I thought about Vralia. It was a mad venture. I knew next to nothing about the land. I didn't speak their tongue, whatever it was. Not a word of it. Except that I did speak some Habiru, and the land was increasingly full of them. And Micah ben Ximon, who served as Tadeuz Vral's warlord, had been trained in the Cassiline fighting style by Joscelin Verreuil. Long ago, when I was yet a babe, and the Yeshuites in La Serenissima had been forbidden to carry swords. And from there, Micah ben Ximon had led his people to freedom and renown in a distant land. Impossible as it seemed, we might have an ally there in faraway Vralia.

It was a thin, shining thread of hope. There wasn't much time to make a choice. The sun was hanging low over the tree-tops. I fished in the purse at my belt until I found an old silver centime, one that bore the image of a youthful Ysandre de la Courcel. One that resembled her daughter. My hope.

"Tell me what to do, love," I murmured. "Should I chose hope or safety?"

I tossed the coin into the air. It spun, shining in the ruddy light. I caught it in my right hand and slapped it down on the back of my left. Lifted my hand, peered at it, and saw the Queen's young profile.

Hope.

I raised my voice. "I'm going to Vralia."

The Cruithne ceased their discussion and stared at me. "I'll go with you," Kinadius said after a brief pause.

Urist scratched his chin. "I reckon it's the prince's right to choose his companion."

I met Urist's steady gaze. He didn't ask, and he didn't offer. He didn't need to. He'd made a promise to Dorelei, and he'd sworn that if I honored her last wish, he'd ride to the ends of the earth to get vengeance for her. "Right," I said. "Urist, let's go find this Flatlander wool-merchant and tell him he's got two more men riding with him."

Chapter Forty-Eight.

We left Maarten's Crossing in good order. The wool-merchant Ernst wasn't delighted by our presence, but he was willing to defer to Adelmar's wishes. The Skaldi escort Adelmar had provided him weren't happy either, but he was right, they were loyal. They tolerated us.Urist's remaining men drew lots for their assignments. Two to intercept Talorcan, two to ride to the City of Elua. The rest would wait in Maarten's Crossing; at least to the best of my knowledge. Once we left, I wasn't entirely sure that Cailan, Domnach, Brun, and the older men wouldn't follow Berlik's trail.

It didn't matter now. I'd chosen my course.

I made Kinadius swear on Dorelei's name that he would wait for Talorcan and the others. He wasn't happy about it, but he did it, and I thought he would keep his word. With reluctance, I begged another favor of him. I traded mounts with him and left the Bastard in his keeping. I hated to part with him, but if I'd understood the wool-merchant correctly, the Vralian ship was a small one, unable to carry horses. I didn't trust the Skaldi to return him safely, and Kinadius' gelding was a good deal less valuable.

"What if you don't come back, Imriel?" Kinadius asked.

I leaned my brow against the Bastard's warm, speckled hide. "Just take care of him."

Deordivus had once again drawn one of the short straws for Terre d'Ange. We weren't carrying paper and ink, and there was no time to write letters anyway. All I could do was entrust him with messages. For Phedre and Joscelin, wherever they might be. For Sidonie. For Alais, Mavros.

"Tell them I love them," I said.

"That's all?" he asked.

I thought about it. "It's all that matters." He nodded and turned away. "Wait." I worked the knotted gold ring from my finger. "Give this to Sidonie. Tell her it's a pledge." My eyes stung. "That I'll be back to claim it."

"Aye, my lord." Deordivus smiled a little. "That was a hell of a scene I walked into."

I laughed and rubbed my eyes. "Elua willing, I'll live to cause others."

So it was done.

There is little to relate of our journey to Norstock. It was only a day's ride overland, cutting across a peninsula through territory Adelmar held in reasonable security. Everyone was civil to us. There was no trouble. Norstock proved to be a small, bustling port. There was no trouble there, either. It wasn't just Skaldi; there were Flatlanders and other folk. Jutlanders and Gotlanders, Ernst told us; northerners, folk who'd been isolated during the long years of hostility between Terre d'Ange and Skaldia, and the reign of the old Master of the Straits.

And Vralians.

They looked different from the other northerners, shaped from a different clay. By and large, they were darker than the fair northerners, black-haired or brown. It wasn't just that, though. The angle of their eyes was different, the way the skin stretched over their strong bones.

Our company located the Vralian ship in the harbor. It was small but sturdy, raised at stem and stern, with a flat bottom suited for a shallow draw. It sported a single square sail and only four sets of oar-locks to a side, and there was barely enough room in the hold to store the bales of wool. Ernst and the captain haggled, one of the ship's crew serving as interpreter. He spoke Skaldic with an accent so strange and thick, I despaired of understanding it. When they had finished their business, coins exchanged hands. I watched, trying to gauge their weight and value. Ernst pointed at Urist and me, saying something to the captain's interpreter.

We approached.

"Vralgrad?" the captain asked, raising strong brows over deep, penetrating eyes. Another face it was hard to read. His thick mustache didn't help.

"Vralgrad," I agreed, nodding firmly.

He said something to his interpreter, who said in Skaldic, "Why?"

That I understood, and I'd had a lot of time to think about my response. I drew my right-hand dagger from my belt and stooped to pluck the left one from my boot-sheath, then straightened to give the fluid Cassiline bow, my daggers crossed before me. "Micah ben Ximon."

It pleased them. The interpreter laughed. The captain smiled beneath his mustache. There was another exchange between them, and then the interpreter said somewhat I couldn't begin to comprehend, holding up several fingers. I glanced at Ernst, who looked away. Taking a guess, I made a show of rummaging in my purse to find a single gold ducat, showing only copper coins and a few silver. Some of the money we carried, I'd dispensed to Kinadius and the others. The rest was hidden in a pouch tied around Urist's waist. Best to be careful, I reckoned.

I held up the coin, pointing at Urist and myself, then the boat. The captain took it and studied it. After a moment, he pocketed it and nodded.

We had purchased passage to Vralia.

The captain beckoned. Urist and I bade farewell to the wool-merchant and Adelmar's Skaldi, charged with the task of seeing our mounts returned to Kinadius. By the gleam in their eyes, I was glad I'd left the Bastard behind. We fetched our packs and boarded the ship. The captain pointed to a spot where we'd be out of the way, then gave a few sharp orders. His crew set to at the oars. The ship lumbered awkwardly into the harbor until they got the wind at her back and raised the sail, which was marked with the same flared cross that adorned the pilgrims' caps. At that, the ship leapt forward and began forging a steady course up the coast.

We were off.

It was my understanding that the voyage to Vralgrad would take approximately two weeks. For the duration of the first week, we had good winds and fair weather. Standing at the railing, watching the coast fly past, I was elated and convinced that my choice had been a good one. As a further piece of luck, there was a Yeshuite man among the crew, a good-natured lad named Ravi. He was a year or so younger than me, but he'd been born in Vralia to one of the first families to settle there, long before it was a nation named after an ambitious ruler. He'd grown up speaking both Habiru and Rus, the common tongue of Vralia.

When he wasn't tending to his duties, Ravi and I spent long hours trading words back and forth; and when he was working, I assisted him, and we carried on our game. I was no sailor, but I'd spent a good deal of time aboard ships during my life, and I daresay I was more help than not. The captain, whose name was Iosef, watched us indulgently.

Urist, for the most part, napped. Still, we talked, and I knew that in his own taciturn way, he was pleased with the speed of our progress. The route overland was longer, and slower going. With each day that passed, we gained a day or more. If we'd guessed rightly that Berlik was bound for Vralia, of a surety, we'd reach it before him.

Then the weather changed.

It had been growing cooler all along. I wasn't sure whether that was due to our progress north or the change of seasons. I'd lost so many days during my long convalescence that spring and much of the summer had passed me by all unnoticed. And since we set out on Berlik's trail, time had been measured in the distance between us. After counting on my fingers and consulting with Ravi, I determined that it must be late summer yet in Terre d'Ange, or mayhap early autumn; the days growing shorter, but still warm and bright.

This far north, the weather was less predictable. The winds were strong and changeable. The sea grew choppy. Our progress slowed. Everyone grumbled.

I daresay there wasn't anything anyone could have done about the storm. I'd sailed on a good many ships, and Iosef was a decent captain. Not as good, mayhap, as Captain Oppius of the Aeolia, who'd dared a risky crossing to bring me home from Tiberium. We'd outlasted a fierce storm on that journey. And mayhap not as skilled as Eamonn's father, Admiral Quintilius Rousse, who had dared the ire of the old Master of the Straits more than once. But Iosef was a fair captain nonetheless.

There were other factors. His ship was smaller and less maneuverable. Despite its name, the Eastern Sea was mostly contained inland. It was more shallow, fraught with unexpected hazards. The storm struck in the small hours of the night, when no one could read the sky clearly to track its approach.

It struck with fury, sudden and abrupt, jolting me out of my restless sleep. There were neither bunks nor hammocks aboard the Vralian ship; only a narrow berth where everyone, including the captain, not serving on deck crowded and slept, the greasy odor of lanolin from the bales of wool drifting from the fore of the hold and filling our nostrils.

No lamps, either; not below deck. I awoke to pitching darkness and panic. Above us, there was thunder and the sound of running feet. Urist, next to me, grabbed my upper arm with hard fingers. I could barely make out the gleam of his eyes.

"This isn't good," he said grimly.

"No," I agreed.

Men scrambled past us, ascending the ladder. One dim figure scrambled back. I recognized Ravi's voice, babbling in Rus. Too fast for me to make it out.

"Habiru!" I shouted at him.

He said something else, then switched. "All hands! All hands to oars!"

"We're needed," I said shortly to Urist. "Let's go."

Much of that night lingers in my memory like a sea-drenched fever-dream. Half dressed and barefoot like the others, Urist and I got ourselves above deck. There was rain, pelting down like mad. Someone pointed, shouting. I saw a man fighting with the long shaft of an oar and tried to make my way toward him. The ship plunged and crashed. A wave washed over the railing. I staggered, slipped, got to my feet. Urist was ahead of me. I shoved him toward another bench, another lone oarsman. Lightning split the sky. I caught a glimpse of a figure in the rigging, trying desperately to loosen a knot.

I managed to reach the bench and take hold of the oar shaft, slippery and soaked with seawater and rain. The Vralian beside me gasped thanks. And then we both set our back to the task of battling the waves and keeping the ship upright.

It went on for hours, each one more miserable than the last. My arms ached; my healing scars strained as they hadn't for weeks. Time and again, waves crashed over us, nearly swamping the ship. I was drenched to the bone, cold and shivering. The wind was buffeting, changing directions. There was no way to run before it. Iosef's men managed to get the sail furled. It didn't matter. The sea had its way with us, sending us leagues off course.

It saved the last of its fury for dawn. I saw it; we all saw it. An island, looming in the grey light. Outlying rocks. A gathering wave, striking us sidelong. The ship canted on its side. I was lucky, I was on the lower end, digging my nails into the sodden wood of my oar shaft. The wave hurled us against the rocks, hard. There was a loud crack as our hull was breached.

I saw men tumble and fall.

I saw Urist flung from his bench, hurtling toward the railing.

I don't remember seeing his thigh-bone snap, and I don't remember grabbing him, keeping him from going overboard. I don't remember the captain shouting for everyone to abandon the ship, which like as not I wouldn't have understood anyway. Not in that panic. All I remember is Urist's face, ashen beneath his warrior's markings.

"I can't swim," he grated.

"I can," I said. "Enough for two."

The ship groaned and settled, creaking. Bilge water rose around us. Men were babbling and shouting. Those who weren't wounded were already in the sea, swimming for the island's shore. The ship creaked and lurched lower. I slid my arms under Urist's, holding his face clear of the water, and gauged the distance.

"It was a damn good try." He grimaced. "Leave me."

I shook my head. "Not a chance."

Having struck its final blow, the storm's fury had abated; or at least, it had moved onward, passing over the sea. Still, it was a long, hard swim in cold, choppy water. I slid over the lower railing, now underwater, and hauled Urist over it. He cried aloud as his broken leg, unsupported, dragged in the water. His entire body jerked at the pain of it.

"I'm sorry!" I gasped raggedly, treading water. I got him in a headlock, wedging my forearm under his chin. "Just try to hold still. Please!"

Urist closed his eyes and nodded against my arm.

Elua knows how, but I got him ashore. I kept my death-grip on him, kept his face above water. Forced my aching, leaden limbs to keep reaching, fighting the cold water that sought to leach my strength. I wasn't hale, but at least I was whole. It came down, in the end, to counting each breath I drew and reckoning it a victory. My chest ached, but my lungs kept working. The island's rocky shore was strewn with bone-weary Vralian sailors. By the time we reached the shallows, I was too exhausted to stand. I towed Urist as far as I could, crawling over rough rocks, then sat with my hands laced under his armpits and scooted backward, dragging him inch by inch onto solid land.

"You're safe," I said in a raw voice.

Urist opened his eyes and grunted. "Look at that bitch. Still sitting there."

I followed his gaze. He was right. Out there in the grey drizzle, the ship, listing and half sunken, was hung up on the rocks. We might as well have stayed, clinging to the foredeck. I laughed helplessly. What else was there to do?

"How's your leg?" I asked Urist.

He rolled his eyes around at me. "Hurts like hell. Think I might puke. What do you expect?"

"Not much," I said wearily. "Not with my luck."

Chapter Forty-Nine.

There are sizable islands in the Eastern Sea; populated islands, islands with ports large enough to warrant being regular stops on the trade routes.Unfortunately, this wasn't one of them.

Once we'd dragged ourselves ashore, assessed the wounded and counted the missing-one of the ten crewmen hadn't reached the island-it didn't take long to determine that we were in a bad situation. No food, no fresh water, no shelter. No sign of habitation anywhere along the barren, stony shore or the pine forest behind it. No sign of the mainland coastline we'd been following. No sign of other ships on the vast grey expanse of the sea.

Aside from the man who'd gone missing, there was one in worse shape than Urist, a fellow named Kirill. He'd swum to shore unaided, then collapsed into unconsciousness. Someone said he'd taken a sharp thrust to the belly with an oar shaft. Other than that, the rest of us sported nothing worse than bruises and grazes.

Captain Iosef gave us time to catch our breath before he began issuing orders; pointing to the ship, to the forest. His voice was tired and cracked, and I was too weary to make out a word of what he said. Five of the most stalwart sailors plunged back into the surf and began swimming for the wreck. Two others began trudging toward the forest, carrying the unconscious Kirill with them. Iosef approached us, bringing Ravi to interpret.

I listened, then interpreted for Urist. "Says we're going to have to set and brace your leg if you don't want to lose it."

Urist didn't blink. "Just do it."

It was an ugly process. We slit his breeches to the hip, laying the leg bare. The snapped bone hadn't breached the skin, but it tented it obscenely.

"Don't look," I advised Urist. He didn't. Captain Iosef and I conferred through Ravi, who looked sick. Elua be thanked, Iosef had set broken bones before. I'd only seen it done. I straddled Urist's torso, squeezing it tight between my knees, and took a hard grip on his upper thigh, holding him still. I could feel the jolt run through him, his entire body straining as Iosef pulled carefully on the lower portion of the broken bone, easing it in place. Urist didn't scream, but he bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.

Iosef said somewhat cheerful. "Half done," Ravi translated.

We finished the job when Iosef's men returned from their excursions, using straight, sturdy branches to brace the leg from hip to ankle and lashing them in place with a long length of linen bandage salvaged from my pack.

"Done," Ravi said.

"Gods and goddesses, I could use a jug of uisghe" Urist said weakly.

Thus began our first day of being shipwrecked. We moved Urist farther up the rocky beach and set him beside poor Kirill, who still hadn't awoken. Two men set about building a makeshift shelter, and three others set out in search of fresh water, our most urgent need. The rest of us spent the day swimming back and forth to the wrecked ship, diving into the sunken hold and swimming in blind darkness, grasping whatever we could and hauling it out. The ship shuddered and quivered as we clambered over it, but it sank no further, held up by the rocks that breached its hull.

In the end, our tally looked a bit less hopeless. We'd salvaged a few parcels of hard biscuits wrapped in watertight oilskin and a pair of undamaged waterskins, and one of Iosef's men had found a spring-fed pond in the forest. A flint striker to kindle fire-that had been in my pack, a gift I'd received long ago in Jebe-Barkal. An axe, an adze, and other tools for repairing the ship, which proved useful for building a shelter. Several lengths of rope. Sodden blankets. One of the powerful hunting bows Urist and I had brought, though its string was likely spoiled by the saltwater and we hadn't found the quiver.

At least there was food and water. Iosef doled out a rock-hard biscuit apiece. I broke off chunks and held them in my mouth, waiting for the waterskin to be passed so I could soften them with a mouthful of water. I was too tired to chew.

I have never, ever in my life been as exhausted as I was by the end of the day. If there was any hidden blessing, it was that I was beyond caring what had become of our mission, at least in that moment. All I wanted to do was lay my head down and sleep. If Kushiel had appeared on that island in all his terrible glory and offered me Berlik's head on a flaming platter, I wouldn't have had the strength to take it.

Our shelter was a simple affair, a lean-to such as hunters might build to spend the night in the woods, built on a larger scale. We lashed layers of untrimmed green pine branches atop it to keep out the drizzle and spread pine mast over the stony soil, then packed ourselves beneath it, laying down in our damp clothing and sleeping the sleep of the dead.

At least I didn't dream.

Morning dawned bright and clear, but it brought two unpleasant revelations. Kirill had died in the night without ever waking. His belly was hard and distended, and I thought he must have been bleeding inside. On the heels of that discovery, we found a second body washed ashore; Pavel, the sailor who'd gone missing.