When romance bloomed between Tol and Valaran, Egrin had known nothing about it. Only later, after Tol’s exile, did the rumors reach his ears. Even so, Miya’s reaction seemed out of place. She and Kiya had always had a sisterly relationship with their ostensible husband. The sisters had known of Tol’s love for Valaran almost since it began, and no hearts had been broken by it.
As Miya returned the circlet to the leather box Egrin noticed her fingers were trembling. She ordered them both outside, not wanting them to know the box’s new hiding place.
Twilight had come. The fine spring day was ending. Wind stirred the trees, sending a flurry of blossoms over the Dom-shu settlement. The scene was so peaceful and pleasant that Egrin had to force himself to remember the terrible devastation going on a hundred leagues west.
Eli thanked him for acting as peacemaker. “Ma gets kind of wild when the stone turns up.”
Cocking an eyebrow, Egrin said, “Then perhaps you shouldn’t meddle with it.”
Eli grinned. “She’s just afraid Uncle Tol will find out she’s still got it. He told her to get rid of it after we came here.”
The situation made little sense to Egrin, but then he hadn’t been in love in-how long had it been? Nearly fifty years? A great span to be alone, by any reckoning.
“Will your uncle be home tonight?” he asked.
“Nah. He took a bow and possibles bag this morning, so he’ll be huntin’ all night.”
Kiya came striding across the village square, looking weary. She’d carried her father’s words to the chief of the Karad-shu and returned, a long journey, all in one day.
“Egrin. Boy,” she greeted them. She put a fist under Eli’s chin and lifted it. He responded by punching her on the arm.
Miya called for Eli and he went inside. Kiya asked, “Have you convinced Husband yet?”
The old marshal shook his head, frustration in every syllable as he replied, “If he cares nothing for the empire, you’d think he’d fight for Valaran! Her life is as much at risk as anyone’s!”
“I think he’s worked so hard for so long to stop hurting, now he hardly feels anything.”
Egrin fought back a wave of pity. There was nothing he could do to ease Tol’s pain, yet there was much Tol could do to ease the empire’s suffering, to help every man, woman, and child in Ergoth. Egrin had to break through the wall Tol had erected, stone by stone, around his heart.
“He must go! Everything depends on him!” he said, driving a fist into his palm.
Kiya regarded him in silence for a long moment, then said, “When you see him next, speak of her, not the empire. It’s Valaran owns his heart, not the land of Ergoth.”
She went inside, leaving Egrin alone in the deepening dusk.
Running hard up the leafy hillside, Tol pulled an arrow from the quiver on his back. This would be his last chance to take the deer. Light was failing and his quarry was outpacing him. He saw a flicker of white tail as it fled through the trees, each bound covering three paces. He drew the bowstring to his ear and let fly. With a thrum, the arrow sped through the intervening foliage. Panting, Tol waited for the tell-tale sound of the broadhead striking.
He never heard it. In truth he heard nothing at all, not even the rhythmic thud of the deer’s small hooves. Complete silence had engulfed the woods. Puzzled, Tol moved slowly through the stillness. His footfalls sounded muffled and far away. He nocked another arrow, his last. A good hunter never returned home with an empty quiver. Kiya, fine archer that she was, would have much to say about his sad performance.
The quiet was unsettling. Creatures of the forest became silent in the presence of great danger. Tol’s approach was not enough to cause such alarm. Something else had disturbed them.
He approached the hilltop with care. This place was known to him. On the other side of the hill was a wide, shallow ravine, filled with closely growing alder and beech saplings.
As he crested the hill, there was an intense flash of light. Heat seared his face and his bare left arm when he threw it up to shield his eyes. Hair sizzled away on the back of his exposed arm. For an instant he wondered if lightning had struck at his feet, but he felt no pain, and the brilliant light did not fade. Gradually, his eyes adjusted. Lowering his arm, Tol beheld a marvel.
The ravine at his feet had been transformed. In the midst of the slender saplings was a great orb of light, whiter than the sun. It hovered a few steps off the ground, its radiance hot, but not unbearable.
Tol took cover behind a nearby tree. Instinctively, his right hand went to a spot just below the waist of his trews. This was where, for decades, he’d kept the Irda millstone, sewn into a secret pocket in his smallclothes. However, he no longer carried the artifact. Not trusting himself to destroy it, he’d asked Miya to do it for him when they arrived in the Great Green.
Now, staring at the bizarre orb of light that pulsed, like some enormous heart, at the bottom of the ravine, he wished he’d kept the artifact. His dealings with the rogue wizard Mandes had given him a healthy distrust of magic, whatever its purpose. It had had no part in his life in the forest. Still, it seemed to have found him again, even here.
Someone was calling his name, a faint, barely discernible sound. He raised the bow, his final arrow nocked, and prepared to draw the bowstring back.
Strange. The voice sounded female. In fact, it sounded like-but couldn’t be. It couldn’t be her.
He nearly dropped the arrow. It
“Valaran,” he whispered. Then, more loudly: “Valaran!”
He hadn’t spoken her name aloud in years. Once his injuries healed, he hadn’t allowed himself even to think of her. Such thoughts were pointless, bringing only pain.
“Val! I hear you! Where are you?” He stepped out from behind the tree. The bark on the other side was beginning to smolder. Leaves scattered on the forest floor had turned brown, edges curling.
Tol called to her several more times, but it seemed that Valaran could speak to him, but not hear him. When the orb began to dwindle in size, Tol threw down his bow and raced down the slope toward the fading light. He had to let her know he had heard her message!
Shouting her name, slipping and sliding in the loose leaves, he lost control near the bottom of the slope and blundered forward. One of his outstretched hands penetrated the very center of the shrinking globe. He half- expected to be burned, but instead the orb exploded in a noiseless flash, lifting him off his feet and tossing him into the scorched saplings.
By the time he’d shaken off the impact and recovered his sight, he beheld a very different apparition. The pulsating orb of light was gone. In its place was a city.
Small as a child’s toy, the city lay dead center in the ravine, bathed in bright sunlight. The walls and towers were no higher than Tol’s knee, as though he viewed a real town across a great distance. The apparition was so perfect and life-like, Tol recognized the place immediately. It was Juramona.
Smoke billowed from various buildings, and flames topped the old wooden walls. The High House, residence of the Marshal of the Eastern Hundred, was engulfed in fire. Swarms of men on horseback galloped through the smoke and chaos. The south gate was breached, as was the east. Sabers rose and fell. Tiny figures on foot fell like scythed grain. Juramona was being sacked.
Gradually Tol heard the noises. Softly at first, and garbled, they soon sorted themselves into distinct sounds- the crackle of flames, hoofbeats, the clash of arms, and above it all, the wailing cries of the dying. A thousand swords struck down a thousand victims-men, women, and children. The smell of blood filled the air, an odor as thick as the smoke.
A new sound arose, slowly growing louder. At first he couldn’t credit it, it was so utterly out of place. Soon it drowned out all the other noises and there was no mistaking it: laughter.
A single male voice was laughing at the carnage. As surely as Tol knew his own name, he recognized that laugh. It was Nazramin, who now ruled Ergoth as Emperor Ackal V.
The laughter swelled in power and volume until it beat at his ears, pounding in his head like a relentless sea. Eyes squinting against the agony, Tol fell to his knees.
