Below, servants and druzhina druzhina came hurrying out into the courtyard, pointing to the heavens. came hurrying out into the courtyard, pointing to the heavens.

A distant column of fiery light, thin as a scarlet thread, pierced the dark skies to the east. The crystalline brilliance of the constellations overhead flushed red as blood.

In that moment, it felt as if the fiery bolt of light speared Gavril's brain and a current of energy shivered through his mind. He strove to speak, but his tongue was frozen.

"What d'you mean, dragging us all from our warm beds for this, Semyon?" Sosia, the kastel housekeeper, chided. "It's just the northern lights, you silly boy!"

"I've never seen 'em burn bloodred before," muttered Askold at Gavril's side.

And just as suddenly as the column of light had appeared, it vanished, leaving the stars sparkling diamond-clear above their heads.

"What d'you think it was, Drakhaon?" said Askold. "Some new Tielen weapon?"

"I don't know." Gavril found he had regained the power of speech. His head cleared. "But whatever it was, we should stay on our guard. Eugene of Tielen won't forgive us so easily for defeating him."

Kiukiu was helping Lady Elysia sort through a pile of sheets and blankets that had been dug out from the rubble when the alarm bell began to clang-a harsh, terrifying sound in the cold of the night.

"Now whatever can the matter be?" Lady Elysia let drop the blanket she was mending and went to the window, raising the oiled cloth that had been nailed across the frame to keep out the worst of the drafts.

Kiukiu heard running feet, druzhina druzhina and servants calling out to one another. She could not move. and servants calling out to one another. She could not move. Please let it not be the Tielens, Please let it not be the Tielens, she prayed silently. she prayed silently.

"What is is that light?" said Lady Elysia, peering out, her voice hushed with wonder. that light?" said Lady Elysia, peering out, her voice hushed with wonder.

Kiukiu went to get up and join her at the window-and her mind was suddenly filled with voices, children's voices, all screaming out in terror. "Oh," she whispered. "Who are are you?" you?"

She stands gazing out at a great expanse of moving water, bluer than Lake Ilmin. Children surround her, pulling at her hands, her clothes, their eyes wide with fear and despair.

"Help us, Spirit Singer. Set us free."

"I-I can't. There are so many of you . . . and I don't even know your names."

As she gazes at their pale, dead faces she sees that each child bears a red, ragged knife-wound across the throat. Horror numbs her. Who could have done such a terrible thing to these innocent children?

And then she senses she is being watched. Turning slowly, she sees a tall figure behind her, clothed in glittering darkness. It is watching her with two luminous eyes as slanted and strange as the Drakhaoul's-and a third eye, crimson as a bloodstained flame, burns on its forehead. And such a feeling of dread overcomes her that she cannot back away, even though every instinct tells her she must flee.

The children cry out again, clustering around her, clinging to her in fear.

"Please help us."

"Kiukiu." Someone was calling her name. The blue water faded from her sight, the children's piteous pleading grew fainter until she blinked and found herself gazing into Lady Elysia's anxious face.

"Are you all right, Kiukiu?"

Kiukiu nodded. She felt a little sick and disoriented. "What happened?"

"You fainted. Sit up slowly. That's right. Luckily the blankets cushioned your fall."

"I'm sorry." What must Lady Elysia think of her? "Sometimes I . . ."

Elysia nodded. "Gavril has told me of your gift. What did you see? Does it help to talk about it?"

Kiukiu hugged her arms about her body; she felt cold now, chilled to the bones. "Sometimes I hear echoes from long ago in the kastel. The stones remember . . ."

On a dark, lonely shore far from Mirom, Andrei lay asleep on a straw pallet in the fisherman's cottage.

A sudden spearshaft of light pierced his dreams, coloring them red as spilled blood.

He gave a cry and sat bolt upright.

It must be a flare, sent up by a ship in distress.

"Ship on the rocks!" Still half-asleep, he fumbled his way to the doorway and stared out into the night, scanning the empty sea.

A flaming column stretched from earth into the heavens on the distant horizon, staining the black sea red. A rushing sound suddenly filled his ears, as if a crowd of midges were swarming in his brain. Little flashes of fiery light flickered across his vision. His head spun.

"That's no distress flare." Kuzko, his voice thick with sleep, appeared behind him.

Andrei struggled to reply. Words tried to force themselves from his mouth, but when they came out, they seemed meaningless.

"Nagar's-Eye," he heard himself stammer. "Take-me-home."

"Yes, lad." Kuzko's hand came down on his shoulder. "And if only you could remember where home was, we'd get you back to your folks on the next spring tide."

And then the fiery column disappeared, as swiftly as if it were a snuffed-out candleflame.

Andrei blinked, rubbed his eyes. He turned to Kuzko.

"What did I say?"

"Take me home," repeated Kuzko.

"Before that."

"A place name, maybe. Not one I recognized. Nagar's Eye. Is that where you hail from, Andrei?"

Andrei shook his head. The name meant nothing to him. And the disappointment now seemed almost too great to bear. For a moment it seemed as if his memory had been unlocked. But whatever had been awakened by the fiery column had been just as swiftly extinguished.

Kuzko uncorked a stone bottle of spirits; he swallowed a swift mouthful, then passed it to Andrei.

"I've little enough left, but you look as if you could do with it, lad. Take a good swig. It'll help you sleep."

Astasia fretted on the foggy quayside, shivering in her warmest fur-lined cloak. She was waiting to welcome Karila and her entourage to Mirom.

Their arrival had been delayed because of the little princess's sudden indisposition. Her Great-Aunt Greta, the Dowager Duchess of Haeven, had sent a message to say that she had delayed the voyage of the royal barque because Karila had developed a nasty cough on the journey down from the Palace of Swanholm. And then they had encountered sea fog in the Straits.

It was strange, Astasia reflected, that she was soon to be stepmother to Karila, when their relationship was more akin to that of older and younger sisters. She had always dreamed of having a younger sister to play with, but Mama had never been robust enough to produce another child.

Palace servants brought a brazier of slow-burning coals and Astasia gratefully held her frozen hands to the warmth.

Wisps of fog began to roll across the city; the lanterns on the rigging of the great ships dimmed.

"You mustn't stay out here any longer," whispered Nadezhda. "You'll catch your death of cold. We can't have you sneezing your way through the service tomorrow. Just imagine-when his highness raises your wedding veil, he's not going to want to see a red nose and be greeted with a sneeze, is he?"

Astasia could not help smiling in spite of the cold. "But I must be here to welcome Karila to Mirom."

"Welcome her inside the palace, in front of a large log fire," insisted Nadezhda.

"Royal barque approaching!" came a shout from the lookout to the members of the new imperial bodyguard.

"At last," whispered Astasia, relieved that her freezing wait was nearly over.

Princess Karila's little entourage had just begun to disembark at the River Gate outside the Winter Palace when the night sky was pierced by a brilliant beam of fire.

"Holy saints preserve us!" Nadezhda hastily made the sign to avert evil. "It's not those insurgents again, trying to burn the palace?"

Astasia gazed up at the crimsoned stars. She had never seen anything like this before. It was at once strikingly beautiful, and oddly disturbing. . . .

Karila, muffled up in her fur-lined cloak, hat, and mittens, waited dutifully on deck with Great-Aunt Greta for the sailors to lower the gangplank onto the quay.

She had never made such a long journey away from Swanholm before.

"There's the Winter Palace, my dear, where we'll be staying," said Great-Aunt Greta, her breath issuing from her mouth in frosty clouds.

A spear of fire suddenly shot up into the night sky.

Karila gave a sharp cry. It was as if the crimson spear had pierced her throat. A wash of blood began to drip down from the wound, tingeing the whole world fiery red.

She dropped to her knees as a swirl of violent and incomprehensible images glittered and shifted in her mind.

An indigo sea washes onto a bone-white seashore . . .

"Whatever's wrong, child?" Great-Aunt Greta gripped hold of her and tried to pull her back to her feet.

Her throat felt as if it were choked with blood. She tried to speak, but all that came out was coughing.

The sailors on the Tielen royal barque had abandoned their tasks and were pointing up at the sky.

"Back to work!" shouted a military voice impatiently. "Have you never seen fireworks before?" It was a lieutenant of the imperial bodyguard, although from his accent, Astasia recognized him as a fellow countryman.

"Fireworks?" she repeated.

"I'll wager it's a rehearsal for tomorrow's celebrations by the Royal Artificier and his aides, highness. I-"

A shrill cry interrupted his words.

"Help! The princess!"

Forgetting decorum, Astasia gathered up her skirts and ran across the frosty cobbles toward the Tielen royal party, Nadezhda and the lieutenant hurrying after her.

As Astasia came closer, she could hear the dry, insistent sound of a child coughing. "What's wrong?" she asked, peering into the lanternlight. The coughing went on, rasping and painful.

"I said we should have stayed in Tielen," fretted an elderly voice, "but she was so insistent."

"Kari?" Astasia asked anxiously. The huddle of maidservants parted to let her through. She saw the elderly Dowager Duchess Greta supporting a hunched little form that shuddered and strained to draw breath.

"Ta- sia-" The child tried to say her name, but only began to cough again.

"We must get her indoors at once." Astasia went to pick up the little girl herself, but the young lieutenant gallantly stepped in and swung the princess up into his arms.

"I said the weather was too foggy, but she was so eager to come." The dowager duchess sounded as if she was at her wit's end as she followed the lieutenant to the River Gate where a carriage was waiting to drive them into the palace.

"When did this sickness begin?" Astasia offered her arm to the dowager duchess, who leaned on her heavily as they crossed the quay.

"Well, my dear, it's always a little difficult to tell with Karila; you know she's a sickly child. But this latest ailment has the royal physicians baffled."

Eugene looked down at his daughter as the Orlov's physician examined her. He tried not to breathe in a halting, sympathetic rhythm; he tried not to wince as the physician's sharp fingers tapped at the thin, misshapen back. Karila endured it all without complaint. Perhaps she was too tired to complain, or perhaps this had just become a normal part of her life.

"Papa," croaked Karila at last. Her hand rose, seeking his.

"Here I am." He took her hand and sat on the bed beside her.

"I can still be Tasia's bridesmaid tomorrow, can't I?" Blue eyes looked imploringly into his. He glanced up at the physician and saw him gravely shake his head.

"We'll see how you are in the morning, Kari." He kissed her flushed cheek. "Now you must rest."

Outside in the dressing room, he faced the Orlov's physician. He had heard plenty of Tielen doctors prognosticate gloomily since Karila's birth nearly eight years ago. He was hoping that a fresh opinion might offer hope of different treatments, different cures.

"Well?" he said, trying not to sound too hopeful.

The Orlov's physician took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes wearily. He seemed to be searching for the right words.

"Imperial highness," he said eventually, "your daughter is very sick."

"Karila has never been well." Eugene tried to keep his temper in check.

"The malformation of her spine has compressed her rib cage, making it difficult for the lungs to expand-"