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  “Oxen are somewhat more malleable than children.”

  She awaited additional explanation, a real explanation, but none came. She gave up in exasperation. “Very well. I will have Gillan take them out a little distance, and wait.”

  He gave her such a smile as to carve deep dimples into his face. “We will get you safely to your turn-off, that I promise.”

  And she believed him. Merely by looking into his eyes, by hearing the warm certainty in his tone, she believed him. Was certain of him. She found herself wishing he would do more than that, in fact, wishing he would turn onto the shortcut with them, to be certain they would arrive safely at their destination in Atalanda—

  Suspicion kindled. Audrun forcibly stopped that line of thought and frowned up at him. “Did you just ‘have a word’ with me?”

  The guide laughed, assumed an expression of supreme innocence, then saluted her and rode on, making his way along the winding column of trundling wagons.

  After a moment, Audrun pulled the scarf up over nose and mouth, debating inwardly with herself whether she, in the company of the Shoia, was more malleable, or less, than beasts such as oxen.

  “I do hope less,” she murmured dryly into cloth.

  ILONA, LOST IN reverie as her wagon bumped along the track, caught the movement from the corner of her left eye. Her senses did not fail her; she knew who it was before she saw him clearly, coming up from behind. And she intended to seize the opportunity. “Rhuan!”

  He had been prepared to ride past her, clearly bent on reaching the head of the column. Now he reined in and brought his mount close to her wagon.

  She fixed him with a stern gaze. “If I promise not to read it while doing so, will you permit me to look at your hand?”

  He was mystified. “Look at my hand?”

  She held up her own, palm out. “Your hand.” As he continued to stare at her blankly, she adopted the deliberate clarity of speech people used with simpletons and small children. “The one the woman cut into. Remember?”

  Blankness transformed into startlement. “What did you see?”

  “I saw the sun flash on the knife, and I saw her make the cut.” Ilona folded her raised hand into an admonishing finger, poking it at him. “And don’t do me the discourtesy of saying I am mistaken. You’ve been avoiding me, I think. But it’s been five days. Past time that hand was tended, before it rots.”

  He raised his brows. “What makes you think I would say you are mistaken?”

  “Because you have before. But I saw you dead, remember? And then alive again, despite being strangled and stabbed and not breathing.”

  His grin was easy, posture relaxed. “Depending on the circumstances, I suppose I have.” He raised his hand and displayed the palm. “But I need no tending, as you can see.

  No rot.”

  Ilona steadied herself over a rut in the road, then stared at his palm. There was no sign of a cut. Not even a scar. She scowled. “Other hand.”

  He changed hands on reins and displayed that one to her. She stared hard at healthy, unmarked flesh, searching for some hint of injury.

  Rhuan abruptly made a fist and snatched his hand close to his chest. “No fair trying to read it.”

  “I’m not.” She frowned at him. “Am I to assume, then, that whatever allows you to come back to life, if only six times, also heals such things as knife cuts?”

  He grinned. “You may.”

  “And I should also assume that you have no intention of explaining why I saw what I saw?”

  Rhuan merely continued to smile at her. Ilona gave up with a sigh. “More secrets.”

  “Oh, I am full of them.”

  “You,” she said, “are being insufferably male.” She waved a hand at him. “Go on, then. Take your secrets elsewhere.”

  Rhuan laughed at her, then set his horse into a lope that would carry him to the front of the karavan.

  EVENING HAD COME upon them. The karavanmaster, as he did each day, called a halt to travel as the light bled out of the sky, and the line of wagons was turned off of the road so as not to block other parties coming through. Audrun was grateful to stop for the night; her back was aching. And Davyn had apparently noticed, because he put out their sleeping mat and blankets beside the wagon, then guided her to it.

  “Sit,” he said. “Here, lean against the wheel; I’ve got a folded blanket for your back.” Even as he helped get her settled, he called instructions over his shoulder to the children. This night, Audrun would rest while the others handled the dinner chores.

  She was grateful beyond measure and thanked him with a smile. Davyn cupped her head briefly in calloused hands, then rose to tend the evening routine.

  Audrun closed her eyes. She listened to the sounds of the karavan settling for the night: teams unhitched and hobbled to graze, dogs barking, children free to play at last continued games begun the night before, the clatter of pans and shallow plates unpacked. It wasn’t long before she smelled tinder burning as cookfires were built and lighted.

  She opened her eyes. Davyn had things well in hand, including Torvic and Megritte. She smiled tiredly, then opened her right hand to study the palm, which had sprouted a new blister. But her mind unexpectedly jumped elsewhere: how was it the hand-reader could see such things in her palm as grief, as tears, as blood? How could she know?

  And why had the woman’s face come into her dreams?

  Audrun frowned. Impulse took her unexpectedly. She pushed herself upright and rose. As Davyn passed by, she reached out and caught his sleeve. “I’m going to the hand-reader,” she said. “Don’t wait dinner. I’ll eat when I return.”

  ILONA HAD SET up the accoutrements of her employment beside her wagon. Crooks with lanterns hanging from them, a colorful rug, the low lacquer table, blessing-sticks, even a stack of carefully inked cards. She was passable at using both sticks and cards, but neither was her gift; there were diviners who claimed them as their art, while hers relied on living flesh. She had already read hands for three different clients. It was not unusual, once upon the road when they had monotonous hours of constant movement, for karavaners to come to her for readings unconnected to the journey. Thus she was not surprised to look up and see the farmsteader’s wife walking out of twilight into the circle of lanterns.

  She wore homespun skirts, scuffed boots, and a long-sleeved tunic that reached to her knees. A rough triangle of cloth hung loosely from her neck; her face above her nose was streaked with dust. Hair straggled loosely beside her face. In deference to her pregnancy she did not encircle her waist with a belt. And though five months gone was not significant compared to the girth of later months, the woman’s posture had already changed. Her body knew its job.

  Without preamble, the woman asked, “Why are you in my dreams?”

  Ilona, prepared for a greeting or the typical query concerning her willingness to read a hand, blinked in surprise. For a moment her body stiffened into stillness. Then she looked up at the farmsteader’s wife—Audrun, she recalled—and asked, “Why are you in mine?”

  “Mother of Moons,” the woman said softly. Then she stepped forward and sank down before the table. There was no grace in the motion; she was clearly exhausted. “How can this be?”

  Ilona shook her head. “Even the dream-reader couldn’t explain it all.”

  Audrun extended her hand. “Perhaps you can.”

  Ilona drew in a long, slow breath, then exhaled as slowly. She took the work-worn hand into her own. But this time, as she summoned her gift, as she studied the hand, she felt something pushing against her. She could not go in, could not sublimate, could not see. The hand was merely a hand, not a gateway to the future. A curious blankness smothered her gift.

  Ilona lifted her eyes to meet those of the farmsteader’s wife. Audrun. With effort she suppressed the tremble in her voice. “I see nothing.”

  Audrun frowned. “How can you see nothing?” She looked down at her hand still enclosed in Ilona’s. “Are the tears gone? The grief?”


  “I see nothing,” Ilona repeated, with emphasis on the last word. She moistened dry lips. “Your hand is blocked from my art.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Ilona told her honestly. “It’s never happened before.”

  Audrun stared down at her hand. “Nothing?”

  “Nothing,” Ilona confirmed. “I don’t know why …but something is blocking me. Something is preventing me from reading your hand.” She looked into Audrun’s eyes: saw weariness, worry. And fear.

  “Do I die?” Audrun asked quietly.

  “No,” Ilona said quickly. “That is, I have seen death in other hands. It’s nothing like this. That, I promise you.”

  After a moment, Audrun drew her hand away. She curled the fingers into her palm. “I have dreamed what you told me. Tears. Grief. Blood. I have seen my children in danger, in those dreams. Why are you there?”

  Ilona shook her head. “I don’t know—any more than I know why you are in mine.”

  “But you are a diviner,” Audrun protested. “Isn’t it your lot, to see such things? To dream such things?”

  “Were I a dream-reader, yes. But I’m not. My gift is specific. I think it’s why I’ve always dreamed about boring, routine things. I don’t see people, other than as shapes and shadows.” She took up the blessing-sticks almost without thought and began to turn them in her hands. It gave her something to do. “My apologies. I wish I could tell you more. But there is something in you that blocks my art.”

  Audrun’s brow creased. “It can’t be me. I have no idea how to do such a thing.”

  Ilona looked into her brown eyes. “Perhaps it’s the child.”

  For a long moment Audrun only stared back. Then she shook her head slowly. “It can’t be the child. How could it be the child?”

  Ilona gripped the blessing sticks in her hands. “Diviners come to their gifts at all ages.”

  Audrun was astonished. “You’re saying my child may be a diviner?”

  “I don’t know.” Ilona was tired of admitting her ignorance. “I can only speak to how it came upon me. What little I know of other diviners—” She thought of Branca and Melior, “—is that in general there is an event in one’s life that kindles the gift.

  “This child isn’t even born yet,” Audrun protested. “How can it have experienced any kind of event?”

  Ilona had never felt so ignorant as she did now. Audrun’s questions were valid, and yet she, a hand-reader, could give her no answers that made any sense, if she had an answer at all. “I’m sorry.”

  Audrun was frowning. “All the diviners I saw said the child must be born in Atalanda. None of them—none of them!—said anything at all about this child being a diviner.” “It’s only one possibility,” Ilona told her. “It may not be true.”

  “If it should be true …” Audrun thought a moment. “If it should be true that my child is to be a diviner, is there anything I must do?”

  Ilona smiled. “The gift comes, or it doesn’t. There is nothing to do.”

  Audrun’s gaze was steady. “What did your parents think, when your gift came upon you?”

  “Ah.” Ilona looked down at her hands, saw that she was clenching the blessing-sticks hard enough to whiten her knuckles. “My parents considered it a curse. I was turned out.”

  “Turned out,’” Audrun echoed in astonishment. “Turned out from your home?”

  “Yes.”

  “At what age?”

  “Twelve.”

  “No,” Audrun said, “oh, no. How could they? You were a child!”

  For years, Ilona had suppressed that pain. She did so now, concentrating instead on the farmsteader’s wife. “As you love your other children, love this one,” she said. “In all ways but one, it will be a perfectly normal child.”

  Audrun nodded slowly. “You were twelve, you said, when your gift came upon you.” Her hand dropped below the surface of the table; Ilona knew the woman was touching her belly. “Is it possible for this gift to be kindled in the womb?”

  Ilona set down the blessing-sticks. She made her hands lie quietly on the table. “I think a gift from the gods might be kindled at any moment. But for your child?” She shook her head. “I have no answer.”

  “Well.” Audrun smiled faintly. “I suppose we will know in four months.” She rose, briefly pushing against the table to steady herself as she straightened. “I thank you for your time. I will send one of my oldest to you tomorrow, with payment.”

  Ilona too had risen. She made a gesture. “No. Nothing is necessary. Jorda pays me a wage.”

  “I wish to,” Audrun said. “You have given me hope.”

  Ilona did not see how. But she would protest no more; many of her clients pressed something upon her. Audrun thanked her, twitched her skirts into place, and walked out of the lantern light into darkness.

  RHUAN RODE THE perimeter as he did each night before seeking his sleeping mat and blankets. The cookfires had been banked, casting a quiet, ruddy glow from coals that would be brought back to flame for the morning meals. Each evening after dinner the karavaners wandered from one fire to another, making friends, exchanging stories; it was not unusual for songs to be sung. Children, wearied by the day even if they denied it, played games after the evening meal, then fell asleep while leaning against a mother or father. The occasional dog barked. Teams hobbled nearby snorted as they grazed, blowing soil from their nostrils. Overhead, Grandmother Moon had given way to the Orphan Sky, but even on a moonless night the stars lent enough light for a karavaner to see his way.

  He saw movement from the corner of his eye. His attention focused sharply. There was a break at the end of the line of wagons, a pronounced distance between the redtopped wagon of the Sisters and the less-garish conveyance belonging to the farmsteaders. It was as if the oxen could go no farther and stopped in mid-stride. Rhuan didn’t like the distance between the karavan and the farmsteaders’ wagon. But as he formulated the right approach to giving an order, he saw the woman, the wife and mother, passing by the Sisters’ wagon. It was an opportunity. Rhuan rode in close, and as she looked up, startled, he dropped off the horse and fell in beside her. Smiling, he opened his mouth to make an innocuous comment, but then saw the strained expression on her face.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked sharply.

  She stopped walking, but did not turn to face him. Her posture bespoke weariness and worry. He could see her face clearly because of superior night vision. Coal-glow wasn’t kind to her.

  But she ignored her question and asked a different one. “How much farther?”

  His mount pulled against the reins, seeking grass. “How much farther for what?”

  “To the turnoff,” she answered. “The road you’ve warned us against.”

  “Two full days, give or take,” he told her, “depending on our pace.”

  She nodded. Her expression was one of distraction.

  Rhuan knew better than to raise the topic of the family turning back. “Let me warn you that the road is little more than a track fit for goats. It has been years since anyone used it regularly.”

  “Perhaps that will be our protection,” she said. “No bandits, no Hecari.”

  “Very possibly.”

  She looked directly at him, chin raised. “Why is it that you know so much about this road?”

  “I’ve been on it,” he replied. “Now and again, I ride it. As a guide, it’s my responsibility to find safe routes. Different routes. In season, I ride with Jorda. Out of season, I ride the land.”

  “It strikes me,” she began, “that a shortcut to Atalanda would be a good thing.”

  “Oh, indeed. Particularly with so many people leaving the province.”

  “Is there no way to make that road safe?”

  Rhuan’s brows shot up. “Against Alisanos?”

  Even in darkness, he saw color flare in her face. “Against Alisanos.”

  “Well,” he said, “if he were still alive, I’d su
ggest you ask the man who came to the settlement after escaping Alisanos. The man who had claws and scales in place of hands and flesh.” He saw that register. “In the meantime,” he gestured toward the wagon she shared with her family. “I wish you a restful night.”

  Chapter 19

  MIKAL HAD TIED up the ale tent door flaps to let in light and breeze, though the latter had not yet come up. Brodhi paused in the opening, side-stepping the dangling charms and unlighted lantern hanging from the ridge pole, and discovered he was not the only one in search of liquor before the noon hour.

  Kendic, titular captain of the loose confederation of men called the Watch who attempted to deal with trouble among the tents, sat at a rickety table near Mikal’s crude bar, tankard at hand, pitcher in the center of the small plank table. With him, short fair hair mussed as usual, elbows planted on the tabletop, was Bethid, blue courier’s cloak tossed beside her on the bench across the table from Kendic.

  Two other men Brodhi didn’t recognize sat at a similar table on the other side of the tent, deep in conversation over a desultory dice game. They paid his entrance brief attention, marked his presence as no concern of theirs, and turned back to their game. Kendic’s hazel eyes widened as Brodhi slid by the drape of oilcloth.

  Bethid turned to look. “Brodhi!” She windmilled one arm in a broad gesture for him to join them. “Sit your pretty ass down here with us, won’t you?”

  He desired no such thing as to sit his pretty ass down with those two. But days later he was still unsettled by Ferize’s behavior and found himself moving toward the humans regardless, shrugging out of his courier’s cloak. He hooked out a stool with his foot, borrowing it from another table, then sat down and tossed his cloak to land atop Bethid’s.

  Brodhi caught Mikal’s questioning eye. “Whiskey.”

  “Whiskey?” Bethid stared at him. “That’s not your usual poison.”