When she tried to put herself between the old man and this new threat, she found she couldn't see.

"Fa... ther!"

One hand on his throat, Kars jerked around. What had he been thinking? He had family to take care of. Dropping to his knees, he gathered the dead girl into his arms. Although the demons had the others, they must not have her.

Breath rasping in through mouth and nose, Bannon grabbed two handfuls of the brown silk vest and yanked his body into a sitting position. "Don't you be dead!" he shrieked. "Don't you dare be dead!"

Scrambling backward, the dead man pursuing her like a nightmare that refused to end, Karlene began her third Song.

"My arm," Gyhard gasped. It felt as though it were on fire from fingertips to shoulder. "Stop... shaking me."

"You're alive. I'm alive." Releasing the vest, Bannon patted gently at the blood on his/Gyhard's chin.

"You need water." Whipping Vree's head from side to side, he suddenly caught sight of the prince and froze.

"Bannon! No!" She screamed and fought and threatened but he ignored her.

Leaping to his/Vree's feet, he grabbed the prince and threw him to his knees by Gyhard's side.

Otavas cried out as stones and stonelike fingers dug into his flesh, but Karlene had said this was his friend and Karlene was the one thing he could be sure of, so he put up no resistance.

"Do it now," Bannon gasped. "Hurry, the bard will be finished soon. We haven't much time."

Do it now. Cradling his/Bannon's arm, Gyhard spat out a mouthful of blood and stared at Prince Otavas. The boy was weak and disoriented. It would be easy enough to claim his body. And after?

Easy enough. He stared at Bannon in turn. "I will allow you back into this body," he said, speaking quickly. "You belong here, you'll need no push, but once you're in, you'll have to push me out."

Bannon smiled ferally. "I've dreamed of pushing you out," he snarled.

Vree, still clawing at Bannon's control, felt something give. Redoubling her efforts, she suddenly found herself alone, her silent cries of protest still echoing in her skull.

Kneeling across from her, she saw Bannon/Gyhard, Gyhard/Bannon then all at once, Gyhard alone. She knew it was Gyhard, for Bannon had never looked at her like that. Bannon had never loved her like that. His lips moved and she heard him say, "Good-bye."

Then it was only Bannon.

"NO!" Reaching out, she grabbed hold and hung on and refused to let go. And frankly, she didn't give a slaughtering s.h.i.t about what he wanted. Her head snapped back, she screamed defiance and the world went black.

"Vree!" Stumbling over bodies that were no longer prisons for their kigh, Karlene ran toward the outcropping. Her last Song had finished in time to hear Vree scream; in time to see her collapse bonelessly to the ground. She moved as quickly as she could but was by no means the first to reach Vree's side.

"Vree? Vree, don't do this to me. You have to be all right. Talk to me, sister-mine. Please, talk to me."

Karlene's jaw dropped. "Bannon?"

He looked up, Vree's head cradled against his chest. "She screamed," he said. "And fell over." The features were the same but the man who animated them was not. He looked younger than Gyhard had, and frightened. Although Vree breathed so shallowly her chest barely moved, Karlene could see no wounds, no reason for her to remain unconscious.

"Karlene?"

A sudden surge of emotion too complicated to describe, too painful to endure, shoved her concern for Vree aside and, for a moment, Otavas clutched in her arms and sobbing against her chest, everything that wasn't the prince was forgotten. The iron bands around her heart burst, and she cried like a baby, rocking him back and forth, saying over and over again, "You're alive. You're alive."

It was Otavas who pulled away at last. He dragged his nose over his sleeve and locked shadowed eyes on Karlene's face. "The old man," he murmured.

"Kars." Vree's voice was weak, but it cut through the fog of emotion that seemed to have them isolated from the world. "Where is he?"

He wasn't anywhere around.

Otavas stared wide-eyed at the last place he'd been. "Kait's gone, too."

Vree struggled to sit up, both hands clutching her head. "We have to find him. We have to stop him or this will begin again, somewhere else. We have to finish this." The last words had risen to a near hysterical shout.

Confused by the changes sweeping over Bannon's expression as he stared at his sister, Karlene tucked the prince under one arm and reached out a comforting hand. Before she could speak, the situation slid sideways.

"No one moves. No one talks." Rough-edged with exhaustion, the voice clearly expected to be obeyed. "And just maybe, no one dies."

Chapter Seventeen.

"Captain, my squad has searched the entire area, there's no sign of this old man."

"You're certain about this, Orlan?"

"Yes, sir."

It took more effort than she thought she was capable of, but Karlene managed to keep her voice level. "Captain, Kars has a dead girl with him. Your squads won't be able to find him because their kigh won't acknowledge the existence of the girl."

"Kigh?" The captain spat the unfamiliar word out of her mouth like a bug she'd accidentally sucked in. "But you can find him, Lady Bard?"

Karlene was too angry to take further offense at the tone of the honorific. "Yes, Captain."

"And His Imperial Highness can find him?"

"We think so. We think Prince Otavas spent so much time with the walking dead that his kigh stopped lying to him about them."

The captain stared down into the sweaty depths of her helm, cradled in the crook of one arm, and pursed her lips. "So you're suggesting. Lady Bard, that I allow you and His Highness to go out and search for this Kars?" She looked up; her eyes amid the dirt and exhaustion marking her face were hard and uncompromising. "I think not. We will all be returning to the Capital and you can thank His Highness that you won't be gagged and under guard."

"Captain." Otavas sighed. He'd said it before, but he'd say it one more time. "Karlene and her friends rescued me. They had nothing to do with my abduction."

"As you say, Highness." The captain bowed. Had the old man been around, she would have cheerfully slaughtered him for the pain that continued to cling to the young prince. But the old man wasn't around, nor was there any sign of him, so... "But I have seen what this bard is capable of and, begging your pardon. Highness, but she could have made you see things that weren't there."

Karlene threw up her hands, frustration fighting with rage. "Highness?"

"Let him go, Karlene." The prince wrapped his arms around his body, unable to stop the shaking that memories brought. The beautiful dark eyes shone with sudden tears. "I want to go home."

She wanted to hug him, couldn't with the army so close, and settled for a light touch on one cheek. "Then that's what we'll do," she said softly. "Will you be all right if I go and talk to Vree and Bannon?"

He nodded, fighting panic. "But don't stay away too long."

The captain watched the bard walk over to her friends and shook her head. She supposed that any woman who could sing herself invisible could do just about anything she wanted to-but the comfort in her voice when she spoke to the prince had sounded too real to be faked.

"He wanted to kill me, Vree!"

"No, not you, he intended to kill the a.s.sa.s.sin who came to kill him." Her back up against the rock out-cropping, Vree looked everywhere but at her brother. "They all would've preferred to kill us over us killing them. You can't blame him for that."

Bannon's eyes narrowed. "I can slaughtering well blame him for anything I slaughtering choose! He broke my arm!"

"Half a hill fell on him!" Vree fought to keep her temper from getting the better of her and lost. "You're the one who broke your slaughtering vows and tried to kill a member of the Imperial Family!"

All the anger seemed to leach away as the color drained from Bannon's cheeks. "I wasn't in my right mind. Vree, you know that; you were there, too. I never meant to. I wanted my body back and I wanted you to have yours back and..."

"It's all right." She felt as if she'd aged about ten years over the last few weeks. "I won't tell anyone. I promise." That Bannon could, in any state of mind, consider his life of more importance than the oaths he'd taken and the prince he'd sworn to serve didn't actually surprise her much. She supposed she'd come to know him too well. "Do you really think I could have you executed for treason?"

"No." Bannon brightened visibly, most of his c.o.c.ky grin returning. "Especially since I was in your body when I did it."

Vree sighed; she couldn't remember ever having been so tired.

"You still haven't told me why you did it." He'd been alternately hurt and furious. He'd demanded an answer, begged for an answer, and snarled that he had a right to an answer.

"I know."

"Vree, if you don't kill him, we've missed a target."

"I am not my... our..." She took a deep breath and tried again. "I am not

Commander Neegan. I chose to miss this target."

"Thank you."

"Shut up." "n.o.body makes my choices for me, Bannon. Not any more. Not you

and not him."

"Is he listening?"

"You know he is."

"Then tell him I will never forgive him for this. For the rest, maybe in time I

might have, but never for this. Do you understand?"Vree nodded. It didn't really matter if that last question had been directed at her or at Gyhard. She understood. Probably better than Bannon did. Nothing would ever be the same between them again. Karlene had intended to ask them if they were all right but decided upon getting close enough to see their faces that there was little point. Bannon, who should have been overjoyed at being back in his own body, looked almost petulant. Vree, who had stuffed herself into a situation far more complicated than the one she'd just gotten out of, looked almost at peace.

The captain had wanted to wait until the rider she sent returned with the comforts necessary to an Imperial Prince but Otavas overruled her. He wanted only to get home.

"Can you Sing away the darkness?" he asked as the sun began to set, tears trembling on his lashes.

Karlene held him the way she'd hold a child that needed comfort. "I can do better than that," she promised. If nothing else, Gyhard had given her the knowledge of the fifth kigh and Singing the fifth kigh would, in time, heal Otavas. She could Sing him, not back, but through the memories and safety out the other side. In spite of what Gyhard had done, what he'd been in the past, she owed him for that.

Just after they crossed the ford and retrieved their horses, the kigh returned. Karlene raised her chin. Sang one pure, joyous note, and was nearly lifted from the saddle.

Watching through Vree's eyes, Gyhard murmured, "Kars is gone. I've lost my chance to make it right."

"You're not dead yet."

"Neither is he."

"Do you think he's gone back to his place, to your place, in the mountains?"

"Perhaps."

"Then at least we'll know where he is." It was almost an offer. Not quite, for the future was still far too tenuous for that kind of a commitment; but almost.

Although Gyhard was a constant presence in her mind, Vree found him easier to coexist with than Bannon had ever been. Unlike Bannon, his life had not been a part of hers from the beginning and there was no question of where she ended and he began.

He was quieter, too, off guard and confused by what she'd done. Most of the time, he seemed content just to be. Three days pa.s.sed before he found the courage to ask her why.

Vree thought about lying to him, but under the circ.u.mstances there didn't seem to be much point, so she gave him as much of the truth as she'd been able to face herself. "Because I didn't believe-don't believe-you were going to jump to the prince."

The silence lasted so long, she began to grow afraid he'd left her. When he finally spoke, she could barely hear him. "I wish I could be as certain, but I guess now we'll never know."

Early in the march, Bannon stayed close beside her, sullen and uncommunicative. Once, she'd reached out to touch him, but he'd s.n.a.t.c.hed his arm away.

"You risked your life for that little s.h.i.t," Gyhard snarled, jerked from his reflective mood not so much by Bannon's reaction as by the way that reaction clawed bleeding chunks from Vree's heart. "You'd think he'd remember what he owes you."

Vree clenched her teeth and let her hand drop back to her side. "He doesn't owe me anything."

As they reached Shaebridge, Bannon began to spend time with the prince. The two young men were very close in age and Otavas, frantically clutching at the lives around him, could cling to a friend the way he couldn't cling to Karlene. Flattered by Imperial attention, Bannon soon became charming and indispensable.

The captain didn't like it, but even the captain had to admit that once or twice His Highness had smiled in Bannon's company.

"It looks like he's replaced you already."

"Maybe it's time." No point in hiding the hurt.

Gyhard buried a strong desire to beat Bannon into a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp. "If he tells the prince about me..."

"He won't."

"How can you be so sure?"