The envoy from the Helat had arranged to meet with Clarencio at Asriel’s Weir, the point where the Salt River crossed the border into the Kingdom of Night. From Shamasa Redoubt to the location was a night and a half by carriage.

  The duke spent the early part of the ride enjoying his new wife’s charming company. Kelena’s conversation was enchanting, and her humor something he had been sorely hoping to find in a mate. She seemed thrilled to have someone to talk to, and he only caught rare glimpses of brittle cheer and hidden despair that he recalled from their talk at the ball.

  But as the hours wore on and the carriage lurched across the uneven sloughs and stands of prairie grass, keeping his own good humor became harder.

  His crippled leg had yet to fully recover from the abuse of the mad dash to the redoubt. Around the old scar, the tissue had swollen and discolored, though Kelena’s natural bashfulness had kept her from remarking on the abnormality in their marriage chamber. If she had snuck a glance at all while he had been unclothed and his back turned, she hadn’t said a word about the ugly scar or the inflammation.

  Sweat beaded on his temples despite the cool night air. The minor muscle seizures grew more frequent as the hours stretched on. Those brought nothing more than a grimace or occasional wince easily explained away. Clarencio prayed desperately for a delay in the worst of the cramps. He feared subjecting his young wife to the sight of him writhing in pain, hammering on his leg, and screaming through clenched teeth.

  They ate a light luncheon as midnight came and went, stopping the train briefly so the drivers could do the same. Walking helped relieve him somewhat, but the respite from the carriage was short. All too soon they were forced to climb back inside and the torture began again.

  An hour before dawn they crossed a small, rocky stream, and the jolting of the carriage finally had its say. His bad leg tightened into fiery agony, the muscle slinking together and curdling into stone. He hammered on his leg as the interior of the vehicle descended into hell.

  When Clarencio could think again, he lay on the carriage floor with Saro massaging the lessening knots in his thigh. His beautiful young wife stood outside the carriage looking in, her dark eyes wide with panic.

  And of course, her Thorn was there as a reminder of what a man should be. Hale, hardy, and infuriatingly mobile.

  “It’s all right,” Clarencio tried to reassure Kelena as he pushed himself up to sitting and struggled to regain some dignity. “It looks worse than it is. The carriage ride aggravated the old injury, that’s all.”

  She didn’t look comforted. Her lips pressed into a thin line, and her hands wrung one another endlessly.

  Who could blame the poor girl? What wife could ever feel secure tied to a man who could hardly walk at the best of times and at the worst of times was as helpless as a bleeding infant in a dyrewolf lair?

  As Saro helped the duke wrestle himself back onto the carriage seat, Clarencio attempted to hide his discomfort behind a few self-deprecating jokes. Perhaps he couldn’t convince Kelena that this was nothing to worry about, but at the very least, he could drive off that awful suggestion of pity haunting her eyes.

  They were underway once again, before Kelena finally ventured to speak.

  “The injury,” she said timidly. “Your Grace mentioned that the carriage ride caused the… the fit.”

  What a thing to call it.

  “Yes, but it’s much better now.” That wasn’t entirely a lie. “I doubt we’ll have any more ugly scenes like that before we reach the Weir.”

  “Of course,” Kelena agreed too hastily. She smoothed her indigo skirts over the mud-touched hem of her pale blue underskirting. “Your Grace—”

  “Clarencio.” He regretted the insistence the moment it left his mouth; he hadn’t realized how desperate he was for some reassurance of his own. Even just a familiar use of his name would be a welcome salve.

  “Clarencio,” she stammered, making him feel worse for demanding the intimacy after everything else he’d subjected her to. “You said the Helat envoy will be waiting at the border to escort us to the imperial city. A journey of, potentially, a month. In a carriage.”

  His mouth twisted in a wry smile as he caught the thrust of her concerns.

  “Sounds like an eternity, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m sorry, this must be such a foolish question… but what will we do if this recurs while we’re traveling with them?”

  “That’s not foolish at all. I spent many a long day pondering the same question before leaving Blazing Prairie. We may be going into the Empire of Day to negotiate for peace, but to attempt it from a place of perceived weakness won’t do us any favors. I believe I’ve come up with a tenable solution if not a tasteful one.” He frowned. “Do you know what opal sap is?”

  Kelena shook her head.

  Of course not. She was a princess of House Khinet; even if she didn’t have the royal blood magic, she must have all the inborn immunities and healing abilities of her House.

  “It’s a Coffee Island import, extracted from one of their tropical plants. It deadens pain. Unfortunately, it can also slow the perception. That’s why I can’t use it before we met with the Helat envoy.” And why I wouldn’t touch it within ten miles of your father. “However, once we’ve established relations, small doses should forestall any more… fits. Once we’ve arrived in the imperial city, the opal sap will no longer be needed.”

  The key being small doses and a definite end point. As many corpses in the low street gutters had arrived there thanks to opal sap as had come by way of liquor or the knife. Most often the potent tonic was reserved for the dying, and even then the older healers were uncomfortable using it. Clarencio’s family healer refused to keep the drug on hand; he’d had to send Saro to procure it from a less reputable source while he met with his banker.

  It disgusted Clarencio to have to make such a concession, but he had been unable to find another solution. A potential future devoid of the endless war that ravaged both kingdoms depended on him.

  ***

  Asriel’s Weir stretched across the Salt River at the border between the Kingdom of Night and the Empire of Day. It had been built late in the previous century by Kelena’s grandfather’s father, Asriel IV, also known as Asriel the Clever, to keep out Helat troops encroaching by river. In Asriel’s time, a betrayer prince managed to land a cohort just north of Siu Rial and launch his attack from there. While Asriel, his Thorns, and his men-at-arms fought off the invaders, the king sent his son Ikario and an army of stonemasons racing north to make the river impassable between realms.

  A single barge bearing supplies and reinforcements made it through before the Weir was constructed. The barge was sunk by the Outlaw of the Landing, after which he and his highwaymen rode down to the City of Blood and catapulted the heads of the Helat legionnaires, along with their flaming supplies, into the midst of the fighting. After the battle, Asriel had pardoned the Outlaw of the Landing, renamed him Lord of the Landing, and made every one of his highwaymen a sworn knight in the process.

  When the foolhardy Helat prince saw the heads of his countrymen and the burning supplies, he realized the way was sealed behind him and he would receive no aid. Panicking, he blundered into Asriel’s trap.

  The victorious King of Night offered the prince the option of having his men executed and going free or letting himself be executed in their place. Like a true betrayer, the coward prince chose his life over theirs and went running back to his palace with his pointy ears cut off. The songs claimed the streets of Siu Rial ran red with Helat blood from that Springlight to Autumnlight, and every night the taverns danced to the sound of an executioner’s ax sending betrayers to the strong gods’ hell.

  Over time, the Weir had been repaired and rebuilt as the harsh northern winters, the breaking up of ice floes, and the torrential spring melts wore on the masonry. A series of steep stone tiers sent the waters tumbling down a furious cascade that would crush a boat to splinters. At the top, a set of close stone pillars half as tall as a man and twice as wide stuck up like gapped teeth from the foaming brown waters, and were crowned with a band of stone.

  To the east and the west side of the Weir, trenches, embankments, and uneven rows of leaning, densely-packed standing stones stretched for nearly a mile, making portaging as impractical as sailing. Four long trenches, most of which currently held one to two feet of muddy water, discouraged crossing on foot or wagon.

  The area was known to the Kingdom of Night as Asriel’s Black Orchard, despite the fact that the stones only looked black when wet with rain, and the final stones had not been planted until well into Ikario’s reign.

  Kelena wondered why they didn’t cross the border at the western edge of the Orchard rather than continue the rest of the way to the Weir, but Clarencio explained that had been part of the terms. They would leave their wagons, drivers, and livestock behind, bringing only their baggage and servants into the Empire of Day.

  The sun glared high overhead when the Salt River finally came into view. The muddy water foamed around the teeth of the Weir and sparkled as it tumbled over the cascade.

  Kelena gasped and shrank away from the carriage window.

  Along the top of the thick stone band crossing the river, a pair of Helat archers stalked, bows strung, arrows lying at wait against the strings. As the carriage rattled closer, the men turned to follow their progress. One slung back the wings of his fur-lined cloak so that nothing might hinder a shot. At his belt, a wicked longknife caught the light and glinted like wet ice.

  “Move across there.” Clarencio directed her to the center of the opposite seat, where she would be blocked from view.

  “Should you come over here, too?” she asked, pressing her back firmly to the center of the seat.

  “I don’t think they’ll attack,” he said, frowning out at the bowman. “More than likely they’re as wary of us as we are of them. Watching to react to treachery, not waiting enact it.”

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  Kelena nodded, but she wished House Mattius had brought archers of their own. Despite being shielded by her new position, she felt exposed.

  Worse, Alaan rode atop the carriage, an easy target. She felt her Thorn methodically cataloguing the threats and preparing a strategy for dispatching each one. She clasped her hands in her lap until the knuckles turned white.

  The carriage stopped along the western side of the Weir’s cascade pool. Under normal circumstances, she had learned, Clarencio preferred to climb down from the carriage last, as it took him longer than everyone else, but when she scooted toward the door, he laid a hand on her arm.

  “Just for argument’s sake, let me go first this time,” he said. Seeing her concern, he smiled. “A precaution, nothing more. There’s no reason to think they’ll shoot. Unless they get tired of waiting for me to hobble down.”

  Out the window, Alaan jumped down and put his back to the carriage door, studying the land with his hand on his cutlass hilt. He judged the bowmen the greatest immediate threat, but he didn’t trust the Helat envoy either.

  A moment later, Kelena saw why—each man wore a pair of deadly longknives on his belt, enameled in brilliant, glistening color.

  Of the House Mattius party, only Alaan and Clarencio carried a weapon of any sort. Kelena swallowed around a dry throat and prayed that they would not have need of them.

  Saro opened the door, standing by in case the duke had a spasm. While her husband climbed out, Kelena prayed that his bad leg would be merciful. More than the need to project strength to their ancient enemies, she had seen the frustration and shame the old injury caused Clarencio. How much worse would it be for him to be brought low before the envoy?

  But Clarencio levered himself to the ground without incident and without sprouting a dozen Helat arrows. Turning back, he offered her a hand down. Kelena placed her palm lightly on his, avoiding putting weight on him as she descended the carriage steps.

  In addition to the archers on the Weir, at least half a dozen more Helat stalked the standing stones.

  The envoy waited at the edge of the Black Orchard, four of them, tall and slender, every one. Unlike the almost ubiquitous dark hair, dark eyes, and pale skin of the descendants of Khinet, the Helat had swarthy olive skin with golden undertones, and their hair colors varied from gold to red to lustrous brown. They wore rich fur- and feather-lined cloaks and handsome riding leathers. Their garb showed no soiling from their travels, as if they had just donned it fresh.

  One man stood slightly out front of the rest, wearing a bulky bearskin cloak adding to his already formidable size. His hair was ash blond, and the sunlight glinted off a circlet of creamy white metal resting on his brow. Was that the sunburst Alaan had mentioned?

  The grassy land between the carriage and the Helat was wet with melted frost, and the dirt beneath was thawed. Clarencio’s walking stick sank into the soft earth and dead grass as he limped carefully through it; Kelena had to force herself to keep her pace slow enough to match his.

  As they walked, Alaan stayed out a length from her side, between her and the archers on the Weir. The fact that he had fought Helat before and trusted them only slightly more than he trusted Hazerial didn’t make Kelena feel very safe.

  Still, if Clarencio must project strength and fearlessness, so must she. Kelena squared her shoulders and tried to look unafraid.

  Finally, they reached the envoy. Every one of the Helat were tall, lissome creatures, and much more imposing up close.

  Kelena hurried to cover her awe. The stories she’d heard about the Helat were true! Their ears were pointed! Slender, graceful things that poked up through their hair and afforded them an ethereal beauty.

  On the heels of that surprise came a second—two of those tall figures belonged to women. The redhead smirked as if she were enjoying a joke that no one but she could hear. Like Alaan, her hands held onto the hilts of her green enameled longknives. The other, a silver-haired beauty met Kelena’s eyes with a threatening violet glare made brighter by the purple iridescence shining on the black feathers that trimmed her cloak.

  Clarencio was the first to speak. He offered a noble bow and said something in a language Kelena didn’t understand.

  No one had ever taught Kelena proper salutations. In her entire life, she could count on one hand the number of times she had greeted someone other than a member of her family. All she knew was the curtseys she had seen servants make before Mother and the king.

  Swallowing her doubts, Kelena swept a deep curtsey.

  The Helat man wearing the circlet replied with a stiff half-bow.

  “On behalf of Emperor Tragion of the Sun Dynasty, I greet you.” His Khinesian was steeped in formality and touched by accent, but otherwise flawless. “I am Shadrien, Legate Marshal of the Empire, but to you I give the name my friends call me: Shaden Second-Son.”

  Clarencio offered him a smile. “I won’t tell you what they call me, Legate Marshal. Suffice to say it’s rarely flattering. I give you the name I was born with: Clarencio of House Mattius. I greet you in the name of Hazerial IV, King of Night.”

  The circleted Helat turned hazel eyes on Kelena. Under that glare, she felt more as if she were facing her father upon his throne than a humble representative of the Helat crown.

  “May I present my wife?” Clarencio continued. “Princess Kelena of House Khinet, Daughter of King Hazerial.”

  Not sure what else to do, Kelena curtseyed again.

  The Helat raised a brow a shade darker than his hair. “Can a woman not speak for herself in the Kingdom of Night?”

  “She might find it easier were she not standing under the draw of a half-dozen archers,” Clarencio replied.

  “When it has been ascertained that you come in honest peace, she will have no archers to cower from. You may follow me to our conveyances. Let your servants begin transferring your baggage, but make them aware that our wardens will open fire should they show signs of treachery.”

  ***

  The archers from the Weir closed in behind Alaan as he followed the princess and her husband into the Black Orchard. His muscles coiled in the heightened state of readiness he existed in so often now. He kept his eyes roving from one sun-breather to the next, searching for treachery.

  The Helat could not be trusted. The Lost Tribe had learned that in the age past, when sun-breathers lured them aground and butchered them, man, woman, and child.

  The trenches would have taken an hour or more to walk around, so the Helat had bridged each with unseasoned wooden scaffolding, sturdy but only wide enough for a single person to cross at a time. The scaffolds were hastily built, bark and knots left as they had grown except where removal had been necessary. Its narrowness would be an intentional safeguard to prevent the sun-breathers from being overwhelmed by attackers if the duke was not as trustworthy as he seemed.

  But they were wider than the spars of a ship, and Alaan crossed them easily. He felt the princess hold her breath when she traversed them, then again as Clarencio picked his way across.

  Clarencio’s limp became more pronounced the farther they continued into the earthworks, reminding Alaan unexpectedly of his father. Olaan’s hitching walk, courtesy of an old scar obtained in honorable combat, had worsened in poor weather or when exhaustion strained the old man.

  To distract from his weakness, Clarencio kept up a steady stream of banter with the few sun-breathers who spoke Khinesian. Despite the duke’s attempt to put everyone at ease, sweat shined on his temples, and a sickly pallor tinged his already pale skin. Alaan expected him to fall crossing one of the scaffolds, but he did not offer assistance. Such an action would shame any man, not just an Ocean Rover.

  Between trenches stood the rows of monoliths. From the deck of raed ships, Alaan had spied similar stoneworks on abandoned islands, but those had been ancient and crumbling, and their stone a pale white. These standing stones were new enough that they still bore scars from the carving and hauling. Natural wear had yet to round their edges. Lichen grew on their surfaces, and a few stones had fissures born of ice and thaw.

  More archers had been stationed between the aisles of stone, watching the blood-drinkers from either side. Alaan counted an equal number of men and women among the Helat, both sexes dressed in forest leathers and winter cloaks of fur and feather.

  The sun-breathers’ merchant ships had been guarded by both male and female as well. A cowardly ploy to stop the raedrs’ blades, inserting females into combat. The Helat had learned the hard way that the ocean held no mercy for those who chose to live by the sword, no matter their sex.

  They passed over the last of the narrow scaffolds, Duke Clarencio jesting with a dark-haired Helat about hoping not to have to return the same way anytime soon, and left the Black Orchard behind for open ground. More armed guards stood in an array around the Helat carriages, saddled horses waiting.

  Alaan pushed away the grafting’s shrill shrieking at the discrepancy in potential attackers to defenders. Scenarios darted through his mind, and he answered each of them with a plan for defense while staying between the princess and the highest number of arrows possible.

  No volley launched.

  “If you’re not opposed to it, I’ll remain outside the carriage until they’ve finished transferring our baggage,” Duke Clarencio said, his smile strained. “I need to stretch my leg a bit before we get under way.”

  While servants carried luggage and pavilions and provisions from one side of the earthworks to the other, Clarencio exercised his leg, and Alaan took up a post at the princess’s side.

  The redheaded Helat woman with the green longknives drew the princess into conversation, and others soon joined them. Through the grafting, he felt the princess’s anxiety ease as she became immersed in the conversation.

  Alaan made certain her new acquaintances remained outside arm’s reach, but otherwise ignored what they were saying in favor of watchfulness. The silver-haired woman in the black cloak seemed equally wary of Alaan. Her purple eyes followed him steadily.

  That the Helat showed no visible signs of attack was no occasion to relax. Sun-breathers could alter what a man saw. Alaan listened and breathed and felt the currents of the air around them, so intent for so long that the tension built into a knifelike pain between his shoulder blades.

  Finally, the legate marshal gave the order to mount up. The Helat legionnaires already knew their assignments. The blood-drinker servants went in one carriage, and the duke and princess would ride with Shaden Second-Son in the other.

  To Alaan, the legate said, “You will ride with the rest of the warriors.” He indicated a gold mare. “Your mount.”

  “If a sun-breather rides with the princess, so do I,” Alaan said.

  “Please, honored emissary,” Kelena begged, “would it be possible for my Thorn to join us in the carriage?”

  Shaden Second-Son frowned. “Thorn?”

  “My personal guard. A swordsman sworn to protect me.”

  “Grafted to protect you, Princess Kelena,” the sun-breather said. “Isn’t that the word the Khinet use to refer to this enslavement?”

  Red sunsets flamed in her pale cheeks. “I thought you didn’t… Yes, Alaan was grafted to protect me.”

  “In the Sun Dynasty, it is unlawful to own a slave who did not sell himself to you.” Shaden Second-Sun’s narrowed glare raked over Alaan. “You have the look of the sea, Thorn. I know of no Ocean Rovers who would willingly enslave themselves to any man.”

  Undaunted, Alaan met his stare. “I will ride with the princess or you will not.”

  “We mean no disrespect to your laws by bringing a grafted man into your empire,” Clarencio said. “Princess Kelena had no choice in the matter. Her king and father ordered her to graft the man.”

  “Again you speak for your wife.” The legate marshal’s mouth curled in disgust. “She, at least, is a free soul, is she not?”

  Anger colored the duke’s expression, but he swallowed it and turned a tight smile on the princess. “Kelena, if you would like to make this particular argument yourself?”

  “My husband spoke truly, Legate Marshal. Alaan had no choice in his grafting, but I did—or should have. I was only a frightened, stupid child when I… when I enslaved him. If I’d been stronger, perhaps… But I can’t retire him now. I lack the elements necessary to undo the grafting.”

  She gulped down a breath before continuing. “If you understand what a Thorn is, then you must know that this will be a complicated journey if he isn’t allowed to remain near me. Complicated for me, torture for him.” Where once she would have lowered her dark eyes in fear, they earnestly entreated the Helat before her. “Please, please, do not make me do that to him.”

  Shaden Second-Son glared at Alaan. “I leave the choice to the slave. If he wishes to hold the hand that chains him, let it be so.”

  Alaan replied in the sun-breather’s language, Helesene. “You are a strong man to bully a woman and the husband who seeks only to protect her. No less can be expected from a race who send their women to sea to fight for them.”

  The look on the legate’s face was no less astonished than Clarencio’s or the spike of surprise in the grafting.

  In Helesene, Alaan repeated, “I will ride with the princess or you will not.”

  No further protests were raised. He boarded the carriage, ignoring the duke’s and the Helat’s probing stares.

  The princess settled beside Alaan. They hadn’t spoken to each other since the night of her wedding, but she remained mercifully silent. Clarencio lowered himself onto the seat, and she scooted close to her husband’s side, leaving a enough space to fit the Deep Chasm between her and Alaan.

  Only later, while the dirter’s stilted conversation washed over him, did Alaan realize his mistake.

  As a young raedr, he had learned the Helat tongue in order to understand the shouts of the sun-breathers and to give them commands during raids. His knowledge of Helenese was sound, but there were complexities in the usage that had gone to rust in the years since he had last spoken it.

  Where he had meant to say, I will ride with the princess, the words he had actually spoken were, I will ride with my queen.