Riordan shook the clinging hands of hatred from her mind. "How am I going to wield the Sword without repeating the Shraal's mistake?"

"You could start," he said sharply, "by remembering what's at stake."

The romantic moment had passed. Nhaille the teacher, Nhaille the Captain had replaced the lover she'd so briefly caught a glimpse of. Riordan shook her head, wondering how he managed to keep such wildly differing emotions in separate little pockets in his mind.

"Concentrate?" she offered. "The way you taught me to do in combat."

"Like it or not." He shot her a pointed glance. "You cannot allow your thoughts to become scattered while you wield the Sword.

No by hatred, nor revenge. You must have a clear mind for this, Riordan."

She read the subtext in his words. Not by hate, nor by love. Have it your way, Nhaille. What will you do if the war ends with us both alive?

"Forgive me for wanting a few moments to myself."

Nhaille let loose a sigh of exasperation. "It isn't that, Riordan. Your tendency toward impulsiveness is more than just a personality trait. It could mean Kanarek's undoing."

His words stung. More so because she recognized the truth in them. She fiddled with the laces of her armor and regarded him from beneath her visor.

"This dark path on which you've set yourself can lead only to ruin."

Riordan accepted the blow with all the grace she could summon. If she allowed her hatred for Doan-Rau to overwhelm her once the Sword was unsheathed, she might forget she fought for Kanarek's salvation and kill them all. "I do hear you, Nhaille."

"Good. Then learn from your mistake."

"I'm listening."

Not for the first time she pitied the men who'd served under him early in his career. She knew from experience the King's Captain could be a ruthless teacher.

"You have already deduced that the Sword channels power from the earth. But it is guided by the energy of the person who wields it. If you waste thoughts on hate and revenge, the Sword will use them against you. And ultimately for its own purpose."

"I must focus my thoughts." A smile spread slowly across her face. "Like when I used that piece of glass to focus the sunlight and burn ants out by the barn."

"Cruel of you. The ants did you no harm."

"You don't spare the same sympathy for Haelians, I gather?"

"No."

"That was a joke, Nhaille. It was supposed to be funny.""We have no time for humor," he shot back. Still in a bad mood from their argument, and she suspected, for his own actions the night before.

Riordan groaned. It seemed Nhaille was determined to spend the rest of the day in the dark mood he got up in.

"We haven't declared war on Hael yet," she pointed out.

Nhaille wiped at the sweat that was dripping from his eyebrows into his eyes. "Not yet. First, we need an army."

# The crystal landscape wept by in a pastel blur. Rau noticed vaguely when the scenery turned from quartz to fine sand, and then to desert. Mercilessly, he put the spurs to his warhorse, praying that along with the rest of his bad luck, he wouldn't lame the stallion before he reached civilization.

Viciously, Rau cursed the human failings that made him stop for sleep each night. He cursed his warhorse for needing to be fed and tended. Such things took time, the one commodity he didn't have. With each minute lost the Haelian throne slipped a little further from his grasp.

Failure roared in his ears, taunting his every waking moment, reaching even into his dreams. He'd ambitiously sought after the greatest prize of all.

For the first time in his life, he'd failed.

Defeat sat sourly in his stomach.

His glorious victory had been planned in minute detail. First, the Amber, then Kanarek, after that the coast. But like something from a minstrel's song, a myth had come riding out of the history books. And she'd tossed the most dangerous of all weapons into the equation.

In doing so, she'd thrown his best laid plans to the wind.

How had it happened? What vital clue had he missed?

Through the Amber, he could hear the whisper of a myriad souls. The volume increased with every step he took. Rau realized with a sharp stab of dismay that in his bid to win for himself both the Amber and the Sword, he hadn't focused enough of his attention on controlling the Amber.

Hindsight showed him his errors in painful clarity. He should have crushed Kanarek, Kholer and Golar to ruins, then waited for the Kanarekii myth to catch up with him. Even the Sword of Zal-Azaar would have been powerless in the wake of such destruction.

And his father would have had no recourse but to grant him the throne.

Instead he dashed off across the desert, desperate to keep news of Kanarek's Queen and her fabled weapon from reaching his father's ears. Without his leadership, who knew how things had fared in Kholer. Desperate to get his hands on the Sword, he hadn't given much thought to whether Larz had a strong enough constitution to use the Amber.

What if Kholer was lost?

He'd spent far too much time out of touch. Errors multiplied in his absence.

Within the cries of a multitude of souls, he heard a single clear note.

The Sword was drawn. Nothing he could do about it now. The entire landscape thrummed with the its pulse. It tugged at the edges of his consciousness, pulled at the tides of his blood. Even the amber shard at his neck vibrated in greeting. Like opposite ends of a magnet, complementary wizardries rushed toward each other in the most dangerous of all attractions. War.

As he raced back over his steps, he felt the storm gathering behind him. Like lightning, its influence crackled across the landscape.

The war would not see its end until one of the great powers lay in ashes. A fool, he'd been. He saw that clearly now.

Damn Riordan-Khun-Caryn and the Shraal blood that ran in her veins. Rau spat into the dust that lay in a thin layer over the crystal landscape. Before him in the distance lay the desert. Crossing it in defeat did not seem as inviting a prospect as it had when the promise of victory lay ahead. The Kanarekii Queen would pay dearly for his torment.

"I pray you've made me proud, Larz," he whispered to the sifting wind that swirled dust around the legs of his warhorse.

Never should he have left his life's work in the hands of another. He'd risked life, limb and his command for the Kanarekii heirloom, the Sword of Zal-Azaar. And she snatched it from right out of his hands.

"An inconvenience," he muttered aloud. Nothing more. Even if they met in battle, with the Amber behind him, he was certain to be victorious.

"Let's see if you're still so proud of yourself when you've had a taste of Haelian magic, Your Majesty."

Should have rammed that stake of amber into her brain while he had the chance.

Not to worry. He had only to be patient. Another opportunity would present itself.

# Smoke. All around him. Enough to sting even tearless eyes. Enough to force long flattened lungs to heave in distress.

Deep in the caverns of his failing memory, he recalled smoke such as this. It meant something significant, even buried beneath the cotton batten in his brain.

Screams rose up around him in a dying chorus. Where had he last seen a city reduced to smoldering timber, its population cut down in their homes, their fields? His failing mind matched the images. For a second there was a break in the Amber's hold on him. For a moment it was all diamond clear.

Kanarek.

He'd watched the fiends from Hael come marching through the city gates with his own eyes. Nothing could stem the flow of their destruction as they bled into Kanarekii territory. And in that one, brilliant second, Bevan remembered suddenly what he was.

A pathetic dead thing, even now rotting in the glare of the sun. A puppet for the Haelian fiend who had stolen his life and his home.

Around him, he saw himself mirrored in a multitude of other mutilated faces. Tilting his head to see through the blurry vision of his left eye, he regarded his filthy stained clothes, the creeping blackness of his deteriorating flesh, and knew he'd become the instrument of their own destruction.

The knowledge rekindled his forgotten conscience. Regret sliced through him. Pain followed swiftly.

Life had always seemed to him a precious gift. Dimly, he remembered the feel of life: the joy of running through an open meadow, freedom, love. He stared at the devastation around him, at the lumbering shadows he knew were his fellow slaves. This travesty wasn't life, but some cruel imitation to further Hael's interests. It must be stopped.

Throwing back his head, he uttered a soundless scream of defiance.

Around him, he noticed several of the other shadows milling aimlessly. The voice in his mind dropped to a low murmur. Consciousness came and went, like sticking gears now and then catching their grooves.

Something along the chain of command had gone terribly wrong. Bevan fought to stay with the foggy thoughts of his failing mind.

In the depths of his being a tiny spark was ignited. Human thoughts caught the flame. A great wrong had been committed.

Just as he remembered life, Bevan remembered hatred.

Suddenly Bevan wanted revenge.

With the last of his awareness he thought, Now's my chance.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"So where are we going to get an army?"

Riordan was dismayed to realized that until now, her thoughts had been focused on selfish matters: the cruelty of her fate, her fledgling romance with Nhaille. Even finding the Sword had come a distant second, until she had been kidnapped by Doan-Rau.

Locating the Sword was where her plans ended. She hadn't expected to succeed, honestly hadn't expected to live that long.

Guess there's something to be said for long range planning. Rau's scathing remarks about her strategic ability stung even in memory. More so because deep down she knew he was right.

"It might please you to know your father was neither stupid, blind nor idle."

Nhaille's voice revealed his anger at her condemnation of his King. And the comment hurt. She hadn't meant to accuse her father of either crime. He'd paid dearly enough for his decision to wait to see if the prophecy unfolded.

"The Kanarekii underground has been active since you were born. A mechanism for a counter-strike is in place. With the Sword at our disposal, we finally have the resources to put your father's plans into action. Hopefully enough of our countrymen survived to assist us."

She regarded the space between Strayhorn's ears, refusing to meet Nhaille's eyes.

"He did the best he could for you under the circumstances."

Dead staring eyes accused her. Could it be that he'd cared after all? Enough to send her beyond harm's reach? Enough to sacrifice his most capable officer to protect her. Perhaps in the beginning he hadn't believed, but he'd put the skeleton of a rebellion in place anyway.

And prayed he was wrong.

"You inherited his greatest burden and his deepest sorrow, but he did love you, Riordan."

"He never knew me, Nhaille.""Yes he did. He watched you from afar. He was certain that if any of his children could accomplish such a thing, it would be you."

"The one time he came to see me, all he did was shout at me. How do you think that felt? He could have spared me a moment of compassion. At least then I would have known I was loved."

"He was a desperate man. He feared his love would weaken you."

"I was just a child." Her pale eyes flashed at him. "It was unfair to treat me that way."

"You were never just a child, Riordan. You were our only hope."

"I wasn't allowed to be a child. That's the truth of it, isn't it, Nhaille?"

"Unfortunately that is so." He offered her a hopeful glance. "Perhaps when the worst of this is over, you will have a chance to do some of the things you wanted to do with your life."

"If I live long enough." She slammed her fist against her thigh. "You've all looked to me for your salvation. Whose shoulder am I going to lean on in my desperation?"

He set his jaw against the wound she dealt him. "I am here, Riordan," he said quietly.

She bit her tongue against the tears. Apparently it was not destined to go well between them today. An extra cruelty after the tenderness of the previous night. Damned if she'd cry again over her lot in life.

But she did want to mend things with Nhaille, to foster again more of those feelings of tenderness.

"Kayr, I'm sorry."

His jaw tightened at the sound of his name, but he nodded curtly in receipt of her apology. Why? she wondered. Why did his given name make him flinch as if she'd struck him?

"I ought to stop pitying myself."

"It merely wastes more time and accomplishes nothing."

"Surely even The Queen is allowed the odd bad day."

"Unfortunately, Riordan, exemplary behavior is expected of The Queen."