Nearby, not entirely displeased by Loethar’s release from his marriage but hardly impressed by Valya’s bloody end or what looked to be Loethar’s dead child clutched in that bundle, Elka watched the older man talk quietly with Leo. She couldn’t hear what was discussed but an educated guess suggested that Leo was still content to watch from a distance and not play his hand.

She crouched lower as Leo’s advisor scrambled back to where the Vested sat. He was obviously a wily old campaigner; if anyone might spot her it would be him and she wasn’t going to take any chances. He whispered to the woman who seemed to take charge of the others and then he murmured something to the rosy-cheeked woman, who smiled and nodded.

None of them seemed to be moving into action, so Elka returned her attention to below where Loethar was now circling his half-brother. She couldn’t imagine how or why Stracker would take on Loethar if he knew he was protected by magic.

She checked again that Roddy was nearby and inwardly thanked her god for his blessing in keeping Loethar safe. Her heart was still bleeding for Gavriel, though, and she dearly wished she could see what was happening behind those walls in the convent. She focused her full attention on Loethar as someone threw him a sword.

*  *  *

Stracker sneered. He had never looked bigger or more ferocious. “Valisar?”

“That’s right,” Loethar said evenly, beginning to circle. To one side Piven beamed and Vulpan watched from the carriage like a spider in the shadows.

“Then our mother was raped!” Stracker spat on the ground between them.

“Not so. She loved Darros. Never stopped all the while she was with your father.”

“Then my mother was a whore!” Stracker accused.

Loethar actually laughed. “Well, you’re certainly cutting yourself free of all your allies, Stracker. And now you have no one. Not even your faithful Greens, who have seen through your ruse and your treachery.”

“They’ll cringe before me when I kill you, Loethar.”

“You’ve never bested me yet.”

Stracker’s face adopted a rictus of a grin. “There’s a first time for everything.”

“Indeed. Including dying. Watch that open stance I’ve warned you about so many times before, Stracker.”

Stracker spat on the ground again. “You’ve gone soft, brother. Too many years of playing emperor.”

“That’s half-brother, Stracker,” Loethar said and danced in to strike the first blow.

She let Kilt hold her but knew he could see her thoughts were far away from this place and from him. And she couldn’t blame him for trying to console her, but his tenderness only made it worse.

“Genevieve, my heart hurts for you.” He squeezed her gently. “I mean it really hurts. I am sharing your pain whether I like it or not.”

She dragged her gaze from the distance. “I can’t believe he’s gone. He’s been the most important person in my life since I was old enough to make friends with an adult.” She held out her hands. “Look at these! They’re useless. They’re meant to be healing hands—magical healing hands—and I just let my closest friend die when I had the chance to save him.”

“If you had,” he tried gently, “he might have hated you.”

“He could never hate me.”

“Genevieve, look at me.” Reluctantly she turned her gaze to him. “Corbel was honest with you. He needed you to respect his pain and especially his sorrows. He said he’d been sad for most of his life.”

“Oh, don’t, Kilt,” she said. Hearing those words again made her crumple.

“No, you have to hear this. Imagine why he’s been sad all his life. It’s because other than the tiny little ray of hope that you might notice him as something other than your big brother figure, he had nothing really to live for. He said as much. He’d lost his family, his home, his life . . . even his memories had been denied him in a way. He had to keep Brennus’s secret. And then after years and years of being dutiful the opportunity arrives. He comes back and he brings his most precious of possessions—his only possession . . . you.”

She began to cry again.

“He clings to the hope that now, back in his world, walking the landscape he knows, tearing off everything that smacked of his foreign life . . . clothes, pretenses . . .”

“Beard,” she said, sniffing.

“Yes, all the disguise, all the lies fall away and he tells you the truth, believing after what is it? Twenty anni?” She nodded. “That you’d finally see him for the man he was.”

“I did.”

“But you saw him as Corbel de Vis.”

“Every bit as wonderful as he was as Reg Dervis.”

“But not the noble Corbel de Vis that he’d hoped would make you catch your breath and swoon at his feet. He was living a story in his head. He’d built up such a picture of how it was going to be when he brought you back—if he brought you back—and of course when you didn’t react that way, it shattered his long-held dream.”

“And then you,” she said, putting her face in her hands.

“Yes, and then me. Do you regret it?”

“No, Kilt.” She took his hand. “I’m grieving. Let me grieve.”

“There’s no time, my love. Loethar is fighting for his life out there and while I never thought I’d utter these words, something inside me will break if he dies. Right now he’s fighting on our side . . . he’s fighting for you and for the people of the Set. He’s fighting for good.”

“We have to do our bit,” she said.

“Exactly. And the more I think about it, the more I believe that you are the solution.”

“That’s what the Qirin said.”

“Then that’s two of us who believe it and we won’t be the only ones. It has to be your magic. It has to be the famed Valisar Enchantment . . . the Legacy, as it is known.”

“But I don’t know what it is.”

“Well, it’s within you. You must find it and you must use it. They say you can coerce people, make them do your bidding,” he pressed.

“Force them, you mean,” she said, frowning.

“Yes. I suppose that’s the harsh way of looking at it. Do you know where that magic is?”

She shrugged. “I haven’t had a chance to think about it.”

“Then now is the moment. There probably won’t be another chance, or a more fitting time.”

“But if all the Valisars have their aegis, isn’t it a stalemate? No one wins. Loethar can’t keep fighting Piven, and if Leo has found his aegis, he can’t keep fighting me, or Loethar. You’ve said we are invincible. I can’t coerce them.”

“I agree. Peace cannot be achieved until the Valisars reach an agreement. But that can’t happen. We know Piven wants his siblings and Loethar dead. Leo will kill Loethar if he has just half a chance. Loethar . . .” He shrugged. “I’m going around in circles.”

“The only solution then is to somehow rid all the Valisars of the aegis magic.”

His gaze snapped to hers in bewilderment. “Are you mad? That’s your only protection.”

“But it’s the aegis magic that is preventing harmony.”

“There is no harmony any more.”

Evie stood and paced, her mind roaming now. “Where is Ravan?” she asked.

“I’ll find him,” Kilt said.

“Hurry,” she urged and then she was lost in her thoughts again. She felt a voice talking to her from the rim of her mind; she knew that voice. It was a familiar companion from her study days and perhaps even earlier than that, as she moved through her most awkward years and felt at her most isolated. The voice was an invisible friend who spoke to her, helped her to sort through problems to solutions. It was at times her conscience, her extra sense, a mirror that reflected back her negative feelings in an effort to turn them into a positive energy. And right now it was trying to make her see something, something that felt just out of her line of vision, just out of her reach. She stretched in her mind but still it evaded her.

And time was running out.

Loethar knew Stracker would get bored parrying with swords in the same way that Stracker got bored with intelligent conversation. And so Loethar knew that if he kept feinting and teasing Stracker—giving him small openings to tempt him but then shutting them down just as fast—sooner or later his half-brother was going to become wearied of the lack of action, the lack of blood. He simply had to stay out of that bludgeoning sword until Stracker was bored enough to be reckless.

“Stracker?” Piven called. “Can you listen and fight at the same time?”

The big man grunted.

“Can’t you see what Loethar’s doing?”

“Eh?”

Loethar gritted his teeth.

“Well, it’s obvious. He’s deliberately baiting you. He’s just about inviting you to take a slash. Don’t lose your temper. That last thrust was dangerous.”

“Piven, I don’t think explaining the rudiments of my strategy is altogether fair,” Loethar commented, hiding his irritation as he jumped forward suddenly and slashed at Stracker, missing him by a whisker.

“Oh pay attention, Stracker, and at least make some sport of this, for Lo’s sake.”

“Stracker, you believe you’ll kill me, don’t you?” Loethar said, feinting left and hearing the whiz of Stracker’s enormous blade cutting a little too close.

“I will kill you, Loethar, just for being Valisar.”

“And you know Piven will kill you straight afterward? If not him, then Leo, who has probably found his aegis by now. Did Piven tell you that Leo is alive? I can assure you he is. I have seen him, met him even.” He paused as Stracker went still. “Er, Stracker, you’re not meant to stop attacking me in a fight to the death.”

“You’ve met him?”

Loethar kept his guard up but sighed theatrically. “Thoroughly unpleasant, whinging sort of runt. The sort you’d personally like to chew up before your first meal of the day.”

Stracker actually laughed. Loethar knew his half-brother had always found him amusing, especially when he bantered to Stracker across the battlefield or any sort of competitive activity.

“So we agree on Leonel?” Stracker asked, taking a monumental hack at Loethar’s neck. Loethar blocked it but it left his arm near numb.

“That was good, Stracker. The closest you’ve got yet.”

“I can get closer still,” the big man warned.

“Can you see how he’s wearing you down, you big oaf? You’re going to be too tired to lift that wretched great sword soon and meanwhile his small frame is dancing around like a pillodillo.” There was real venom in Piven’s voice but the word made even Loethar laugh.

No one in this company had ever heard Stracker laugh with easy amusement. But hearing his half-brother described as an effeminate who was paid to dance for men who preferred the company of men seemed to tickle his fancy, and he erupted alongside his half-brother in genuine mirth. Loethar suspected they had the same sort of mental picture of Loethar draped in gauzy robes.

“Right, stop, both of you,” Piven commanded. Stracker dropped his blade and Loethar did as well, more out of surprise than obedience. “This is not entertaining. There’s no heat in this fight. There’s no blood. You two seem to be treating this as a great jest. Loethar’s right, Stracker, I will kill you if you’re still standing at the end of this so you might as well die knowing you took your Valisar kin down with you.”

Stracker’s amusement died and his tatua stretched in the familiar grimace.

“And to ensure you fight hard, can I ask you both to look at that man over there. Captain Gorin, I think his name is.” Loethar looked at Gorin, a feeling of dread unfurling in his belly. “Greven, kill Gorin, will you. Beat him with your only fist until his face is no longer recognizable and his green tatua have been obliterated.”

Loethar felt his mouth fall open in astonishment. “Ah, Loethar, I see I shock you. Isn’t this precisely the sort of thing you used to do to get what you wanted out of people? I seem to recall boys younger than me being slaughtered in numbers, I know you let Stracker loose on the Vested, that you roasted my father and ate him before my mother and I. Did you think I wouldn’t remember those events? You taught me how to be evil, Loethar. You and Stracker. You’re as bad as each other. You used Stracker, turned him loose whenever you needed a dark deed done. So now here’s a taste of your own medicine. Watch the men you love fall. And by the way, use that strange guttural language to tell your men there is no point in fighting back. Greven cannot be harmed or wearied. He is relentless.”

“A curse on you, Piven!” Loethar yelled.

Stracker immediately began bellowing to the Greens in Steppes language as the first cries went up from Gorin, who had tried to shake off Greven with a weapon to no avail. Others too were joining in but finding Greven impossible to hurt. Gorin’s howls intensified.

“I’ll tell you something else,” Piven said. “Vulpan is going to count for us. And every time we reach the count of ooh, shall we say twenty-nine, Loethar? That’s a number you should recognize. You killed twenty-nine boys before you were satisfied that Leo had been found. And now every time Vulpan reaches twenty-nine Greven will pick a new Green to murder. Start counting, Vulpan . . . aloud, so I can hear it.”

“One . . . two . . . three . . .” Vulpan began.

“Wait!” Loethar said.

“No!” Piven denied. “Keep counting, Vulpan, or you’ll be next to die. You two, you’d better keep fighting to the death as promised or the man closest to Greven will be next. And he’s quite young, I see.”

Gorin’s cries had ceased. He was clearly dead, his face a pulp and unrecognizable as ordered. Greven looked sickened, staring at his only fist, a mass of blood and flesh clinging to it.

“Nine . . . ten,” Vulpan continued, trying not to look at Greven.

“Gentlemen,” Piven said. “It’s up to you.”

“Let’s finish this,” Stracker said, and instantly took a hack at Loethar. Loethar didn’t move quite as fast as he hoped and took a nasty slash across his belly. The pain was sharp and he sucked in a painful breath but he managed to parry the next three furious blows.

“Ah, this is more like it,” Piven said. “Now we have a fight on our hands, Vulpan. Greven, at the count of twenty-nine you kill that young Green next to Gorin’s corpse.”

“Any moment, now, Marth,” Leo said. “I want Loethar weakened, not dead.”

The general nodded and held a finger in the air to Reuth. When that finger dropped, it was the moment for Narine to turn on her best skills.

Elka couldn’t believe it. Was that blood on Loethar’s shirt? But Roddy was there! The aegis magic was in place. She’d seen it tested, knew it was sound.

She turned it over in her mind, her heart hammering with worry. And then it dawned on her. He had ordered Roddy to drop the protection so he could fight Stracker honorably.

She cursed silently and bit her knuckles: she was torn once again. Her good sense won out. Running down there would achieve little. She had no magical protection, and the truth was Loethar could turn his aegis back on with just a word to Roddy—a mere glance, in fact. He wasn’t going to die, she told herself. He wouldn’t let it happen. Not for Stracker. Not after Stracker had betrayed him.

She must trust Loethar. She had no choice. Besides, she couldn’t help but admit that she despised Leo and she intended to put a stop to whatever little plot he was hatching.

They were both tired now. Each had struck blows and both their bodies had suffered cuts, some serious enough to be bleeding freely and hurting a great deal; both were wearing each other’s blood on their clothes and in their hair. Certainly both swords glistened.

Loethar paused, swaying slightly, and took stock.

Four of the Greens had died the hideous death that Greven meted. Loethar had yelled an order for the Greens to scatter, which Stracker had reinforced, but the Greens had simply regrouped, too loyal to leave their most senior warriors, too dutiful to walk away from their king.

That they wouldn’t save themselves even as he begged them to run brought tears to Loethar’s eyes. There was only one thing for it, only one way to save another man’s face being obliterated. He could hear one screaming defiantly now as Greven began to rain down the next set of blows to the sound of Piven’s gleeful laughter.

And Vulpan counted monotonously on. Each time he reached twenty-nine, Piven would shout. “Next!” to Greven and then he would turn to Vulpan and order “Again!” before he returned his attention to the two bloodied fighters.

“Loethar can’t last much longer. I won’t begin to describe to you what’s going on out there,” Jewd whispered to Kilt.

Kilt, looked uncharacteristically tense. “She’s trying to work her way through this. She and Ravan are together. I don’t really know why she feels he is important but I think he keeps her calm.”

Jewd shook his head. “I feel we are done for here.”

“No, old friend. I will keep you safe.”

“That’s not good enough, Kilt. I’m worried about everyone else.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Kilt, you’ve always been able to dream up the most inspired ideas. We’ve never needed that to work for us more than now.”

“Genevieve is the door that unlocks this. I feel it.”

“Why isn’t it Piven . . . or Loethar . . . or—?”

Kilt gave a look of exasperation. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Well why say it?”

“It’s a feeling, that’s all.”

“What feeling?”

Kilt paced. “I think it’s because we’ve all been drawn here. All the surviving Valisars—”

“Not Leo.”

“We don’t know where he is but we also don’t know that he isn’t here. There are four Valisars. We know three of them are here and it’s very possible the fourth is too, hiding somewhere out there.” He pointed to nowhere in particular. “My magic feels somehow complete as though it’s sensing all of them. I could be wrong.” He shook his head.

“Go on.”

Kilt shrugged. “Genevieve arrived here first. No one bothers with this place. We’ve had our dealings with it over the years, and it’s no more than a convent on the edge of mountains that very few people move through; home to the Davarigons, a quiet race we see little of.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is that Genevieve finds herself here after ten anni away from Penraven . . . since leaving our world. And lo and behold, we all start arriving. Why did we come here?”

Jewd shrugged. “Any number of reasons.”

“But no specific reason. And then one by one, the others begin arriving . . . all the major players in this game of chess: the Valisars, their individual champions, even Valya and Stracker.”

“It is like a game.”

“Well, the gods are having fun at our expense, if it is. But everything points to Genevieve, and the legendary Valisar Enchantment that a surviving female royal would possess. The most potent of all.”

Jewd nodded and sighed. “The magic to cure all magics,” he said and stood. “And while we’ve been here musing, Loethar’s probably dead. I’d better check.” He turned to leave, then paused. “I meant what I said, Kilt. If Genevieve is the door that opens the secret chamber, then you are the key that unlocks that door. Use that clever mind of yours and show us the way.”