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me?” Draken gave him a direct look, suspicions flaring. “Answer truthfully, I’ll do likewise.”
    “Truth? I was tracking banes.” Osias glanced around himself, and then he turned his remarkable eyes back on Draken. They were blue, Draken decided. Palest sea-gray blue. “And I found one inside you.”
    “A bane? But how…” Words failed him. Banes. Spirits from hearth stories told to frighten children. The matter-of-fact way which Osias had spoken of them made it sound almost plausible that a vengeful creature of Brînian legend had possessed him and fed upon his grief. It was certainly easier than believing he’d nearly succumbed to his anguish over losing Lesle.
    “The band fled before succumbing to my will.” Osias took on a musing tone. “An unlikely thing. I must warn the Queen of this development, for where there is one bane, more will follow. And you must testify to her, as a witness.”
    The Queen…the Akrasian Queen ? “A witness? No, no. I can’t go to court,” Draken said. “I’m—”
    “Monoean. I realize it.” Osias was obviously using his knowledge to his advantage. He eyed Draken closely.
    “Then you surely realize what it means. Why I am here.” Draken refrained from looking at the marks burned into his hands… marks Osias could not have helped but notice.
    “You have done grave crime and suffered banishment.” Osias rose to walk a tight circle around Draken. His gait was rangy and confident. He stopped and laid his hand on the silvery tree shading them from the moonlight. It shuddered under his touch. “Who is following you?”
    Draken felt a chill. “No one.”
    “Someone with magic does so.” He shook his head. “I sense Moonling wards but your noble blood will protect you.”
    “I’m no noble.”
    Osias arched an eyebrow. “Truth?”
    Draken looked away. He might carry noble blood, but mixing it with common blood was heresy against the gods.
    “Here you are a Brînian nêre. A warrior lord. I will see to it.”
    “I’ve never even been to Brîn before.” Draken thrust his branded hands at Osias. “And what of this? I’m a marked murderer.”
    Osias stared at him hard. “Are you? A murderer?”
    He had killed in the name of war. And his work in the Black Guard had required killing as well—killing that had seemingly earned him powerful enemies. The only explanation for Lesle’s murder and his subsequent framing was that of revenge. The Akrasian magicks used in the murder also suggested this explanation. He had never considered that his past might put his wife in danger. Disregarding this danger had led directly to her death.
    “Aren’t we all?”
    “But are you a criminal?” Osias said.
    Draken lowered his gaze. “No. At least, not in the way they think.”
    “Then the marks mean nothing.” Osias took Draken’s hand and studied it. “I’ll see you fed and clothed, and you shall stand witness at court. A better start than your old countrymen gave you, aye?”
    Draken held onto his reserve. He needed time to make a judgment on this man. A sorcerer had most certainly killed his wife and he wasn’t about to throw his lot in with one without a great deal of thought. But then, Osias could be his entrance into the world of magicks. He could lead Draken to his wife’s killer.
    “Might I see your bow?” he asked instead. It was something of a polite custom to examine others’ weapons in Monoea.
    Osias handed the weapon to him. It was as tall as Osias, a beautiful, willowy thing, glowing pale gray. Draken ran his hand along the smooth wood and drew the powerful string back to his cheek. He’d shot recovered Brînian longbows during the Decade War, but he’d never seen one of such quality.
    “My bow is— was recurve. Smaller, for mounted use,” he said. “Or to deploy from sail riggings.”
    “Perhaps we can find you such a weapon in the markets at Auwaer.” Draken’s mind raced at the mention of the capital city, but before he could ask Osias to