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peregrine, and he could swear the wings were moving as it hovered over a dark pool.  He shivered as his palm closed around it. But its shape was warm and familiar against his hand and he knew the nature of it. At once he felt invincible, at one with the wind that rustled through the tall grasses of the plain.
    He gazed at his grandfather, who stood with his ear cocked to that same wind. ‘Who am I, Orish?’
    The old man chuckled. ‘You know who you are. It’s bred in your bones, your mind and your heart, and it’s written in your blood. Too much too soon will be bad for you, Hal. You will come to your own realization in time, know what you are and what is expected of you.’
    Hal had to be content with that. He had dreams, frightening dreams in which he heard the cries of a dying woman. He felt her pain, though she tried to mask it from him. Sometimes, he smelled blood in his nostrils and was jerked awake with a pain in his side, shivering with the shock of it, and crying out a name.
    There was a younger woman with blue eyes, a different pain inside her. He could feel her rage and her grief, barely contained behind a facade of calm. She contained it, fed on it, felt the need for revenge inside her, which went against her nature and her teachings. And in secret, she prayed to Bane to feed her rage.
     ‘We will know each other,’ she’d said, her voice as soft as the silken skirts of the women who danced on the fairground stage. And with a smile he remembered Arlene, who’d taught him the art of loving, and who’d allowed a young man his ease just for the delight it brought them both.
    A frown knotted his forehead. The dying woman’s name was on the edge of his mind, but it wouldn’t come to his tongue in the wakefulness of day. ‘Whose name do I cry out in my sleep?’ he murmured.
    ‘I hear no cry.’
    Always the same evasiveness, he thought. But Hal had learned a lot from Orish, the position of the stars and their relationship to the old Gods in the time before the rift was healed. He’d learned of the explosion that had torn the world asunder – one that the Grand Alchemist had accidently caused. Lord Kavan had collaborated with him to bring the rift together, to stave off complete disaster.
    ‘The world is still healing, Hal, yet the people still listen to the violence in their genes instead of the peace in their hearts. Lord Cynan rules by fear. Although the Karshal daughter manages to tame his excesses, he and his followers make a sport of the outlanders and anyone with watcher blood in them. He represented himself as an ambassador for peace, then slaughtered half the populace and allowed his soldiers to make sport with the women.’
    ‘Why did the Karshal daughter wed him?’
    ‘She had no choice at the time, since she was young, and not strong enough to defeat him. The alternative was death. If she’d died, the true-blood Karshal would have died with her.’
    ‘I have heard they have a son between them who is Karshal in his looks, but fleet of foot and as fierce as a hunting hawk, and that the power of the alchemist guides and protects him. It’s said he’ll be the best and wisest ruler yet.’
    ‘Where did you hear all this said?’ Orish asked, his lined face crinkling into a grin when he cackled with laughter. ‘I must be deaf as well as blind. You shouldn’t listen to marketplace gossip, especially when engaged between the sheets. You should keep your mind on the job at hand.’
    Hal grinned. ‘My mind is disengaged from my body at such times. Besides, you get to hear useful gossip from between the sheets prattle.’
    ‘Make sure you listen with your intuition and are not tempted to indulge in anything except the carnal. Be discreet, Hal. Some of these women are paid to pass on anything they hear, so be on your guard. It doesn’t take long for rumor to start, or for it to reach the ears of our rulers.’
    Hal snorted with laughter. ‘And what rumor about me would be of interest to