Iome remembered that comment well. For her impertinence, her father had administered a firm spanking in the presence of King Orden, then locked her in her room for a day without food or water. Iome had never regretted the remark.

Her face burned with embarrassment. She'd often felt torn between admiration and loathing for King Orden. In ways, he cut a heroic figure. Mendellas Draken Orden was powerful, a stubborn king, and it was rumored that he fought well in battle. For two decades he'd kept the Northern kingdoms united. A glance from him would cow many a would-be tyrant, and with a curt word he could insure that a prince would fall out of favor with his own father.

Some called him the Kingmaker. Others called him the Puppet Master. The truth was, Orden had been making himself into a man of heroic proportions for a reason. Like the Runelords of old, he had to become more than human because his enemies were more than human.

"Forgive me those words," Iome said. "Your father did not deserve such chastisement from a self-righteous nine-year-old girl."

"Forgive it?" Prince Gaborn answered. "What is to forgive? I agreed with you. Perhaps a thousand years ago, there was reason for our ancestors to put one another to the indignity of the forcibles. But the reaver invasions are long past. The only reason you and I are Runelords is because we were born into this 'shameful economy'! I was so intrigued by your comment that I asked my father to repeat every word you had ever uttered in his presence, and the conditions under which they were spoken.

"So he began recalling things you'd said since the time you were three, and recited anything he found pertinent."

He gave Iome only a split second to consider the implications. King Orden, like any who had such heavy endowments of wit, would naturally recall everything he'd ever seen, every word he'd ever heard, every innocent phrase. With his endowments of hearing, Orden could listen to a whisper three rooms away through the thick stone walls of the castle. As a child, Iome hadn't quite understood the breadth of powers a mature Runelord held. No doubt, she'd spoken many things that she'd never have wanted King Orden to hear. And he remembered it all faultlessly.

"I see..." Iome said.

"Don't be offended," Gaborn said. "You didn't embarrass yourself. My father reported every jest you made to Lady Chemoise." He nodded toward the maid. Iome felt the gesture more than saw it. "Even as a child, my father found you to be amusing, generous. I wanted to meet you, but I had to wait for the proper time. Last year I came to Hostenfest in my father's35 retinue so I could look on you..."

"I sat in the Great Hall and watched you through dinner, and elsewhere. I dare say, I feared my stare would bore a hole through you.

"You impressed me, Iome. You laid siege to my heart. I watched those who sat around you, the serving children and guards and Maids of Honor, and saw how they craved your affection. I watched the next morning as we left, how a flock of children gathered round you as our caravan made to depart, and you kept the young ones out from under the horses' hooves. You are well loved by your people, and you give love freely in return. In all the Kingdoms of Rofehavan, you have no equal. That is why I've come. I'd hoped that like all those around you, I too might have the hope of someday sharing your affection."

Fair words. Iome wondered furiously. King Orden always brought a dozen or two retainers to the Great Hall for dinner. It was only right that those who participated in the hunt share in the prize boar, served at the height of the feast. Iome tried to recall the faces of those men: several wore the scars of the forcibles, and were therefore lesser lords in their own right. Prince Gaborn would have been one of them. And he would be young.

Yet, to a man, Orden's guards and retainers were older, more trusted men. Orden was wise enough to know that the best fighters were seldom spry youths bursting with enthusiasm at the thought of swinging a battle-axe or sword. No, the best were old, masters of technique and strategy who often stood their ground in a battle, seeming to hardly move, slashing and thrusting with deadly economy.

Orden had had no young men in his retinue. Except...for one she recalled: a shy boy who'd sat at the far end of the tables--a handsome boy with straight hair and piercing blue eyes that twinkled with intelligence, though he gaped at his surroundings like some commoner. Iome had thought him merely a trusted body servant, perhaps a squire in training.

Surely that common youth could not have been a prince of the Runelords! The very thought left her unsettled, made her heart pound. Iome turned to look at Prince Orden, to verify her suspicions.

And laughed. He stood, a plain young man with a straight back, dark hair, and those clear blue eyes. He'd filled out in a year.

Iome could hardly contain her surprise. He was...nothing much to look at. He had no more than one or two endowments of glamour.

Gaborn smiled, charmed at her mirth. "Having seen me now, and knowing my reasons for coming," he said, "had I asked your hand in marriage, would you have given it?"

From the core of her heart, Iome answered sincerely, "No."

Gaborn stepped back as if she'd slapped him, as if her rejection were the last thing he'd expected. "How so?"

"You're a stranger. What do I know of you? How could I love someone I don't know?"

"You would learn my heart," Gaborn answered. "Our fathers desire a political union, but I desired a union of like minds and like hearts. You will find, Lady Sylvarresta, that you and I are...one in many matters."

Iome laughed lightly. "Honestly, Prince Orden, if you had come seeking only the realm of Heredon, perhaps I could have given it to you. But you would have asked for my heart, and that I could not promise to a stranger."

"As I feared," Gabon said honestly. "Yet you and I are strangers only by accident. Had we lived nearer one another, I think we could have forged a love. Could I not persuade you, give you a gift that might change your mind?"

"There's nothing I desire," Iome said; then her heart pounded. Raj Ahten's armies stood at her gate. She wanted him gone.

She realized she'd spoken too quickly.

"There is something you desire, though you don't know it," Gaborn said. "You live here, tucked away in your castle near the woods, and you say there is nothing you want. Yet certainly you must be afraid. There was a time when all Runelords were like your father, men bound by oath to serve their fellows, men who took no endowment but that which was freely given.

"Now, here we are, cornered. Raj Ahten is at your gates. All around you, the kings of the North call themselves 'pragmatists,'

and have given themselves to the pursuit of gain, telling themselves that in the end they will not become like Raj Ahten.

"You see the fallacy of their arguments. You saw my father's weakness when you were little more than a child. He is a great man, but he has vices, as do we all. Perhaps he has been able to remain good in part because people like you sometimes spoke up, sometimes warned him to beware of greed.

"And so I have a gift for you, Princess Sylvarresta, a gift I give freely, asking nothing in return."

He strode forward, took her hand. Iome imagined that he would place something in her palm, a precious stone or a love poem.

Instead, Gaborn took her hand in his, and she felt the calluses on his palm, felt the warmth of his hand.

He knelt before her and whispered an oath, an oath so ancient that few now understood the language of it, an oath so crippling that almost no Runelord ever dared speak it: "This oath I take in your presence, and my life will bear witness in every point:"

"I, a Runelord, swear to serve as your protector. I, your Runelord, am your servant above all. I promise now that I will never take an endowment by force, nor by deception. Nor will I purchase such from those in need of wealth. Instead, if any man stands in need of gold, I will give it freely. Only those who would join me as I battle evil may serve as my Dedicates."

"As the mist rises from the sea, so does it return."

He had sworn the vow of the Oath-Bound Runelords, an oath normally spoken to vassals, but given also to underlords or to friendly monarchs that one intended to defend. It was not an oath spoken lightly to one person. Rather, it was a covenant, declaring a way of life. The very thought made Iome feel faint.

With Raj Ahten battling the North, the House of Orden would need all its strength. For Gaborn to speak that oath now, in her hearing, was--suicidal.

Iome had never expected such greatness of heart from House Orden. To live the oath would prove hard beyond bearing.

She'd not have done the same. She was too...pragmatic.

Iome stood gaping for just a moment, realizing that if he had sworn that oath to her under fairer skies, she would have thought well of him. But to speak the oath now, under these conditions...was irresponsible.

She looked to her Days, to see the girl's reaction. The young woman's eyes were wide, the thinnest show of surprise.36 Iome looked back to Gaborn's face, found herself wanting to memorize it, to hold this moment in her memory.

An hour is not enough time to fall in love, but an hour is all they had that day. Gaborn had won her heart in far less time, and shown Iome her own heart more clearly in the process. He had seen that she loved her people, and it was true. Yet she had to wonder: Even if Gaborn takes this oath as an act of love for mankind, is it not sheer folly? Does Gaborn love his honor more than the lives of his people?

"I hate you for that" was all that Iome could answer.

At that instant, a heavy beating of drums rose from the valley floor. The sun was dipping below the horizon. Two Frowth giants at the wood's edge pounded on heavy copper drums, and a dozen dappled gray horses spurred out from the gloom under the trees. Their riders all wore black chain mail beneath yellow surcoats, with the red wolves of Raj Ahten upon their chests.

The foremost rider carried a green triangular pennant on a long' spear, a request for a parlay.

The others in the guard all bore axes and shields the color of copper--an honor guard, with the emblem of the sword beneath the star of Indhopal upon their shields.

That is, all bore the same uniform but one--Upon the last horse in the group, in his black chain armor, his high helm with white snow owl's wings sweeping wide, Lord Raj Ahten rode himself, shield on one arm, a horseman's long-handled warhammer in the other.

Where he rode, it was as if light shone from him, as if he were one star in a black and empty night, or one lowly signal boat with its pyres lit upon the water.

Iome could not take her eyes from him. Even at this distance, his glamour struck her breathless. She could not distinguish his features--for at such a distance, he was nothing more than a tiny stick figure. Yet she had the impression of great beauty, even from here. And she knew that to look upon his face would be dangerous.

Iome admired his helm, with its sweeping white wings. In her bedroom she kept two ancient helms of the toth. What a fine addition it would make to my collection, she thought, with Raj Ahten's skull smiling out at me.

Behind Raj Ahten's forces came a more common brown mare, the Wolf Lord's Days, struggling to catch up. Iome wondered what secrets he could tell...

Down by the gates, her father's soldiers began shouting at one another in warning: "Beware the face! Beware the face!"

She looked at her own men on the walls, saw many of them fumbling with their arms. Captain Derrow, who had many endowments of strength, ran along the parapet with a steel great bow that no other man in the kingdom could draw, hoping to send a few darts into Raj Ahten.

As if in answer to her soldiers' warnings, a swirling cloud of golden light formed above Raj Ahten, a whirlwind of embers that descended, drawing the eyes of many to his features.

It was some flameweavers' trick, Iome realized. Raj Ahten wanted her people to look at him.

Iome did not fear Raj Ahten's visage from so far away. She doubted that from here his glamour could muddy her judgment.

Raj Ahten hurried toward the city gates. His warriors' horses issued forth in formation, rippling over the fields like a gale, for these were no common beasts. They were force stallions. Herd leaders, that like their masters were transformed by the Runelords' art. The sight of them, shooting over the darkening fields like cormorants skimming the sea, filled Iome's heart with wonder. She'd never seen such fine force horses gallop in unison. She'd never seen anything so magnificent.

Prince Orden ran to the top of the stairs, shouted down into the Dedicates' Keep, "King Sylvarresta, you are needed. Raj Ahten seeks a parlay."

Iome's father cursed, began pulling on his armor. It clattered as he dressed.

Behind Raj Ahten, beside the deserted farms that dotted the edge of the woods, Raj Ahten's troops began to emerge from the gloom. Five flame-weavers, so close to becoming one with the elements that they could no longer wear clothes, shone like blazing beacons, clad in twisting tongues of green fire. The dry grasses at their feet burst aflame.

As warriors moved out of the shadowed woods, the light blazing from the flameweavers suddenly reflected on polished armor, glinted from swords.

Among the thousands of warriors who began to advance, stranger things than flameweavers could he seen.

The shaggy Frowth giants, twenty feet tall at the brow, lumbered forward clumsily in their chain mail, clutching huge ironbound staves. They struggled to keep from crushing Raj Ahten's swordsmen in their advance.

War dogs kept pace with the giants, huge beasts, mastiffs with runes branded into them.

Bowmen by the score.

And at the edge of the forest, black shadows flickered. Furred creatures with dark manes hissed and growled, loping forward in a crouched gait on clawed knuckles, each bearing an enormous spear. "Nomen!" someone shouted. "Nomen from beyond Inkarra!"

Nomen to scale the walls, scampering up the stone like monkeys. Nomen with their sharp teeth and red eyes.

Iome had never seen one--alive. Only once had she seen an ancient, shedding pelt. They were the stuff of legend.

Nomen. No wonder Raj Ahten's army traveled by day only through the woods, attacked only at night.

It was all show of course. Raj Ahten appearing in his glory with all his entourage. The power of his army was astonishing, his wealth enormous.

You see me? he was saying. You Northerners squat here in your barren kingdom, never knowing how impoverished you are.

Behold the Wolf Lord of the South. Behold my wealth.

But Iome's people were ready for battle. She saw boys and old men shifting on the castle walls, gripping the hafts of their spears tighter, reaching over to make sure that the arrows placed beside them lay just so. Her people would put up a battle.

Perhaps a battle that would be sung about in years to come.

Just then, Iome's father finished dressing, grabbed his weapons, and came bounding up the steps of the tower behind her. His Days, an elderly scholar with white hair, hobbled behind as fast as possible.

Iome was not prepared for the change in her father. In the past few hours, he'd taken sixty endowments from his people, had grown much in power. He leapt up six stairs at a time, even while bearing his arms, wearing full armor. He moved like a37 panther.

When he reached the top of the tower, the Frowth giants quit drumming, and Raj Ahten's army halted. The untrained nomen growled and hissed in the distance, as if eager to do battle.

Lord Raj Ahten himself gave a shout, reigning in his stallion, and such was the power of his call--for he bore endowments of Voice from hundreds and hundreds of people--that his words carried clearly even this high on the citadel, even blowing on the wind. He sounded kindly and pleasant, belying the threat inherent in his deeds.

"King Sylvarresta, people of Heredon," Raj Ahten called, his voice as fair as the tinkling of a bell, as resonant as a woodwind. "Let us be friends--not combatants. I bear you no malice. Look at my army--" He spread his arms wide. "You cannot defeat it. Look at me. I am not your enemy. Surely you will not force me to squat here in the cold tonight, while you dine beside your hearths? Throw open your gates. I will be your lord, and you will be my people."

His voice sounded so pleasant, so brimming with reason and gentleness, that had she been on the walls, Iome would have found it hard to resist.

Indeed, in that moment, she heard the gears to the main portcullis grind, and the drawbridge began to lower.

Iome's heart pounded. She leaned forward, shouting "No!" astonished that some of her fool subjects, overwhelmed by a monster's glamour and Voice, were doing his bidding.

Beside her, King Sylvarresta also shouted, ordering his men to raise the bridge. But they were far from the gates, so high up.

The sound of Orden's shout was muffled by the visor on his helm. He pulled it up to call more clearly.

In keeping with her own feelings of anger, down at the gates, Captain Derrow let a bolt loose at the Wolf Lord. Derrow's bolt flew with incredible speed, a blur of black iron that would have driven through any other man's armor.

But the speed and strength of Raj Ahten outmatched him. The Runelord simply reached up and caught the bolt in midair.

Such speed. Raj Ahten had done the unthinkable, taking so many endowments of metabolism. Even from here, she saw that he must move five or six times as fast as a common man. Living at such speed, he'd age and die in a matter of years. But before then, he might well conquer the world.

"Here now," he called, sounding reasonable. "We'll have no more of that." Then with great force, with a sound of gentleness that slid past all of Iome's defenses, Raj Ahten commanded, "Throw down your weapons and your armor. Give yourselves to me."

Iome leapt to her feet, found herself grasping for her poniard, ready to toss it over the walls. Only Gaborn's hand, which reached to stop her, kept her from dropping the weapon over the wall.

Immediately she regretted it, saw how foolish it had been, and she glanced at her father, afraid at how angry he might be.

She saw him struggling, struggling, to keep from tossing his own warhammer over the tower wall.

For half a heartbeat she stood, terrified of how her people might respond to Raj Ahten's voice and glamour, fearing that those closer to the monster would be fooled.

With a shout, as if in celebration, her people began tossing bows and weapons over castle walls. Swords and fouchards clattered on the stones beside the moat, along with helms and shields. The ballistas on the south wall crashed to the water, raising a plume of spray. From here, the sound of her people cheering was almost deafening, as if Raj Ahten had come as their savior, not their destroyer, and in that moment, the city gates opened wide.

Several of House Sylvarresta's most loyal soldiers began to struggle, hoping to close the gates. Captain Derrow swung his steel bow as a weapon, fending off townsmen. A few warriors with great heart but lesser gifts never made it from their posts at the walls. As soon as they shouted in defiance, those standing nearby grabbed them. Brawls broke out. Iome saw several of the city guards get tossed over the walls to their deaths.

From here, Iome could not see the beauty of Raj Ahten's face. From here, surely the wind diminished the sweetness of his voice.

From here on the castle wall, even though Iome could comprehend how her city was lost, she could not quite believe what she saw with her own eyes.

She was stunned. She found herself shaken more than she could have imagined.

The drawbridge came down. The portcullis lifted. The inner gate opened.

Without one enemy loss, Castle Sylvarresta fell.