“But if he served you and believed you to be king—”

“Oh, aye, he believed that long before I did myself,” Dain said. “But he was an ambitious and greedy man. He wanted riches and great rewards, and he thought if he kept the Ring from me I would grant him anything he asked.” Frustration welled up inside Dain and he clenched his fists, wishing he could run and run and run, the way he used to through the Dark Forest when his inner burdens grew too heavy to bear. But he was no longer a child, with a child’s solution to problems.

“Why he panicked in Sindeul, I know not.”

“Perhaps he was simply afraid,” she said softly.

“Aye. It’s a terrible place.”

“More than terrible.”

Dain met her eyes, which held a haunted look. He knew his own must be reflecting back a similar expression.

“An unholy place,” she whispered.

He nodded. “But now he is dead. He used the Ring improperly, and lost it forever.”

“If you had it,” she asked slowly, “would you dare use it to take us from here?”

“Aye.” Then he remembered Tobeszijian’s warning and abruptly shook his head.  “Nay, I suppose not. Its use is for the benefit of the Chalice only. ‘Tis what happened to my father, after all. He used the Ring without harm to conceal the Chalice, but then he tried to save himself and is now trapped forever in the second world.”

She gasped. “I didn’t know this! Merciful Thod, I thought him dead.” Dain sighed. “ ‘Tis worse than being dead. He wanders, trapped between the first world and the third like a ghost.”

“Before your path parted from this man Sulein’s, why didn’t you use the Ring to find the Chalice?”

“Because I didn’t know where the Chalice was,” Dain told her. “You can’t just leap into the second world without a clear destination in mind. You could end up lost like Tobeszijian. Or dead, like Sulein.”

She frowned thoughtfully. “Can anyone use the Ring, if they know how?” “That, I know not,” Dain said. “It is meant to be worn by the king. Sulein dared to use it, and you saw what happened to him.”

“Aye,” she said softly. “I did.”

In the shade of the lean-to, Thum moaned.

Hoping his friend was finally coming round, Dain dusted off his hands. “ ‘Tis no good talking about the Ring now,” he said bitterly. “Sulein saw to it that it’s gone forever.”

He checked on Thum, who was tossing feverishly. The squire’s dark red hair looked matted and dull, his eyes were sunk deep in their sockets, and his skin was hot to the touch. Dain gave him more water and tried to keep his face cool.  Out in the sun, Alexeika sat cross-legged on the ground with her back turned slightly toward him as though to give herself privacy. She rolled up the sleeves of her linsey tunic and used a damp rag to clean her face and arms, which were growing bronzed beneath the merciless sun. Then she loosened her hair from its braid and began to work out its many knots and tangles with her fingers.  Dain found himself watching her perform these simple, yet incredibly intimate acts. He felt uncomfortable, as though he’d somehow invaded her privacy, yet there was nowhere else to go unless he were to risk sunstroke by wandering about in the desert. So, tired and stiff from riding all night, he reclined on one elbow under the lean-to and sleepily watched her finger-comb her hair.  He’d had no idea there was such a wealth of it, or that it was so long and thick. Curly from having been braided, it flowed down her back to the ground. He remembered his sister’s long hair, so fair and silky, and how Thia used to comb it every night, counting the strokes under her breath, before she went to bed.  The sunlight beamed down upon Alexeika as she loosened snarls and picked out little bits of leaf and twig. At last she finished working through the long tresses, and spread her hair in a luxuriant fan across her shoulders. It was a dark chestnut brown, with highlights of red and gold glinting in the sunshine.  Alexeika sighed, tilted back her head, and gave it a shake so that her hair flowed and rippled magnificently.

Then she straightened and looked over her shoulder straight at him. Her blue-gray eyes held his a long, long while, entangled with emotions he could not read.

He sensed nothing from her mind, nothing at all, yet there seemed to be something she expected. He’d noticed that Alexeika watched him often with a brooding frown, as though she wanted to say something to him, or to ask a question, or even perhaps to confide a secret. Yet she seldom spoke except as necessary. Today’s questions were unusual for her. He found himself suddenly curious about her past.

“Alexeika,” he said.

She blinked, her gaze changing. “Sire?”

“Tell me about Nether. Tell me about its history, about your father and what you know of mine. Tell me about yourself and how you’ve grown up, what you’ve done since your father died.”

Something eager sparked to life in her remarkable eyes. She nearly smiled, then frowned. “There is much to say in all that. I would bore your majesty.” “Don’t be coy,” he said sharply. “Were I not interested, I would not ask. Talk to me a while, for tired as I am, I cannot sleep.”

“Where do I start?”

“Anywhere you like.”

And so she began to talk, keeping her voice low and quiet.  He found her an excellent speaker. Her recountings were clear and concise and well-ordered. After a while she seemed to relax and forget his rank, for she began to sprinkle in pithy comments and observations that made him smile. He saw how keen and logical her mind was. The details she gave him were useful. He learned all she knew about his parents and the betrayal which had led to their doom. But when Alexeika began to talk of her own father, her tone softened and changed, filling with pride, love, and longing all jumbled together. Dain saw how profoundly she had adored and respected Ilymir Volvn, and he envied her for having grown up knowing her parent. Through the spinning of her tales, he could envision that tall, fearless general with his jutting nose and fierce gray eyebrows. When she described Volvn’s final battle, how he and his five hundred men took on a force of two thousand, only to be slaughtered by the unexpected arrival of Nonkind against all rules of combat, Dain heard the war cries and saw the terrible massacre as the rebels fell one by one. These had been men loyal to his father, King Tobeszijian. Men loyal to himself, although they’d never seen him.

Bowing his head, Dain knew he owed such men—owed all the Netherans who had fought and died in the cause of right—a tremendous debt. It did not matter how much he still felt unworthy and unready for his kingly responsibilities. They had to be carried out. And he vowed anew that he would do what was required.  Unless he failed to escape Gant.

Tears welled up in Alexeika’s eyes as she told him how she’d released her father’s soul just before the looters returned to the battlefield.  “I’m sorry I asked you to conjure up such painful memories,” Dain said softly.  She sniffed, and wiped her eyes as though ashamed to be caught weeping. “I was so certain he would win. Until that day I never doubted that my father could do anything. The possibility of defeat never entered my mind, despite all his cautions.” She frowned. “I was such a child.”

“ ‘Tis nothing wrong with being so. With having an innocent hope and belief in good,” he said.

Her eyes flashed fiercely. “Nay! Tis better to know that life can be cruel indeed. Nothing is ever safe. Nothing ever remains unchanged.” “Would you want things to always be the same, Alexeika?”

“Aye! I would wipe this year away, if I could.”

Dain said nothing. Despite all that had happened to him in recent months, he would change little of it. Only the deaths, he thought, would he change. There had been too many of those, too many loved ones, friends, and comrades taken.  Alexeika took out Severgard and rubbed its black blade with sand, polishing it as though her hands knew not how to lie idle. She spoke again, and now her voice was hushed and angry as she told him about the Grethori raid and her days as a captive. She provided few details, but Dain could tell from the suppressed emotion in her voice and the fire in her eyes that it must have been a horrifying time. Yet she’d escaped.

“Only to be pulled back into danger by me,” Dain said. “And because of me you were brought here to be a Gantese slave.”

“The Grethori were worse,” she said, tossing her head. “All my life I have feared Gant, but nothing I’ve seen here has been worse than the sheda and her spells.”

She didn’t meet Lord Zinxt, Dain thought bleakly. She didn’t walk through that palace of the lost and the damned. She didn’t face the Chief Believer.  He crawled out from under the lean-to, picked up the bowl, and rose to his feet.  Exposed to the full blast of the sun, he felt himself instantly drenched with perspiration. The heat seemed to be baking his brain inside his skull. When he squinted across the horizon, the air shimmered from the heat, and for a wild moment he thought he saw riders coming their way.

But it was only a mirage, and after a moment his racing heart slowed down.  “Get in the shade and rest,” he told her. “I’ll go fetch more water and check the traps.”

“Those should be my jobs,” she said at once.

Dain frowned. “Alexeika,” he said with more sharpness than he intended. “You are neither my squire nor my servant. Nor do I want you to be. Avail yourself of the shade.”

A tide of red rose from her throat into her face, but Dain swung away from her and strode off toward the watering hole. His senses told him no animals had come to it; thus, he made no effort to be quiet. It was odd how, whenever he found himself starting to like the girl, she did something to irritate him. She had no business groveling around him like some lackey. Indeed, as a maiden—and maiden she was, no matter how good a warrior she might also be—it was unseemly for her to serve him; why didn’t she understand that?

He filled the bowl halfway with muddy water and watched it gradually clear. As he carried it carefully back, he checked their empty traps and let his vision sweep the horizon in all directions. The wind blew hot and dry against his face.  Every breath he inhaled seemed to desiccate his body from the inside.  When he returned to the lean-to, he found Alexeika sitting in the shade. Her loose tunic sleeves were rolled down to the wrists, concealing her lean, well-toned arms. Her beautiful hair had been pulled back in a severe braid.  Looking stern and unhappy, she watched as he crawled next to Thum and began to bathe his friend’s feverish face.

“I do not understand how the bowl sweetens the water,” she said at last.  Dain finished dribbling a bit of the liquid between Thum’s parched lips and sighed. “Be grateful for this gift of the gods.”

“Is—is this perhaps the Chalice?” she asked in a hushed voice.

Dain looked at her in surprise. “Nay.”

“I thought it must be. It seems to have such amazing powers. It has saved our lives and—” “The Chalice is in Nold,” he said firmly, and handed her the bowl to drink from.  “That is where we go next.”

She lowered the bowl from her lips and frowned. “Not to Nether?”

“I’ll not argue with you on this matter,” he said in warning.  Her frown deepened. “I do not argue with you, sire. I merely asked for clarification.”

“We go first to Nold, if we can reach it,” he said, hardly willing to let himself hope that they might actually get as far as the border. But finding the water and food today had restored his faith in their survival, giving him new energy and optimism.

“With the Chalice in my possession I will rally the scattered rebel forces into an army.”

“But would it not be better to rally those forces now, in the last days of autumn?” she countered. “You will have all winter to train them into a strong fighting force. Then you can renew your quest for the Chalice’s recovery.” With a snap of his temper, Dain turned away from her. “I told you I would not argue about this.”