Riordan nodded, her arms tightening around him. "I will not rest until I do."

She spent the rest of the night tossing and muttering to herself. After watching her, Nhaille slept almost as poorly.

The first amber rays of light had yet to touch the sky when he awoke with a start. A shadow sat between him and the slash of gray that would become the dawn. Nhaille's hand closed upon his sword.

The shadow moved, turning into the half-light, becoming Riordan. Relief sent him collapsing against his pallet. Cold ground aggravated the stiffness caused by days in the saddle. Nhaille ground his teeth against the litany of aches and pains and cursed the youth that seemed to have fled without his notice.

"Riordan, it's not yet dawn."

"I know."

He leapt to his feet, ignoring the stiffness, the miscellaneous pains. "Something wrong?""Yes."

Her voice was distant as if she involved only half her mind in their conversation.

"What is it?"

He noticed the sword in his hand, not even conscious of having drawn it.

"You were right. Going to Kanarek was a grave mistake. We've lost most of a day's ride."

Her words chilled him more than the cold. In nineteen years, he couldn't ever remember her admitting to being wrong. So entirely un-Riordan like. He blinked, sheathed the sword and accepted a cup of steaming tea from her outstretched hand. Riordan took up residence beside the fire and regarded the map she'd obviously been studying for some time.

"Is there another way besides across the plains?" she asked after a time.

"Not unless we go by way of the ruins of Bayorek. But that would take us weeks out of our way. We don't have time."

"No, we don't. But we'll be easy marks on the desert basin."

Where had this mind for strategy come from? Nhaille took a sip of scalding tea. "Right you are."

"So speed is our best approach. Once we have the Sword in our keeping, we'll have more options."

In actuality, we'll have less. But he couldn't bring himself to tell her that just yet, so he merely nodded mutely.

"We'd best break camp then."

Nhaille moved toward her, unsure whether he should touch her. She practically bristled with her own anguish. He knelt before her and grasped her gently by the shoulders.

"We'll get there, Riordan."

But she merely stared down at the map before her, tracing their path across the plains of Kor-Koraan with the tip of her finger.

He released her. Forcing himself awake, he reached for his own kit. "Just give me a minute and we'll be on our way.

# Grass gave way to scrubby brush, which in turn degenerated into sand dunes. The sun blazed on the glittering sand, reflecting itself back at them, doubling its efforts. Seemingly endless plains made Riordan feel exposed and vulnerable. She caught herself hunching down in the saddle, as if to make herself invisible.

Blowing grit worked its way into her mouth, the corners of eyes, and into each fold of skin. Staring into the constant glare gave her a headache. Yet, in their own way, these minor discomforts were a blessing. It kept her mind off a multitude of other horrors.

In spite of the glare, her father's mutilated face swam before her mind's eye. Each time she lay down to sleep, she saw him in the darkness, staring off into the distance, a pawn to do Hael's bidding.

What a cruel irony. Had he known? She wondered if he'd given any thought to his own fate beyond making provisions to save his city.

You left that to me. Did you actually think I was capable of it, my father? Or was I just a last desperate measure?

The pain of loss, the hopelessness of the deed she faced, tore at her. Nhaille flitted on the periphery of her consciousness, anxious to offer what solace he could. Though she longed for the feel of his strong arms around her, for the first time in her life she couldn't allow anyone to make it better. She couldn't allow anything to weaken the will to do what she must.

Exhausting heat and lack of sleep caught up with her. She dozed in the saddle, coming to herself seconds later, conscious of Nhaille's anxious eyes upon her. The blinding glare became her entire world. She stared at it, reassured by its constant agony.

The prism of light shifted, tinged toward magenta. Riordan blinked.

Columns of crystal towered over her, reaching into shadows high above her head. Smaller stubby crystals stuck out at all angles from the wall. The floor was polished as smooth as glass. Around her, the air vibrated in a single harmonic note.

Distantly, Riordan could still feel Strayhorn's steady gait beneath her, even as she gazed down that tunnel of magenta quartz. Not a tunnel, a cave, her mind suggested.

A soft tread echoed through the corridors like a whisper. Riordan fled down the halls of crystal. Above all, she couldn't let him overtake her. Something she sought desperately lay at the center of those labyrinthine passageways. She must reach it first.

With a furtive glance over her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of a black-clad form. A clasp of amber secured the neck of his cloak. A red plume decorated his helmet. His visor obscured his face, but somehow she found that she knew him. And while she raced through the corridors, he moved steadily toward her. As if he had all the time in world.

The hum increased, leading her onward. She ran toward it, gasping for breath. The hallway belched her into a massive chamber, polished to a blinding gleam. Raising a hand to shield her eyes, Riordan looked to the glowing beam in its center.

As if pulled on an invisible string, she was across the floor before she became conscious of moving. Thrusting her hand into the brilliance, her fingers closed on cool stone.

He burst across the threshold. Riordan whirled. In that instant she saw the blue eyes that bored out from beneath his visor like jewels. Too late to stop the arc of her swing. His aborted scream echoed through the crystal hallways. She screamed herself as the plumed helm rolled across the floor.

Empty eyes blinked reflexively at her, already glazing over. Riordan looked in horror at the sword she held in her hand. In disgust she tried to thrust it away from her, but her fingers refused to open. Seemingly of its own accord, the head slid along the floor, inching closer to the Sword.

A flash of light blinded her to all else. When her vision cleared, the head and the mutilated body were gone. In her mind she heard his soul's soundless scream.

And then his laughter in her mind.

Riordan lurched to her senses with a gasp. Carefully, she avoided Nhaille's probing gaze.

"You'd do us both a service if you'd sleep at night rather than sitting up studying maps," he said quietly.

She looked at him then, noting the cool arrogance in his green eyes. I don't have to take this, I'm the Queen. A pang of guilt swiftly followed the thought. Nhaille was the only friend she'd ever had.

"I wasn't asleep."

He raised his eyebrows.

"I saw something."

"The sun plays tricks on the sand.""It wasn't a mirage. I saw it in my mind."

His eyes narrowed.

Riordan took a deep breath. He wouldn't believe her. Nhaille believed nothing beyond his own experience, nothing he couldn't see with his own eyes, touch with his own hands. He'd think she was cracking under the strain. To be quite honest, I'm not so sure that's not the case. He was still staring at her, his expression a combination of suspicion and worry. She'd only seen a look like that once, when she was seriously ill. Daring his scorn and anger, she plunged into the tale.

"I was running...through this crystal cave. Someone followed me, someone whose face I couldn't see. All I knew was that I just had to get to the chamber at the end of the tunnel. Then suddenly, I was standing in this shining room. Whatever I was searching for was embedded in a block of crystal, but I couldn't see it because it shone so brightly. I reached for it.

"Suddenly he was there, the one who chased me. I turned toward him, but it was a sword in my hand, and--"

Nhaille froze. "And what?"

He wasn't laughing the way she'd expected him to. He should be telling her it was just a moment of delusion brought on by the heat and lack of sleep. He should be admonishing her for wasting his time with a fanciful tale. He should be doing anything but staring at her with that look of concern on his face.

"And I--I killed him." Riordan scanned his face, taking in the lines of worry at the sides of his mouth. "That's when it got really strange. The body disappeared into the Sword. Then I heard him laughing...in my mind," she finished.

His frown deepened.

"What do you think it means?"

"What?"

"The vision," she said, impatiently.

"I place no stock in such things," he snapped, much too quickly.

"You believed the prophecy."

"Your father believed the prophecy."

"And you did not?"

"I did not say that. Your father was my King. It was enough that I do as he bid me."

"Would you do the same for me?"

His expression shifted to wariness. "I am your servant, Your Majesty." An odd sadness weighed his tone.

"Then hear me out, Nhaille."

Nhaille nodded but offered no comment, only continued to stare at her with that pained look of concern.

"He had a tall plume on his helmet. And a clasp of amber on his cloak."

He reined Stormback sharply to a halt.

She jumped at the sudden movement. "What?" she asked looking back at him. "Don't tell me you know such a person.""I do know of such a person," Nhaille said slowly.

"Who is he?"

This time it was Nhaille's turn to look uncomfortable. "Doan-Rau...of Hael."

"Doan-Rau." Riordan tried to summon another glimpse of phantom from her vision. It was suddenly desperately important to have an image of the warrior-prince who had annihilated her family, leveled her city. Know your enemy, Nhaille was fond of saying.

"Somehow I never thought he'd be young."

She'd pictured him middle-aged. Older than Nhaille. It made it all the worse to think someone of her own generation could coldheartedly create such destruction, that someone her age could have such callous disregard for life.

"Nhaille?"

Within the shadows cast by his visor, his green eyes flickered upward to lock with hers.

"Is it written anywhere...that he who bears the Sword of Zal-Azaar feels the loss of the souls it kills? That those souls don't migrate to Al-Gomar, but live in the mind of the Sword's bearer?"

He didn't want to tell her. She could tell by the way his eyes searched the surrounding dunes, hunting for a way out of the conversation.

"Riordan," he said finally. "There are a good many things I have yet to tell you."

# Doan-Rau stared into the glittering sea of diamonds.

As if my life wasn't complicated enough. Now this new development.

Somewhere in the basin was the phantom that haunted him. So the old man Gamaliel was not the lunatic he'd imagined, after all.

Questions tormented him. What if his father got word of the Princess? What if word reached the already disillusioned army? What if Kholer got word before he could head off this disaster in the making?

No matter, he decided. The Kanarekii Princess was merely another of the annoyances to be tolerated and promptly dispatched.

With the Princess gone, nothing would stand in the way of his quest. His divine calling.

The coast will be mine. My reward for the injustices I've endured.

But in order to achieve the prize he so desired, he must first rid himself of a legend.

I should be on my way to Kholer. Perhaps Larz was right. He ought to have brought a troop of Haelian soldiers with him. But that had its own dangers. He couldn't afford to let the secret out. This is but a short detour. The fires of Kanarek were merely a few days cold. How far could they possibly get? His mind nagged at him that if he'd had half the brain for strategy he bragged about, he'd have thought of hunting down the Kanarekii Princess first.

Who besides Gamaliel would have wasted the time fighting a myth? He couldn't have known, he assured himself. According to legend, not even her own siblings had laid eyes upon the Princess.

He sorely missed Larz's tracking skills. Not to mention the Captain's dry humor and quiet acceptance. Acceptance his own father refused to bestow on his oldest son.No matter. When the coast is mine his acceptance will no longer matter. Not even my father will be able to deny my brilliance.

Taking a brief sip from his canteen, Rau smiled to himself. They will sing my praises to Golar and beyond.

Maybe not my praises, he added with a sharp laugh out loud. But it will be my likeness upon their coins, and my standard flown above their cities.

Rau fingered the spike of amber in the pouch at his belt, cousin to the broach at the neck of his cloak. And I shall place the Kanarekii Princess beside her father at the head of my Army of the Dead.

After all, it's only right that families stay together.

Rau laughed maniacally at his own humor.

# Nhaille hadn't uttered a word in hours. Not since she'd recklessly blurted out that foolishness about the vision. Instead he listened to the wind, his dark brows drawn, his mouth a grim line. She concentrated, but whatever caught Nhaille's attention eluded her.

Surely they couldn't be after us so soon.

He straightened in the saddle, and she watched as his expression darkened from somber to murderous.