One hand still hitching up his wet, heavy pants, Kip began jogging as fast as he could, fearless despite the slick rocks, narrow trail, and death beckoning from every side.

There were bodies in the river, caught up in the rapids. Dear Orholam, there were bodies at the Sendinas' farm, little lumps nearly as cold as the surrounding ground. Smoldering, ruined buildings burned hot in Kip's vision. More important for him and Sanson, he saw a flat-bottomed punt tied at the Sendinas' dock. He and Sanson hit the bottom of the trail at a full run. They rounded a corner and in the morning sun saw thirty mounted Mirrormen, drawn up in battle formation.

"We wanted to take you alive," the red drafter said. His skin was crimson, and fury tinged his voice. "A drafter with your potential doesn't come along every day. But you've killed two of King Garadul's men, and for that, you die."

"You're not really going to crash us," Karris said as Gavin brought them over the scrub desert.

"Oh, I see. When I'm flying, we're flying, but when we're crashing, I'm crashing."

Gavin banked the condor to the right so they wouldn't be seen from Garriston. There was still a good chance some farmer or fisherman would spot them, but who would believe a lone fisherman who said he'd seen a giant flying man-bird? If a whole city saw them, it would be a different story. Garriston, despite being the most important port in Tyrea, wasn't much. The bay was overfished, the land was hot and dry with bad soil, the Ruthgari governor corrupt, his men worse.

It hadn't always been this way. Before the False Prism's War, there had been a vast system of irrigation canals that had brought this scrub desert into bloom, with two or even three harvests a year. There had been locks that fed trade to dozens of small cities up and down the Umber River. But canals and locks required drafters and maintenance. Without either, this land had withered, punished for the sins of dead men.

"Gavin, I'm serious. Are we really going to crash?"

"Trust me," he said.

She opened her mouth, then shut it. He guessed what she hadn't said: Because that's worked out so well for me before?

"Got anything fragile in your bag?" he asked.

"How bad is this going to be?" she asked, real concern in her voice.

"Sorry. I should have waited until we were closer to the ground."

"Wait, what's that?" Karris asked.

Gavin looked west, following her eyes, but didn't see what had made her curious. The land around Garriston was plains and dry farmland, but to the west it quickly yielded to steep, tall, impassable mountains that abutted almost directly on the sea. The Umber River was just on the other side of those mountains. If it could go straight to the sea-through the mountains-it would have been only ten leagues long. Instead, it had to go east to Garriston, separated from the ocean by fencelike mountains, almost a hundred and fifty leagues from origin to outlet.

"There," Karris said, pointing. "Smoke."

Gavin wasn't sure that the black wisp was anything more than Karris's-and now his-imagination. Regardless, it was on the other side of the mountains, so it didn't matter. He was just opening his mouth to tell Karris that when the condor passed over one of the foothills. A powerful updraft shot them higher into the air.

It took Gavin's breath away. He'd only experimented with the condor over water. He hadn't even thought about how the ground beneath where he was gliding would affect the air above it. Now that he had experienced it, it made sense. Why else did birds of prey spiral so often in the same places? Gavin had assumed they were good hunting grounds. Now he knew. Updrafts.

"Can we make it over the mountains?" Karris asked.

From this new height-Gavin looked down, gulped, and immediately looked back to the horizon-he was certain that what they had seen was smoke. And for it to be visible from this far away, it could only be one of two things.

Let it be a forest fire. Please, Orholam.

"We can. But if we do, you're not going to meet the man who was supposed to get you into Garadul's army. And I can't get the condor back into the air without the sea. I'll have to float all the way down the river."

"Gavin, when I see that much smoke, I think red wight. A Torch could be burning down an entire city. You're heading out to stop a color wight near Ru? These people aren't worth any less than the people of Ru. If it comes to it, there are a lot of drafters in Ru who could work together against the blue wight. These people have no one."

In his mind's eye, Gavin was comparing the land below him to the maps he knew of Tyrea. It was surprisingly easy, given that he was closer to the perspective most maps were drawn from than most people ever got. He looked at the mountains, the not-quite-pass through them, and the position of the rising smoke. A thought struck him with a greater force than mere intuition. He wasn't here on accident. It wasn't coincidence that he was gliding in the one place where he could see this fire, or that he had Karris with him. That was no forest fire. It wasn't a red wight either.

That fire was rising from Rekton. It had been a beautiful town before the war. It was the town where Gavin's "son" was. Gavin knew it, even though they were so far away there was no way to know it. If Orholam had actually existed, this was the kind of punishment he would devise for Gavin. Or test.

Whatever it was, it was a choice.

Five years left, and five great purposes still to accomplish. And one of those actually was mostly selfless: to free Garriston, which had been crushed because of him. Which was suffering still, because of him.

If Gavin went to Rekton, he'd have to face that crazy woman, Lina. He'd have to face her son Kip, and tell him that he wasn't his father: Sorry, you're still fatherless. I have no idea what your lying slut mother is talking about.

That would doubtless go over well. They would also be close to Rask Garadul's army, so Karris would open her orders, and everything would get messy fast.

All Gavin had to say was, "I've got my orders." Karris would understand. She'd always been dutiful. To a fault.

But you aren't Karris. This isn't her test.

He opened his mouth to say it, and it tasted like cowardice. He couldn't force the words past his gritted teeth.

"Let's go see," Gavin said. He banked the condor, and saw that he hadn't made his decision a moment too soon. It would be a near thing to clear the gap between the mountains.

Karris squeezed his hand and her eyes sparkled, those jade green eyes with red diamonds in them. For some reason, her joy struck him more deeply than any disappointment could have. That joy was a reminder of sixteen years of joy he should have given her, joy stolen. He turned away, his throat tight.

The mountains loomed, and Gavin realized for the first time just how fast they were going. There was no hope of a splashing wet landing here. If the updrafts he'd expected didn't catch them soon, he and Karris were going to paint a large crimson blotch across the face of these rocks.

Orholam, if there isn't any wind at all, then there isn't any wind to get thrown upward, is there?

He was beginning to draft a red cushion-hopelessly, knowing no matter how big he made it, it would be too little at this speed-when the updraft caught them. They were hurled skyward, the wings of the condor straining.

Karris shouted with exultation.

The force was incredible. It was hard to estimate how fast they were rising, but Gavin shortened the condor's wings both to take stress off them and because Rekton wasn't so far away that they would need that much height. The higher they were, the more visible they were. But it did make him think. With all the height he could get off of mountains, the condor's range was vastly greater than he had assumed.