She leaned forward, positioning the tip of Rau's sword between the leather thongs that bound her wrists. Rau snorted. His hand tightened on the sword, but he didn't wake.

That's right, Doan-Rau, keep sleeping. How I'd love to see your face in the morning when you realize I'm gone.

Gently, she sawed at the leather. It was tougher than she anticipated, but eventually, she carved a narrow groove.

Just a bit more...

The snoring stopped. Rau's eyelids flickered.

Riordan swore silently to herself. Unhooking her wrists, searched for a way to camouflage her actions. Placing both feet against his side, she dealt him a swift kick.Impact brought Rau fully awake. He leapt to his feet. Fury and fear battled for control of his expression. Then, recognizing his attacker was bound hand and foot, he flung the sword into the sand inches from her face. "Did you want something, Your Majesty?"

Riordan looked up at him, her gray eyes a mask of innocence. "You were snoring."

"Snoring!" Rau glared down at her and visibly debated taking a swipe at her with his sword.

She nodded and yawned as widely as she could. "You were keeping me awake."

"Wouldn't want to disturb your sleep, now would we?"

"I just wanted you to roll over."

"Fine, I'm up now. Go back to sleep."

Riordan eyed the discarded blanket and shivered. "Could you fetch my blanket?"

Rau swore. For a moment he studied her, lying bound at his feet. He snatched up the blanket and tossed it at her, leaving Riordan to find a way to wiggle back under it.

"Now be quiet, Your Majesty. Or I'll silence you with the blade of my sword."

Riordan lay back on the cool sand. Rau stood a few paces away, staring into the darkness. Looking no doubt for Nhaille.

A blade of moonlight cut across the sand beside her. She turned her wrists into the light.

Across the thick leather band that bound her wrists was a deep slash.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The desert's predawn cold penetrated blankets, clothes even muscles. The leather bonds did nothing to ease the cramps, merely forced her into unnatural positions.

Riordan's eyelids fluttered open. She'd been asleep, she realized with alarm. Warily she scanned the scene around her. Couldn't be more than a few minutes. Rau sat as he had for most of the night with his back against a rock, his sword mere inches from his hand.

She'd spent the night watching the stars make their slow journey across the sky. All the while Rau sat sullenly in the darkness watching her.

Serves you right. I hope you're every bit as stiff and cold as I am.

But Rau had the freedom of his hands and feet. Rau had the liberty to attend to the necessities of nature. It wasn't Rau lying bound like an animal on the ground trying to ignore the dull ache in his bladder.For that alone I would kill you. As if the Prince needed another sin to stack against the weight of his soul.

Riordan flailed into a sitting position and sat up. "Morning."

He grunted in reply. Watching her with scant interest, he pulled his blanket tighter around his shoulders.

"Sleep well?" She couldn't resist the barb.

Rau glared back at her, his eyes like dark jewels in the scant light. "Tomorrow night you can sleep upright, roped to the largest cactus I can find."

Riordan forced the smile spreading across her face into a bland stare. Not much chance of that. There wasn't a plant of any type for miles. In the scant light she could see the lines of strain beneath his eyes, proof of a night spent in surveillance of his prisoner rather than sleep. Bet you'll not dare to sleep soundly again, my Prince. Serves you right for snoring.

"Since you're up, would you mind--"

The Prince offered her a glower that said, not likely.

"Lot of help it'll be if I die of bladder failure before we reach the mountains."

That got his attention.

Wouldn't want my human failings to interfere with your glorious rule, now would we, Prince?

Rau rose stiffly from the rock he'd been sitting on. Riordan watched him move toward her, grimly satisfied that the cold affected him as much as it had her.

He reached down, scattering the blanket and hauled her to her feet. "Well?" he asked, tearing at the laces on her breeches.

How many times do we have to go through this? Go ahead, humiliate me, Rau. It will only make your demise all the sweeter.

Riordan turned awkwardly on bound legs. For all his manufactured grandeur, Rau was not overly tall. They were almost of a height.

"Rather difficult to do standing up."

He shoved her roughly. "So sit down."

Without hands or feet for balance she fell awkwardly, barely missing a head on collision with a nearby rock.

Rau shot her a look of utter disgust and walked away.

Riordan watched his black boots retreat. Thanks for nothing. It wasn't easy, but she managed to squirm out of her breeches.

Bracing herself against a rock, she accomplished the task without soaking her clothes.

She studied the deep gash cutting across the leather thong that secured her wrists. Sometime today, my Prince, you're going to make a fatal mistake. Heaving herself away from the rock, she struggled back into her breeches. If not today, then tomorrow. It's just me and you. Sooner or later you'll slip.

And then I'll have you.

Wherever Rau's talents lay, it wasn't in the culinary arts. Riordan tried to choke down another of his putrid meals. Over the rim of his own bowl, he studied her. Riordan balanced hers between bound wrists."What I don't understand--"

He sighed heavily. "Do you never stop talking?"

"No."

"Must I bind your mouth as well, then?"

"That would stop me talking," Riordan admitted, then quickly added. "But not thinking."

"Planning my demise, I'd wager."

"Did you think me stupid?"

Blue eyes stared back at her in stony silence. Yet she caught a glimpse of the veiled respect within his gaze, as if he couldn't quite believe she was real. "Of course not, Your Majesty," Rau said patronizingly. "What is it you don't understand?"

Riordan ignored the sarcasm in his tone. "If it was Kanarek you wanted, why did you set it aflame?"

"It wasn't Kanarek I wanted."

"What then?"

"The coast, my good Queen. The entire coast from Kanarek to Golar."

The entire coast, by the Gods! Nowhere in the prophecy was it written that the destruction would stretch along the entire seaboard. Rau's revelation shattered the ice inside. In that moment the fire that the fall of Kanarek had extinguished flickered and came back to life.

Prophecy was merely speculation. Events that could come to be. Those prophesied events would not come to pass, she vowed silently. She would stand in Rau's path. Between Rau and the cities of Kholer and Golar and the coast.

Fire spread through her veins until she no longer felt the cold and the stiffness, felt nothing, but the raging inferno inside. In one brief, brilliant flash she recognized the enormity of what Nhaille had been trying to tell her all those years.

I do not have the luxury of failing.

More than Kanarekii lives stood in the balance. More than Nhaille's or her own. The knowledge only served to stoke the fire within.

And to think I once worried I'd be incapable of killing you, Rau.

Riordan forced her tone of voice back to amiable conversation. She had to keep Rau talking, find out more about his plans.

"Once you have the coast, what will you do with it?"

"Rule it."

"And your father, what of him?"

"He has promised the realm to me."

"He has named you his heir?"

Her question was softly spoken, so she was unprepared for the fury with which Rau leapt to his feet. Sand swirled about her. She dropped her own bowl in an aborted effort to keep it from her eyes.The Prince snatched the bowl from the dirt and thrust it into his saddle bag. "Enough of this nonsense. Get on the horse and stay quiet, or I swear, I will bind your mouth."

At least it would keep the sand from my teeth.

"That, or rip out your tongue," Rau added.

So, Riordan thought as he slung her over the saddle and climbed up behind her, after his brilliant campaign in Hael's name, Prince Rau could not be certain of his father's goodwill. She filed that notion in her memory for future reference.

What a scholar of human nature I'm becoming. Nhaille would be proud of her observance--if he ever forgave her for not sacrificing his life to get at Rau.

Of all the killing that lies before me, you couldn't be the first, Nhaille.

Sand thinned, barely covering the glassy rock beneath. The mountains took up steadily more of the sky. Once there, Rau would expect her to lead him to the Sword's tomb.

So he can chop off my head with it.

Riordan watched the thinning sand beneath the horses hooves. The motion was mesmerizing. Eventually the swaying lulled her into blessed numbness.

# Why in the Seven Heavens must the Kanarekii myth have the face of an angel and a tongue to charm vipers? She had a beauty as hard-edged as crystal, yet a disarming easy nature that came, he guessed, from growing up in exile and not in the stifling protocol of court.

Damn it all, why did she have to be real? Why, when the rest of the campaign had gone so well, did Riordan-Khun-Caryn have to come crashing into his life and threaten to destroy it all?

Just as he got past his father's doubt, the reluctance of the council, he'd remove this new obstacle as well. He need only seize the Sword to guarantee his victory. As far as the Kanarekii myth was concerned, his father would be none the wiser. Once he returned home victorious with the entire coast under Hael's rule no questions would be asked. The last surviving member of the Khun-Caryn clan would help him achieve it.

There could be no greater irony.

Rau looked down at her sleeping form slumped over the horse before him and smiled. For all her other faults, the new Queen had a pleasing form. He'd been so busy with his campaign, he hadn't had time for women. She was at his mercy. He could do with her what he willed.

A diversion he had not the time for, he thought with a disappointed sigh. Nothing must keep him from his chosen path. Kanarek's Queen could wait until the coast was won. He need not destroy her to win the Sword.

No, he thought with a decisive nod, the Kanarekii was a challenge worthy of him, a welcome distraction from the messy affairs of state. Taming her spirit was a task he would enjoy.

After all, the loss of her tongue would not destroy her other virtues.

# Riordan raced through the crystal labyrinth. Magenta corridors stretched in all directions. The polished floors offered no purchase for the leather soles of her boots and she slipped more than once, crashing into the walls of jutting quartz. She gained her feet and ran on. It was desperately important she reach the chamber at the center of the mountain.

The floor sloped upward, and she knew she'd taken the wrong corridor. She turned back, retracing her own footsteps.

To find the passageway blocked.

Doan-Rau towered over her. His laughter shook the mountain to the core.

Wrong, all wrong, she thought desperately. Doan-Rau was no taller than she. She should be the one blocking his passage to the Sword's chamber. Yet, caught in the vision's web, she was powerless to stop the events from tumbling into motion.

Rau swooped toward her. Riordan darted out of reach. His hands closed on thin air. He cursed vehemently. She felt his warm breath as he passed her in the cold chamber. Trapped, she had no choice but to plan her own defense.

Her foot shot out, catching Rau across the stomach. With a gasp, he doubled up. She raced past him.

His cruel laughter followed her through the corridors.