Sasha

own stupid, blind conviction that your view of the world is all powerful!

'You didn't save Lenayin because it was the right thing to do! You wanted payment! And you took it! First you took my brother, the person I loved most in all the world, and then when it got him killed, it's suddenly my turn!'

'Don't you ever suggest I never cared for Krystoffl' It was as close as Kessligh had ever come to genuinely yelling at her. 'I loved him like a son!'

'And why is it that you never had your own real sons? Why not inflict this destiny upon your own flesh and blood? Why do it to someone else's?'

'Because it's not the Nasi-Keth way!' He stared at her, kneeling on the lower slope, seeming torn between anger and consternation. Then he put both hands to his hair, as if to tear out several great handfuls. 'Gods blast it, Sasha, what do you want? I gave you the life you wanted, didn't I? You were miserable in Baen-Tar, you swore anything would be better than that life! Deny to me that you don't love it here?'

'I never thought I was a pawn in one of your damn power games!' she yelled at him. 'You never told me it was all a set-up!'

'I've tried to tell you so many times,' Kessligh continued, with increasing forcefulness, 'there's no easy choices in life! Your father is king and he suffers for it daily! Damon is a prince, yet he fears the weight of that responsibility! I chose the Nasi-Keth, for they seemed to offer the best chance of escape from the many hardships and terrors of human life.

'And you… you had the choice between a princess of Lenayin, or uma to a senior Nasi-Keth. You chose me. And I put it to you, my uma, that you have had precious little cause for complaint until now. Damon has suffered far worse than you-all your siblings have. Royalty has its responsibilities and hardships, but you… you were born for this-running about in the wilds, rearing horses and learning svaalverd. It's in your blood; you'd choose this life whether I was your uman or not. Did you seriously think it would go on being perfect forever? There's always a trade, Sasha. Always. Not even you can escape it.'

'You lied to me!' Sasha yelled at him. It wasn't fair that he should start making sense, now of all times. He couldn't be right. She wouldn't let him. 'You never told me what it was all about! I didn't volunteer for your blasted war!'

'You did,' said Kessligh. Rain plastered hair to his brow. Blood trickled a slim rivulet to the point of his jaw. His eyes were as grim and as penetrating as Sasha had ever seen them. 'If you think hard, you'll even recall the day.'

Sasha stared at him. Recalling, suddenly, the eyes of Master Daran, fixed upon her with a similar, grim contemplation. She'd been curled on her bed in her Baen-Tar chambers. The Master himself had attended her chambers, after she'd attacked the maid posted there previously with a knitting needle and drawn blood. Stray shards of glass had crunched beneath his foot, where the remnants of the fitting mirror had escaped the maids' brooms. Several other items of her chambers' furnishings had disappeared after she'd smashed them, or tried to. She'd been restrained, and slapped, and forcefed her dinner until most of it had ended on her face, in her hair or up her nose.

Eventually all the fury, and all the urge to break and to smash and to vent her despair upon any person or object within reach, had dissipated, and left her drained, weak and vacant. Krystoff was dead, and her life was over. And so she had sat on her bed, watched over by Master Daran, the senior court official in whose meticulous hands had rested the education and deportment of all the royal siblings. Master Daran had brought in his notes and papers, and had worked at her desk with a scribble of ink and quill, positioned precisely between bed and door. Occasionally he had glanced her way, to find she had not moved. Occasionally he had tried to talk, and to reason, to no result.

Then, Kessligh had entered. Sasha recalled her mild surprise. She could not recall Kessligh ever having entered her chambers before. He was a godlike figure of the barracks and the training hall, he did not belong in such mundane places as little girls' bedrooms. He had asked Master Daran to leave them. Then he'd taken the chair Master Daran had been sitting on and carried it to her bedside, all resplendent in uniform purple and green, with squeaking leather boots and a cloak that was almost a cape.

He'd sat upon the edge of the chair and leaned forward, with elbows on knees. His expression had been very sombre and very subdued. Sasha remembered the wash of relief that it had been Kessligh who'd come and not one of the others. Not one of the stupid jesters with their silly shoes and sillier hats, with bells and whistles and stupid tricks to try and cheer her up. Not one of the matrons, with their commanding, 'motherly' presence, to which she was somehow supposed to respond in some fit of feminine empathy. And certainly not big brother Koenyg, who had never particularly liked Krystoff, and could certainly never replace him. She'd looked at his rough, uncompromising face, and had known that, unlike the others, he would always take her seriously. Here was a man who would never lie to her. Would never baby her and coddle her with soft lies and half-truths. Here was a man to whom her slim, remaining sanity could cling to.

'I offered to take you as my uma that day,' Kessligh said, above the hissing rain and distant, rumbling thunder. 'I told you what that would mean. I said that you would become Nasi-Keth and that your future would belong to them. And when you agreed too hastily, I left you to think about it for seven days. On each day, I explained it to you again. I told you, Sasha. And you agreed. Had you stayed where you were, I think it quite likely you would have given up hope and died.'

'I didn't…' There were tears in her eyes. Suddenly, she was back in her room in Baen-Tar and could feel the leaden, oppressive weight of dark stone all about. The grief and despair were as fresh as before in overwhelming intensity. 'I didn't think I'd have to kill people! I didn't think so many people would hate me!'

Kessligh leaned forward intently, his expression incredulous. 'Sasha, you picked that fight against the Hadryn all by yourself. I warned you what would happen! Now you decide you don't like the taste of blood? What's the matter with you? What do you really want, Sasha? All the rest of this is manure. What do you want?'

Sasha's face contorted in grief. 'Why are you leaving me?' she barely managed to sob, as composure left her completely. 'I can't do this alone. I can't abandon the Goeren-yai. And now you're going to leave me, and I can't do this on my own…'

Emotion struggled to find purchase in Kessligh's eyes. He grabbed her and hugged her close as she sobbed upon his shoulder in the pouring rain upon the sodden, darkening hillside.

'There's a war coming, Sasha,' he murmured in her ear as she clung to him, desperately. 'The Nasi-Keth must be strong, for only we can find a middle way between two opposing sides. Yet the Nasi-Keth in Petrodor are divided and weak. I must return to them. And one day soon, you must join me there, for I cannot do what needs to be done without you.

'And yet, when I took you as my uma, I swore that I would give you the freedom to walk your own path.' He released her and took her face in both hands, to stare firmly into her tear-blurred eyes. 'Walk the path, Sasha. Go to Baen-Tar. Reason with your father and brother. Save that idiot Krayliss's neck, if you can.

'When the Nasi-Keth spread out from the Bacosh hundreds of years ago, they thought to bring their enlightenment to all human lands, not by force but by reason. I knew that when I took Krystoff as uma, and I knew it when I took you. Don't be angry with me. I love Lenayin. I owe much to Lenayin. When I rode here from Petrodor as a young man, I swore that I was doing it not so that Lenayin could serve the Nasi-Keth, but so that the Nasi- Keth could serve Lenayin.

'I have taught you as best I can, Sasha. You have surpassed my wildest hopes.' Sasha could only stare, disbelief joining grief upon her face. 'I have given so much to Lenayin, but now, I find I have no more left to give. But you do. Whatever you set your mind to, you can achieve. It is your gift. Be very careful what you set your mind to, for not all achievements are great. But know also that you make me proud beyond words.'

Sasha embraced him again, and sobbed some more. Kessligh held her. They were cold, and wet, and shivering in the gathering darkness. And yet, despite the fear and grief, Sasha knew that she had not been betrayed. That, for the moment, was enough.

They had been riding for three days and Daryd did not know where they were. The scout that the man Jurellyn had sent to guide them rode ahead, keeping to small horsetrails that sometimes seemed to vanish in the undergrowth. It was raining now, a steady, miserable downpour, and in places the mud sucked at Essey's hooves like a live thing. It was lucky, Daryd thought, that he always rode prepared, even about the fields of Ymoth. Otherwise, he wouldn't have brought his and Rysha's cloaks, which now kept the worst of the rain and chills off their heads. But Mama always warned them of how fast the weather could change and he never rode out without a