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home-is strong.
    The others would ride with us to Khebbel-im-Akkad, where I fully intended to prevail upon the ties of House L’Envers and the D’Angeline throne to adjure Valère L’Envers and her husband to see each and every one restored to her homeland.
    If we made it.
    The dead who remained would be laid to rest in Drujan-with honor. The Chief Magus Arshaka had promised it. I could only accept his word. He had sworn to uphold the truth above all else and revile the dark lie. I suppose that he did, and I am wrong to resent him and his kind after their long suffering. But I am only mortal, and I could not forget the disgust in his face when I drew near to him.
    Never, I daresay, has an undertaking been fraught with such chaos. Merely explaining it took the better part of the morning, accomplished in a babble of tongues, with the zenyan argot pervading. Outfitting the carts for the wounded took the rest, and transporting them the afternoon. That part, I supervised, attempting all the while to keep my eye on Imriel. Three times, he went to see the dead to confirm that the Kereyit Tatar Jagun was well and truly slain, which he assuredly was, and once he vanished in search of one of Joscelin’s Cassiline daggers, the one that had killed the Skotophagotis . One of the women had snatched it up in passing in the wild rush for the festal hall. He found it, too, the hilt jutting from a Drujani soldier’s ribs.
    “Did you put him up to that?” I asked Joscelin, weary and distraught.
    He shook his head. “I mentioned it, that’s all. My mistake. Phèdre, are you sure you’re fit to ride? You’re white as a sheet. We can make room in the third wagon.”
    “I’ll be fine.”
    Joscelin raised his eyebrows. “Phèdre,” he said gently. “I’ve heard ... stories.”
    I looked away. “Yes, well. It doesn’t matter. Let me ... just let me leave as I came. Not ...” I watched a pair of Drujani servants bring out a young Hellene woman on a litter, careful not to jostle her. “Not like that. A victim.”
    “All right, then.” He gave a wry smile when I glanced at him, shifting his arm in its sling. “Remember, if you faint and fall off your horse, I’m not going to be able to catch you.”
    “I won’t.” The words caught in my throat; I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him smile, except in battle. “I promise. Joscelin ...” I pressed my fingers to my aching temples, willing the too-ready tears to subside. “We’ll put Imri in the wagon.”
    “He won’t like it,” he warned.
    “Probably not,” I said. “But it’s the best place for him. You must have seen what Jagun did to him in the hall. The welts are still healing.”
    It was Joscelin’s turn to look away. “I hate this,” he said quietly. “I cannot tell you how much I hate this.”
    “I know.” Even if there had been time, it was too enormous to discuss, too immediate. It lay between us, incomprehensible. I touched his uninjured hand. “Joscelin. Let’s just... let’s just get out of this alive, first. The rest can wait. If we can do that, the rest can wait.”
    After a moment, he nodded. “It will have to.”
    With a couple of hours of light left to us, we took our leave of Daršanga.
    It was an unwieldy, polyglot caravan of riders and wagons and mules, inching and groaning along, flying the pure-white standard of Ahura Mazda and flanked by four unhappy Magi. Still, we were moving, and the grey walls and pitch-blackened roofs of Daršanga palace fell behind us. In the city, people stared open-mouthed, unsure what to make of our company, but leaving us unmolested. No one cringed or fled. In the open temple, the Sacred Fire burned, and a party of workers cleared rubble, cleaning the square, righting the marble benches. The forges had gone cold. We passed through the city and onto the open road.
    Joscelin was right; it hurt to ride. If I had willed myself past the endless nights of torment, my body had not forgotten the abuse it had undergone, the ravages of the Mahrkagir’s iron rod. I was sore and raw, and the pressure of the saddle made me bite my lip in an effort not to scream.
    I rode anyway.
    Mayhap it was a punishment, a means of castigating myself for the pain I had inflicted in this god-cursed quest; I cannot say. It was foolish, I know that much, but it was somewhat I needed to do. I had ridden into Daršanga of my own will. I would leave the same way.
    And behind me, straddling the saddle with his knees and