Fade threw the knife.
The Marat released the arrow.
Fade’s knife buried itself to the hilt in the Marat’s eye. The hunter pitched over, dead before his body struck the ground.
But the arrow hed released struck Alia with a simple, heavy thump. The girl let out an explosive breath and fell to her hands and knees.
“Crows,” Fade snarled, and closed the distance to them. He stood there for a moment, torn.
“I’m all right,” Alia said. Her voice shook, but she rose, blood staining her dress, several inches below one arm. “Just a cut.” She picked up a shard of a shattered wooden shaft, black crow feathers marking the Marat missile. “The arrow broke. It must have been flawed.”
“Let me see,” Araris said, and peered at the wound. He cursed himself for not knowing more of the healing arts, but there was not a great deal of blood, not enough to threaten the girl with unconsciousness.
“Araris?” Isana asked, her voice tight with pain.
“She was lucky,” he said shortly. “But we must get out of sight now, my lady.”
“I’m not your lady,” Isana responded, by reflex.
“She’s hopeless,” Alia sighed, her voice carrying a tone of forced good cheer. “Come on, then. Let’s get out of sight.”
Araris and Alia helped Isana to the cave. It took them far longer than Araris would have liked, but Isana could barely keep her feet. At last, though, they reached the cave, one of several such sites Septimus’s scouts had prepared in the event that elements of the Legion might need a refuge from one of the violent local furystorms, or from the harsh winter squalls that came howling down out of the Sea of Ice.
Its entrance hidden by thick brush, the cave bent around a little S-shaped tunnel that would trap any light from giving away its location. Then it opened up into a small chamber, perhaps twice the size of the standard legionares tent. A small fire pit lay ready, complete with fuel. A quiet little stream had been diverted to run through the back corner of the cave, murmuring down the rock wall to a small, shallow pool before continuing on its way beneath the stone.
Alia helped Isana to the ground beside the fire, and Araris lit it with a routine effort of minor furycraft. He spoke the furylamps to life as well, and they burned with a low, scarlet flame. “No bedrolls, I’m afraid,” he said. He stripped out of his scarlet cloak and rolled it into a pillow, which he slipped beneath Isana’s head.
The younger Isana’s eyes were glazed with pain. Her back contorted with another contraction, and she clenched her teeth over an agonized scream.
Time went by as it does in dreams, infinitely slowly while passing in dizzying haste. Isana remembered little of that night herself, beyond the steady, endless cycles of pain and terror. She had no clear idea of how long she lay in that cave all those years ago, but except for a brief trip outside to obscure signs of their passing, Araris had watched over her for every moment of every hour. Alia sat with her, bathing her brow with a damp kerchief and giving her water between bouts of pain.
“Sir Knight,” Alia said finally. “Something is wrong.”
Araris ground his teeth and looked at her. “What is it?”
The true Isana drew in a sharp breath. She had no memory of the words. Her last memory of her sister was of seeing her through a haze of tears as Alia used the wet cloth to wipe tears and sweat from Isana’s eyes.
“The baby,” Alia said. The girl bit her lip. “I think it’s turned wrong.”
Araris stared helplessly at Isana. “What can we do?”
“She needs assistance. A midwife or a trained healer.”
Araris shook his head. “There’s not a steadholt in the whole of the Calderon Valley-not until the new Steadholders arrive next year.”
“The Legion healers, then?”
Araris stared steadily at her. Then he said, “If any of them lived, they would have been here already.”
Alia blinked at him in surprise, and her brow furrowed in confusion. “My lord?”
“Nothing but death would have kept my lord from your sister’s side,” Araris said quietly. “And if he died, it means that the Marat forces were overwhelming, and the Legion died with him.”
Alia just stared at him, and her lower lip began to tremble. “B-but…”
“For now, the Marat control the valley,” Araris said quietly. “Reinforcements from Riva and Alera Imperia will arrive, probably before the day is out. But for now, it would be suicide to leave this place. We have to stay until we’re sure it’s safe.”
Another contraction hit the young Isana, and she gasped through it, biting down on a twisted length of leather cut from the
“Then…” Alia straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. It was a heartrending gesture for Isana to see now, a child’s obvious effort to put steel into her own spine-and almost as obviously failing. “We’re on our own then. “
“Yes,” Araris said quietly.
Alia nodded slowly. “Then… with your assistance, I think I can help her.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Watercrafting? Do you have that kind of skill?”
“Sir?” Alia said hesitantly. “Are we spoiled for choicer”
Araris’s mouth twitched at one corner in a fleeting smile. “I suppose not. Have you ever served as a midwife before?”
“Twice,” Alia said. She swallowed. “Urn. With horses.”
“Horses,” Araris said.
Alia nodded, her eyes deep with shadows, worried. “Well. Father actually did it. But I helped him.”
The younger Isana screamed again.
Araris nodded once the contraction had passed. “Get her other arm.”
The ragged image of Fade, standing beside Isana, said, “This was the second mistake. Fool. I was such a fool.”
Together, the pair dragged Isana into the shallow pool. Araris stripped out of his armor with hurried motions and knelt behind Isana, supporting her upper body against his chest while Alia knelt before her.
Isana stared at the entire thing, fascinated by Fade’s memories. She remembered none of this. She had never been told of this.
Araris gave the young Isana his hands, and she squeezed them bloodless through each contraction. Alia knelt before her sister, hands framing her belly, her eyes closed in a frown of concentration. The scene acquired a timeless quality, somehow removed from everything else that was happening, existing in its own, private world.
Alia suddenly fell to her side in the pool, splashing water. Araris’s gaze snapped up to her. “Are you all right?”
The girl trembled for a moment before closing her eyes and rising again. Her face had gone very pale. “Fine,” she said. “Just cold.”
“Fool,” Fade mumbled from beside Isana. “Fool.”
Isana’s belly twisted in sudden, horrible understanding of what was coming.
An hour passed, Alia encouraging her sister, growing steadily more unsteady and more pale, while Araris focused the whole of his concentration on supporting Isana.
In time, there was a tiny, choked little cry. Alia gently took a tiny form in her arms, and wrapped it in the cloak that lay nearby and ready. The baby continued to cry, a desperate, horribly lonely little sound.
Alia, moving very slowly, reached out and passed the baby to the young Isana. She saw a fine down of dark hair. The miserable little infant began to quiet as his dazed mother pressed her against him, and he blinked up at her with Septimus’s grass green eyes.
“Hail, Octavian,” Alia whispered.
Then she slid down to the ground, into the pool, suddenly motionless.
Araris saw it and panicked. With a cry, he drew Isana and the baby from the pool. Then he returned for Alia. She did not move. Did not breathe.
Fade tore her dress from the wound and there found an ugly sight. The broken end of an arrow pressed up from
