“Thank you, husband,” Thelía said as she took it.

He left her with her drink and went to the table. What he was about to do had been in his head since Etan had first shown him the forbidden book. Tiamak had realized immediately upon seeing the Aetheric Whispers that he would need advice from another scholar, but the League was nothing like what it had been—only three Scrollbearers left, and that was if Faiera lived! He had been considering Etan as a new Scrollbearer because of the young monk’s active mind and good heart, but he was someone to be trained into the League and groomed as a scholar, not someone who could immediately step in and help. And help was what Tiamak truly needed just now.

His wife was reading Sarchoun’s On The Movement of Blood And Pneuma as she sipped her cordial, which suggested she was still worrying over the dying Sitha. Thelía seemed to think of little else since his return from the royal progress, and came back to their rooms most days only to use one of their books of physick or to sleep. Tiamak was not the most demanding husband, but he was beginning to feel a bit jealous toward the poisoned woman who was getting all his wife’s attention.

No good brooding, he told himself. Instead, I should thank He Who Always Steps On Sand that Thelía is alive and well, and that we are both here together. And my energies could be better used, too.

He took a sheet of parchment out of the writing box, cut a quill for use, and began writing.

My dear friend Aengas, he began, then worried briefly that it was too informal. He decided he would leave it as it was.

I send you this letter because I have a need for your knowledge that outweighs the shame of distracting you from your life and work. A most unusual book has come into my possession, a book that neither you nor I have ever seen, but only heard of, a thing of great infamy.

That said, I would not trouble you even so, except that I fear its contents may have bearing on other important matters. The book is mostly written in old Nabbanai, which is straightforward enough, but as a kind of code, the author—I will not use his name here, but you will know it, as you will know of the book—uses Khandian words in place of most of the important names and processes. I know little of the language of Khandia. You do, however. I trust you can see the shape of my dilemma.

This book cannot be sent unless I were to carry it myself, which is impossible just now as my duties here in Erchester prevent it. I do not ask you to come—I know it is too much to ask anyone in your condition—but I have no other ideas. Do you know anyone else who could help me, old friend? Are there scholars outside the Aedonite church who know something of the Khand’s ancient tongue? If you have guessed the name of this book, you have also guessed why I cannot go to the Sancellan Aedonitis for help, and why I cannot say more in a letter which must be entrusted to a messenger, even a royal messenger.

I hope this finds you as well as can be, and that your work goes well. Whatever your answer to this query, I will look forward to your writings on Warinsten and the ruins of Kementari.

Your brother in spirit,

Tiamak of the Village Grove, now of Erchester

He read it over, then blotted it and folded it before applying his seal. He would put it in the next southbound post himself, to make certain it stayed secret. It would likely come to nothing—Aengas was notoriously uninterested in other people’s work—but Tiamak felt the need to do something, anything. Since the day that fearful premonition had swept over as they journeyed across the Frostmarch, he had been haunted by an inexplicable feeling that his time was now short, that something was about to disrupt everything that had been ordinary in his and Thelía’s lives, like a large rock dropped into a small pond.

May the Elders grant that I am as poor at seeing the future as I am at reading Khandian, he prayed. But it provoked a sudden, worrying thought. What am I sending Brother Etan into? Should I go myself instead?

Such questions had no simple answers, of course—none that any but the gods could know.

Tiamak kissed his wife on the top of her head as he headed toward the door, then saw that the cordial glass was almost dropping from her fingers; she had fallen asleep with Sarchoun still open on her lap. He removed the book and then took the glass, which fortunately was all but empty, and set both on the table before he left.

“Sleep well, dearest wife,” he whispered as he closed the door. “Sleep safe.”

30 The Slow Game

They rode northeast over the wide plain the Rimmersmen called Osterdyr, forest to the north and the lake, wide as the sea, stretching for miles beside them on the south, making their way out of the southern springtime and into snows that would not melt until much later in the year. Makho was pleased by their escape from what he called “the mortals’ trap,” but when Kemme said, for the second time in as many hours, “Four Talons and a Giant, but we killed dozens of their best!” the chieftain stared at him in displeasure.

“The queen would expect no less, Sacrifice,” was all he said, but Kemme did not speak of it again afterward.

Still, Makho was pleased by what had happened, and during those long days of riding he did not go out of his way to make Nezeru’s life any more miserable than he had before, though he still treated her with contempt.

Storm after storm blew through the gap, but bad weather was never much of a discouragement to the Hikeda’ya, and because this bleak part of the northern world was almost uninhabited, the queen’s hand could ride toward the distant peak called Jinyaha-yu’a in daylight as well as darkness. But Makho had not lost all caution: the mortal Jarnulf knew the territory better than did any of the Hikeda’ya, and was consulted frequently, but he was never allowed to lead the hand or even ride at the front. Makho took that place himself, behind only the giant Goh Gam Gar, whose task it was to clear the way when the snow lay piled too deep for their horses to pass. Kemme and Saomeji rode with the chieftain and were close in his counsels as well. Thus it was that Nezeru and the mortal became the endmost riders of the small company.

Jarnulf slowed his horse in a way that Nezeru knew she was not supposed to notice. She guessed that he sought to speak with her because she was in disgrace, and would try to draw her out with the idea of making her an ally. The other Hikeda’ya all suspected the mortal’s motives, and in this at least Nezeru agreed with them. Queen’s Huntsmen were known to be solitary and cruel, as well as murderously proud of their freedom when the rest of their brethren were collared slaves. It seemed hard to believe one of the huntsmen would so lightly join his fortune with a party of Talons.

“So, Sacrifice Nezeru,” Jarnulf said abruptly. “How do you come here?”

It still seemed strange that someone who looked so alien could speak her mother tongue so flawlessly. He even made the secondary “k” sound as well as the Hikeda’ya themselves, on the inward breath instead of the outward. And his grasp of the subtleties was good too, asking her “how” she had come instead of “why,” which had the sound of interrogation.