Sergius frowned. "Then how do you know?"

Ravan shifted, cleaning his beak on the table. I tasted his flesh, he finally said, reluctantly.

"You ate part of Greven?" Sergius groaned, disbelief mingling with revulsion.

I felt compelled to.

"By what?" Sergius demanded, still repulsed. Standing, he angrily began preparing a herbal tea.

By Piven, Ravan said calmly.

Sergius swung around and regarded the raven. "He controls you, too?"

No, Sergius, I promise you. Our bond is not like the bond between him and Greven. But it is a strong connection all the same. Forgive me for tasting Greven.

Sergius softened. "And you think they killed Clovis because they didn't want him telling anyone that Piven was alive?"

It was more than that. I told you, Piven is changing.

"You've lost me," Sergius admitted, frowning as he poured the boiled water into a large mug. Immediately a fragrance of herbs filled the room.

There are two things I have to tell you. The first is that since tasting Greven, I can now talk to both him and Piven.

"Like the seam that we use?"

Yes.

A thrill of shock passed through Sergius. "What did they say?"

I think they were more surprised to hear my voice in their minds than the other way around. I didn't linger because Clovis had arrived.

"So you didn't see them kill him?"

No, but I heard it all unfold.

"Can you hear them now?"

If I wanted to, I suppose. But only if Piven wants me to, also.

"Why do you think Piven encouraged you to share Greven with him?"

Ah, that's something I don't fully understand. It probably has to do with the second detail I want to tell you about.

"Go on."

Piven is turning bad.

"Explain bad."

I saw darkness within him. Piven is far cleverer than any of us have ever imagined and he has probably long suspected that a magical bird doesn't just come along for no reason. He must assume that I am around him for a reason and that I don't communicate only with him.

"He knows about me?" Sergius asked, aghast.

No. He presumes by my comings and goings that I go back to Loethar. He is not interested in that, I don't think. But I think he needed a witness to the trammeling. He needs a witness to this change. I know from my glimpse into him that he fights this darkness with all his being.

"Ravan, assure me he can't eavesdrop on this conversation."

I would know if he were listening. He is not. He cannot, because I can shield myself. He doesn't take care to shield his thoughts from me. That's my very point; he wants me to know what he is thinking.

"This darkness you speak of. What is it? What do you see?"

Evil. As he explained to Greven, for every good deed he does, or tries to do, for all the goodness in his soul, there is a debt of darkness. And as he uses his power to give aid, the healing power that leaves him is exchanged by the gloom of evil.

Sergius frowned and sank his chin onto his cupped hands. "As goodness moves out, darkness moves in?"

That's it. That's almost exactly what he was trying to say.

"When did this begin?"

I told you, he experienced that sort of awakening when Brennus died. I know that from the day Greven found him Piven could actually make out my call. He turned toward me that day in the woods. I know he recognized me, walked toward me. And everything about him started improving from then. He started healing birds and animals a few years after he left the palace, and even though he's only been using his power in small ways, every time his efforts to give or improve life have been repaid with the shadows that have lengthened over him. When he's in a bad mood, milk sours, herbs die...even water tastes bitter.

"Do you know where his power came from?"

I just assumed it was wild-like the Vested.

Sergius said nothing, sipping his tea quietly, but he watched Ravan closely as the bird continued to move through his thoughts.

But an aegis doesn't make sense for Piven, the raven finally said, sounding exasperated.

Sergius nodded. "As you know, there is an aegis born for each Valisar, and now Piven is-"

Wait! Wait! Ravan said, swooping now around the table.

Sergius pursed his lips. "That took longer than I thought it would."

No! That can't be! Ravan paused, then he hopped to stare at Sergius. Why didn't you tell me?

Sergius sighed. "Because, while I suspected it, I didn't know for sure until you mentioned trammeling Greven."

How did they hide it?

"The Valisars are all about secrets and there was no better practitioner of secrets than King Brennus. He had no magical endowment to speak of that I knew of, but he more than made up for it with his shadowy plans and plottings...this is another of his masterstrokes."

Piven is Valisar!

"Indeed, or Greven would simply be a very angry man without a hand."

He's a true heir?

"Yes, I'm astonished to say he is. I imagine Brennus would have been distraught, after all the trouble he must have gone to to keep Piven's birth a secret, for his son to be so disabled."

Why do that in the first place?

Sergius shook his head. "For all his lacking in magic, Brennus was more Valisar than any other I've known since Cormoron. He took his duty as sovereign deeply seriously-perhaps it's his lack of magic that drove him to make up for it in other ways. He must have forced Iselda to give birth to Piven in secret as a form of protection. Now I think of it, they said Iselda lost a baby son and very soon after, as a means of helping her to get over yet another death, she adopted the newborn Piven."

How devious.

"It is, but history has proven his actions to be well advised. In keeping Piven's true identity a secret, no one but us-outside of the boy himself and Greven-know who he is. Loethar wanted to kill all the Valisars. We know he would have, given the chance. He spared Piven only because he was adopted, and his simpleton status no doubt helped. Does the boy look like a Valisar?"

Ravan pondered this. He's dark and doesn't look much like Leo. I don't think he resembles Brennus, though. If anything, he could be Loethar's son.

Sergius waved a hand. "I just wondered why no one had picked a resemblance previously but then again when you're not looking for the resemblance you can be fooled. Either that or Piven takes after ancestors no one has seen. Cormoron possessed dark, brooding features."

So no one but Brennus and the queen knew.

"Well, that can't be right. They would have needed at least one other ally. A wet nurse, presumably, someone to take care of the baby until they contrived to stumble upon him and bring him back to the palace."

What about Freath?

"He gave no sign of knowing, did he?"

Not that I could ever tell.

"Knowing Brennus, I imagine he would have shared this secret with only the people who needed to know. Perhaps Freath was only privy to the journey the heavily pregnant Iselda took but not its outcome."

Freath's been away with the one called Kirin. They went north. I followed them for a while.

"Ah yes, Kirin. You've never felt his magic again?"

I haven't but that doesn't mean he hasn't used it.

"True. His is a skill they would need to keep incredibly secret."

It sounds like the Valisar Enchantment you've spoken of.

"No. From what you've told me, Kirin has the ability to plant a thought in someone's mind and make that person believe it. Correct?"

That's my understanding.

Sergius shook his head. "The Valisar Enchantment has the ability to coerce not just one but many. If it exists, it will make Kirin's magic look like a parlor trick.

"And furthermore, the Valisar Enchantment is only granted to females and it kills them with remorseless frequency-that's the price they pay for possessing it." Sergius frowned in concentration. "Cyrena once mentioned to Cormoron that the Valisar magic, should it manifest itself in a woman, would be more potent than anything ever known to the male line. She said the female would have absolute control over the land. I can recall her laughing at his sourness; she reminded him that he worshipped a goddess, but Cormoron demanded that the power be made somehow impotent. He refused the idea of a queen as a ruler in her own right. Cyrena agreed that the Valisar dynasty would be better served by kings, and she agreed to limit the female power in the most devastating way."

By killing the female line, Ravan finished.

"Exactly. Mightily powered, but seemingly unable to survive it."

Too much magic for me to understand, Ravan said sourly. So no daughter of the Valisar line has ever survived. What a pity.

Sergius knew it was high time he shared his great secret, but still he kept it.

Twenty-One.

The two figures approached the convent on foot, leading their horses.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" the woman asked. "Because there will be no going back, you realize that, don't you?"

Her companion nodded. "I love my life but no man should live without knowing his past." He dug in his pocket. "This is all I have that links me to who I was before." She stared at the shiny seeds in his kerchief, still none the wiser for their purpose. They'd even planted one to see what occurred, and though a plant had emerged briefly, it hadn't flourished in the mountains. He put the seeds back in his pocket. "I know you understand."

She nodded sadly. "Go on, then. Bang on the door. I'll wait here with the horses."

The man squeezed her hand before giving her his reins. He left the tall woman with the animals and walked in his signature, slightly lopsided but nonetheless long gait to the enormous oak door of the magnificent stone building that nestled among Lo's Teeth. He raised the iron knocker, resisted the urge to look behind him at the woman who had not only saved his life, but given him a new one for the past ten anni, and banged it twice.

The man who called himself Regor knew that once this door opened, he could potentially re-open his old life. Elka had done all she could to dissuade him from trying to trace the past. "You have a good life here among my people," she had warned. "What you may go back to might be terrible."

"I know, I know," he'd replied. "But I have to do this, Elka, or it's going to eat away at me."

He recalled how Elka had ensured the journey through the mountains had been deliberately slow. She'd tried everything to persuade him against this trip. His cheeks began to burn again as he waited, remembering the moment of such terrible awkwardness for him and humiliation for her when she had attempted to tempt him with her body. And now an uncomfortable ravine had opened between them that had not existed before.

A small shutter opened near his chest. "Yes?" a disconnected voice asked.

"Er." He bent down. "Forgive my intrusion, er, sister. My name is Regor and I would appreciate an opportunity to talk with the Mother."

"Why?"

They had rehearsed this. Elka had made it clear to him that he had to convince the nuns of the convent of his need. "Sister, I am an honest man. I was ambushed alone a decade previous in the Penraven forest, beaten senseless and injured so badly that I lost my memory. If not for my companion, who you see beyond with our horses, I would have died. She saved me from my attackers and saved my life. Her name is Elka and she is from the Davarigon people. The Mother knows Elka and I'm sure will want to see her, as well as myself."

"And what was a Davarigon doing in Penraven all those anni ago?" the nun asked, her tone waspish, suspicious.

"Would you believe me if I told you she was collecting herbal supplies only found in our Deloran forest range?"

"I would not," the woman said.

"I speak the truth. I would see the Quirin, if it is possible."

"She sees no one, least of all a man."

"Please, I beg you-"

"Go away!" The tiny trapdoor slammed shut.