "For years after they were gone, I thought losing my parents had made me a stronger person. Tougher. Now I wonder if I didn't lose the best part of myself that night. The man with the black blades. He's like me, isn't he? A monster."

An electric tingle ran along his jaw as she touched his chin. "You are not a monster."

"There's darkness inside me, Kit. I've always known it was there, just below the surface, and you've seen what happens when I lose control."

She turned away.

"He sent that shadow-snake after me, didn't he? Now he's working with Ral, and Josey is gone. So who the fuck is he, Kit?"

For a moment, he thought she wouldn't answer. Then, "He serves the Lords of the Shadow."

Caim swallowed past the knot in his throat. The taste of tears lingered in the back of his mouth. A thousand questions jostled in his throat, but only one was important.

"How do I kill him?"

"He is flesh and blood, just like you. Cut him and he will bleed."

"I tried that." The admission was torn from his throat in an angry growl. "I tried, Kit. He has powers I don't understand, magic I can't match."

Her slender finger touched the space over his heart. "The blood calls to its own, Caim. You are your mother's son. You already possess everything you need."

He laughed, a cruel sound even to his own ears. "Then I'm damned and so is Josey."

"They took her alive, so she must have some value to them. They won't kill her out of hand. There's still time to help her."

"Now you want to help her? You couldn't stand the sight of her before."

Kit folded her arms across her slender chest. "I'm glad you have a mud-woman in your life. I know I can't love you the way I've always dreamed, the way I wanted to."

"Kit, I-"

She smiled and shook away another bout of tears. "But I'll always be here for you, as your friend."

"You're my best friend, Kit. You always have been. That won't ever change."

She punched at his arm. "It better not!" Then, in a more somber tone, "We'll find her, Caim."

He watched the light play upon the shards of broken glass on the cabin floor.

"I already know where she is," he said. "Ral told me himself once. He said we were the most feared men in the empire, that we should be lording it up in the palace."

"You mean the palace palace? Like the big muckety-muck's digs?"

Caim walked into the cabin. A storm lantern hung from a hook on the wall. He took it down and lit the wick from the hearth embers. Light filled the cabin as the lantern sprang to life. He hurled it into the back room. Flames shot to the ceiling as he strode out the door. The growing fire threw harsh shadows across the grass and against the trunks of the surrounding trees as he went around to the back of the cabin. Thoughts of Josey swirled around in his head. He would go after her, and the gods help anyone or anything that got in his way.

Across the yard, the boulder hunched in the earth like the egg of a giant bird. While Kit floated over him, he squatted down beside it. He fit his hands underneath the stone and heaved. The boulder was sunk deep in its loamy home, but he would not be denied. He pulled for the memories of his father and mother, for Kas who'd become the father he wanted and needed even if he hadn't realized it until too late, for Josey who needed him now. He pulled until his tendons strained and his legs shook. The wound in his side ached, but he didn't let up until, inch by inch, the stone came free of its bed. With a groan he heaved it away.

Pale worms wriggled in the damp earth where the stone had lain. Kit crouched beside him as he pulled a moldy leather sack from the soil. He cracked it open to pull out the items inside, and set them on the ground with reverence. The first was a square of sturdy broadcloth. It unfolded into a dirty gray tabard. A great sablewood tree was stitched onto the breast in black thread, the sign of his father's house. The second item was wrapped in oilcloth. Caim pulled away the covering to reveal a portrait in a plain wooden frame. Calm's father was tall and imposing in the picture. His mother looked tiny beside her husband, like a dark-leafed sapling growing in the shade of a mighty rowan. Her hair was long and lustrous black, her eyes mysterious pools of obsidian.

While Kit mooned over the picture, Caim took out the third item. The sword's leather scabbard was in bad repair. He wiped away years of grit from the whorls carved into the pommel. This had been his father's blade. Though the hilt was cool to the touch, holding it produced a burning heat in the pit of his stomach. He had pulled this weapon from his father's corpse. Now, he would use it to sever the chains of death that had bound up his life for so long, or he would die. In either case, the matter would finally be resolved.

Caim set the sword aside and pushed the other items back into the hollow. Getting behind the boulder, he heaved it back into place.

Kit watched him with an intent expression. "You can't keep running from your past. It's part of who you are."

He snatched up the sword. "I'm not denying it. I'm finally accepting my true inheritance and everything that goes along with it."

He started back toward the trail. "You coming?"

She fell in beside him, but said nothing. He was glad for the silence. He had planning to do. The trees swayed over their heads as they followed the rutted path back to Othir. The tang of wet copper stung the back of his throat. A storm was coming. Good. Let the heavens pour out their tears. I'll give them a slaughter worthy of their misery.

Over the plain, flickers of lightning danced through the shroud of purple-black clouds and echoed with the growls of thunder.