Ellerson looked away.

After they were gone, she was alone.

And although she was old enough to know that "alone" and "lonely" were not synonyms, she felt the isolation sharply nonetheless. Her hands were empty. She had sheathed the sword that Arann had carried to the shrine, and its weight, against the length of her thigh, her left hip, felt wrong.

She would get used to it, of course. But of all the steps she had taken to ensure the survival of the House that she had built, it was the most painful. Symbols? She understood their value.

Amarais closed her eyes.

He came to her.

She was aware of his presence, although until he spoke he made no sound at all.

"Terafin," she said softly.

"Terafin," he replied.

She turned, the hem of her skirts brushing stone, the soles of her shoes rubbing its surface. His touched nothing. What face, she thought, her hand dropping to the hilt of her sword, what face would he wear?

She was unprepared to see Morretz.

She almost told him to leave, but something about his eyes invoked silence. He waited until she groped her way through that silence to say something entirely different.

"Do you disapprove?"

"Of the Sword?"

She nodded.

"No, Terafin. It is a sword, and if it has history, it is that history which makes it valuable. You have chosen." He smiled. "There is not another leader of this House that has pa.s.sed that blade on before his death."

"Of all the things I possess that might add verity and strength to a claim, it is the only one I can do without."

"Indeed."

She lapsed into silence.

He waited.

"Can you see the future?" she asked him. "Can you see who will-who must-rule Terafin?"

"No more than you, Terafin. But I, too, have made my choice, and it is hard to rule the House Terafin without my blessing."

"Is it impossible?"

His pause was shorter than either of hers had been, but it bore greater weight. An answer.

"Will she return?"

"If word reaches her, she will."

"Will she return in time?"

Again, he chose shelter in silence.

She walked, slowly, toward the stairs that circled the shrine; the night was dark, the air chill. It was cold, even for the season; she gathered her cloak about her shoulders in hands that trembled.

"Will you not ask the first question that came to you when you saw me this eve?"

"No."

To her surprise, he chuckled. She turned, then; he stood between her and the altar upon which she had, literally and figuratively, offered everything she had ever desired or owned.

"Shall I answer it before you flee?"

That stung; she was not a child, to be prodded by her elders, no matter who that elder might be. She stopped, her foot an inch away from the edge of the dais.

But she had no desire to see the Terafin ancestor take Morretz's face and make it his own; she had felt less qualms when he had come to her as a dark, gray mirror-a harbinger of the doom she struggled daily to accept.

And to reject.

"I do not want the House to devour him," she said coldly.

"And you have decided this only now?"

"It has been some months in coming, but . . . I have decided, yes."

"It is a pity then," the voice, not Morretz's voice, drifted closer. "The decision is-among the many that you have made-one of the few that is not yours."

She did turn then. "Not mine? Perhaps. But it is even less yours. He is not-"

"ATerafin?"

"ATerafin. He is not ATerafin. He has never been ATerafin. He would never disgrace his guild by taking the name, although would he-would he, I would have given it to him years ago."

"When?"

"Does it matter?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. You are correct-he would not have taken the name. If you offered it now, he would refuse. But name or no, he has served me well."

"He has served me," she snapped, for a moment losing the fine control and bearing which marked her position.

"Yes," the Terafin spirit replied.

She lapsed into silence and anger. The anger was terrible.

"Do not let it consume you," the spirit said, and she cursed him.

"Does it matter? Anger, sorrow, hatred, fear-in the end they make no difference; my fate, such as it is, is here, or-" she lifted an arm and pointed to the manse-"there, where my enemies watch. I chose them," she added, "all but a handful."

"Yes, and you chose wisely; no House is built without men of ambition. Those that survive this will strengthen the House."

"If I had my way, none would survive."

"The Sword is named Justice," he said softly, "but you cannot simply give it away. Or give it to another for safekeeping."

She turned then. Said nothing at all.

The expression upon the face of the Terafin spirit was not an expression that had ever graced Morretz.

"Amarais," he said softly, "be wary. Now is the time that the danger is greatest."

"To me? Or to you?"

He did not answer that question. Instead, he said, "Morretz will never return to the Guild of the Domicis."

She lifted a hand, palm out, a command.

But he was already beyond her.

"He made his choice, years ago, and it was no less binding a choice than yours. He will falter if you falter; that is all.

"Be kind, as you can."

"He has never asked for kindness."

"Ah," the spirit replied quietly. "I did not necessarily speak of him."

She started to speak, and then thought better of it as steps-heavy, but not so heavy that they were unpleasant, approached this last of her strongholds, this private retreat.

"I am . . . trying . . . in my fashion. To be kind to him."

"By summoning what remains of Jewel's den? By delivering the Sword of Terafin into their keeping? By speaking of nothing that concerns your fate where it might trouble him?

"If these are acts of kindness, Amarais, I am troubled."

"Oh?"

"It would appear, to me, that you do not understand your domicis at all, after he has offered-and you have accepted-a life of service."

The footsteps were real. Corporeal.

She started to speak, but he had turned to face those steps; he stepped forward, becoming one with the night sky that was visible from beneath domed ceiling, captured light.

Framed by his vanishing form was the man whose appearance he had harbored.

Morretz.

They stared at each other. Morretz did not venture down the path to the shrine, but he was unarguably present. He did not speak.

She lifted her hands to the edges of her cloak, drawing it across her shoulders. It was Winter in Averalaan, or what pa.s.sed for Winter, and it was both dry for the season, and cool. But she knew the weather as well as anyone who had lived upon the Isle for years; if the chill worsened, it would not become so terrible that it would invite the Northern snows.

She drew her shoulders back; let her hands drop to her sides where they rested, unnaturally heavy.

She had thought to remain silent, but the words of the Terafin ancestor remained in his absence. She said, without thought, "this is the last Winter."

As if words were permission, Morretz, who was not of Terafin, rose to the dais by climbing the steps that led to his lord. "The last Winter," he repeated.

She looked up, and up again, to meet his eyes; she was not a short woman, and she had always known that he was not a short man-but she seldom felt the difference in their height so keenly.

He said, simply, "The Sword, Amarais."

And she tried to answer, but the words were lost; she managed a shrug, no more. The shrug was awkward; it dislodged the line of the too-large cloak she wore. The cloak that had a history that came from a time before House Terafin, before her rule here, when comfort had been easier to ask for, easier to accept.

Handernesse. Her grandfather's house. Her grandfather's cloak, and he dead these many years.

Morretz stepped naturally toward her, his hand finding the lining of the cloak, the seams of worn and faded cloth, and righting them, gentling their fall from her shoulder.

But his hands did not leave her shoulders. She could not see his face, and that made it easier.

Amarais Handernesse ATerafin closed her eyes and in the s.p.a.ce hallowed by vow and history, dropped her hand to the hilt of a foreign blade and began to weep.

CHAPTER THREE.

21st of Misteral, 427 AA Sea of Sorrows HE HAD a debt to pay.

There was only one way to pay it. Marakas par el'Sol faced the desert in grim silence.

The Sea of Sorrows could not be crossed by Northern boat; it was a haze of heat, and the waves that formed in the sand were laid there by wind, baked by sun, hardened by the lack of water.

He had seen them for days, crossing each ridge, riding each slope, his gaze traveling to the South, although often the East or West called him. To the North, he did not look; it contained only the shadows of Raverra, the Terrean in which the Tor Leonne lay, contested and shadowed.

He carried his water with him, and he drank sparingly; the skins were not so heavy that they would hold him long if he chose to be careless. His desert craft could lead him to succulents and night flowering plants, but even in these there was no guarantee. Only a madman made such a trek.

And perhaps he was mad. He had only himself as judge; he could ask no other's opinion. Marakas par el'Sol undertook this journey in isolation. It suited him.

After the death of his wife and his son, he had found little comfort in company. But not none. He carried Verragar, and he understood its true nature; the blade brought him purpose, and purpose brought him a measure of peace. When he had first come North to the Tor Leonne he had thought that death alone would grant him that.

He paused a moment, breaking the hard ground to mark it. It was easy to walk in circles; the heat made a man unwary. His shadow was long, but it grew shorter as he worked; a warning. A sign.

But the breaking did not lend him shelter; not from the heat, and not from his memories.