“Are you a cook, too, then?” I asked, remembering the first Dulcé I’d met-a charming, pitiful betrayer who thought murder and an ancient sword could have his city.

A shadow crossed his face, quickly smiled away. “Alas, no. Poor foolish Baglos was a chef without peer, even in Avonar where there are many fine cooks. This company will have no such pleasure from me, though I am not immodest to say that the brandy I lay down is considered to be a unique pleasure. We have a bit with us, if you should have need of a drop…”

“Not now. Last night I might have traded my horse for it.” I followed him into the cave.

Paulo slept peacefully next to the snapping fire. His chest rose and fell, slow and deep, and the color in his thin face was a healthy brown. Most incredibly, he had rolled over on one side, his fist tucked under his chin, and his legs- both legs-curled up under his blankets. The bloody rags and splints lay in a pile near his feet.

Karon sat on the ground beside the boy, his arms about his knees and his chin dropped to his chest as if he were sleeping. But he looked up as Bareil and I walked in, and the marvelous smile that had always been the sign of Karon’s true nature illuminated his tired face. “You invited me back to visit you, my lady, but you didn’t say you would find an even colder spot to meet and provide a challenge such as I’ve not seen in a very long time.”

“How’s that, my lord?” said the Dulcé. “I thought the saving of my own life had been your fairest challenge!”

“Ah, Dulcé, a few pinpricks such as you had cannot begin to compare.”

“I thought you timed your return visit extremely well, sir,” I said, trying not to stare. “But I cannot quite shake the conviction that you are only a convenient fantasy.”

“I’m sure that if I were your fantasy, I would be able to leap up from this frigid floor and greet a lady properly, and then work some marvelous feat of sorcery to transport us all to southern Iskeran where it’s warm.” He rubbed his head vigorously with his fingertips, tousling the hair that had come loose from its tie at the back of his neck. “I make a most inadequate fantasy, my lady. You should conjure another.”

“How is Paulo?” I asked, offering him a waterskin.

“Once we fill his stomach, he should be able to resume your journey with no difficulty,” said Karon, accepting the water gratefully. He drank deeply and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

“You’ve saved his life or at least his limb, which is much the same. I-all his friends-are grateful beyond words.”

“I believe I’ve only begun to repay him.” After a quick glance at me and an almost imperceptible shake of his head, all pleasantry vanished from his face. “My debts are innumerable. Bareil told you of Dassine?”

“A grievous loss,” I said.

He nodded. “Did he also tell you of the task Dassine set us?”

“He said only that you have business with me beyond bringing this dreadful news.” I held patience and let him speak first.

“We’re searching for news of an abducted child…” He told me his story, then, of Dassine’s murder, of the note, and the Healer’s dying words of a child that must be rescued from the Zhid. “… so you see, even though it makes no sense, I must discover what I can. Bareil tells me that Dassine trusted you beyond any other, and so I begin with you.”

This could be no coincidence. My mind raced. What should I tell him? Instinct insisted I claim that Gerick was a descendant of D’Arnath’s line who had been placed in my world for his own protection. Or perhaps that he was simply a Dar’Nethi child who had shown immense power. Anything to convince him that Gerick was the boy he sought. Karon had so many holes in his reality anyway, so what if one was filled with untruth or exaggeration.

But my heart forbade me to lie to him. Once, in the years of our marriage, I had kept a terrible secret from Karon, glossing over it with misdirection. I could still feel his hurt on the day he’d learned the truth, wounded not so much by the secret itself, but by the barrier the lie had built between us.

Gerick had grown up as the son of my brother, and I didn’t know why he had been taken. That was truth. I had no evidence that Darzid or the Zhid knew that Karon and D’Natheil were one and the same, and despite my convictions, I had no direct proof that Gerick was our son. Best stay with what I knew and say nothing beyond it. Keep silent where truth would not serve.

And so I told Karon the story of my brother’s child who had disappeared from his home four nights previous. Treading carefully, I told him, too, of my brother’s mysterious aide who had disappeared on the very same night as Gerick. Though I could not mention Darzid’s role in his own arrest, I explained about Darzid’s strange fancies and how he was a known hunter of sorcerers, yet had been seen consorting with the Zhid in the year just past. “… and so with no hard evidence, I’ve come to believe that Darzid is more than he seems and is surely in league with the Zhid.”

“Why would the Zhid want a child of your world?” Karon asked. “You say your brother was a noble, and a worthy swordsman, and a close ally of your king, but he was not Dar’Nethi. I can’t see why Dassine would consider this particular abduction to be so much more worrisome than any other.”

And this, of course, was where the difficulty lay. Bareil came to my rescue. “My lord, I wonder… You remember when I told you of the Zhid’s delight in taking children, raising them in Zhev’Na, and thereby creating their most formidable captains?”

Karon dipped his head, his brows knit in puzzlement.

“What if they have decided that with this child, the noble son of this world’s most potent warrior, they could do something the same? Create a Zhid warrior of the mundane world to command the Zhid hosts if they were to find some way to transport Zhid across the Bridge? Such would be a terrible blow to those of this world who would try to resist.”

And how much worse it would be if that commander held the power of the Heir…

Karon nodded slightly. “Could that be what was written in the note, ‘the Third lives and has the prize he has always wanted’?”

Bareil was slow in responding to Karon’s question, and Karon glanced up at him sharply. “Detan detu, madrissé. Do you know the meaning of this phrase?”

But the Dulcé did not retreat at Karon’s show of impatience. “I cannot answer you, my lord. Forgive me.”

Before Karon could reply, someone burst through the curtain of blinding sunlight at the mouth of the cave.

“We’ve got to get out of here. They’re com- Fires of Annadis! D’Natheil!”

Karon was on his feet, already poised to strike, sword in one hand, silver dagger in the other.

“Hold, my lord!” I cried. “She’s our friend. Your friend. Kellea, what is it?”

The Dar’Nethi girl kept her eyes on the unwavering blades and her hands well away from her own weapons. “Bandits. Five or six, at least, halfway down from the summit. They’ll be here in half an hour, and from what I saw, they’re not anyone we would like to meet. They fell on a pair of travelers up the pass. Stole the poor sods’ clothes and boots and chased them naked through the snow. Played them for sport, wounding them a little worse each time, then letting them loose again until they butchered them. Earth’s bones, I never saw such savagery. If I’d not been alone…”

“I’ll get the horses,” I said.

“But perhaps I’ve got help now,” said Kellea, grinning at Karon and lowering her hands as he lowered his weapon. “The Prince and I could rid the world of the beasts. And we wouldn’t have to move Paulo.”

“The Prince has healed Paulo,” I said. “If we can make it down to the trees, the bandits won’t find us.” We had no time for this. No resources to spare.

“Wake the boy and get you gone-all of you.” Karon’s quiet self-assurance-or was it D’Natheil’s?-implied the discussion was ended. “I’ll take care of the vermin and join you down the road.”

“Indeed you will not,” I said. “Dassine gave you a task to do.” No purposeless gesture was going to endanger the life of my child.

“Such brutes must not be allowed to enjoy the fruits of their crimes.”

He stepped toward Kellea and the cave mouth, but I dodged into his path, blocking the exit. “This is not your business,” I said. “If you set out to right every wrong in this land, you’ll be as old as D’Arnath before you’ve even begun.”

“But I can take care of this one,” he said, trying to step past me.

I didn’t budge. “Your responsibilities are far more important than petty vengeance.”

Anger flared in his blue eyes. “My responsibilities are with me every moment. I must do what I think is right.”

Like lightning in a dry forest, his words sparked such a blaze of anger in me that I lost all caution. “You must do what is most important. The child you were sent to save is two days’ journey ahead of us, perhaps more than that by now. His safety is your responsibility. Nothing else. You will not abandon him to his fate, not this time.”

“Madam, please… have a care…” Bareil stepped in between Karon and me.

But caution had deserted me. “As for the rest of us, Kellea must lead you to the child, and Bareil holds the keys to your reason. They cannot be put at risk. Paulo and I are the only ones who can be spared to aid you, and I’ll carry Paulo down this mountain on my back before I’ll allow you to sacrifice another life to your moral certainties. We will go down now. All of us.”

Karon stared at me, as white and still as if I’d stabbed him. His sword slipped from his hand into the dirt. I crouched down to the scatter of pots and blankets beside Paulo. Hands shaking, I wadded up the blood-soaked rags, rolled up blankets, emptied and stacked pots and cups, cramming everything into the scuffed leather bags and panniers.

After an interminable silence, the others moved as well. Kellea shook Paulo’s shoulder with hushed urgency and helped the groggy boy pull on her spare wool leggings, the two of them whispering, marveling at the pale white scars on his straight leg. As I poked at the refuse in some ridiculous attempt to cover the evidence of our stay, the two of them saddled the horses in the back of the cave.