Jaelle had paled, but again it was Jennifer who answered, hardily. “There is no misconception, Paul. I am unlikely to forget who his father is.”

It was like cold water in the face; he felt his anger being sluiced away, leaving behind a residue of sorrow and deep pain.

“I know that,” he said after a difficult moment. “I’m sorry. I was frightened last night. The house was the second thing.”

“What was the first?” Jaelle asked, not harshly this time.

“Fordaetha of Rük.”

With some distant satisfaction he saw her hands begin to tremble. “Here?” she whispered. “So far south?” She put her hands in the pockets of her gown.

“She was,” he said quietly. “I drove her back. But not before she killed. I spoke to Loren this morning. Their servant is dead: Zervan. And so is a girl from the tavern.” He turned to Jennifer. “An ancient power of winter was in Paras Derval. She tried to kill me as well and… failed. But there is a great deal of evil about. I must know where Darien is, Jennifer.” She was shaking her head. He pushed on. “Listen to me, please! He cannot be only yours now, Jen. He can’t. There is too much at stake, and we don’t even know what he is!”

”He is to be random,” she replied calmly, standing very tall, golden among the instruments of music. “He is not to be used, Paul.”

So much dark in this, and where were his ravens now? It was a hard, a savage thing, but it had to be said, and so:

“That isn’t really the issue. The issue is whether or not he has to be stopped.”

In the silence that followed they could hear the tread of feet outside in the corridor and the continuing buzz of the crowd not far away. There was a window open. So as not to have to look any more at what his words had done to Jennifer, Paul walked over to it. Even on the main level of the palace they were quite high up. Below, to the south and east, a party of thirty men or so were just leaving Paras Derval. Diarmuid’s band. With Kevin, who might in fact have understood, if Paul had known clearly what he wanted to explain.

Behind him Jaelle cleared her throat and spoke with unwonted diffidence. “There is no sign yet of that last, Pwyll,” she said. “Both Vae and her son say so and we have been watching. I am not so foolish as you take me for.”

He turned. “I don’t take you for foolish at all,” he said. He held the look, longer perhaps than necessary, before turning reluctantly to the other woman.

Jennifer had been looking pale a long time, it was almost a year since she’d had a healthy tan, but never had he seen her as white as now she was. For a disoriented instant he thought of Fordaetha. But this was a mortal woman, and one to whom unimaginable damage had been done. Against the white of her skin, the high cheekbones stood out unnaturally. He wondered if she was going to faint. She closed her eyes; opened them. “He told the Dwarf I was to die. Told him there was a reason.” Her voice was an aching rasp.

“I know,” Paul said, as gently as he could. “You explained to me.”

“What reason could there be for killing me if… if not because of a child?” How did one comfort a soul to whom this had been done? “What reason, Paul? Could there be another?”

”I don’t know,” he whispered. “You’re probably right, Jen. Please stop.”

She tried; wiped at her tears with both hands. Jaelle walked forward with a square of silk and gave it to her awkwardly. Jennifer looked up again. “But if I’m right… if he was afraid of a child, then… shouldn’t Darien be good?”

So much yearning in the question, so much of her soul. Kevin would lie, Paul thought. Everyone he knew would lie.

Paul Schafer said, very low, “Good, or a rival, Jen. We can’t know which, and so I must know where he is.”

Somewhere on the road Diarmuid and his men were galloping. They would wield swords and axes in this war, shoot arrows, throw spears. They would be brave or cowardly, kill or die, bonded to each other and to all other men.

He would do otherwise. He would walk alone in darkness to find his own last battle. He who had come back would say the cold truths and the bitter, and make a wounded woman cry as though whatever was left of her heart was breaking even now.

Two women. There were bright, disregarded tears on Jaelle’s cheeks as well. She said, “They have gone to the lake. Ysanne’s lake. The cottage was empty, so we sent them there.”

“Why?”

“He is of the andain, Pwyll. I was telling Jennifer before you came: they do not age as we do. He is only seven months old, but he looks like a five-year-old child. And is growing faster now.”

Jennifer’s sobs were easing. He walked over to the bench where she was and sat down beside her. With a real hesitation, he took her hand and raised it to his lips.

He said, “There is no one I have known so fine as you. Any wound I deal to you is more deeply bestowed upon myself; you must believe this to be true. I did not choose to be what I have become. I am not even sure what that is.”

He could sense her listening.

He said, “You are weeping for fear you have done wrong, or set loose an evil. I will say only that we cannot know. It is just as possible that Darien will be our last, our deepest hope of light. And let us remember”—he looked up and saw that Jaelle had come nearer—“let all three of us remember that Kim dreamt his name and so he has a place. He is in the Tapestry.”

She had stopped crying. Her hand remained in his, and he did not let it go. She looked up after a moment. “Tell me,” she said to Jaelle, “how are you watching him?”

The Priestess looked uncomfortable. “Leila,” she said.

“The young one?” Paul asked, not comprehending. “The one who spied on us?”

Jaelle nodded. She walked over to the horizontally mounted harp and plucked two strings before answering. “She is tuned to the brother,” she whispered. “Exactly how, I don’t understand, but she sees Finn and he is almost always with Darien. We take them food once a week as well.”

His throat was dry again with fear. “What about an attack? Can’t they just take him?”

“Why should they be attacked,” Jaelle replied, lightly touching the instrument, “a mother and two children? Who knows they are even there?”

He drew a breath. It felt like such naked, undefended folly. “Wolves?” he pursued. “Galadan’s wolves?”

Jaelle shook her head. “They never go there,” she said. “They never have. There is a power by that lake warding them.”

“What power?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I truly don’t. No one in Gwen Ystrat knows.”

“Kim does, I’ll bet,” said Jennifer.

They were silent for a long time, listening to the Priestess at the harp. The notes followed one another at random, the way a child might play.

Eventually there came a knocking.

“Yes?” said Paul.

The door opened, and Brendel stepped inside. “I heard the music,” he said. “I was looking for you.” His gaze was on Jennifer. “Someone is here. I think you should come.” He said nothing more. His eyes were dark.

They all rose. Jennifer wiped her face; she pushed back her hair and straightened her shoulders. Very like a queen, she looked, to Paul. Side by side, he and Jaelle followed her from the room. The lios alfar came after and closed the door.

Kim was edgy and afraid. They had been planning to bring Arthur to Aileron in the morning, but then Brock had discovered Zervan’s frozen body in the snow. And before they could even react, let alone properly grieve, tidings had come of Shalhassan’s imminent arrival from Seresh, and palace and town both had exploded into frenzied activity.

Frenzied, but controlled. Loren and Matt and Brock, grim-faced, all three of them, hurried off, and so Kim and Arthur, alone in the mages’ quarters, went upstairs and watched the preparations from a second-floor window. It was clear, both to her untrained glance and to his profoundly expert one, that there was a guiding purpose to the chaos below. She saw people she recognized rushing or riding past: Gorlaes, Coll, Brock again; Kevin, racing around the corner with a banner in his hand; even the unmistakable figure of Brendel, the lios alfar. She pointed them out to the man beside her, keeping her tone as level and uninflected as she could manage.