"We can stay out of sight for a while."

"What are we doing? What in Lo's name are you doing?"

"I'm not sure yet. I'm following Vyk."

Greven had been so lost in his thoughts and the pain that he hadn't realized that the raven was still traveling with them. He looked around, and found it watching them from a tree ahead. "Lo curse the creature! How does it always find us?"

"He means us no harm."

"Where does this end, Piven? In your strange mind, where does this reckless behavior lead you?"

Piven frowned, considered the question seriously. Finally he blew his cheeks out. "To the throne, I suppose."

"Throne!"

Piven shrugged. "I'm an heir," he said, nothing defensive about his tone.

"And we now have an emperor with a well trained army specifically marauding to keep all memories of Valisars at bay. The Valisar line ended with Brennus! Accept it. The Valisars are simply history. And, besides, everyone thinks you're dead!" Greven spat as cruelly as he could.

"And that's my greatest weapon...apart from you, of course."

Greven scowled. "I need to rest."

Piven didn't look as though he wanted to but he paused and then shrugged. "We can sit in the lee of this tree. But you don't really need to rest, do you?" he asked.

Greven shook his head. "Until you die, I'm in a strange state of immortality. I don't need to drink, eat, or sleep."

Piven nodded. "Can we talk about this?"

Greven didn't reply.

"There's no going back now. What's done is done. You are my aegis. You have no free choice."

"How do you know?"

"I told you. My father used to talk around me as though I were invisible, which to all intents and purposes I was. My father wanted to find his aegis...he wanted to find you."

Greven nodded sadly.

"It began about ten moons before Loethar struck. I'm amazed I can recall conversations in such detail. At the time I wasn't even aware of the words being spoken but now I understand that I heard everything. My mind was sound; it was just trapped." Piven sighed when he could see Greven was not interested in his awe. "The king became very insistent about it, sending de Vis off on missions to the Academy to learn more about magic, hoping it might lead him to his aegis. In the meantime he got serious about training Leo."

"What do you mean?"

Piven smiled secretively. "Of course I tagged along, holding my brother's hand, lost in my madness. But obviously I was hearing everything, retaining it, too. You know, I really grew up around adults. When Leo was off playing with the de Vis brothers I was considered a nuisance. I couldn't fight or shoot arrows or get involved in swordplay. They didn't mind my being there as we all got older but as an infant I was an encumbrance to their play, so I was either at my mother's skirts, or where I preferred to be, which was close to my father."

"Do you hate your father?"

"No! I worshipped him. He loved me. I know it. It would have been so easy for him to be disappointed, exasperated, even angry at me for being less than perfect. But he was always kind and loving."

"But what about the fact that your parents kept your real birth a secret? Doesn't that anger you?"

"Why should it? I was the second heir. My father felt he had to protect me. It is an odd method, I'll grant you, but their intentions were sound. And they're both dead. I have no one to level any anger at, so it's a pointless emotion." Vyk swooped down to land between them and Greven snarled at the bird. "And neither have you anyone to level anger at," Piven counseled. "You were born to this. It's not Vyk's fault."

"But I avoided it. I avoided your father. I ignored the magic constantly stirring within me, choosing instead the life of a hermit, choosing plants and know-how over magical healing."

"Well, that was your choice. But you also chose to help my brother. You chose to come down from the forests. You chose to follow Vyk. You chose to take me in. Don't bleat now; it sounds to me like the inevitable outcome of your choices has occurred."

Greven stared at him with wonder. "Perhaps you should be king, talking like that."

"Perhaps I should."

"Is that what you want?"

"Greven, I just wanted to be left alone in a hut on the outskirts of Minton Woodlet. But what I want, I can no longer have. Now that people like that couple you were running from know of my existence, they won't be the only ones who can put together a few stray facts and come up with the truth that a Valisar is on the loose."

"But no one knows that you are Valisar."

"It no longer matters. The fact is, I am. The other fact is that Loethar would hunt me down if word got back to him that Piven the halfwit was alive and well. He'd want me back, and this time he may not be so happy to put me on a leash, not when he realizes I am no longer the sweet, tragic, vacant Piven he recalls. So I have to protect myself with you. And it seems an awful waste not to use my immunity to seize back the throne for the Valisars."

Greven took a deep breath. "So that's the plan?"

Piven looked back at him with a soft frown. "I suppose it is. I hadn't really thought that until now but it sits well in my mind. Loethar must pay for his sins."

"And so you see yourself seizing control of the empire," Greven said, not stifling his scorn very well, "a mere youth, returning your older brother to his throne and-"

Piven blinked. "What ever gave you that idea? I've decided I hate Leo."

"I don't understand," Greven murmured, holding his breath.

"He left me. Deserted me. He's my brother. And older brothers are meant to protect their younger siblings. He escaped from the castle and he left me to my fate, and he has not tried to contact me."

"He doesn't know where you are!"

"Or even if I'm alive," Piven finished for him. "He doesn't know because he doesn't care. He saved his own life and I imagine he was able to justify leaving me behind because I was so witless. I would have been the same encumbrance I was when we were children; I would have posed too much of a risk to him and Gavriel. I might even have given away their hiding spot. No, all in all, he worked out that it was better to leave me to Loethar's whims than to risk his own skin to save me."

"And how might he have retrieved you? His escape was a sheer wonder on its own."

"Well, you got me out."

"He was twelve!"

"I'm only fifteen now. Age is irrelevant. Blood is what matters. Blood, loyalty, and duty."

"Piven, your own father must have reached the same conclusion as Leo, and-"

"I think even my beloved mother did as well. But they've paid for their sins. Leo and I grew up together; we were close in our own strange way...and he betrayed me by leaving me. I would never have left him. Never!"

Greven shook his head. "And you're going to make Leo pay for being a terrified, traumatized lad who probably had little say in the matter of escape?"

"Oh yes, indeed. Leo and Loethar deserve the same fate. Loethar may have used me but at least he was honest about it. And I have to say, there were moments when Loethar really enjoyed me, I think." Greven watched as Piven frowned, digging deep into his memories. "He felt a sort of empathy that I can't fathom. Meanwhile my brother essentially left me to die. If Loethar had felt even a moment's threat from me he wouldn't have hesitated to put me to the sword. Leo would have known that. Still he ran from me, even knowing both our parents were dead and I had no one."

"He was a child himself."

"And I was five and helpless in every sense. He should have tried. If I knew he'd even tried to help me and failed, I could forgive him."

Greven didn't know what to say. Finally he asked quietly, "What are you going to do?"

Piven considered this. And while he was lost momentarily in his thoughts, Greven felt a pang of sorrow at losing his beautiful boy. The Valisar magic must be somehow tainted in his child. Piven had tried to use it well-he really had-but he was right: the more he'd used his powers to aid others, the darker it had made him. Greven didn't think he was lost fully to his darkness, not yet anyway, but unless Leo found an aegis of his own, the real heir to the throne was vulnerable...as was Lily.

"The problem, of course," Piven continued, and Greven realized he was still pondering the previous question, "is if Leo finds himself an aegis. There's one of you for each of us."

Greven shrugged, masking his fright and wondering if Piven could know his thoughts.

"If Leo's smart enough-and I know he is-he will likely be looking for his."

"He may not know about the aegis."

"But Freath did."

"Freath? Ah, yes, the treacherous servant."

"Not so treacherous. I remember everything about him now. I think he risked his life each day, first trying to keep my mother safe, and then making sure I was."

"Leo told me otherwise."

"Leo only knew half the story." Piven smiled secretively again.

"So if Freath can find Leo, he can tell him about the aegis," Greven said, trying to follow Piven's thoughts.

"Exactly. And since I've stolen you, that gives Leo a choice of at least three others."

"At least three? How come?"

"Well, there's mine, his and my sister's. And my mother had several children who didn't survive, but that doesn't mean the aegis born for each isn't alive and well. Did you not know that an aegis could be trammeled by any Valisar?"

"I thought you were a lost soul-an invalid halfwit."

Piven laughed. "I'd surprise them all now, wouldn't I, Greven? Especially Leo and Loethar."

"I think you intend to."

"I'm going to turn people against both of them." Piven smiled, got up and continued heading west. Greven had no option but to follow, for to be too far away from his bonded made him sicken.

Twenty-Six.

Loethar had watched his mother's body burn. It had taken most of the day and had been done in the traditional Steppes manner in a remote, disused courtyard of Brighthelm. He'd ensured that his own people had built the fire so it was assembled correctly around his mother's corpse before he had dismissed everyone, including Father Briar. He had held the burning torch that would ignite the first flames of the pyre and alone he had committed her soul to the gods, with none of the usual rituals or lengthy prayers.

The castle had fallen silent. He wondered about his daughter, whether she had died during these last hours. He'd lost track of time; only the sky told him it was night. The full moon illuminated the remains of his mother. He had stood in the same position for hours and now, finally, he stretched, sighing at the creak of his bones and the tightness in his muscles. Reaching for the huge mallet, Loethar hefted it onto his shoulder before striding to the embers that had cooled only just enough to permit him to get close. He took aim and with a few determined blows he smashed up his mother's bones-everything but her skull.

Loethar retrieved a box from where he had stood for most of the day and with a small broom he scooped as much of his mother's ashes as he could into the box before sealing it tightly. Lifting her skull, he placed it into a sack he had also reserved for this purpose. The skull would need to be prepared properly: cleaned of all flesh, baked in the sun and then returned to the Steppes to be placed among the ridges and caves of the region of Dara Negev's birth. She would share eternity with her forebears; he would do this much for her. Negev might well have married the right man to claim her legal position but somehow Loethar felt sure that if women were permitted to fight for supremacy and leadership in the same way, then his mother would have claimed rulership of the tribes. She had been a forbidding woman all of her life and he imagined had she not been beautiful in her early years, no man would have taken her on.

He heard footsteps behind him, and turned to see Father Briar. "I have kept a vigil for your mother in the chapel through the night," the priest said.

"That was not necessary, Father Briar. She is not a believer of Lo."

"But I am, my lord, and this is how we pray for the souls we farewell."

Loethar nodded. "I'm touched by your compassion. Thank you." He sighed. "An era died with her."

"You have created a new era, my lord."

"Is it the right one?"

Father Briar blinked. "Do you doubt it?"

Loethar shook his head. "I felt it was important ten anni ago. But sometimes now I wonder."

"About what?"

"Whether we couldn't have achieved the same result without so much bloodshed. But, then again, I am reminded of my rage."

Father Briar didn't understand him, but Loethar didn't intend for him to.

"What will you do with Dara Negev's ashes, my lord?" the priest asked. "Can I-"

"I shall take them to my half-brother. He and I will scatter them to the four winds, as is the custom."

"Very good. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Yes, Father Briar. You can tell my wife not to wait for me."

Briar looked uncomfortable. "Your daughter succumbed, my lord."

"I knew she would. Have her body entombed in the chapel."

Briar looked shocked. "With the Valisars?"

"Yes. You may also conduct a Set ceremony for her funeral according to my wife's wishes. There will be no need to include any Steppes formalities for her."

"As you wish, my lord," Briar murmured. "What shall I tell the empress about your departure?"