"I've befriended her, Weaver. When I heard that she had been with the movement and now intended to betray it, I thought it wise to convince her that I was a friend. After last night, she's guarded throughout the day and night, and the gleaner is never far from her side. But I believe I can still see her. Why?"

"Because I want you to kill her."

Keziah blanched and her hands began to tremble. "I don't know that I can, Weaver."

"Do you mean that the guards and gleaner will stop you, or that you might not be capable of killing her?"

She lowered her gaze. "Both."

"You may need to befriend the gleaner as well. Win his trust and he may see fit to leave you alone with the woman. That will be your chance. As to your misgivings about killing, others in this movement have had to make similar sacrifices in the name of our cause. When the time comes, I'm certain you'll find the strength to do as I command. If you fail, you'll suffer as the woman has."

"Yes, Weaver."

"I want her death to appear to be my doing."

"Your doing?"

"Yes. Give her a sleeping tonic and then smother her. The gleaner will blame me, just as he should. I want her death to be a warning to other Qirsi who would turn against our movement. And I want our enemies to know that I can reach them no matter where in the Forelands they might try to hide."

"Yes, Weaver. Very well."

Yet there it was again. Her fear, her reluctance . . .

"What of her child, Weaver?"

And then he understood.

There was risk here as well. The child might well grow up to be a Weaver, and she would have cause to hate him, to want him dead and to oppose all that he would have built by then. But even Weavers didn't live forever, and by the time Cresenne's baby grew into her power, Dusaan would probably be dead already. Still, that wasn't the true reason he would allow the child to live. Since learning of Cresenne's pregnancy, he had seen this baby as the embodiment of the Qirsi future. She was the heir to all that he sought to build here in the Forelands, if not in name, then at least in spirit. He had wanted the woman to be his queen, not only because she was lovely but also because she seemed to carry the destiny of all their people within her body. Cresenne had forsaken the movement, and would die because of it. But Dusaan couldn't bring himself to kill the child as well.

"The child can live," he said.

Keziah's relief was palpable. "That would make this easier."

He nodded. "Good. Do you understand what I expect of you?"

"I do, Weaver."

"Then the next time we speak, I expect to hear that she's dead."

"It will take me some time, Weaver. If I'm to win the gleaner's trusta""

"You've already befriended the woman, and she trusts the gleaner. That should make it much easier for you, and quicker as well. I'll allow you some time, but every day she lives, she further weakens the movement, endangering all of our lives and the cause for which we're fighting. I won't tolerate much delay."

She took a breath, nodded. "I understand, Weaver."

"Don't disappoint me."

Dusaan opened his eyes to the dim golden light of his chamber. The fire had burned low again, but he didn't bother to add more wood. Instead, he rose from the chair, stretched, and crossed the chamber to his bed. Dawn was still a few hours off, and after all that had happened the previous night he needed at least some sleep.

Before he could lie down, however, someone knocked at his door. For just a moment he had an urge to reach for his dagger, though his powers were all the protection he needed. The knock came a second time.

"Who's there?" he called.

"Nitara."

The underminister. Why would she come to his bedchamber at this hour?

He pulled open the door. She stood before him in a sleeping shift, torch fire reflected in her pale eyes, her hair hanging loose to her shoulders.

"What do you want?" he asked.

The woman faltered, as if unsure of why she had come to his chamber. "Ia"I wish to speak with you."

"Now?"

She swallowed, then, "I know who you are, what you are."

He should have known what to say to this. He should have had some response. But he could only stare back at her, wondering whether to be alarmed or relieved.

More than a turn had passed since Nitara and Kayiv had spoken with the high chancellor about the Qirsi movement. As the chancellor promised, they had each received a payment of gold several days later: one hundred imperial qinde apiece, left on their beds in small leather pouches. The following day, she and Kayiv spoke in private with the high chancellor a second time, though their conversation lasted only long enough for Dusaan to confirm that they had been paid and to promise them that they would soon be called upon to complete some small task. Neither of the ministers had heard anything since.

Kayiv seemed relieved by thisa"his doubts about the conspiracy and the high chancellor had only grown with the passage of time, forcing Nitara to wonder if he was truly the man she had once believed him to be. He spoke now of the need to find a path to peace, of the dangers the conspiracy presented to all Qirsi in the Forelands. He never said such things in front of the chancellor, of course. He was no fool. Still, she found herself losing patience with his misgivings and his cowardice.

For her part, Nitara was eager to take action on the movement's behalf. She almost didn't care what it was, so long as she had the opportunity to do something. She had been waiting for so long to strike at the courts. Listening to Kayiv feet like an old man, she felt her own fervor for the movement growing, until it seemed that every word he spoke against the conspiracy fueled her own hatred of the Eandi and their allies among her people.

She remained fond of him, and she thought him a skilled lover, but had there been other men of interest to her in the emperor's palace, she would already have turned him from her bed.

This at least is what she told herself. For as it happened, there was one man with whom she had become fascinated in the past turn. The high chancellor himself.

She had never seen a Qirsi who looked as he did: tall as a king, broad in the chest and shoulders, like an Eandi warrior, with wild white hair and eyes as golden as the coins she had hidden beneath her bed. A part of her was ashamed that she should find herself drawn to a man in part because he possessed physical strength more characteristic of the Eandi than the Qirsi. But she saw in his formidable presence and regal features the future of her people, the promise of victory in the coming war. She could no more keep herself from imagining his face as she lay with Kayiv than she could stop counting the gold each night before she slept, running her fingers over the smooth edges of the coins as if they were a lover's lips.

Even before he revealed to them his involvement in the movement, she had thought him handsome. But she had not allowed herself more than that. He was high chancellor, she had told herself. He had no time for her, no inclination to look at her as anything more than another of his underlings. And back then she had been satisfied to pass her nights in Kayiv's arms.

As she grew more consumed with her desire for the man, other thoughts began to intrude on her as well, so that it seemed the high chancellor haunted her dreams at night and occupied every waking moment. These thoughts were more dangerous than mere passion, and more intriguing as well.

The movement was led by a Weaver, he had told them, a man who could walk in the dreams of those who served him. All of them answered to this Weaver, and it was this man, not the high chancellor, who would lead them to the glorious future they had envisioned. Except that Nitara couldn't imagine the high chancellor answering to anyone, not even a Weaver. Indeed, the more she considered the matter, the more she wondered if Dusaan himself were the movement's leader. He was the highest-ranking Qirsi in the most powerful realm in the Forelands. Who better to lead a movement that would strike at the Eandi courts? More to the point, how many other Qirsi, regardless of his or her powers, would have the resources and knowledge necessary to create such a movement, to pay those who joined it, and to direct others to strike at the weaknesses of the other realms? It had to be Dusaan. He had access to the emperor's treasury, and he knew more about Braedon's rivals than any man in the empire, including Harel. Such a man wouldn't have taken orders from some festival Qirsi, even if that person were a Weaver, nor would he have allowed himself to be ordered about by a court Qirsi from a lesser realm. He was too proud, too convinced of his own superiority. And why not? He was brilliant and strong and he looked like a king.

Nitara had considered all of this for some time now, and she no longer doubted that Dusaan, despite all that he had told her and Kayiv, was the movement's leader. But that left her to question whether he had invented for their benefit this Weaver of whom he spoke. He would have good reason for doing so. By telling them that a Weaver led the movement, he not only convinced them that he was a mere soldier in a greater cause but he also fueled their belief that the movement could prevail against the armies of the courts.

Reflecting on all the high chancellor had told them that day, however, Nitara couldn't bring herself to believe this. She had sensed through much of their conversation that Dusaan was not telling them everything. Kayiv had the same impression and had feared ever since that Dusaan had lied to them, hoping to expose them as traitors. She knew he was wrong, but only when she recalled how he had spoken of the Weaver did she begin to sense how wrong he had been.

"None of those who serve him know his name or where he can be found," Dusaan had said. None of those . Not, none of us.

It could have been nothing. But the high chancellor was not a man to choose his words carelessly, particularly on a matter of such importance.

She knew little of Weavers beyond what the legends told of their magic. They were the most powerful of all Qirsi, sorcerers who could meld the power of many into a single weapon. This was why they had been chosen to lead the Qirsi invasion nine centuries before, and this was why the Eandi, upon defeating the Qirsi army, had vowed to kill all Weavers in the Forelands, a practice that continued to this day. She knew no more than that. But didn't it make sense that Qirsi who wielded such magic should be strong in other ways as well? Wasn't it possible that when she told herself that Dusaan looked like a king, she meant to say that he looked like a Weaver?

She had made the mistake of giving voice to these questions the previous night, as she and Kayiv lay together in the moonlight and tangled bed linens, sated and breathless.

"Have you wondered if Dusaan is the Weaver?" she asked, staring at the fire as her pulse slowed.

"The high chancellor?"

Nitara winced. She rarely used the high chancellor's name when speaking of him with anyone, especially Kayiv. She hadn't meant to just then.

"Yes."

Kayiv gave a small, sharp laugh, rolling off her and stretching out on the bed so that white Panya illuminated his skin.

"He's no Weaver," the minister said. He laughed again, though it sounded forced. "Two turns ago you thought he was little more than the emperor's fool. You even said that his betrayal was worse than that of the other chancellors and ministers because he was intelligent enough to know better. Now you think he's a Weaver?"

She shook her head and sighed, still gazing at the hearth. "Forget that I asked."

They both were silent for some time, neither of them moving. Eventually Nitara began to wonder if Kayiv had fallen asleep. She would have liked to wake him, and tell him to leave. She didn't really want to be alone, but neither did she wish to spend the night with him.

As it happened, he wasn't asleep at all.

"Don't you think it strange that nothing's happened since we received the gold?" he asked suddenly. "Didn't you expect that we would have been contacted by now?"

"I suppose."

He said nothing, as if waiting for her to continue. When she didn't, he sat up.

"That's it? Just, "I suppose'?"

Nitara turned to face him. "What do you expect me to say, Kayiv? That I think the high chancellor was lying to us? That I expect at any moment to hear the emperor's guards trying to break down my door so that they can carry us off to the dungeon?" She shrugged. "I don't."

"Then why haven't we been asked to do anything? That's what he said would happen next."

"I don't know. Maybe the Weaver has yet to think of any tasks for us. Maybe he has more important concerns than what to do with a pair of underministers in Curtell. I just don't know. But if Dua"" She looked away. "If the high chancellor was trying to betray us, he could have done it without the gold. If anything, I think our payments prove he was telling us the truth."

"Have you spoken with him again since our last meeting?"

"You mean alone?"

He nodded.

"No. I don't think he'd speak to one of us without the other." She didn't have to ask, but she knew that he'd expect it. "Have you?"

"No. But I'm not the one who keeps calling him Dusaan."

"Meaning what?"

"Nothing." He lay down once more, staring up at the stone ceiling.

She sensed his jealousy as if it were an odor. He reeked of it.

Once again, they lay still for several minutes, saying nothing, and once again Kayiv broke the silence, this time just as she was gathering the courage to tell him to leave.

"What makes you think he's the Weaver?"

Nitara shrugged, no longer wishing to discuss the matter. "I don't know. I was thinking aloud. I shouldn't have said it."

"But you did."

"He's the most powerful Qirsi in the largest, strongest realm in the Forelands. Who else would lead the movement?"

"A Weaver; any Weaver no matter his standing in the Eandi courts."

Look at him, she wanted to say. How could he not be a Weaver? But instead she shrugged a second time. "You're right. I was foolish to think it." Anything to end their conversation, to end this night.

"I'm tired," she said. "We should sleep."

He leaned over to kiss her and she barely brushed his cheek with her lips. She didn't so much as glance at him again, but she could feel him staring at her, no doubt looking hurt and angry.

"Maybe I should go."

No doubt he wanted her to argue, to plead with him to stay.

"All right. I'll see you in the morning when we meet with the high chancellor."

He sat unmoving for another moment, then threw himself off the bed, dressed with wordless fury, and left her chamber, closing the door sharply behind him.

She felt a pang of regret, but it passed quickly. Soon she was asleep.

Nitara awoke to the sound of Harel's soldiers training in the palace courtyard. She dressed slowly, enjoying her solitude and realizing with some surprise that she didn't miss Kayiv at all. She heard the tolling of the midmorning bells and left her chamber, intending to make her way to the high chancellor's ministerial chamber for the daily gathering of the chancellors and ministers. She hadn't gone very far, however, when she met Kayiv in the corridor. Seeing her, he faltered in midstride, then continued past her, his eyes lowered and his jaw set.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

He halted, though he wouldn't face her. "Apparently the high chancellor isn't well," he said, his voice flat. "We're gathering in Stavel's chamber instead." He began to walk away.

"What's the matter with the high chancellor?"

"I don't know."

Is he ill? she wanted to ask. Is he going to be all right? But by now several of the emperor's other Qirsi had entered the corridor, following Kayiv. Nitara had little choice but to do the same.

Without the high chancellor to lead them, their discussion foundered as might a ship in a blinding storm. They drifted from topic to topic, revisiting old, pointless arguments and accomplishing nothing at all. Stavel tried at first to keep the debate civil, but was soon bickering with the rest of them. Kayiv said nothing, sulking in the corner of the chamber farthest from where Nitara sat, his gaze occasionally flicking in her direction. She held her tongue as well, and when the discussion ended at last, she slipped from the chamber and returned to her own, wishing there were some way for her to learn what ailed the high chancellor.

Too restless to sit still, unwilling to risk a chance encounter with Kayiv or remain a prisoner in her chamber, she left the palace for the marketplace in Curtell city. There she passed much of the day wandering among the peddler's carts and the stalls of the food vendors. It was a fair day, the sky bright blue and a warm breeze blowing down from the Crying Hills, but Nitara could think only of Dusaan. If he were a Weaver, he couldn't truly be ill, could he? Surely a Weaver didn't succumb to fevers as an Eandi or a common Qirsi might. He could heal himself. She wanted to believe this, but everywhere she walked, it seemed that a shadow followed. What if he died? What would happen to the movement? What would happen to her?

The minister finally returned to the palace just as night began to fall, and seeing a pair of guards in the corridor near her chamber, she approached them.

"How fares the high chancellor?" she asked.

Both men looked at her as though puzzled.

"He's fine, so far as I know," one of them said. "He's with the emperor right now."