CHAPTER NINETEEN

Leavetaking

"I'm not going with you," said Tess. She braced herself for Ilya's reaction, but he merely glanced at her. He had been preoccupied and moody ever since Vassily's return, but he refused to discuss it. At times like this Tess found his autocratic nature especially exasperating. Then she chuckled.

He stopped packing his saddlebags. His look was question enough: Why are you laughing at me?

Tess knew it would be impolitic of her to tell him that she didn't mind him acting autocratically toward others, only toward herself. "Take The Recitation," she offered helpfully. "I've read it."

He hefted the book in his left hand. Princess Rusudani had presented it to him as a gift. It was an ordinary looking book except for the gilt lettering on the cover. "You've read it?"

"I read it in Jeds." And as an intellectual exercise, she'd drafted an essay comparing elements of the Church of Hristain with elements of Mediterranean religions: It was almost as if three puzzles, of the ancient religions of Christ, Isis, and Mohammed, had been mixed together and reassembled in a new form. "Of course I've read the commentary by Sister Casiara on the nature of the Pilgrim."

Ilya thrust the holy book into one of the saddlebags. "Then I will be able to debate its finer points with Princess Rusudani."

"Ah. So you are taking her with you."

"When we defeat the King of Mircassia, I must have a claimant to put on the throne in his place."

"She is not necessarily a partisan for our cause, Ilya."

"Not necessarily. But she is now under my control."

Tess hesitated, then broached the subject she and Sonia had once discussed. "You could marry her to a jaran prince."

"I will do that, naturally," he said without looking at her. "But I'm in no hurry. Mircassia must fall first."

"Marry her to Vasha." There. Now she'd said it.

"I do not choose to discuss Vassily Kireyevsky."

"Stubborn bastard. You're very annoying when you're in this unreasonable mood."

He finished packing his bags. Finally, he spoke. "We should have let Nadine foster him."

"He's your son, Ilya."

"He has no father."

"You know I'm right."

"Gods, Tess! Must we have this argument again? He was spoiled by his mother and he expects the same treatment now that he is a man. A prince! He's worse than Andrei Sakhalin."

"I resent that! He is not worse than Andrei Sakhalin. Nor have I seen to his education for eight years and had him turn out that badly. Do you know what is wrong here? You! You could never make up your mind, and so you always treated him too gently. You have to treat him as you would any son of yours."

"If any son of mine behaved as he has behaved, this is how I would treat him! He will act as my servant until I turn him over to Zvertkov."

"After what he went through as a boy! That's cruel. He'll hate it."

"His behavior is a disgrace to this tent! He will obey me."

The passion of his statement took Tess aback. Abruptly, she felt optimistic, and she hid a smile from him. He could not appreciate humor when he was angry. If Ilya was this angry with Vasha, there was hope for the boy. Because the truth was, Vasha would never be accepted as a soldier on her say-so. He must have a man's sponsorship, and without uncles or cousins, he had only his father, problematic as that relationship was. Just as a girl became a woman through the agency of her female relatives, so a boy became a man with the support of his male relatives. That was why there was no worse fate for a child in the jaran than to be orphaned, to lose not just parents but the entire kin-group.

"Once you've completed the campaign," she said, changing the subject, "I will sail south with the children and meet you in Jeds."

He kissed her absently and hunted around the tent for something he was missing. Of course such a separation seemed natural to him. Jaran men rode away from the tribes all the time, to go to war. They had themselves been separated for months at a time on three occasions in the last eight years. I should be used to it by now, thought Tess, but somehow it always felt like a foretaste of death to her. She would never get used to it.

But Ilya was, in a sense, already gone. Once he had made the decision to launch the final assault on Mircassia and Filis, his mind had gone to the war. Now his body would follow. Anyway, she had received two more cylinders from Charles. This would give her the freedom to explore them. She felt guilty at once for thinking it, as if she wished to be rid of him.

From the inner chamber, she heard him voice a soft exclamation: He had found whatever he was looking for. Curious, she pushed aside the curtain and looked in to see him weaving one of her hair ribbons into his belt buckle. He glanced up at her and suddenly looked self-conscious. Gods, he hated being caught out. But Ilya was never one to stall or retreat when attack would serve just as well.

"Where are the children?" he asked.

"Katya took them out on a little birbas, out in the park."

"Well, then." He crossed to her and firmly pulled her into the inner chamber, letting the curtain fall closed behind her. "Since we leave at dawn tomorrow, and there will be a late and public celebration tonight...."

"You don't have to make excuses to me, my heart. I think it's very sweet that you're taking one of my hair ribbons with you as a token." He ignored her, intent on undoing her belt. "Lest you've forgotten, you have to take my boots off first."

In answer, he picked her up and dropped down onto the pillows with her. She kissed him, and partway through the kiss she was struck as if physically with a premonition that something horrible was going to happen to him, that she would never see him again. She broke off the kiss and cupped his face in her hands, staring into his eyes for so long that he stilled to match her silence.

"What is it?" he asked softly, slipping an arm more firmly around her, gathering her closer against him.

The idea of asking him not to go was so ludicrous that she smiled wryly and kissed him again, murmuring, "I love you" several times in order to make him understand how much she did love him.

And at least, moving there among the pillows, she knew without a doubt that he understood what was in her heart.

So at dawn the next day the army rode out, twenty units of a thousand soldiers each, half of them archers, and of those archers, a full third were young men a year older than Vasha who had trained with saber and bow. That first day, Tess could not bear to let Natalia and Yuri out of her sight. But there were the two cylinders from Charles to distract her, there were administrative and judicial disputes in Sarai to oversee, and, five days after the army had left, a cryptic message from Cara Hierakis: "Coming north. Expect me any time within the next sixty days."

Galina Orzhekov gave birth to a healthy infant son. After the requisite feast, Andrei Sakhalin announced that he was taking a hundred riders and riding south after the main army.

Later that night, after Natalia and Yuri were asleep, Tess was interrupted while reading one of Charles's reports. She blinked off her implant and said, "Come in."

To her surprise, Katerina pushed aside the entrance flap and entered, alone.

"Hello, Katya. I thought you'd still be with Galina."

Katerina did not reply immediately. She prowled the room, examining each object in the outer chamber with a niece's disregard for any lingering possessiveness Tess might have managed to retain after twelve years with the jaran.

"Do you think Galina really loves him, or just thinks she has to because she had no choice but to marry him?" Katerina asked suddenly.

"If she loves him, does it matter why?"

"You don't like him, do you?"

Tess quirked a smile but refused to reply.

Katya sat down abruptly in the other chair. Stood up. Sat down. Clasped her hands together on the table and fixed Tess with a stare. "I took him as a lover, on the ride back here."

"Katya!" Tess was surprised to discover that this shocked her. "You could have hurt Galina deeply by that." But even as she said those words, she realized that she was shocked more by the prospect of actually lying with Andrei Sakhalin, whom she found acutely unattractive, than of the unlikely prospect of Galina feeling betrayed by an affair that had occurred hundreds of miles away.

"All he ever does is talk about himself. Just like Vasha. Vasha is becoming just as boring as Andrei Sakhalin."

Tess winced. "That comparison is unfair to Vasha!"

"Ha! You don't like him."

"If you dare repeat that, young woman—!"

"Of course I won't!" Katya lapsed into a morose silence. She stood up again and prowled the chamber. Tess did not bother to watch her; it only made her dizzy. "Vasha was so stupid," Katya said finally. "He always felt sorry for himself. He arrived at Yaroslav Sakhalin's army thinking everyone should treat him like a prince, and he'd never even fought in a battle."

Tess heard a quaver in Katya's voice, like a hint. She seized on it. "You fought."

There was a long silence.

A long silence.

Tess rose to face her. There is a moment before dawn of a drawn-in breath, as there is before speaking; so Tess waited for light to breach the horizon. Katerina lifted a hand to trace the gold designs inlaid in the quiver hanging against the wall. The gesture, oddly tender, was the only sound in the chamber.

"My lover died in my arms," she said. "Cut down by khaja arrows."

"I'm so sorry."

Katya flashed her an angry look. "No one understands!"

"Oh, Katya! I'm truly sorry, you must know that. But do you suppose that you're the only person—"

"Don't mock me! Have you ever watched a loved one die of wounds right in front of you?" Her indignation was palpable.

Tess sighed, unable to be angry with her. "Your uncle Yurinya died just so, my child, defending me." Just like that, the image of Yuri lying in the grass as life and blood leaked out of him slammed into her, as clear as if her implant had flashed on with a reconstruction of the scene. Tess had to steady herself on the back of her chair.

Yuri. He lay utterly still. There was a transparent cast to his skin, to his pale lips. His eyes fluttered and his lips moved. The scent of blood and grass drowned her. He lifted one hand and held it, wavering, searching for her . . . searching....

Katya stared as if she had just that moment realized that someone else could suffer as she suffered.

"I'm sorry, Katya." Tess wiped away her own tears with the back of one hand. Nineteen was too young to see death so violently and so close, no matter how good the cause. Any age was too young, to have your best loved comrade die despite the full force of your own will that they, by God, just live, just hang on. "I know it doesn't make it any easier to know that other women have lost lovers and husbands and brothers, but still it's true that you aren't alone. If that helps."

"I am alone." Caught in profile, Katerina looked tired, beaten down. The Orzhekov women were known as a handsome line, but it was intelligence and vitality that made them attractive more than the simple physical prettiness that had—for better or worse—graced the line of Sakhalin princes. Katya's grief was raw and terribly affecting. It drained all animation from her. Tess went to her and rested a hand on her shoulder.

"Oh, Katya—"

Katya jerked away from the touch. "I can't tell anyone," she gasped, gulping down dry sobs.

"Katya! Oh, gods." Tess took hold of her, as she would of a small child caught up in uncontrollable fears, and held her with an iron grip. "You must have loved him very much."

"I yelled at her, 'Don't leave me, don't leave me.' But she just looked at me and said, 'It hurts so much. I just want peace.' When she died I died with her, because I could never share my grief with anyone else, I could never share our love and give it life by remembering it to others." She broke into racking sobs, burying her face in Tess's shoulder. "Oh, gods. Promise me you won't tell my mother."

"I promise." She let Katya cry. When the sobs quieted, Tess stroked her hair. "What was her name?"

There was a pause.

"Mariya. Mariya Sakhalin. Grandmother Sakhalin's youngest sister's youngest daughter. She was sent out to her uncle Yaroslav's army when she was sixteen, a year before I got there. We were put in the same jahar—"

She began to talk. And talk. Tess sat her down and held her hands, and Katerina talked fast, and low, and fiercely, as if she feared that this was her only chance to share her love, to truly mourn. For as the jaran say: "If you hold your grief to yourself, you double it." As Kirill Zvertkov had said to Tess after her brother Yurinya's death: "You might as well be dead, too, if all you care for is your own grief." But how could Katerina share her grief when she would be condemned for it? Tess felt a grotesque compassion for little Katerina—no longer so little—who had borne her sorrow like a burden for so many months, alone, who could only unburden herself to her khaja aunt, who alone of all her relatives would not, just possibly not, judge her harshly for loving another woman when she ought to have been loving men.

She also felt a little bored. Katya was no different in this respect from any other callow youth, transported by her first serious love affair. She could go on at length about her lover's fine qualities and the stupid little endearments they had made up for each other and the three arguments (the only ones they had ever had). And she did go on. Tess let her, wondering sardonically if she had ever bored anyone with the same recitation of Ilya's virtues and the minutiae of their meeting and falling in love; feeling the full force of the irony of the situation, that she should sit here and be bored by poor Katya's confession of her ecstatic and passionate love for this matchless paragon who was now dead.

After a while Katya trailed off. The lanterns burned low, streaking the corners of the chamber in dense shadows. "I'm going to ride south with Andrei Sakhalin tomorrow."

"Why? Your mother is so happy to have you home again. She's certain you're staying. You've spent two years with the archers. That's enough."

"She'll marry me off," muttered Katya. Tess did not reply, since it was true. Katerina was nineteen, quite old enough to be married. "She even said to me yesterday, after Galina's baby was safely born, that when she was my age she'd already given birth to me. I hate that."

Tess sighed.

"I don't want to get married."

"Do you want to ride with the army, like Nadine?"

"No. But I don't see what else I can do."

Tess did not know what to say, except platitudes, and she hated platitudes.

"Something is troubling my daughter," said Sonia to Tess the next morning, after they had said their good-byes and the little jahar had ridden away. "But she spoke of it to no one that I know of, not to me, not to her aunts or to her grandmother. Not even to Galina."

Tess had hold of Yuri's hand. Natalia had ridden out a ways with the older children, escorting the jahar to the outskirts of Sarai. "She will probably tell you when she is ready," she said, and hated herself for mouthing platitudes.

"May I help you with that?" asked the barbarian girl with a smile.

Jaelle did not in truth understand the exact words, but the tone and the gesture conveyed the young woman's meaning well enough. Jaelle smiled tentatively. Over the years she had grown unused to smiling. Since Princess Rusudani had come to the jaran, Jaelle had been forced to smile frequently.

The girl helped her carry water back to the princess's tent, and laid a fire for her while Jaelle rolled out a carpet and set up the awning and the quilted chair on which the princess would sit. These jaran girls went armed everywhere, quivers strapped across their backs and knives stuck in their belts. They wore striped trousers and over them a skirt split for riding, and full blouses quilted and padded like armor. In the great jaran camp in the north, the same two girls had assisted her every day, as an honor to the princess, probably, and yet always the girls went about their duties with evident good nature, including Jaelle as well as they could and even taking her down to the pond to bathe several times.

Jaelle judged them to be around the same age as she was. She had learned quickly how to identify these unmarried girls from the more respectable married women. Now that they were traveling again with the army, several young women of the same type took shifts helping her. Perhaps this served as a break from more onerous duties elsewhere.

Like most women who traveled in an army's train, Jaelle knew they must also sleep with the men, and all these girls, however barbaric they seemed otherwise with their weapons, had a free manner around men that revealed that, like Jaelle, they were prostitutes. But in fact it was the behavior of the jaran men that struck Jaelle as odd. She had thought the young slave Stefan's quiet manners to be the consequence of his lowly position, but surely all these soldiers were not slaves? Granted, she had immunity because of her new status as a servant to Princess Rusudani, but not one man importuned her. Yet she knew—had stumbled across—a few trysts taking place out in the brush away from the camp.

She set the quilted chair in place under the awning and made the sign of the Pilgrim, praying to Our Lady to make clear these strange events, to grant her faithful servant good fortune at the end of this journey. After one unfortunate experience, Jaelle had learned to stay with the caravan trade. Traveling with an army's train was not so much dangerous as ... changeable, and any woman caught on the losing side was fair game. It had only happened to her once, four years ago. But Our Lady had given her a blessing to hold against the horror of the three days that had followed the lost battle: The treatment she had received had caused her to lose the child she had been carrying. Indeed, because she knew enough to cooperate with the men who had come to her, that abortion had not been as painful as the one last year, which she had procured with the aid of an herbwoman.

"I beg your pardon," said a man's voice.

Jaelle stiffened. She knew who it was, knew it instantly. She collected herself and turned around slowly. The jaran girl, lighting the fire, examined the new arrival with crass interest. Even after she got the fire lit, she showed no inclination to leave.

Jaelle clasped her hands meekly in front of herself and cast her eyes toward the ground.

"Bakhtiian." She was not sure whether this was his name or a title, or both. "Princess Rusudani has gone with an escort to the church in the village." They had taken a different route south, along the coast instead of into the heathen kingdom in the highlands inland.

Bakhtiian held the copy of The Recitation, translated into Taor, which Princess Rusudani had purchased from Sister Yvanne and then given him as a gift in Sarai. "But you are also of the faith," he said. "I am curious about these words I read, in the third gospel, that when Hristain was brought back to life by his sister—"

Jaelle tried to hide an involuntary shiver. It was as if God had given her a sign, through this barbarian prince who, given the gift of God's word from a daughter of the apostate church, yet spoke truly. To Princess Rusudani his words would be blasphemous, of course: When the Pilgrim had bathed her brother in the waters of the spring, God had turned the water to life-giving milk and thus granted the Holy Son life once again, but according to the northern church, the false faith that the princess professed, it was God's doing alone, when in fact the faithful who professed the teachings of the Anointed Church, the southern church, knew that it was God acting through His Daughter, who partook equally with her brother Hristain of God's divine nature.

Bakhtiian paused. She did not correct him, even though she knew her mistress would be aghast at his words. She knew better than to go against a sign sent from God.

He went on. "—that after Hristain rose up again, and blessed the multitudes who had come to witness this wonder, that then—" He spoke the words without having to refer to them in the book, which remained closed. "—'a bright light appeared from heaven, and on this light He ascended to His Father's house.' How is this explained, that a person might ascend to heaven on light alone?"

Jaelle risked a more comprehensive glance at him. Even her mother's master, a mere lordling, had traveled in greater state than the great prince of the jaran tribes. He wore the same clothes as his commonest soldier might: scarlet shirt, black trousers and boots, and a saber and knife. The only adornment on him was the embroidery on the sleeves and collar of his shirt, a simple gold chain necklace around his neck, and a plain green ribbon woven into the bronze buckle of his belt. His sole escort was Stefan, except for the ever-present escort of guards who hovered a spear's throw away.

Stefan met her glance, flushed, and looked at his boots. Jaelle swallowed, looking about in the hope that her mistress might be returning. It was never ever wise to attract the attention of powerful men. "It is Princess Rusudani who was educated in a convent, my lord. I cannot interpret the words of the holy book."

"But surely you have an opinion?"

"God has great powers, my lord, which lie beyond the understanding of men. It is our duty to be faithful to His word." And because the princess was not there to hear, she added, "And to Our Lady's example of endurance and fidelity."

He grunted. "Ask Princess Rusudani when it might be convenient for me to visit her, to ask her of these things."

"Yes, my lord."

God and Our Lady were merciful. He took himself off. The jaran girl at the fire swung into step with him and began flirting so outrageously with him that Jaelle was amazed by her audacity. But it was true he was a handsome man, and not nearly as old as she had expected him to be. And so strange, too, to speak to her so casually, to ask her opinion!

"Would you like to go to the church? I could escort you there."

She had been so intent on Bakhtiian that she had forgotten about Stefan. An odd impulse struck her, and she tried out a smile on him, and promptly regretted it. He practically stammered, he looked so taken aback.

"I ... I ... perhaps you ... I thought that ..." Words failed him.

"Are you a slave?" she asked suddenly, wondering why he had not left with Bakhtiian.

"Am I a what?" he yelped. Bakhtiian's escort had moved on, after Bakhtiian, and the young woman who had helped her now chatted with a guardsman at the tail end of the procession, having evidently given up on her flirting with the prince. He tried the word out, as if he thought he had misunderstood her. "Slave. A slave? Certainly not! I am the grandson of Nikolai Sibirin and Juli Danov, who are both great healers, and elders of the Orzhekov tribe, as well." For an instant he looked her full in the face, and whatever he saw there made him clench his hands. "I beg your pardon!" he said in a tight voice, turning to leave.

Jaelle's mouth dropped open, she was so surprised. "Wait! I ... I beg your pardon."

He stopped but kept his back to her.

"I only thought .. ." She cursed herself. Suddenly she didn't know what to think. How could he not be a slave? What other man would help a whore, unless he had hoped to sleep with her? Except he had never once asked.. .. She didn't want him to leave, not thinking badly of her. "I thought you must be a slave. I beg your pardon for offending you."

His stiff shoulders relaxed, and he turned. "Why did you think I was a slave? I suppose you can't know—only prisoners or people who have in some way betrayed the tribe are made servants in the jaran. And a slave—doesn't that mean another person owns you? Tess said that a master can do anything he wants with a slave, even kill him." He grimaced.

"Only the gods can hold a person's life in their hands. It isn't granted to men."

"God grants us our fate, and we must suffer it gladly, and with faith."

"It is true that the gods gave Bakhtiian a vision. That is why all the khaja kingdoms are falling before our armies."

Jaelle made the sign of the Lady in front of her chest. "Your gods are false gods. If God chooses to punish His own people, it must only be because we have sinned and deserve to suffer his wrath. You are merely the instrument of God's will." Then she wondered why she had said such a thing to a man who could probably kill her on the spot, if she offended him.

But his lips quirked. He had a rather sweet smile. She hadn't noticed it before. "That is true. The gods have given us their blessing."

How could she have ever thought him a slave? she wondered now. He had the same unseemly arrogance as the rest of them.

The clatter of horses interrupted them: Princess Rusudani had returned. Jaelle told her at once of Bakhtiian's request.

"We will go to him," said the princess.

"My lady, he asked when it would be convenient for him to visit you."

"A jailer visits those he has imprisoned. We will attend his court."

They came to Bakhtiian's court just as the lanterns were being lit around the awning that sheltered him. He sat on a pillow, and the young man who claimed to be his son, Vasil'ii, lit those lanterns and brought cups and a leather flask filled with the drink they called komis. He acted, in truth, more like a servant than like a prince's son. Two of the women archers came forward and checked the princess and Jaelle for knives before letting them go forward.

Rusudani knelt on the edge of the carpet. Bakhtiian gestured for Vasil'ii to bring forward a pillow for her to sit on. Jaelle knelt at a respectful distance to one side. The holy book lay open on a pillow beside him.

"I give you greetings, Bakhtiian," said the princess, and Jaelle translated, "and I render thanks to God Who has brought me from my father's house across great distances to the tents of the jaran. I pray to Hristain, under Whose dominion we all live and die, that He grant you a long life."

"I have a question." He quoted from the gospel of the witness of the light that took Hristain to Heaven. "How is this explained, that a person might travel up into the heavens on light alone?"

"God's power is great," said Rusudani, "and by God's will alone any man can ascend to heaven, should he only hold to the laws which God passed down through his holy book to us."

Bakhtiian tapped his fingers on the open pages of the book, looking thoughtful. It was strange to sit so near him. He had a stern face, bearded and dark. His gaze was piercing. "I have ascended to the heavens," he said softly, "when the gods took my spirit from my body and lifted me up to their lands.

That is how the Singers of our people make their journey. Do you mean that this man you call both Hristain and the Son of God traveled himself up to the heavens, body and spirit together?"

"God lifted him, Bakhtiian. He ascended on the light. That is the account given us in the holy book."

He made some comment in his own language to his son, who stood like a slave behind him. Vasil'ii shook his head. Bakhtiian turned back to the princess. "Did the bright light on which Hristain ascended to heaven leave a mark of its burning on the ground? After he had gone?"

"The gospels do not speak of any burning. But God's hand is so powerful that he might blind us with the brightest light without leaving behind the least trace of its passing. In our pride we seek to imitate God's power, but all power granted us on earth is granted to us by God."

Bakhtiian ignored these protestations of God's power. "In this book—" He tapped the pages again.

"—there is no mention of burning, it is true, except that three of the accounts of Hristain's ascent into the heavens mention the light. But might there be other stories, other accounts of the same events?"

" The Recitation is God's holiest book. In it God speaks to us through his chosen witnesses."

One of the lanterns flared and sputtered out. Jaelle took it as a sign. She felt her heart pound in her chest, drowning the world for an instant, and then it steadied and faded. She translated Rusudani's words, but she went on, speaking her own words. "There is an account of Our Lady's travels, my lord, as spoken by The Pilgrim herself and written down by a foreign scribe who came to the knowledge of God through her ministry. In it she speaks of the light that took Hristain into Heaven, and of the fire of God's eye that scorched the earth beneath."

His gaze fastened on her. She felt acutely uncomfortable. "What is this account? Why is it not in this book?"

Jaelle clasped her hands hard in her lap. Rusudani already was looking at her, looking puzzled, looking ... suspicious. "It is called the Gospel of Ma of Byblos, my lord."

Rusudani leapt to her feet and raised a hand as if to ward off Jaelle. "How dare you mention that heretical work!" Jaelle shrank back, murmuring a prayer to the Pilgrim. She had not realized how much Rusudani could understand. "Isia's false words brought about the breach between the north and the south. She is anathema." Jaelle had never seen Rusudani look so angry. "Granting divinity to Peregrina Pilgrim, when all know she was, like the Accursed One, daughter of the shepherd Ammion."

Jaelle drew herself up. Her covenant was, first of all, to God. "How could she have been the daughter of Ammion when she was twined in the womb with the Holy Son, born with him wrapped in the same caul? How else could she have sought and found his sundered remains? How bathed him in the life-giving milk, if she did not partake of God's holiness as well?"

"Heretic! Apostate! I have endured your company thus far, hoping to bring you into the True Faith, but I will endure it no longer! You are henceforth cast out from my service. If God has mercy on you, you will learn humility."

Stunned, Jaelle clutched the cloth of her skirts in her hands and prayed.

"What does Princess Rusudani say?" asked Bakhtiian mildly. His arrogance was so complete that no disturbance troubled him.

But at his words, Rusudani's enraged expression changed. She stilled. She drew her hand back to her side and after a long pause, her lips moving in a prayer, she sank back down on to the pillow.

Jaelle felt the fierce pain of victory. God had made His judgment. For Princess Rusudani could not speak to them except through her. Here, with the jaran, she was not expendable.