The Fire's Stone

Eleven

"I don't think those navy ships were after the Gryphon. I think they were after us."

"Us?" Carefully pushing her hair away from her face with the back of her hand, keeping greasy fingers well out of it, Chandra looked up from her haunch of ground squirrel.

"Not you," Aaron corrected. "Dar and I. The man who stole The Stone couldn't have gotten through the palace carrying the equipment he'd need in the crater without inside help. And he certainly couldn't get back out carrying The Stone. That help sent a message to Tivolic, told them what ship we'd be on." He tossed Darvish a baked root that Chandra swore was nonpoisonous.

"How?" Darvish asked, juggling the root. "We didn't know what ship we'd be on."

"Easy enough to have us followed."

"No." He shook his head. "Then they'd have known about Chandra."

"So? To a palace spy, what's unusual about Prince Darvish joining an attractive young lady? Nothing. They wouldn't recognize her as your betrothed. I saw her miniature and I wouldn't know her from that. Even now."

"He made me look simpering," Chandra broke in, seething. "I hated that picture. Stupid artist."

"They won't know she's a wizard, either," Darvish said thoughtfully. "And if they ever caught up with the Gryphon and found we went overboard they'll think we're dead. That puts us two up."

"But they'll know you're traveling with a wizard now, the sailors on the Gryphon will tell them."

"I doubt it. The Gryphon will tell that lot exactly as much as they have to, no more, and even if they do mention you,

with the storm you called up they'll think you're a Wizard of the Seventh."

"But the distance viewer isn't a Seventh, it's more First or Ninth."

"They won't mention the distance viewer to the navy," Aaron said with his twisted grin.

"Did you know they were smugglers when you bought us passage?" Chandra asked him, suddenly suspicious.

Aaron shrugged. "I suspected. Smugglers don't ask questions. We didn't need questions."

Chandra took a bite of squirrel and looked almost cheerful. She'd been useful lately in a way she'd never been before. She liked it. A lot. "Look at the bright side. We're alive and we've got resources they don't suspect. Even if there is a traitor back in Ischia, we're doing all right."

"We're also half starved, barely equipped, and walking to the capital," Aaron reminded her.

And that's all my fault, Darvish added silently, gouging at the ground with a stick. He had to add it. The others wouldn't. He'd tried to apologize for that specifically, for being so stupid as to walk out on deck during the storm; Aaron had said nothing, Chandra had rolled her eyes and said, "Don't do it again, okay?" One Below, he was going to do his best, but he still wished they'd scream at him.

"Could be worse." Chandra threw the bone into the fire.

"If you say it could be raining, I'm going to throttle you with your own hair," Aaron said mildly. It was safer to talk than to think. His thoughts kept chipping holes in the wall.

Darvish couldn't join in the banter. He felt like he had to prove he belonged again. So he turned the subject back to Ischia. "Who do you think the traitor is?" Aaron's demon wings took off and Darvish nodded. "Yasimina," he said with a heavy sigh.

"Most likely," Aaron agreed, although he'd respected what he'd seen of Shahin enough to hope he was wrong.

"Who's Yasimina?" Chandra asked, wishing for the first time she'd paid more attention to talk of King Jaffar's court.

"My eldest brother's wife," Darvish told her. "It was a treaty marriage a little over a year ago. She's the second youngest sister of the King of Ytaili." He paused and smiled a bit sadly. "Shahin loves her. She likes peacocks."

The soft shush, shush, of leaves stroked together by the afternoon breeze surrounded them. Up ahead, a dead branch tapped and creaked, hanging at a crazy angle from the tree. Boots and sandals crunched through last year's growth making the three of them sound like an army on the march. Even Aaron was unable to move with his customary quiet.

The dry, dusty smell of dead leaves that rose up with each step and then lodged in the back of the nose became mixed with the more potent scent of cedars off to the right. Insects danced in each slanting greenish-gold ray of sunlight, humming their own accompaniment.

Sweat dribbled down Darvish's back and he loosened his sword in its sheath. Something was wrong. Something was missing. He lengthened his stride, moving quickly past the other two and waving Chandra's question quiet. To his surprise, she cut it off. He'd expected an argument, having abdicated any right to command when he fell from the Gryphon.

Chandra was a little surprised herself, her mouth having obeyed before her mind had a chance to ask why.

Darvish could smell something now, something that didn't belong. Char. Men. And animals. Very close. The trees stopped suddenly, a cluster of fresh cut stumps marking the edge of the clearing. Darvish dropped behind cover and peered out.

Directly in front of him, he could see where the wood had been dragged into the camp, could see that the grass had been cropped short, could see—and smell—the pungent signature of draft animals, could see that the camp was deserted. Carefully, his hand by his sword, he moved out into the open.

The clearing was larger than he'd initially thought, but the camp seemed to have filled all available space. Evidence remained of at least five wagons, each with an indeterminate number of people. A huge fire pit had been dug in roughly the center of the clearing and Darvish made his way across the trampled ground toward it.

"Whoever they were," he called as Aaron and Chandra came out of the trees, "they were here until at least this morning. They drowned their fire, but there's a coal still hot."

"Shoi," Aaron said, pushing the hood of his sunrobe back. His face was peeling, the proud hook of his nose especially badly. "Wanderers."

"I've never heard of them." Chandra bent and picked up a scrap of bright green cloth ground into the bottom of a wheel rut.

"Neither have I." Darvish began to move toward the far side of the clearing where he could see a well defined track heading off to the northeast.

Aaron snorted. "You live on islands. Wagons make lousy boats."

"They live in wagons? "Chandra asked.

"Yes."

"Does Shoi mean anything?" She threw the bit of cloth back on the ground.

"It means People. Others, non—Shoi, call them Wanderers."

"What do they do?"

Aaron turned to look at her and both tufted ginger brows rose. "They wander. Wha...?"

A brilliant blue bird swooped across the clearing screaming insults.

"No birds..." No birds. No birdsong. For the last little while, things had been entirely too quiet. Darvish drew his sword clear seconds before the first man charged into the clearing, blade whistling down in what he obviously hoped would be the killing stroke.

Silently, teeth clenched, Darvish attacked. There were two, three, no, five of them and only one of him. For any chance at all, he had to keep them off balance.

Steel sang against steel and as the swords hissed apart, Darvish kicked the man in the knee as hard as he could. Inhaling, he ducked a wild swing. Exhaling, he cut through to guts with a backhanded slash. This was his one chance to redeem himself; he put everything he had into the fight. A left-handed swordsman had the advantage and he stretched it to the limit and beyond.

A point dragged down the length of his right arm, deep enough to hurt but no deeper.

One Below, I want my shield! He dropped, rolled, and from the ground, using both hands, cut a man off at the knees. Bouncing up inside another's guard, he slammed his weighted pommel into a temple and shoved the body away. When he turned, the man first into the clearing waited, favoring one leg. A parry, a dodge, Darvish forced him around to his bad side, swung and hacked through neck, collarbone, and into ribs.

He yanked his blade free, spun about, and there was no one left to fight.

Three men were dead, two were down and dying. As Darvish watched, Aaron gave the grace blow to one, using the man's own dagger, and moved toward the other. Two of the three dead, Darvish had killed, the third had been flung onto his back, his face a bloody ruin. A stone from Aaron's sling, Darvish guessed.

He ripped free the torn shirtsleeve and used it to wipe most of the gore from his sword before sliding the smeared blade back into the scabbard.

Then he started to shake. His legs threatened to buckle and he sucked in great lungfuls of air.

I need a drink. Oh, One Below and Nine Above, I need a drink.

At nineteen, he'd killed three men in battle while in nominal command of a squad sent to clean out a pirates' nest on Cisali's south shore. In not much more than a dozen heartbeats, he'd just doubled that.

Chandra kept her mouth covered with both hands and tried very hard not to be sick. There was so much blood, black where it had soaked into the ground and red, bright red, dark red, every kind of red, where it clung to the bodies. And those men were so very dead. Not quietly dead, like her mother, welcoming the release from pain, but brutally dead and hating every second of it.

She didn't realize the first whimper had escaped until she heard it. She couldn't stop the second nor the third. She wanted to wail or cry or keen or something.

Then warm arms enfolded her and a large hand stroked her back.

"Look away," Darvish murmured softly into her hair. "Look away, gain some distance. The less immediate it is, the less horrible it is. I know."

"So much blood," Chandra said dully, neither fighting against his arms nor relaxing into them. They were a comfort that she couldn't quite seem to find how to accept.

Slowly, Darvish turned her, pulling her gaze away from the bodies. When she faced him rather than the battlefield, she gave a strange little sigh and collapsed against his chest, dry eyed and shuddering.

"I never saw anyone die like that before," she said.

Neither have I. Darvish felt the memory of each blow in his hands, the meaty resistance of flesh, each jar as steel hit bone.

Aaron moved carefully among the bodies, fighting against the memories that threatened to overwhelm him; memories of a life he'd left behind, released as he'd released the stone from the sling. He'd killed his first man at eleven in a raid on a neighboring keep. One of the defenders had stumbled and fallen and Aaron had slammed a hand ax into his throat. After the battle, his father had lifted the head on a spear point and proudly proclaimed the Clan Heir a man. There had been a lot of blood on his father's hands, and a good bit on him as well.

He'd killed this morning for the first time since he'd left his father's keep. He'd killed without thinking, protecting Darvish's back.

"A fine shot, my son!"

"I am not your son any longer."

"I couldn't have done it better myself."

"Shut up, Father!"

But denial wouldn't take back the stone nor the sudden falling into violence that was his father's way. He had allowed himself to relax and his past had tried to reclaim him. He would have to be stronger until the past could be destroyed.

For now, however, denial was all he had.

"They're dressed like outlaws," He flopped one over on its back with a well placed foot. "Ragged, dirty. Too well fed, though." He squatted and rubbed the base of a sword blade clean, frowned, reached for another, and drummed his fingers against the steel. "They all carry swords and daggers marked with the insignia of the King's Guard."

"What?" Darvish's head snapped up.

"They were sent by the King of Ytaili."

"Now that puts a different shine on things," exclaimed a voice from the clearing's edge. "Any enemy of imperial guards is a friend of ours."

The speaker was a short, heavyset man, dressed all in greens and browns. Beside him stood a young woman, a little taller, dressed much the same. They both carried long knives and the man held a thick staff bound at both ends with brass. Their skin was darker than Aaron's but lighter than both Darvish's and Chandra's.

Aaron stood slowly, hands out from his sides. "They have an archer in the trees," he said over his shoulder. "The Shoi never travel in less than threes."

Chandra pulled out of Darvish's arms. She was a Wizard of the Nine and wasn't going to have these Shoi think she needed comforting. Darvish, like Aaron, stood with his hands out from his sides. An indifferent archer at best, even he could hit them shooting from cover and at that range.

While the woman scowled, her visible companion leaned forward on his staff and studied Aaron. "You're a long way from your rocks and winds and cold, Kebric," he said at last.

"I am," Aaron admitted.

"Now I've never been that far north myself," his accent lengthened the words, emphasizing their musical lilt, in direct contrast to Aaron's which clipped them off, "but I have heard that a clansman who leaves his keep, let alone one who leaves his bleak and inhospitable land is a rare bird indeed."

"I left." Aaron's hands spread wider and his tone left no room for further discussion.

"So you did," agreed the older Shoi. "So you did." He nodded genially at Darvish. "Fine sword work, young man. Can't remember when I've seen better."

Darvish flushed. His sword masters had always said he was good. He'd never quite known whether he should believe them, but this man had no reason to lie.

"The proof is in the pudding as they say," he continued. "Here you stand, barely scratched—although you should have that arm seen to. I wouldn't trust any kind of imperial lackey to keep his sword clean."

The shallow cut down the length of Darvish's right arm, now brought suddenly to mind, began to throb and burn. He'd forgotten it was there.

"And there they lie, dead." He spit in the general direction of the bodies, his head darting forward then back, the movement precise, the rest of him remaining completely still.

They hadn't moved since they'd entered the clearing, Darvish realized, not even making gestures when speaking.

Even Aaron moved more, but where Aaron looked controlled, the Shoi merely looked... still.

"And Most Wise." A gracious nod at Chandra. "What is a gently-bred lady wizard doing out in the woods with these ruffians?"

Chandra's brows drew down. "Don't patronize me," she snapped.

Both Shoi smiled broadly and the young woman spoke for the first time. "My uncle begs your pardon," she said, her accent, although similar, much less florid.

Not quite mollified, Chandra nodded a prickly acceptance.

"You must be very powerful," she continued, her tone not quite neutral, not quite friendly. "Your power shines like a beacon."

"I am very powerful." Still frowning, she asked, suspiciously, "What do you mean shines like a beacon?"

"The Shoi," Aaron explained without taking his eyes off the two at the tree line, "are power sensitive. Some say they're a race of wizards."

The older man sighed. "And some say the Kebric are a brutally violent, not overly intelligent, race of inbred maniacs. But you don't hear us spreading that around."

Although Aaron's lips thinned to a white-edged line, he kept silent. His father would have roared in anger and charged to the attack at the insult, at the string of insults. Aaron was not his father. He had remade himself in his own image. He held tight to that image now.

"Uncle..."

"Yes, you're completely right, Fiona, that was completely, well—almost completely uncalled for. Now, if you would be so good as to retrieve Grandmother's knitting."

She nodded and moved quickly across the clearing. At the far side, by one of the wagon marks, she swung herself up into a tree and dropped back down seconds later with a handful of green wool.

"One of the children hid it," Fiona's uncle explained as she returned and handed it back to him. "Grandmother'll be glad to get it back." He smiled genially and slid the wool into his belt pouch. "And now, chance met by the trail, you may call me Edan. And this, my sister's daughter, you may call Fiona." He made no mention of the third Shoi, the archer Aaron had said remained in the trees. "You three will, of course, accompany us to our new camp. We're always eager to entertain the enemies of our enemies."

Not even Chandra needed Aaron to tell her this was not an invitation they could refuse.

The walk to the Shoi's new camp took two days, although the Shoi could have done it in one. Any energy Darvish had managed to regain had been used in the fight and to his intense embarrassment he had to rest often or fall over.

The first time this happened, Fiona had squatted beside him, pushed up his chin with one strong finger, sniffed, and said, "Topasent." Then she frowned and looked up at her uncle.

Edan pursed his lips and thought a moment. "Wine-chains," he translated at last. "About as close as it comes."

She nodded and, releasing Darvish's chin, asked, "How long have you been free?"

Free? What was she... then suddenly Darvish understood. How long since his last drink. How long since the wine-chains had come undone. He had no idea. He remembered emptying the wineskin while the storm raged and tried to breach their tiny cabin, but he didn't know how long ago it had been. Nine Above, it seemed like an eternity.

"Six days," said Aaron softly behind him.

Fiona pulled a drinking skin off her shoulder and tossed it in Darvish's lap. He jerked back and his breath caught in his throat. "Relax, it's water. Drink as much as you can and piss away the poisons." She stood and shook her head. "Six days... and you fought five men and won. You must have the strength of an ox. Just fighting free of topasent has killed others." She drew in breath as though to continue, then shook her head, turned on her heel and strode off into the trees beside the trail. They almost seemed to open and close around her so silently did she move.

"It killed her father," Edan told them, his cheek resting against the smooth wood of his staff. "He got free twice, but the third time stopped his heart."

Chandra moved to stand by Aaron so that the two of them were a shield against Darvish's back. "Well, it isn't going to kill Dar," she declared.

Darvish, lifting the waterskin to his mouth in trembling hands, wasn't so sure.

That afternoon they reached a road of sorts that followed the banks of a good sized stream. That night they camped by its side and the third Shoi came out of the trees. Once he'd set his short curved bow carefully down and had tossed two rabbits to Edan, it was next to impossible to tell him apart from Fiona in the uncertain light of the fire.

"Twins," their uncle said proudly, "very lucky. Fion and Fiona, a blessing to the family."

The younger man laughed, his teeth gleaming white in the shadow of his face. "That's not what you said when we were children, Uncle." He threw himself down on the grass with the grace of a giant cat. "He said we were demon spawn and kept threatening to abandon us by the side of the road."

Edan grinned as he gutted the rabbits. "Yes, but your poor misguided mother would never let me."

He reminds me a bit of Darvish, Chandra realized as she watched Fion help his sister string the rabbits over the fire. Although he shared the economy of movement that seemed a Shoi trait, he somehow made it seem flamboyant. Darvish at his best, as he should have been without the wine. She shook her head. Twins as a blessing? The Shoi were strange indeed; everyone knew twins shared only one soul between them and so had to be carefully watched.

While the rabbits roasted and sparks and fireflies danced short-lived duets, the three Shoi heard the story of the shipwreck and what happened after. It was almost impossible not to respond to a direct question from one of them. Chandra scanned for power but found nothing. Whether it was because there was nothing there or because she had no idea of what to look for, she didn't know.

"So the two of you and a sick man survived with nothing, no supplies, not even a waterskin for six days." Edan chewed thoughtfully on a piece of meat. "Difficult to believe."

"We had a sling and a wizard," Aaron said dryly. "What more did we need?"

Fion laughed, Fiona smiled, and Edan threw up his hands in defeat.

The next morning, Fiona picked up the bow and slipped away into the trees.

As they walked, Darvish leaned closer to Aaron and said quietly, "Did you notice, they never once asked us why we were heading for Tivolic in the first place."

Aaron nodded. "That usually means they already know."

They reached the camp just before sunset and the twilight followed them in, giving everything a softer and faintly unreal appearance. The circle of wagons seemed larger than it could possibly be and more children than those wagons could hold swarmed about their legs, shouting questions in the language of the Shoi and the common language of the area. The food smells from the communal fire reminded them of how long it had been since they'd eaten a real meal and Aaron and Chandra both had to swallow sudden mouthfuls of saliva. Darvish caught the scent of something else and clenched his fists.

"About time you got here!" An elderly woman, not quite fat, stomped down out of one of the wagons and waved a dimpled hand imperiously at Edan. "Come on, then. Grandmother wants to see you." She paused then added. "And them."

Fion slipped away, to Edan's muttered "Coward," and the four of them walked across to the central area. Except for the children, no one paid them much attention.

Darvish had to both duck and turn sideways to make it through the wagon door, but once inside there was a lot more room than he'd expected. It was stuffy though, and the air smelled stale as if it had been in the wagon for a very long time. A combination of the lamp's position and the lines of the wagon drew the eye instantly to an incredibly old woman wrapped in a pile of shawls and blankets. The remains of her hair were pulled back into a tight steel-gray knot emphasizing the skull-like delineation of her face. Her eyes, sunk deep into the bone on either side of a pinched nose, were barely open. Her skin, dry and crossed and re-crossed with a multitude of fine lines, reminded Darvish of a lizard's. He'd never seen anyone that old before. Out of the corner of an eye, he checked Chandra and Aaron for their reactions.

Chandra merely looked intrigued. Aaron had gone completely blank.

The old woman's voice, in direct contrast to her frail appearance, was surprisingly strong. "Have you got my knitting, then?'

Edan laid the bundle of green wool on her lap. "Yes, Grandmother. Here it is."

She sighed and it sounded like more air than that wasted body could possibly hold. "I can see where it is, Edan, you kokta. Get out."

"Very well, Grandmother." He didn't exactly scurry for the door, but it was close.

"Now then." She pointed a twisted finger at Aaron and paused for a moment for her breath to whistle in and out. "You. Relax. I'm not going to die on you."

Aaron started but showed no visible signs of relaxing. The Shoi—not this family but their northern cousins—had traveled every year to the great fair that marked a moon's truce between the warring clans. He knew that many of their seemingly magical pronouncements were based on no more than observation and a deep understanding of human nature. It didn't help.

She stared from one to the other, her gaze still sharp enough to cut despite her age, then clicked her tongue. "So," she said, after rocking a moment in thought. "The Stone of Ischia has been stolen and you three have been sent to get it back. Don't you think an army would be more practical, Your Royal Highness?"

"A race of wizards" Darvish said softly. He couldn't decide if meeting the Shoi was the best or worst thing that could have happened.

Aaron's eyes narrowed. "Common sense," he corrected harshly. "They felt power move from Ischia to Tivolic. The only relic with that kind of power in Ischia is The Stone. They heard no rumor of war and then a warrior, a thief, and a wizard show up on their way to Tivolic from Ischia. They know the King of Ischia has a blue-eyed son. Here we have a blue-eyed warrior."

"But my illusion," Chandra interrupted. "His eyes look brown."

"Illusions seldom work on the Shoi."

The smug expression on the old woman's face had turned to one of deep annoyance. She spat a question at Aaron in a language that seemed mostly made of consonants.

"No," he answered.

She scowled, openly disbelieving.

"There was a wizard involved," Chandra attempted to change the subject. Making the matriarch angry didn't strike her as a particularly good idea, not when they needed so many things.

"Of course there was." Gnarled fingers picked peevishly at the knitting still on her lap. "There always is."

"And whoever took The Stone seems to know we're coming."

"Whoever indeed." A cackle of ancient laughter threatened to turn to coughing, but with a visible effort the old woman regained control of her body. "With imperial guards rotting out there you needn't blather about whoevers. If His Most Gracious Majesty doesn't have The Stone now, he most certainly knows who does." She turned to Darvish. "Didn't one of your brothers just marry a princess of Ytaili?"

"Yes."

"Well, there you have it."

Darvish shook his head. He hadn't wanted to believe it was Yasimina. Would have rather it was anyone else.

"You don't know that," Aaron said suddenly, his voice stone.

"So you defend the little princess, do you, Kebric?" Lips pulled back off nearly perfect teeth, intensifying the skull-like resemblance. "It won't do either of you any good. The only way to defeat a traitor is to keep him or her in the dark. You will therefore be traveling with the family to Tivolic."

Darvish pushed the thought of Shahin aside or a time. "What?" he asked, a little lost.

"Are you deaf, boy? I said you're traveling with the family to Tivolic."

"Oh." It would take a braver man than he to argue with that pronouncement. "Why are you helping us?" he asked.

"Because we want to." Her tone stated there need be no better reason than that.

"Then we thank you." Ignoring the pounding behind his temples, he bowed his most gracious bow and pressed the back of her hand to his lips. It felt a bit like kissing a lizard, dry and leathery.

"Flatterer." She looked pleased. "Now get out. I'm tired."

As they reached the door, she called out, "Prince!"

Darvish turned.

"You touch one drop of wine in my camp and I'll have your fingers broken."

"What a lovely old lady," he muttered to Aaron outside.

The demon wings flew, a silent comment weighted in sarcasm.

"What did she ask you?" Chandra wanted to know.

"She asked if any of my ancestors were Shoi."

"You made her angry."

Aaron shrugged. The old woman's first words had cut too close. He'd slashed at her pride. They were even.

That night when the fire blazed high, Chandra stood in the shadow of a wagon and watched as Darvish divided his attentions between Fion and a girl with close cropped curls who laughed low in her throat. She'd seen him overcome his need and recognized the strength it had taken to drink water instead of wine and she couldn't argue with his right to take other pleasures when they were offered, but...

But what? She didn't know exactly, so she stood and watched and chewed on the end of her braid. And wondered.

"He's such a haus." Fiona's low voice barely carried over the sound of a Shoi and the fire.

Chandra spit out the wet end of her braid. "A haus?"

"A slut."

Darvish slipped a hand behind the girl and lifted his mouth to Fion.

"Yes. He is."

"I meant my brother." Chandra could hear the smile in the other woman's voice. "If you care about him, you could be there. They would both give way."

"No." Chandra sighed. "I don't care about him like that."

"Oh."

"I don't care about anyone like that. I'm a Wizard of the Nine."

Fiona shook her head. "Power is a cold companion in the night," she said and left as silently as she had arrived.

"Well, maybe it is," Chandra muttered, shoving her hand deep into the pocket of her trousers to wrap around the comforting shape of the scrying bowl. "But it's a lot more interesting in the daytime."

From the other side of the fire pit, where the flames danced strange shadows in the darkness, came the eerie wail of a reed pipe. Chandra recognized the instrument but not the tune. The shepherds who surrounded her father's country estate had never played anything so wild. A drum joined in and then another deeper pitched and then something she didn't know at all that surged through the rest, caught them up and carried them crazily along.

The music sizzled along her skin and Chandra had the ridiculous thought she must move or burn. Others had the same idea and in the light of the fire she saw the young men and women of the Shoi answer the wild call. One, two, then a surging mass of bodies circled the flames. They stamped and spun, holding her motionless watching. The music grew more frenzied and so did the dance. She knew what the call was now and with gritted teeth refused it.

I am a wizard of the Nine, she told it. This want is not mine!

And then a slim white shape leapt and whirled before the fire.

"Aaron?" She took a step forward, squinting.

His hair blazed red and gold like a cap of flame as he whirled and leapt impossibly high. The fire danced in reflection on skin wet with sweat. Even the scars on his chest seemed some bizarre barbaric decoration. His eyes were closed, or almost closed, and he gave himself over totally to the music. Bare feet slammed down into the dirt, the walls tumbled, and all the passion behind the walls blazed out.

The beat came faster, harder, and he followed it.

Chandra searched for Darvish and spotted him at last moving with the two Shoi into the greater privacy behind the wagons.

Turn around, she pleaded silently. Look to the fire! If Darvish looked, she knew he'd understand who Aaron danced for.

But he didn't turn and he didn't look.

When the music ended, chest heaving, hands fisted at his sides, Aaron disappeared into the darkness alone.