"Did you hear that, Royce!" Hadrian shouted. "Her name is Mercedes."

He kept shouting at him. "Elias or Sterling if a boy, right? But there was only one name for the girl, Mercedes. There was only one name because Gwen had already named her! This is your daughter, Royce! This is your and Gwen's daughter! How old are you, sweetie? Five? Six?"

"Six," she said proudly.

"She's six, Royce. That would have been the year we spent locked up in Alburn, remember? Gwen took her baby to Arcadius. She probably didn't want you to feel trapped, or maybe she didn't want her growing up in a wh.o.r.ehouse. In any case, she knew she would die before introducing you to your daughter. That's why she told me to. Royce, you have a daughter, you old b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" He reached out and took hold of Royce's face. "Part of Gwen is still here! Do you hear me?"

"Is he my father?" Mercy asked, drawing closer. "My mother told me that one day I would meet my father and that he would take me to live in a beautiful place and I would become a fairy princess and a queen of the forest."

Royce's eyelids twitched.

"Now!" Hadrian told Arista, but it was not necessary. She was already chanting. The chanting quieted to a hum and then Arista went silent. She jerked abruptly and violently. Hadrian took hold of her. He had one hand on each of them as he prayed to Maribor. Every muscle in Arista's body was taut and her head hitched as if she were being slapped. Then suddenly she shook and her breath shortened to gasps. The time between gasps grew until she stopped breathing entirely.

All around them the crowd stopped breathing as well.

"Royce!" Hadrian screamed at him. "She's your daughter, and if you die, she'll be an orphan, just like you! Are you going to abandon her and leave her alone like your parents did? Royce!"

Both bodies lurched in unison and they gasped for air. Arista, damp with sweat, laid her head against Hadrian. Royce breathed deeply, and slowly his eyes fluttered open. He did not speak, but his eyes focused on the little girl.

CHAPTER 28.

FULL CIRCLE.

The rear wheel of the wagon fell into another hole and bounced so hard that Arista woke. She pulled back the blanket and squinted at the sky. The sun was low on the horizon and the movement of the wagon made the forest on a hill to their right look as if it were marching in the opposite direction. Her neck and back were sore, her muscles stiff, and she was still groggy. She realized that despite the bouncing buckboard, she had slept the day away. Now her stomach ached from hunger. Her teeth felt fuzzy, almost sandy, and her left hand was numb from her lying on it. She rode in the back of the wagon that Magnus and Degan drove. Hadrian had made her the best bed he could, laying down all their blankets as padding in the s.p.a.ce left by the consumed supplies.

Modina and the girls rode with her. Allie and Mercy were asleep between her and the empress. The two curled up in tight b.a.l.l.s, their knees pulled to their chests. Modina sat with a blanket around her shoulders, staring off at the landscape. The sled runners had been replaced by wheels and they traveled on a rutted, muddy road that formed a dark line between two fields of snow that occasionally showed a patch of matted, tangled weeds. Seeing them got her thinking. She wiped her face with the blanket and, digging her brush out of a nearby pack, began the arduous process of clearing the snarls from her hair.

She pulled, grunted, and then sighed. Modina looked over with a questioning expression, and Arista explained by letting go of the brush and leaving it to hang.

Modina smiled and crawled over to her. "Turn around," she said, and taking the brush, the empress began working the back of Arista's head. "You have quite the rat's nest here."

"Be careful one doesn't bite you," Arista replied. "Do you know where we are?"

"I have no idea. I'm not really much of a world traveler, you know."

"This doesn't look like the road to Aquesta."

"No," Modina said as she worked on a particularly tough snarl. "It's too late to travel that far today, and neither you, Royce, nor Hadrian were up for a long trip. After all, you three had a pretty big day."

"But the people in-"

Modina patted her shoulder. "It's all right. I sent Merton back with instructions for Nimbus and Amilia, and Royce sent the elves with him-well, most of them. A few insisted on staying with their new king. There's nothing left in Aquesta to go back to. The city was destroyed. I ordered the remaining stores to be divided between those who survived. The people will be sent to Colnora, Ratibor, Kilnar, and Vernes, but organized into equal groups so no one city is too overwhelmed."

Arista laughed and shook her head, making it hard for Modina to work. "Are you sure you're the same Thrace Wood I once knew?"

"No, I don't suppose I am," Modina replied. "Thrace was a wonderful girl, naive, starry-eyed, bursting with life. For a long time I thought she was dead and gone, but I think-no, I know-some part of her still exists, but I'm Modina now."

"Well, whoever you are, you're amazing. You truly are the empress worthy of ruling all of mankind."

Modina lowered her voice and said, "I'll tell you a secret-it's not me at all, really. Sure, on occasion, I come up with something intelligent-and I am usually surprised by it myself-but the real genius behind my throne is Nimbus. Amilia deserves everything this empire can give her for hiring him. The man is a wonder: quiet, una.s.suming, but utterly brilliant. If he had a mind to, he could replace me in a heartbeat. I am convinced he could organize a perfectly lovely coup, but he has no aspirations for power at all. I haven't been in politics long, but even I can see that a man as capable as he and yet so absent of greed is a rare thing. Do you know he still sleeps in his cubicle? Or at least he did until the castle was destroyed. Even though he was chancellor of the empire, he lived in a tiny stone cell. He, Amilia, and Breckton are my jewels, my treasures. I don't know how I could have survived without them."

"Don't forget Hadrian," Arista reminded her.

"Hadrian? No, he's not a treasure of mine and neither are you." She paused in her brushing and Arista felt Modina kiss her head. "There's not a word that can describe how I feel about the two of you, except perhaps... miracle workers."

The center of the village cl.u.s.tered along the main road. Wood, stone, and wattle-and-daub buildings with gra.s.s-thatched roofs lined either side, beginning at the little wooden bridge and ending before the slope that climbed a hill to the manor house. They consisted of a ramshackle a.s.sortment of shops, homes, and hovels, casting long shadows. Beyond them, Hadrian could see people in the fields working in the strips closest to the village. Down in the valley, near the river, the fields were nearly clear of snow and villeins worked to spread manure from large carts. Hooded in wool cowls, the workers labored. Long curved rakes rose and fell in the faltering light. In the village, smoke rose from a few of the buildings and shops, but none came from the smithy.

As they approached, their horses announced their arrival with a loud hollow clop clip clop as they crossed the bridge. A pair of dogs lifted their heads, the sign above the shoemaker's shop squeaked as it swayed, and farther down the road a stable door clapped absently against its frame. The intermittent warbling wail of lambs called out from hidden pens.

Hadrian and Royce led the procession through the village. Behind them rode three elves-Royce's new shadows. Now that Royce was their king, and given what happened to Novron, and his predecessor, they were adamant about his protection.

The change in the elves' demeanor had been dramatic. The moment Royce got to his feet, they all knelt. The sneering looks of contempt were replaced instantly with reverence. If they were acting, Hadrian thought they were all remarkable performers. Perhaps it was seeing Royce come back from the dead, or some magic of the horn, but the elven lords could not appear to be more devoted to him.

Royce did not protest his new protectors. He said little on the subject and rode as if they were not there. Hadrian guessed he was humoring them-for now. Everyone, especially Royce, was too exhausted to think, much less argue, and Hadrian had just a single thought-to find shelter before dark. With that in mind, he headed south, following the little tributary of the Bernum River he knew simply as the South Fork, which brought them to his boyhood home of Hintindar.

A man sitting in front of the stable was filing the edges of the coulter on a moul board plow when he caught sight of them. He had a bristling black beard and a dirty, pockmarked face. He was dressed in the usual hooded cowl and knee-length tunic of a villein. The man stared, shocked, for a handful of seconds, then emitted a brief utterance that might have been a squeak. He ran to the bell mounted on the pole in the middle of the street and rang it five times, then bolted up the main street toward the manor house.

"Peculiar man," Hadrian remarked, stopping his horse at the well and, in turn, halting the whole party.

"I think you scared him," Royce said.

Hadrian glanced back at the elves sitting in a perfect line on their great white stallions in their gleaming gold armor, the center one holding aloft a ten-foot pole with a long blue and gold streamer flapping from it. "Yeah, it was probably me."

The two continued to watch the man run. He appeared only as tall as an outstretched thumb, but Hadrian could still hear his feet slapping the dirt.

"Know him?" Royce asked.

Hadrian shook his head.

"What's the bell for?" Royce asked.

"Emergencies, fires, the hue and cry-that sort of thing."

"I'm guessing he didn't see a fire."

"Are we stopping here?" Myron asked. He and Mauvin sat on their mounts just behind the elves and just before the wagon. "The ladies want to know."

"Might as well. I sort of planned to ride up to the manor to announce ourselves but... I think that's being taken care of."

He dismounted, letting his horse drink from the trough. The others got down as well, including Arista and Modina-the empress still wrapped in her blanket. They left the sleeping girls wrapped up in their covers.

Hadrian was just about to rap on the bakery's door when a crowd of people began filing into the village, following the cow path from the fields. They carried rakes over their heads and trotted into the street, stopping the moment they saw them. Hadrian recognized most of the faces: Osgar the reeve, Harbert the tailor, Algar the woodworker, and Wilfred the carter.

"Haddy!" Armigil shouted. The old brew mistress pushed her way through. Her broad hips cut a swath through the crowd. "How did ya-What aire ya doin' 'ere, lad? And what 'ave you brought with ya?"

"I-" was all he got out before she went on.

"Never ya mind answering. Ya needs to be gone. Take the lot of ya and go!"

"You need to work on your manners, dear," Hadrian told her. "The last time I came to town, you hit me, and now-"

"Ya don't understand, lad. Things have changed. There's no time to explain. You need to get out of here. His lairdship caught the storm after you left last time."

"Haddy?" Dunstan the baker and his wife approached, staring at him in disbelief. They were both dressed in worn wool, covered in speckles of mud, and their bare feet and legs were caked with drying earth.

"How are you, Dun?" Hadrian asked. "What are you doing in the field?"

"Plowing," he replied dully as he stared at the strangers on his street. "Well, trying to. Things have warmed up a lot, but the ground's still not quite soft enough."

"Plowing? You're a baker."

"We bake at night."

"When do you sleep, then?"

"Quit yer yammering and go, shoo! Away with ya!" Armigil shouted, waving at him as if he were a cow in her vegetable garden. "Haddy, you don't understand. If they find you here-"

"That's right!" Dunstan agreed, as if he suddenly woke from a dream. "You need to go. If Luret sees you-"

"Luret? The envoy? He's still here?"

"He never left," Osgar said.

"He charged Lord Baldwin with disloyalty," Wilfred the carter put in.

"Siward died in the fightin'," Armigil said sadly. "Luret locked up poor old Baldwin in his own dungeon, and that's why you and yer friends need to get!"

"Too late," Royce said, looking down the road toward the manor house. "A line of men are marching down the hill."

"Who are they? Imperial troops?" Hadrian asked.

"Looks like it. They're wearing uniforms," Royce said.

"What's going on?" Arista asked, coming forward. She beamed a smile at Dunstan and Arbor.

"Oh, Emma!" Arbor spoke to her with a fearful tone but said nothing more. Arista appeared puzzled for a moment and then laughed.

"Oh dear," Armigil went on when she noticed the wagon, where Allie and Mercedes were stretching and yawning. A sorrowful expression came over the brew mistress. "Ye got wee ones with ya too?"

"Is it too late to hide them?" Arbor asked.

"They can see us from there," Osgar answered.

Mauvin stepped up near Royce, peering up the road at the small figures coming down the hill. "How many do you count?"

"Twelve," Royce replied, "including Luret."

"Twelve?" Mauvin said, surprised. "Seriously?"

Royce shrugged. "Maybe the fella that ran up there mentioned we had women and children."

"But twelve?"

"Eleven, really."

Mauvin rolled his eyes and folded his arms across his chest in disgust as he watched them approach.

"So Luret has you all working in the fields?" Hadrian asked as he dismounted and tied up his horse.

"Are you daft man?" Armigil shouted. "What ere you makin' conversation fer? They're coming to arrest ya-if you're lucky, that is! They'll haul you to the dungeon, beat you, starve you, and likely torture you. That Luret is not right in the head."

Mince and the boys took it upon themselves to gather the horses and tie them to the wagon, taking time to pause and nod politely to the townspeople.

They soon heard the stomp of feet as the soldiers from the manor house marched at them in an even rhythm. They moved in a two-line formation of six men in back and five in front. They wore chain mail and flat helms. Those in front carried spears, those in the rear, crossbows. Luret rode behind them on a pale speckled mare with a black face and one white-circled eye. Luret looked much the same as he had the last time Hadrian had seen him. The man still had hawkish features and brutal eyes. His attire, however, had improved. He wore a thick brocade tunic along with a velvet cape and handsome long gloves neatly embroidered with chevrons that ran up his wrists. His legs were covered in opaque hose, and his feet covered by leather shoes with bra.s.s buckles, which caught what remained of the setting sun.

"Aha! The blacksmith's son!" Luret exclaimed the moment he saw Hadrian's face clearly. "Back to claim your inheritance? Or have you run out of places to hide? And who is this rabble?" He smirked, and waved his hand in the air. "Outlaws the lot of you, I'm sure." He paused a moment as he took notice of the elves, but his sight fell back to Hadrian again. "You've brought them here to roost, eh? Think you can hide out amongst your old friends?" He pointed at Royce. "Oh yes, I remember you, and you too." He looked at Arista. "I don't think they will be quite so quick to take you in this time, not after the beating I gave them." He looked at Dunstan, who stared down at his own feet. "They learned their lesson about harboring fugitives. Now it's time for you to learn a lesson too. Arrest the lot of them. I want chains on these two." He pointed at Hadrian and Royce.

The soldiers managed only one step forward before Hadrian drew his swords. The rest followed his lead. To his left, Degan stepped up, and beside him Magnus held his hammer. To his right the elves advanced to stand in front of Royce, causing him to sigh. Even the boys drew daggers, except for Kine and Mince, who did not have any, but they put up their fists, nonetheless.

The soldiers hesitated. Luret drummed his fingers on his saddle horn. "I said arrest them!"

One of the soldiers near Royce jabbed forward with his spear. The nearest elf severed the metal tip from the shaft. The guard backed up, holding the wooden staff.

None of the others moved.

Luret's face reddened. "You are defying arrest! You are challenging an imperial envoy and duly appointed magistrate and executor of this estate. I demand you surrender at once! Surrender or by the power invested in me by the empress herself I will have you shot where you stand!"

No one moved.

"I don't recall investing anything in you, much less the power to kill members of my personal entourage," Modina said as she walked forward from the rear of the party.

Luret put a hand to shield his eyes from the setting sun and squinted in her direction. "Who is this now?"

"You don't recognize me?" Modina asked in a light and lilting voice. "And yet you are so quick to evoke my name. Allow me to introduce myself. Perhaps it will jog your memory. I am the slayer of Rufus's Bane, the high priestess of the Church of Nyphron, Her Most Serene and Royal Grand Imperial Majesty, Empress Modina Novronian."

She cast off the blanket.

Several people in the crowd gasped. Arbor staggered backward, causing Dunstan to catch hold of her, and Hadrian was certain he heard Armigil mutter, "I'll be b.u.g.g.e.red."

The empress stood in her lavish gown. She was also adorned in the long black velvet mantle embroidered with the imperial crest, which she'd put on before presenting herself.