"It doesn't help that we found you. He didn't promote us to his unit like the others. We were assigned by Valek," Janco said.

Parffet's mood turned blacker when the dog team overtook our procession. Chaos erupted as barking dogs and more guards tangled together. I experienced a moment of panic when the canines rushed me. As it turned out, they greeted me with wagging tails and licking tongues. Their pure joy was infectious. I smiled, and scratched their ears, stopping only when Parffet scowled and shouted for order.

The dogs wore no collars. The kennel master was part of the tracking team. The dogs reassembled on Porter's command, following his orders without fail. The commander of the dog team seemed disappointed that Porter's dogs hadn't found me first, but she took it with better grace than Ari's Captain had. She introduced herself as Captain Etta and walked beside me to ask questions about my "run." I liked her easy, respectful manner. Her mop of dark blond hair pushed the limits of military regulation.

I stuck to the truth as much as I could during our conversation. When it came to questions regarding where my scent had disappeared, I lied. I explained that I had walked northward in the water for a while before heading east.

Etta shook her head. "We were so focused on you heading south. Parffet was right to look east."

"My eventual destination was south, but I wanted to try and confuse the dogs before I turned."

"You succeeded. The Commander won't be pleased. Good thing Ari and Janco found you. Had you stayed out till morning, both teams would have been demoted."

The last two miles to the castle were a blur. Using every ounce of my dwindling energy to keep my feet moving forward, I concentrated all my strength on keeping up with the soldiers. When we stopped, it took me a moment to realize that we had entered the castle complex.

It was well past midnight. The noise of our arrival bounced and amplified off the silent stone walls. The dogs followed Porter to the kennels while the weary parade of soldiers trod up the steps toward the Commander's office. We finished our march among the empty desks of the throne room.

Lantern light blazed from the open door of the Commander's office. The two soldiers standing guard wore amused expressions, but remained quiet and still. Parffet and Etta shared a look of resignation before going in to report to the Commander. I found a chair and collapsed into it, accepting the risk that I might have difficulties regaining my feet.

Soon the Captains returned. Parffet's face was creased in a dark frown, but Etta's showed no emotion. They dismissed their units. I was summoning the energy to stand, when Etta came over and helped me to my feet.

"Thanks," I said.

"The Commander awaits your report."

I nodded. Etta left to rejoin her unit, and I headed toward the office. I hesitated in the doorway; I was used to the semidarkness of the throne room, and the lantern light stung my eyes.

"Come in," Commander Ambrose ordered.

I stood before his desk. He sat immobile and impassive as always, his smooth, ethereal face barren of wrinkles. A stray thought plucked at my mind, and I wondered about his age. Gray streaks painted the Commander's short hair. His rank alone suggested an older man, but his slight build and youthful face made me guess his age was closer to forty. About seven years older than Valek, if my estimation of Valek's age was accurate.

"Report."

I described my actions for the day in detail, including my tree swinging and the magician. Giving the same version of my encounter with the southerner that I had told Valek, I concluded my report with the caravan and Valek's orders that I return. I waited for the Commander's questions.

"So Ari and Janco didn't capture you?" he asked.

"No. But they were the only ones who even came close. They passed right below a tree I hid in, and were skilled enough to track Valek for a while."

The Commander stilled for a moment. His golden eyes looked past me as he absorbed the information. "Where are the items Valek procured?"

I opened my backpack, and placed the pods and beans on his desk.

He picked up a yellow pod and rotated it in his hands before returning it. Grabbing a handful of beans, he hefted them, feeling their weight and texture. After sniffing one, he broke the bean in half. The inside was as unrevealing as the outside had been.

"They're not native to Ixia. They must be from Sitia. Yelena, take them with you and do some research. Find out what these are and where they're grown."

"Me?" Stunned, I had expected to dump them on the Commander and forget about them.

"Yes. Valek is constantly reminding me not to underestimate you, and once again you've proven yourself. General Brazell gave you a good education. I'd hate to see it go to waste."

I wanted to argue, but I was curtly dismissed. Sighing, I dragged my unwilling body to the baths. Painfully peeling off my leaf-covered clothes, I washed the mud from my face and neck before submerging into a steaming pool.

There, I luxuriated in the warmth, stretching my aching muscles under the hot water to loosen them. Hoping to dissolve some of the glue from my hair, I dipped my head back, pulled my bun apart and let the long black strands float on the surface. The gentle sounds of lapping lulled me.

Strong hands grabbed my shoulders. I jerked awake under the water. Liquid filled my mouth and nose. I pushed the hands away in a panic. They released their grip for a second. I began to sink. Instinctively, I clutched my unknown assailant's arms. Before I could curse my stupidity, I was yanked out of the bath and dumped onto the cold floor.

I sprang to my feet to meet the next assault. But there stood Margg with a disgusted expression anchored on her broad face. Water dripped from her hands and had soaked her sleeves. I shivered and pulled wet clumps of hair off my face.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I yelled.

"Saving your worthless life," she snarled.

"What?"

"Don't worry. I took no pleasure in it. Frankly, I would have rejoiced to see you drown. Justice finally served! But the Commander ordered me to find you and see to your needs." Margg grabbed a towel from the table and threw it at me. "You may have the Commander and Valek fooled into thinking you're smart. But how smart can you be to fall asleep in a deep pool of water?"

I tried to think of a rude retort, remembering Dilana's advice to be nasty right back. Nothing. My brain felt water-logged with fatigue. The idea that Margg had just saved my life kept sloshing around in my head. It was such a foreign concept that I couldn't find a proper place to dock it.

Margg snorted, hatred oozing from her. "I followed my orders. Some might even agree that rescuing you was beyond the call of duty. So don't you forget it, rat."

She spun around to leave. Her skirts wrapped around her legs, and she stumbled through the door. So much for a dramatic exit, I thought as I toweled dry.

I felt no gratitude toward Margg for saving my life-assuming that was what she'd done. She might have pushed me under in spite, then "saved" me. And I didn't owe her a favor. She had left me in a puddle of my own vomit after I had taken My Love, had refused to clean out my room in Valek's suite, had written me a nasty message in the dust, and even worse, was probably leaking information about me to Brazell. If she had saved me from drowning, then, in my mind, it was a payback for some of those indiscretions, but not for all. As I saw it, she still owed me.

The hot soak helped restore some flexibility to my muscles. I peeled the leaves from my hands. Although green still clung to parts of my hair, I thought with some artful braiding I might be able to hide it.

The walk back to Valek's suite seemed endless. In a zombie-like state of mind, I passed through countless hallways, intersections and doorways. My steps were fueled by the single-minded desire of getting to bed.

For the next few days I fell into a routine. I tasted the Commander's meals, went to the library for research and took a daily walk around the castle complex. My day as a fugitive had caused me to crave the outdoors, and if I couldn't swing through the trees, at least I could explore the grounds.

I used the map of the castle that I had copied in my journal to find the library. It was a multilevel suite of rooms, burgeoning with books. The smell of decay and dust floated in the air along with a sense of abandonment. I was saddened by the knowledge that this tremendous source of information was going to waste because the Commander discouraged his people from educating themselves beyond what was necessary for their jobs.

Within his military structure, a person was trained specifically for their position only. Learning just for the sake of learning was frowned on, and greeted with suspicion.

Once I had ascertained that the library was truly a forgotten place, I brought the pods and beans there instead of carrying the heavy books back to my room. I found a small nook tucked away in a corner. The nook had a wooden table which faced one of the large, egg-shaped windows that randomly perforated the back wall of the library. Sunlight streamed into the nook and, after clearing the table of dust, it became my work area.

Cutting one of the yellow pods in half, I discovered it was filled with a white mucilaginous pulp. A taste of the pulp revealed it to have a sweet and citrus flavor with a taint of sour, as if it was starting to rot. The white flesh contained seeds. I cleaned the pulp from the seeds and uncovered thirty-six of them. They resembled the beans from the caravan. My excitement diminished as I compared seed against bean in the sunlight. The pod seed was purple instead of brown, and when I bit into the seed, I spit it out as a strong bitter and astringent taste filled my mouth. Nothing close to the slightly tart and earthy taste of the brown beans.

Assuming that the pods were a fruit and the beans edible, I pulled out every botany book I could find in the library and piled them on my table. Then I went through the shelves again. This time, I grabbed any volume with information about poisons. A much smaller stack; Valek had probably taken the interesting ones back to his office. My third trip through the shelves was an effort to find books on magic. Nothing.

I paused by an empty shelf, an oddity in this tightly packed library, and wondered if it had contained manuals about magic. Considering how the Commander viewed magic, it was logical to destroy any pertinent information. On a whim, I explored the lower levels of the bookcase under the empty shelf. Thinking that a book from the empty shelf could have slid back behind the other books, I took out all the texts on the lower shelves. My efforts were rewarded by the discovery of a slim volume entitled Magical Power Sources. I hugged the book to my chest as paranoia gripped me. Scanning the library, I made sure no one was there. With sweaty palms, I hid the book in my backpack. I planned to read it later, preferably in my room with the door locked.

Giddy with my illicit acquisition, I searched the various rooms of the library until I found a comfortable chair. Before dragging it back to my nook, I beat the dust from its purple velvet cushions. It was the most elegant seat I had seen in the castle, and I wondered who had used it before me. Had the dead King been a bibliophile? The considerable collection of books said as much. Either that or he had shown his librarian great favor.

I spent many hours in that chair reading through the botany books and discovering nothing. I planned to decipher the pod and bean puzzle while I researched information for myself. The tedious work was at least broken into small sessions by my tasting the Commander's meals and by my afternoon strolls around the castle.

It had been four days since the exercise, and that afternoon my walk had a purpose. I scouted for a place with a view of the east gate, but where I wouldn't be obvious to the flow of people passing through.

Valek still hadn't returned from his mission, and closing ceremonies had been performed the night before at the fire festival, ending the weeklong celebration. Rand, looking hungover, had informed me this morning that Brazell and his retinue would finally leave the castle, via the east gate, to go home. My desire to see Brazell's retreating back with my own eyes had driven me to seek the perfect position.

The barracks for the Commander's soldiers filled both the northeast and southwest corners of the castle complex. In the northeast barracks, the L-shaped building extended from the north gate to the east gate, and a large rectangular training area had been built next to the east leg of the building. There was a wooden fence around the yard and, when training was in progress, the fence attracted the castle's various residents to stop along it to watch the exercises. That afternoon I joined in with a group of observers, who not only had a clear view of the fighting drills, but the east gate as well.

Rand's information proved accurate. Soon I was rewarded by a parade of green-and-blackclad soldiers. I could see Brazell on his dappled mare, riding among his most trusted advisers, at the end of the procession. Brazell's retinue ignored the people around them.

As I watched Brazell's back, Reyad's ghost appeared next to me. He smiled as he waved goodbye to his father. A shudder vibrated down my spine. I glanced around. Did anyone else see him? The group of people that I had been standing with had dispersed. Had Reyad scared them off? But when I looked again, his ghost was gone.

A hand touched my arm. I flinched.

"Good riddance to that lot," Ari said, tilting his head toward the east gate. Seeing him for the first time in the sunlight, I noticed that Ari's eyes were such a pale blue that in the darkness his eyes had seemed to hold no color.

Ari stood with Janco on the other side of the fence. Both wore the sleeveless shirts and short pants that the soldiers liked to train in. Sweat-soaked and streaked with dirt, their faces and bodies sported new cuts and bruises.

"Bet you're as glad as we are to see them go," Janco said. Resting his wooden training sword on the fence, he rubbed the sweat off his face with the bottom of his shirt.

"Yes, I am," I said.

Looking toward the east gate, the three of us stood in companionable silence for a moment, watching Brazell's entourage disappear through the gate.

"We want to thank you, Yelena," Ari said.

"What for?"

"The Commander promoted us to Captains. He said you gave us a good report," Janco said.

Surprised and pleased that the Commander would heed my words, I smiled at them. I could see Ari and Janco shared a loyalty to one another, an obvious bond of friendship and trust. Three years ago, I had felt that kind of kinship with May and Carra at the orphanage, but Reyad had torn me away, and the empty space inside me still ached. Rand had given me friendship, but there was still a distance. I longed to connect with someone. Unfortunately, my life as the food taster made it impossible. Who would take the risk of connecting with me when my odds of living through the next year were little to none?

"We're scouting for the Commander's elite guard now," Janco said with pride in his voice.

"We owe you one. Anytime you need help, just let us know," Ari said.

His words gave me a bold idea. Brazell might be gone, but he was still a threat. I thought fast, searching for reasons why my plan wouldn't be to my benefit.

"I need help," I said.

Surprise flashed over their faces. Ari recovered first. "With what?" he asked warily.

"I need to learn how to defend myself. Can you teach me self-defense and how to use a weapon?" I held my breath. Was I asking too much? If they said no, I hadn't lost anything. At least I had tried.

Ari and Janco looked at each other. Eyebrows twitched, heads tilted, lips pursed and hands made small movements. I watched their silent conversation in amazement as they discussed my request.

"What kind of weapon?" Ari asked. Again that hesitation evident in his voice.

My mind raced. I needed something that was small enough to hide within my uniform. "A knife," I said, knowing I'd have to return Rand's to the kitchen.

More facial expressions were exchanged. I thought Ari might be agreeing, but Janco looked queasy, as if the idea didn't sit well with him.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. "Look," I said. "I'll understand if you refuse. I don't want to get you into trouble, and I know how Janco feels about me. I believe his exact words were: 'She's a criminal.' So, if the answer is no, that's fine with me."

They stared at me in astonishment.

"How did you-" Janco started to say, but Ari punched him on the arm.

"She overheard us in the forest, you dope. How close were you?"

"Fifteen feet."

"Damn." Ari shook his head, which caused his tight blond curls to bounce. "We're more worried about Valek. We'll train you if he doesn't object. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

Ari and I shook hands. When I turned to Janco, he seemed deep in thought.

"A switchblade!" he declared, grabbing my hand.

"What?" I asked.

"A switchblade would be better than a knife," Janco said.

"And where would I carry this...switchblade?"

"Strapped to your thigh. You cut a hole in your pants pocket. Then if you're attacked, you pull it out, hit the switch, and a nine-inch blade leaps to your disposal." Janco demonstrated the motion to me and mock stabbed Ari, who clutched his stomach dramatically and fell over.

Perfect, I thought. Thrilled by the idea of learning to defend myself, I asked, "When do we start?"

Janco scratched his goatee. "Since Valek isn't back we could start with some basic self-defense moves, nothing objectionable about that."

"Moves she could have learned by watching the soldiers train," Ari said, agreeing with his partner.

They decided. "Right now," they said in unison.

17.

STANDING NEXT TO THE two oversize soldiers, I felt like a plum wedged between a couple of cantaloupes. Misgivings crept into my mind. The notion that I could defend myself against someone of Ari's build seemed ridiculous. If he wanted, he could pick me up and throw me over his shoulder, and there was nothing I could do about it.

"Okay. First, we'll start with some self-defense," Ari explained. "No weapons until the basic moves are instinctive. You're better off fighting hand to hand than wielding a weapon you don't know how to use. A skilled opponent would simply disarm you. Then your troubles would be doubled. Not only would you be under attack, but you'd have to counter your own weapon."

Ari leaned his practice sword next to Janco's, scanning the training yard. Most of the soldiers were gone, but small clumps of men still worked.

"What are your strengths?" Ari asked.

"Strengths?"