“But the king—”

“Must I run her through myself? Where are my guards? They’ll take care of her.” “Your majesty, please!” Mradvior was saying in a horrified voice. “I never dreamed she could do anything to harm you. Some idiot servant put the needlework in her lap. I assure your majesty that we did not—” “Stop babbling and kill her. I command it!”

Pheresa shut her eyes. Yes, death, she thought with longing. Anything to escape this horrible place.

“The king, majesty,” Mradvior protested, “has ordered me to keep her alive. I regret—” “You spineless fool! She has insulted me, and I want her death!” “Let me punish her, majesty. There are ways to make her suffer.” “Then punish her hard, my lord,” the queen said ruthlessly, taking her foot off Pheresa’s hand at last. “Punish her very hard. For if you are merciful, I shall see that you are slaughtered in her place.”

Furiously the queen swept out with her courtiers while Mradvior bobbed in their wake, still apologizing.

“Pheresa,” Gavril said, wandering back from the window, “why are you lying on the floor? ‘Tis most unseemly behavior in one of your station. Really, must you act like a peasant?”

Lying there, Pheresa did not even attempt to reply. How long, she wondered in despair, was she to go on enduring this? And she wept.  With a little gasp of exhaustion, Alexeika tipped the bowl of god-steel in her lap and poured out the water it held. The misty vapor that had formed above the water’s surface shimmered a moment in the cold night air and vanished. Weariness pressed all the way to Alexeika’s bones. She realized with surprise that she’d parted the veils of seeing as Dain had asked her to, and that the results she’d feared had not come to pass.

Indeed, it had gone well. For the first time in her attempts to use her gifts, she’d been able to focus her mind correctly. She’d felt the power center itself inside her body, then radiate forth to do her bidding. The vision she’d sought had come.

But right now, she felt too exhausted to take the slightest amount of satisfaction in a job well done. Around her, the Field of Skulls spread out, the ancient bones gleaming pale white under the moonlight. Old magic crisscrossed the ground and quivered in the air. If she sat very still, she seemed to hear muted whispers and moanings, battle cries and death cries, the clang of steel and the clash of shields. There was an unsettled aspect to the place that prickled uneasiness through her. Yet never had she been more in command of herself, or more able to focus the powers of her mind.  Faldain’s hand gripped her shoulder without warning, and she jumped violently.  “I saw her,” he said excitedly, ignoring Alexeika’s reaction. “There at the last, I saw her. I—I think she saw me.”

Alexeika’s heart burned with misery, but she forced herself to look up. She even fought off the temptation to lie. “Yes, you saw her,” she said in a dull, tired voice. “You’ve been wrong to think her dead.”

“Aye,” he said, sounding amazed. In the moonlight she could see him quite clearly. A lock of his black hair fell in his eyes, and he brushed it back impatiently. “Pheresa is alive. Alive, by Thod!”

“Not only alive, but well,” Alexeika forced herself to say. She might as well tell the truth about everything she saw. Her father had not raised her to lie.  “Your fair lady is well enough to be sitting in a pale red gown, with a necklace of sapphires around her throat, and her hair combed into a simple knot at the back of her neck. She’s beautiful.”

He nodded, drinking in the details, although he’d seen them for himself. “Aye, she is.”

“I saw people coming up to her, the Netheran court perhaps. Queen Neaglis spoke to her.”

Faldain grinned. “To think Pheresa is at Grov, being paid deference at Muncel’s court. I am amazed by the miracle of it. My suppositions have all been wrong.” Huddled in her cloak, Alexeika felt a hundred years old. Her heart ached, yet she was so tired she no longer cared.

“Rejoice in her good fortune, sire,” she said. “The Chief Believer told you lies.”

“The Netherans must have given her a cure,” he said, and laughed. “Oh, Alexeika, well done! This more than makes up for my having failed to summon Tobeszijian.” She stood up, but she could not smile in return. “And now your way is clear.