"No," Nhaille said quietly. "It's not too much to ask. But for your own safety I must refuse."

That much admitted, he'd give her no more. Riordan read her defeat in his expression and refused to acknowledge it. She looked him levelly in the eye. "Hear me Nhaille. I will go to Kanarek. With or without you."

# Damn! There were times when he dearly wanted to throttle her. Would have, except that she had his heart wrapped around her little finger. He could never let her know that. Nhaille sighed deeply, most of the time she didn't even realize it. Going to Kanarek was folly. But he couldn't let her ride into the city alone, oblivious to the dangers she faced.

How could he deny her that first and perhaps last look at her home? Especially considering the task before her. He glanced over at her, her face set in that grim line that so reminded him of her father.

Only a brave man would cross her in such a mood, he thought with a brief smile. But he knew the ferocious expression merely hid the terror inside her. He watched the emotions flash across her face. Anger, terror, and finally cold acceptance.

She was holding up surprisingly well. Duty was a concept she understood--he'd made certain of that. For nineteen years, he'd worried that when the moment came, she'd crumble beneath the enormity of the task thrust upon her.

This stoic silence was not what he expected. Though he could see the horror lingering beneath her calm veneer, she choked it down, covering it in a layer of stiff formality eerily reminiscent of his friend and King. He would almost have preferred her tears, her rage against the weight of this crushing obligation.

And I thought I knew you, Riordan.

The Riordan who rode beside him was a stranger. A strangely alluring and beautiful stranger. He longed for the child he'd known, so he could hold her in his arms and promise he'd make it all right.

A blatant lie. Taking the woman beside him into his arms brought its own uncomfortable imaginings. And no way in the Seven Heavens would it be all right. Not unless he could stop the passage of time, reach back through the ages, unmake the Sword and Riordan unborn. The very best he could hope for was a speedy death for them both. Wielding the Sword had its own dark pitfalls--that he had yet to share with Riordan.

Forgive me, he thought desperately, for the ways I've misled you.

In a matter of hours, the child he'd raised had grown into a woman before his eyes. The walls were up around her. He may never be invited inside.

It was amazing how quickly the imperial tone had crept into her voice, her mannerisms, as if she'd grown up in the palace with its protocol and courtiers.

Surely this couldn't be the same Riordan who could barely make it through a meal without fidgeting--who sat statue-still upon her horse, staring into the darkness, her face closed upon her thoughts. Nhaille's frown deepened.

He didn't want to go to Kanarek. It would tear his heart in two to look upon the ruin of his city. He pictured Riordan staring out over the ruin of her kingdom with that calm expression quietly accepting it all.

And that would truly break his heart.

Folly in the extreme to venture anywhere near Kanarek. They ought to be half way across the plains of Kor-Koraan by now. But Riordan needed to look upon the demolition of her city with her own eyes, to know for certain all that was written in the prophecy was true. He couldn't deny her this one last mercy. Not when she'd been denied so much else.

She was her father's daughter after all. He'd never been able to refuse his King, either.

Damn, he thought. And damn again.

# Muffled sounds seemed to come from far away. Shouted orders, the dull slap of boots against cobblestone. Bevan stirred.

Neurons fired intermittently. Sporadic thoughts flashed into his consciousness. Danger, terror, pain. In some lost chamber of his mind he remembered the concepts but feeling deteriorated into a dull haze.

Get up!The voice echoed inside his mind. He tried to ignore it, content to linger in this cottony-filled world of nothingness. But it nagged at him, urging him to follow its insistent command.

He ran his swollen tongue over cracked lips, trying to rid himself of the sour taste of rot. Clotted blood filled his mouth. Flakes of drying blood covered the side of his face and encrusted the collar of his shirt. I'm dying, he thought in one brief, lucid flash. No, his mind calmly replied, I'm dead.

Get up! A boot collided with his side. The blow lifted his shoulder off the ground. He felt the impact but not the expected pain. A low moan issued from his flattened lungs. Bevan opened his eyes.

Half the world was dark, the rest blurry and out of focus as if the entire landscape was under water. He blinked, out of reflex, it did nothing to clear the clouds in his vision.

The order became desire. Deadened limbs sluggishly complied.

Walk.

Bevan lurched forward. Walking. His body remembered, obeyed. Brief snatches of memory told him he wasn't always this shambling slave. For an instant he felt the overwhelming loss of that life, but the voice in his head drowned out the rest of his thoughts.

The odor of decay rose up around him, impossible to ignore, even through his numbed senses. Swiveling his head to see through that one, clouded eye, he made out the tattered shapes of his former countrymen, staggering in rough formation. Like a plague, they poured past the city gates and out into the unsuspecting countryside.

The sight triggered the spark of an image. Fire. Shouting. Danger. Something important he ought to remember.

But in the end the thought eluded him. He marched with the others through the city gates and into the searing afternoon sun.

# The indigo sky gradually gave way to turquoise, darkness to amber light. Riordan ran a hand across gritty eyes and wished wholeheartedly for the familiar comfort of her bed. It would be a long time before she slept in a bed again, she thought regretfully.

Longer still before she would rest without nightmares haunting her sleep.

Lack of sleep didn't seem to bother Nhaille any more than the chafing armor. She glanced over at him, seemingly impervious to any of the discomfort she was suffering and secretly hated him. She had no doubt he could sleep quite peacefully upright in the saddle.

Exhaustion dulled the terror, combining everything into one great discomfort. That made it all bearable, Riordan thought, steadfastly refusing to consider anything beyond getting through the next few hours.

Green hills gave way to flat grassy plains. Farming land. They rode past quiet cottages that sat among fields of grain. Lands that paid tribute to Kanarek. Her father's territory.

No, my territory. Riordan pushed the thought from her mind.

It will only be my land, if I win it back from Hael.

If I survive, she corrected.

"Not far now," Nhaille said. He studied her briefly and frowned.

"I'm okay," she said quickly.The frown deepened.

"I have to see it, Nhaille. I have to know."

He nodded and turned away. Rounding the last bend, he gestured to the city that had once dominated the skyline.

"Look then, there it is."

Riordan straightened in the saddle and beheld what remained of her kingdom.

The sun festered on the horizon like an ugly sore, bleeding and running with the black clouds of the dismal morning. Soot hung heavily in the air, blanketing everything from the smoldering ruins to the charred remnants of farmers' fields. Riordan turned her horse in a slow circle, taking in everything that lay in the radius of her vision.

In the fields, the scorched remains of wheat and corn thrust their barren stalks toward an unforgiving sky. The charred corpses of sheep and oxen lay among the ransacked fields. Yet the leagues of bodies that should have lain in gutter and square were conspicuously absent.

Where once towering marble gates had marked the entrance to Kanarek, a heap of rubble now made passage impossible.

Beyond the wreckage of the avenue a massive bonfire still burned. Within its smoldering embers, Riordan could make out the burning form of a massive carved throne.

My father's. She tried to picture the imposing figure of the King and failed. In a panic, she tried again, but her father's face flickered in her mind's eye then disappeared.

Did you truly ever think it would come to this? But he wasn't there to answer her question.

An eerie quiet settled over the once bustling metropolis, broken only by the crackle of the flames and the low whine of the sickly breeze.

No dying cries were carried on the wind. No rats scurried through the untended fields. Nothing broke the stillness save for the snap of a twig succumbing to the flames.

"Riordan," Nhaille said gently, breaking into her thoughts. "We can't stay here, it isn't safe."

She nodded, afraid to speak, afraid to twitch so much as a muscle lest the scream inside her work its way free.

A shadow swept over the hills toward them, followed by the sure thunder of hooves. Nhaille's head came up at the sound. Danger flashed in his eyes followed swiftly by what she took to be the accusation that it was her orders that had brought them here. The instinct for self-preservation took over. Turning Strayhorn sharply, she bolted for cover in a thatch of nearby trees.

Stormback followed closely on Strayhorn's heels. They reached cover just as the first of the riders crested the hill. Nhaille maneuvered his mount in closely beside her. Riordan chewed the corner of her lip and waited.

A battalion of plumed Haelian riders plunged over the hill, trampling all that lay in their path. Every muscle in her body clenched, fighting the urge to rush from cover and take as many heads as she could lay across the path of her sword.

That may win you a few Haelian scalps, but it won't bring back Kanarek. Nhaille's right. Our only hope is the Sword.

The riders disappeared in a cloud of dust. Riordan gathered the reins. Nhaille's hand shot out, holding her in place.

And then she heard it.

Sound reached into her memory, dragging her back in time. To the summer day much like this one, when she'd come between a goat and the butcher's knife. She'd thrown off his aim and the animal had screamed in agony until Riordan had been dragged from the barn and the butcher allowed to finish the job. That dying scream was merely one note among the chorus she heard now.

Like an invisible fog, a choking stench nearly made Riordan cough out loud. A cloud of flies swarmed lazily over the hill.

The flat wailing crested the hill. Riordan opened her eyes, realizing suddenly they'd been screwed tightly closed.

You knew this moment was coming. Open your eyes and look.

Resolutely, she turned her head to face the nightmare that awaited her.

At first glance, she couldn't see anything amiss. But as the bedraggled soldier lurched down the slope of the hill, she noted the awkward movements, the flat staring eye.

Sunlight flashed upon the stake of amber impaled through his right eye into the brain. Riordan forced herself to look beyond this first horrid spectacle. Behind the first soldier crept the rest of Kanarek's dead.

The pressure of Nhaille's hand intensified, warning her against sudden noise or movement. She dragged in a shaky breath, refusing to look away from what remained of her subjects.

They came in pairs of two or three, staggering on in loose formation. Shop keepers still wearing their tattered aprons, stone masons, smiths, women, mutilated children bearing kitchen knives.

Clouded eyes stared out from blood-streaked faces. Tatters of clothing fluttered in the breeze like dirty laundry. Some rode on emaciated horses, others lumbered after them on foot.

Then in the center, Riordan saw a blaze of light.

Nhaille's hand covered her mouth as the gasp burst from her lips. She bit her lip, tasting blood. And still she could not tear her attention from the figure who rode past her, separated by only a space of grass and the insubstantial barrier of trees.

Even in death he sat straight upon his cadaverous mount. His shining black hair was caked with dust and the ruddy stains of drying blood. The wounds on his body were hidden by his cloak, but the skeletal hands that gripped the reins were streaked with dirt.

On his head, like some tasteless joke, sat his gold diadem.

As though he somehow sensed her presence, his head turned slowly in her direction. Riordan whimpered low in her throat. Nailed through her father's once jet black eye was a stake of amber.

Hot tears blurred her vision, threatening to spill onto her cheeks. Riordan fought the overwhelming impulse to surrender to grief. If she cried, all would be lost.

Scalding tears cooled. The rapid thump of her heart stilled. The urge to cry froze within her, turning her blood to ice.

With forced calmness, she watched until the last cadaver disappeared over the summit of the next hill. Nhaille dropped his hand from her mouth. Riordan licked blood from the corner of her lip.

"They will pay for this." Her words were the barest whisper. "I'll not rest until Hael lies in rubble and the head of its heir sits on a stake before the city gates."

"Riordan--"

A harsh shout cut off the last of Nhaille's sentence. As one they whirled, to find two Haelian riders galloping up the hill toward them.

"They've seen us!" Nhaille hissed. She saw the flash of his sword, found her own in her hand. Having no other choice, they plummeted down the slope toward the soldiers.

Grinding her spurs into Strayhorn's flank, she raced past Nhaille. The eyes of the first Haelian widened in shock as he caught a glimpse of the crazed woman careening down the hill toward him.

For a fleeting moment he debated standing his ground. Thinking better of it, he turned tail and fled. Riordan urged Strayhorn relentlessly onward. The warhorse obeyed, bearing down on the hapless soldier like Jaador, God of Retribution himself.

Nhaille's shouts echoed in her ears. Her impulsiveness could get them both killed. She knew it well, but couldn't think past the blinding wave of fury inside. With the sum of her strength she swung. The effort nearly unseated her, but she felt her sword strike bone.

Impact reverberated up her arm, jarring her from wrist to shoulder. She swung again, ignoring her helmet as it slid from her head, freeing her mane of of silver hair.

As if from a distance she watched in cold horror as her sword clove the Haelian's head from his shoulders. His plumed helmet sailed into the morning sun, coming to rest part way down the hill.

Still bearing the body of its headless rider, the Haelian's warhorse raced off on its previous course. His partner stared at the headless horseman and bolted for the cover of a nearby patch of forest. Riordan chased after him.

Ground flew by beneath Strayhorn's hooves as he followed the narrow, twisting path. But the Haelian soldier had the lead and he vanished under the cover of the trees. A fence of green obscured her view. Within seconds she realized she'd lost him.

A gloved hand seized the reins. She gasped staring up at Nhaille suddenly beside her.

"It's too late, Riordan." Nhaille looked nervously around them. "They've seen us now. We have no choice but to ride for the desert and hope we make it to the crystal mountains in time."

Riordan dragged in a breath, waiting for the shudders of hysteria she was sure would follow. In dazed confusion she stared down at her bloody sword, seeing it, yet feeling nothing.

Nothing but the cold darkness inside.

CHAPTER FIVE