Brant tired of Tylar's cryptic silence. "So am I part of this plan?" he asked, a bit harshly.

"A big part." Tylar glanced back to Brant. "You're the worm on the hook."

Dart climbed beside Malthumalbaen. The giant looked back as often as Dart. Both were worried for Brantafor Tylar. While they climbed toward safety, the others descended toward certain doom.

"Master Brant knows how to take care of himself," the giant said.

Pupp also kept her company, lagging at her heels.

Ahead, Krevan slipped into and out of shadow, sword drawn. Calla and Lorr followed behind with a handful of Harp's young hunters. Farther ahead, Rogger marched with Harp. Spread around and between them were the other ragged survivors, the last small handful.

Boys in torn leathers, some bootless. Elders with crooked staffs to help their steps over uneven rock. One young girl carried a babe in her arms, though barely more than a babe herself. All looked gaunt and hollow.

There was no joy in their survival.

Even if they cleared the Divide, they were headed into the hinterlands.

Rounding a steep jog in the track, they heard a horn sound ahead. A commotion jarred through the group, starting near the front and flowing downslope.

From both sides, hunters appeared, dressed in leaves to match the jungle, faces painted black. They bore spears, poison-tipped for sure. Their party was herded closer together, forced up the slope to a jungle dell with a creek trickling over rock. Moss lay thick over all surfaces, turning the small glade emerald green.

It was too bright and handsome a place for the horror here.

To either side knelt the party that had left earlier. Their hands were tied behind their backs. Many looked beaten. One old woman lay on her side, face bloody, unmoving.

But worst of all, a body lay near the creek, seeping blood into the water, swirling it crimson.

Headless.

Standing over the body was a familiar figure, baring the filed points of his teeth, feral and blood-maddened. His arms and chest were drenched in the fresh flow of his kill, lifeblood steaming on his skin.

"Marrona" Harp moaned.

To the hunter's side, a fierce fire had been stoked with smoky greenwood. Another of the hunters charred the end of a long pole, sharpened at both ends in the flames. At his leader's signal, he pulled the pole out of the fire and jammed the cool end deep into the mossy loam.

"Don't," Harp said.

He was ignored.

Marron bent and lifted the head of the corpse at his feet. Holding it between his palms, he raised it high, then jammed it atop the hot stake. Blood sizzled. Smoke issued from the gaping mouth and nose.

Dart recognized the naked head, tattooed with disciplines.

Master Sheershym.

Dart turned away, hiding her face. Across the creek, more hunters knelt with sharp blades, straddling long branches, shaving them to points.

More stakes, already sharpened, lay piled nearby.

Marron stepped to a young girl who knelt at his feet. He twisted a fistful of her hair and cruelly bared her neck. In his other hand, he carried one of the same blades used to cut the stakes.

The giant reached out and covered Dart's eyes.

But she could still hear.

Down by the hardened river of black rock, Brant allowed himself to be roughly searched. Hands dug over his body. Finally he was shoved forward to join Tylar at the edge of the black river of steaming rock.

Tylar studied his toes. He had already been searched, even stripped of his shadowcloak. He shifted a full step to one side, more than necessary, as if he were avoiding Brant's company.

Out on the river, the Huntress had stood waiting. Only now did she come forward, striding through the steam, her skin shining with sweat and Grace. Her hair had been unbraided, giving her a wild look that stirred Brant in unpleasant ways.

Brant and Tylar were forced to their knees, spearpoints at their backs. Tylar, hobbled by his bad leg, fell to one hand.

Ignoring him, the Huntress crossed immediately to Brant. She held out her palm, her eyes bright with desire. There was no need to ask what she wanted.

Brant reached to his neck and pulled out the twisted cord from which the rock hung. It was bound tight. The Huntress motioned with her other hand. The spearpoint was shifted from his back and cut the cord. The stone fell free, into Brant's palm.

She studied it, lifting her chin and staring down her nose. "It appears such a dull thinga"but he was always clever. Sometimes too clever for his own good. Like entrusting it to an equally dull boy."

She paced one step to the side, then back again, plainly hesitant with the prize so close. "I think I knew, back when you were brought before me. That was why I banished youa"but afterward, I couldn't remember why. The dark whispers filled my head again and I knew I wasn't in the correct turn of mind to take its responsibility." A bit of madness crackled. "But now I must be. Why else have you returned? It must be a sign, surely!"

Brant sensed she was trying to goad herself into taking it but was plainly fearful at the same time. He could almost sense the tidal pull and push warring inside her.

Beside him, Tylar remained crouched, his face down, leaning heavily on his one arm. But Brant noted a certain tautness to his shoulders. The way his toe shifted ever so slightly, catching a purchase on a lip of stone, like a climber firming his hold.

"The time must be ripe!" the Huntress cried out. "A plain sign!"

Brant held his breath.

Everything happened too fast.

The god lunged for the stone in his palm and grabbed it. At the same time, Tylar shoved off his good leg, away from the spear at his back, and pulled out a bladeless gold hilt that had been hidden beneath a flat yellow stone.

Rivenscryr.

Here was what Tylar had sent ahead, borne by one of Harp's fleet-footed runners, to be planted in secret at the river's edge. Bladeless, it had been easy to hide, easy to miss.

Rising now, Tylar spun off his good leg. Glass tinkled in his other hand, revealing a tiny repostilary hidden under his wraps. A splash of crimson spilled and struck a silver blade that shimmered into existence with the touch of blood.

Still turning, Tylar swung the freshly whetted sword for the Huntress's neck, ready to take her head clean offa"but while all this happened in a blink, Brant's eyes had truly never left the Huntress's face.

As her fingers closed on the stone, he saw something rise in her eyes.

His heart clenched.

"No!" Brant burst up and drove his shoulder into Tylar's hip.

The regent went flying. His sword tumbled from his fingers and clattered on the black rock. He landed hard and rolled to a dazed stop.

Brant sat up, horrified at what he'd just done. In that long blink, he'd had no time for doubt. He did now.

Still, he knew what he had seen in her eyes. It was a match to the expression on the rogue's face as the fires had consumed his flesh.

Hope.

Before him, the Huntress slowly sank to her knees, oblivious to Tylar's attack and Brant's defense. Around her, the other hunters fell back as if strings holding them had suddenly snapped. In a widening circle, they collapsed, limbless and dazed, to rock and loam.

Tylar, his face flushed with fury, crawled to his feet, one cheek deeply abraded and bleeding. But as he saw the hunters collapse all around, fury changed to confusion. He moved over to Brant, collecting his sword. But he refrained from continuing his attack.

On her knees, the Huntress cradled the stone to her heart, rocking slightly, shoulders shaking in silent sobs.

Neither dared speak.

Though the Huntress never raised her face, she slowly whispered, as if she knew they waited. "Such a small stone. A piece of our old home. Just large enough for one god to balance atop. And make whole what was sundered."

There was no raving in her voice.

She finally lifted her face. Tears streamed down her dark skin. Her eyes shone with them, but nothing more. No Grace. Not in her eyes, nor in her tears, nor in the sheen on her sweated skin. It had blown out. But filling the void was a warmth, a softening of countenance that Brant had never seen in her before.

In that moment, she seemed so much younger and so much older.

"I remember," she said, smiling with a sadness that ached the heart. "What was lost in ravings and passing centuries. What the Sundering stole, this small stone returned."

"What?" Tylar asked softly.

Her eyes did not seem to see him, but she answered. "My nameait was Miyana."

With the utterance, the ground shook. Loose rock rattled like broken teeth. Leaves shuttered with the noise of a thousand birds taking wing. And deep under their feet, a low roar moaned with grief and sorrow.

Behind the Huntress, the black river split to reveal its fiery heart.

Brant felt the heat as a breath of regret.

The Huntressa"Miyanaa"turned her face to the mountain as the ground shook. It reminded Brant of Miyana's shoulders a moment before. A silent sobbing.

She whispered toward the distant mountain. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be heard. But Brant heard it.

"Motheraforgive mea"

Miyana stood. She seemed to finally note the boy kneeling on the rock in front of her. Her words were hollow and haunted.

"Brant, son of Ryllandawe've both been fate's bone, gnawed and left with nothing." She glanced over her shoulder to the greater forest. "But there is one mistress even more cruel. Memory. She makes no distinction between horror and beauty, joy and sorrow. She makes us swallow it all, bitter and sweet. Until it's all too much."

She sank again into herself. She took one step back, then another.

"Mistressa" Brant said, knowing what she intended. "Don't."

Her eyes flicked to him as she took another step back. "One last kindness, then. So you might hate me more fully."

"I don'ta""

"I killed your father. I sent the she-panther that killed him."

Brant sought some way to understand what she was saying. "Wh-why?" he stammered through his shock.

"I was already sliding into madness. But perhaps deep down I knew and lashed out."

"Knew what?" Tylar asked for him.

"Rylland brought me the wrong gift. A curse, instead of hope. Corruption, instead of my name."

Brant understood.

His father had brought her Keorn's skull, instead of the stone. Without knowing the power in either, the choice had been pure misfortune. Her first words returned to him. We've both been fate's bone, gnawed and left with nothing.

Her eyes returned to the distant forest.

They had been left with worse than nothing.

She whispered to the forest. "Until it's all too much."

She took one last stride and stepped into the open crack behind her. Molten rock consumed her bone and flesh. She gasped but didn't scream. The agony in her heart was far worse than any flame. Her face turned to the mountain, to the source of the fire that swallowed her.

Instead of pain, Brant read the love in her face.

"Thank you for protecting these last fewa" she whispered, her words rising like steam toward the distant mountain. "I want to go home."

Spreading her arms, she fell forward into the molten rock, as if into a welcoming embrace. The stone flew from her fingertips, no longer needed.

The piece of black rock bounced and rolled, coming to rest at Brant's knee. He reached down and took the gift. For the second time in his life, a god burning with fire had passed this stone into his fingers.

But now he knew the truth.

It wasn't just a rock.

It was the hope of a lost world.

As the sun sank toward the horizon, Tylar climbed with the others toward the Divide. The twin peaks of the Forge burnt with the last rays of the sun. No one had spoken for the past full league. And the silence wasn't just the steepness of their climb, nor even grief.

It was an emotion that transcended numbness. An attempt to reconcile all that had happened, while still placing one foot in front of the other. If they stopped, they might never move again. The day had held too much horror, framed by the rising and setting of a single sun. It was a day they had to push past.

Yet some still tried to make sense of it.

Rogger mumbled through his beard. "The stonea"it explains much."

Tylar glanced to him. He didn't ask for an elaboration, but Rogger gave it anyway.

"The Huntressa""