3
As Elene rode up to the little inn in Torras Bend, utterly exhausted, a gorgeous young woman with long red hair in a ponytail and an earring sparkling in her left ear, was mounting a roan stallion. The stable hand ogled her as she rode north.
Elene was almost on top of the stable hand before the man turned. He blinked at her stupidly. “Hey, your friend just left,” he said, pointing to the disappearing redhead.
“What are you talking about?” Elene was so tired she could hardly think. She’d walked for two days before one of the horses had found her. And she’d never found out what had happened to the other captives or the Khalidorans or the Ymmuri who’d saved her.
“You could still catch her,” the stable hand said.
Elene had seen the young woman well enough to know that they’d never met. She shook her head. She had to pick up supplies in Torras Bend before she headed to Cenaria. Besides, it was almost dark, and after her days on the trail with her Khalidoran captors, Elene needed a night in bed and desperately needed a chance to wash up. “I don’t think so,” she said.
She went inside, rented a room from the distracted innkeeper’s wife with some of the generous amount of silver she’d found in her horse’s saddlebags, washed herself and her filthy clothing, and immediately fell asleep.
Before dawn, she pulled on her still-damp dress distastefully and went downstairs.
The innkeeper, a slight young man, was carrying in a crate full of washed flagons from outside and setting them upside-down to dry before he finally went to bed for the night. He nodded at Elene in a friendly manner, barely glancing up. “The wife will have breakfast ready in half an hour. And if—oh hell.” He looked at her again, obviously seeing her for the first time. “Maira didn’t tell me. . . .” He rubbed his hands on his apron in what was obviously a habitual gesture, because his hands weren’t wet, and stalked over to a table piled high with knickknacks, notes, and account books.
He pulled out a note, and handed it to her apologetically. “I didn’t see you last night, or I’d have given it to you straight away.” Elene’s name and description were written on the outside of the note. She unfolded it and a smaller, crumpled note fell out. The smaller note was in Kylar’s hand. It was dated the day he’d left her in Caernarvon. Her throat tightened.
“Elene,” she read, “I’m sorry. I tried. I swear I tried. Some things are worth more than my happiness. Some things only I can do. Sell these to Master Bourary and move the family to a better part of town. I will always love you.”
Kylar still loved her. He loved her. She’d always believed it, but it was different to see it in his own messy writing. The tears flowed freely. She didn’t even care about the disconcerted innkeeper, opening and shutting his mouth, unsure what to do with a woman crying in his inn.
Elene had refused to change and it had cost her everything, but the God was giving her a second chance. She’d show Kylar just how strong, deep, and wide a woman’s love could be. It wasn’t going to be easy, but he was the man she loved. He was the one. She loved him, and it was as simple as that.
It was several minutes before she read the other note, this one written in an unfamiliar woman’s hand.
“My name’s Vi,” the note said, “I’m the wetboy who killed Jarl and kidnapped Uly. Kylar left you to save Logan and kill the Godking. The man you love saved Cenaria. I hope you’re proud of him. If you go to Cenaria, I’ve given Momma K access to my accounts for you. Take whatever you want. Otherwise, Uly will be at the Chantry, as will I, and I think Kylar will go there soon. There’s . . . more, but I can’t bear to write it. I had to do something terrible so we could win. No words can erase what I’ve done to you. I’m so terribly sorry. I wish that I could make it right, but I can’t. When you come, you can exact whatever vengeance you wish, even to my life. Vi Sovari”
The hairs on the back of Elene’s neck were standing up. What kind of a person would claim to be such an enemy and such a friend? Where were Elene’s wedding earrings? “There’s more”? What did that mean? Vi had done something terrible?
The lead weight of intuition dropped into Elene’s stomach. That woman outside yesterday had been wearing an earring. It probably wasn’t—it surely wasn’t—
“Oh my God,” Elene said. She ran for her horse.
The dream was different every night. Logan stood on the platform, looking at pretty, petty Terah Graesin. She would walk over an army of corpses—or marry a man she despised—to seize her ambition. As it had that day, Logan’s heart failed him. His father had married a woman who poisoned all his happiness. Logan could not.
As he had that day, Logan asked for her fealty, the round platform reminding him of the Hole where he’d rotted during the Khalidoran occupation. Terah refused. But instead of submitting himself so the armies wouldn’t be split on the eve of battle, in this dream Logan said, “Then I sentence you to death for treason.”
His sword sang. Terah stumbled back, too slowly. The blade cut halfway through her neck.
Logan caught her, and abruptly, it was another woman, another place. Jenine’s slashed throat gushed blood over her white nightgown and his bare chest. The Khalidorans who’d broken into their wedding chamber laughed.
Logan thrashed and woke. He lay in darkness. It took him time to reorient himself. His Jenine was dead. Terah Graesin was queen. Logan had sworn fealty. Logan Gyre had given his troth, a word that meant not just his oath but his truth. So if his queen ordered him to stamp out the last few Khalidorans, he complied. He would always be glad to kill Khalidorans.
Sitting up in the dark of the camp tent, Logan saw the captain of his bodyguards, Kaldrosa Wyn. During the occupation, Momma K’s brothels had become the safest places in the city for women. Momma K had accepted only the most beautiful and exotic. They had drawn the first Khalidoran blood of the war during a city-wide ambush that had come to be called the Nocta Hemata, the Night of Blood. Logan had honored them publicly and they had become his. Those who could fight had fought and died—and saved him. After the Battle of Pavvil’s Grove, Logan had dismissed the rest of the Order of the Garter except for Kaldrosa Wyn. Her husband was one of the ten wytch hunters, and they’d go nowhere without each other, so she’d said she might as well serve.
Kaldrosa wore her garter on her left arm. Sewn from enchanted Khalidoran battle flags, it glimmered even in the darkness. She was, of course, pretty, with olive Sethi skin, a throaty laugh, and a hundred stories, some of which she claimed were even true. Her chain mail was ill-fitting, and she wore a tabard with his white gyrfavils whitelcon, its wingtips breaking a black circle. “It’s time,” she said.
General Agon Brant poked his head in the tent, then entered. He still needed two canes to walk. “The scouts have returned. Our elite Khalidorans think they’re setting an ambush. If we come from the north, south, or west, we have to go through dense forest. The only way is through the Hunter’s Wood. If it really exists, it’ll wipe us out. If I were facing fourteen hundred men with only one hundred, I don’t think I could do any better.”
If the situation had arisen a month ago, Logan wouldn’t have hesitated. He would lead his army through the open spaces of the Hunter’s Wood, legends be damned. But at Pavvil’s Grove they’d seen a legend walk—and devour thousands. The ferali had shaken Logan’s conviction that he knew the difference between superstition and reality. “They’re Khalidoran. Why didn’t they head north for Quorig’s Pass?”
Agon shrugged. It was a week-old problem. This platoon wasn’t nearly as sloppy as the Khalidorans they knew. Even as they fled from Logan’s army, they’d raided. Cenaria had lost a hundred men. The Khalidorans hadn’t lost one. The best guess Agon could make was that they were an elite unit from some Khalidoran tribe the Cenarians hadn’t encountered before. Logan felt like he was staring at a puzzle. If he didn’t solve it, his people would die. “You still want to hit them from all sides?” Agon asked.
The problem stared at Logan, mocking him. The answer didn’t come. “Yes.”
“Are you still insisting on leading the cavalry through the Wood yourself?”
Logan nodded. If he was going to ask men to brave death from some monster, he would do it himself, too.
“That’s very . . . brave,” Agon said. He’d served nobles long enough to make a compliment speak volumes of insult.
“Enough,” Logan said, accepting his helmet from Kaldrosa. “Let’s go kill some Khalidorans.”