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“FitzChivalry! Prince FitzChivalry!” The shout came from behind me, and I knew the voice. Perseverance was charging toward me.

“Perseverance! Wait!” And that was Riddle’s voice, with panic in his warning.

“Stay back!” I shouted. While I’d been distracted, Ellik had seized his opportunity. He leapt in recklessly, determined to either slay me or force me to kill him. I tried to fall back from him but deep snow and a tangle of brush were behind me. A terrible wave of vertigo swept over me. I barely kept to my feet. I staggered sideways, the deeper snow clutching at me. The weariness that now claimed me could not be denied. I felt a general slackening of all my muscles. My sword fell from my limp hand as my knees folded under me. I stumbled backward and the snow and the brambles received me.

Ellik never questioned his good fortune. He staggered forward, and the sword from my own home darted toward my chest.

“My lord! FitzChivalry!” And with that shout, I found myself looking up at Perseverance. He’d ridden in and somehow snatched Verity’s sword from the snowbank where it had stood. He clutched it as if it were a poker; I saw that he’d never held a weapon before. “Get back!” I shouted because Ellik was turning and lifting his sword to meet the boy’s charge. Verity’s sword was too heavy for the stable boy. It wasn’t skill. The weight carried the blade down and the horse’s charge provided momentum. He more speared than stabbed Ellik. The would-be duke dropped his blade and clutched at the one going into his chest. Perseverance screamed and I saw fury and horror in his face. He came off the horse, clinging to the sword, falling with the weapon onto the collapsing Ellik.

The carris seed was failing me. My heart was leaping like a hooked fish in my chest. I gasped for air as I fought my way free of snow. I could hear men shouting but could barely make sense of what was happening. I knew only one solution. I dropped my knife and groped at my waist for the pouch there. A twist of paper, a tiny cone of seeds left in the bottom. I tipped some into my mouth and ground them between my teeth. I shuddered and thought I would vomit. The world went white and spun. It was all noise and cold and then everything was suddenly bright and light and clear.

I reached for Perseverance, seizing him by the collar and hauling him off the dying Ellik and back to his feet. I stooped, groped in the snow for my knife, and sheathed it. I turned, trying to take in what was happening. I saw Lant swing his fancy sword and take off a Chalcedean’s arm, sword and all. More shocking was that Riddle was on the ground. The Chalcedean had dragged him off his horse and tried to seize his mount. Lant had saved him.

I stooped and pulled Verity’s sword out of Ellik’s chest. The man made a sound. He wasn’t quite dead. Another thrust finished him. Perseverance was staring at me. His mouth was hanging open, his chest heaving, and I feared he would cry. “Pick up that sword!” I bellowed at him. “To me! To me, lad!” For a wonder, he obeyed. He picked up the wall-sword and stepped away from Ellik’s body. “Follow me,” I commanded him, and he came behind me as I moved toward Riddle and Lant. They had dispatched the Chalcedean who had tried for Lant’s horse. Per whistled and his mount came to him. Priss followed, nostrils and eyes wide. “Secure those horses,” I ordered him. To Lant I said, “Help him. I don’t want any of those bastards riding off on fresh mounts.”

I heard wild shouting and turned to see my Rousters sweeping in behind the Ringhill Guard. Two lengths behind them came Foxglove and the rest of my guard.

“Capture! Don’t kill!” I shouted with all my strength. But one of the Chalcedeans had already gone down, caught between two of the Ringhill soldiers and slashed from both sides. Before I could draw breath to shout again, I saw two more fall. The final man got a horse loose and nearly managed to get onto the panicky animal. As I started toward the melee, he fell and was trampled.

“Stop!” I shouted. If anyone heard me, they paid no heed. One of my Rousters was off her horse. She’d put her sword through two of the downed men before I reached her. The third did not require a killing thrust. He was dead.

“’Ware!” shouted Riddle. “Prince FitzChivalry! Guards! Put up your swords!”

I’d never heard him shout like that. He had regained his horse and was thrusting his mount between me and the battle-maddened men I’d heedlessly charged.

“Prince Fitz!” someone else shouted, and suddenly my Rousters were turning to me, grinning and shaking bloody swords, as proud as puppies that had just killed the barn cat. I stared at them. A tremor of fatigue, of giddiness, of drugs, and of despair passed through me. I reached up to seize hold of Riddle’s thigh. I didn’t fall.

“Is Bee here? Is she safe?” Perseverance’s voice had gone high and boyish again in his anxiety.

“No,” I said. “No Bee. No Shine. At least not here.” I summoned every bit of strength that was left to me. My knees were shaky. I drew breath and felt the carris seed surge. “We organize a search. Now.”

Chapter Twenty-Six
A Glove

...

Of the naturally bred one named Beloved, we have only a brief genealogy. This was due to carelessness of the part of the Servant who received the child at the gates. Although he claimed that he took a complete account of his parentage and siblings, the document either does not exist or was separated from the child and misplaced during his acceptance and orientation time. Some have suggested the candidate himself stole and destroyed the document, but I find this unlikely. His cleverness has been overestimated by far too many of his caretakers.

While at first the child was cheerful and obedient as his family had assured him that Clerres was where he belonged and he would be cared for, as days passed, he became morose and impassive. He shared little with those who attempted to ascertain his lineage. We can say with relative certainty that he had lived with his parents for over twenty years, that all three of his parents were elderly and becoming unable to continue to care for themselves or Beloved. He initially asserted that he had two sisters whom he missed badly. Later, he denied having any siblings. An effort to locate them and harvest their offspring for interbreeding with our established pool of those who carry White lineage was not successful.

Thus Beloved remains the only member of his lineage that we have in our records. Our efforts to have Beloved contribute a child to our stock have been in vain. He is stubborn, occasionally violent, argumentative, and incites like behaviors in the other Whites if allowed to be in contact with them. When it was decided that he should be marked for easy identification no matter where he might go, he resisted the tattooing process, even attempting to burn the completed markings from his own back.

While it is an extreme solution, in my opinion he should be eliminated. Even the accounts of his dreams should be excised from the regular listings and placed separately in our records as I judge them to be unreliable reports. His rebellion knows no bounds and he exhibits no respect. It is my considered opinion that he will never be useful to us. On the contrary, he will be destructive, kindle rebellion, and disrupt the order and peace of Clerres.

The first day and a half of fleeing from Dwalia were brutal for Shun and me. We found a tree-well the first night and huddled together there, shaking as much from terror as cold. Close to the trunk of the massive spruce tree, the earth was bare of snow but carpeted thickly with generations of fallen needles. The down-swooping branches were like the walls of a tent. We’d been unable to hide the tracks we made crawling into that space. We could only hope that no one would attempt to track us.

In the distance we could hear screams, angry shouts, and a peculiar sound that I could not at first identify. “Is that sword against sword?” I whispered to Shun.

“The pale people didn’t carry swords.”

“Maybe they snatched some up.”

“I doubt it. Here. Put your coat on the ground for us to sit on. I’ll open my coat and you sit on my lap and get inside it with me. We might be warmer that way.”

The kindness of the offer startled me as much as how pragmatic it was. As we arranged ourselves, I asked, “How did you learn this?”

“Once, when I was very small, my grandmother was taking me home from a visit when our carriage wheel hit a pothole and broke something. It was winter and night and our coachman had to ride off to get help for us. She took me inside her coat to keep me warm.” She spoke to the top of my head.

So. Her childhood had included rides in carriages and a kind grandmother. “Not all of your life has been horrid, then,” I said.

“Not all of it. Only the last four or five years.”

“I wish it had been nicer for you,” I whispered, and strange to say I meant it. I felt closer to her, as if I were older this night or she were younger.

“Sshhh,” she warned me, and I kept silent. Excited and angry cries still tore the forest night. A long scream rose and fell and rose again. I thought it would never stop and I buried my face in Shun’s shoulder and she gripped me close. Despite how we huddled, we were still cold. The dark and the forest seemed so huge that I felt we were a stubborn nut that it clutched and tried to crack with cold. I heard a horse galloping; it passed us, and though it was not at all near, I still trembled with fear. At any moment I expected to hear someone shout that they had found us. They would seize us and drag us out and this time there would be no Dwalia to protect us. Or Vindeliar and Dwalia would come with his misting lies and her soft, cruel hands and claim us to be Servants. I closed my eyes tightly and wished I could close my ears.

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