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backtrack from where they left us because flooding had taken out the bridge on the river, so we weren’t as far away as Emil and Mihei would have expected. Even so, we had to ride hard to get here in time.”
    Jair glanced at their sweat-soaked horses, then looked back to Emil. “The
dimonns
tricked him. They showed us a child beyond the wardings. She looked like Emil’s daughter.”
    Talwyn nodded. “That’s hard to resist, even if you know better.” Jair looked away, not at all certain he could have resisted the bait had it been Kenver’s image the
dimonns
had projected.
    “Can you heal them?”
    Talwyn checked over both Emil and Mihei carefully before she nodded. “Yes, but not here. I’d like to be somewhere less exposed.” She looked up at Jair and cast a worried glance at his wounds. “I’ll need to look at that arm, as well.”
    “Gladly,” Jair replied. The warmth of the wound had grown to a low fever, and he didn’t want to imagine how Emil was feeling.
    At Talwyn’s command, the Sworn warriors lifted Emil and Mihei and carried them to their horses, draping each man over his saddle and securing them in place. Jair waved off assistance and swung up to his saddle, favoring his damaged arm but able to ride. They rode in silence, on high alert, for a candlemark until they came to an inn.
    “We stop here,” Talwyn said, and the others slowed beside her.
    “Is it safe?” Jair asked warily.
    Talwyn smiled and raised a hand. On the upper doorpost, a rune suddenly began to glow, fading again into invisibility. “One of our people marked this place. It’s safe.”
    The inn was quiet, empty of the usual travelers. Jair had no doubt that plague had dampened business, and if the locals suspected that the road ahead held horrors, then it was no surprise that few ventured this way in the dark. The innkeeper’s eyes widened as he saw the company of Sworn enter, but he gestured them upstairs at the sight of the injured men, and he promised to send up food and ale. Jair took a deep breath to steady himself as he climbed the stairs. His fever had worsened during the ride, and his head had grown light. He stumbled near the top, and one of the warriors caught him by the shoulder. Talwyn glanced sharply toward him, but Jair shook his head.
    “Emil’s worse, and Mihei’s completely spent. I’ll be all right.” As he spoke, his voice seemed distant, and the upstairs corridor of the inn tilted as he fell, and blackness took him.

Chapter Two
     
    D on’t let go of the life threads. I’ve nearly got him.” King’s Healer Esme shifted her position at the bottom of the birthing bed, while Queen’s Healer Cerise took her place beside Queen Kiara, holding one hand on the queen’s forehead to ease her pain. Martris Drayke, the Summoner King of Margolan, sat on a high stool beside the bed, focusing all of his spirit magic to anchor Kiara’s life force and to strengthen the wildly fluctuating blue thread that was the life of his son.
    Blood drenched the sheets. Kiara was pale from the loss of it, alternating between fever and chills. Nearly everything that could go wrong with a birth had gone wrong, and as candlemarks of labor slowly passed, the pain had worn through Kiara’s warrior resolve until her cries echoed from the stone walls.
    Sister Fallon had come to attend the birth, aiding the healers and sustaining Tris’s magic through the long night. Rune-seer Beyral waited in the shadows to read the portents for the new prince. Tris knew the other reason the mages had come. Birth, like death, was a time when the veil between the world of the living and the world ofthe dead was at its thinnest. Drawn by the light, ghosts were the least dangerous of the beings that clustered at the threshold. And though the child had been ensouled since the time of quickening, neither Tris nor the mages were taking any chances. Now, Tris was glad for the mages’ presence, and they helped to maintain a warding around the room. It