Stalking Darkness

consistently depicted as harsh and brutal. There were several mercifully terse descriptions of their barbaric treatment of captured soldiers and camp followers.
    The first series of entries ended with a detailed description of his first sight of Queen Gërilain of Skala. Referring to her as “a plain girl in armor,” he nonetheless praised her leadership. He spoke only Aurënfaie, it seemed, but quoted several lines of a powerful rallying speech she’d given before the Third Battle of Wyvern Dug, which someone had translated for him. He described the Skalan soldiers admiringly as “fierce and full of fire.”
    Stretched out on the carpet, watching the shadows playing across the ceiling, Alec let the words paint scenes in his imagination. As Seregil read about Gërilain, the first warrior queen, he found himself picturing Klia, although she was anything but plain.
    The second fragment had been written in Mycena during the battles of high summer, when the regiment had been joined by acontingent of Aurënfaie wizards. This was followed by an intriguing line about “the necromancers of the enemy,” but the rest of the page had been destroyed.
    Muttering again, Seregil sorted through the few remaining pages. “Ah, here we are. Part of it’s missing, but it begins, ‘and our wizards have moved to the front, ahead of the cavalry. The Skalan captain met these forces only two days ago and cannot speak of them without paleness and trembling. Britiel í Kor translated for us, saying he tells of dead men rising from the field to fight the living.’ ”
    “Just like in the legends,” Alec murmured, forgetting for a moment that this was a factual account and not some bardic tale.
    “ ‘We’ve heard this account too often now to call him mad,’ ” Seregil read on. “ ‘The Skalan captain claims Plenimar has a terrible war god. We have heard wounded enemies calling upon
Vatharna
. Now learn this is their word for god even they will not name. Nor will Skalans speak it, saying instead with great hatred, Eater of—’ ”
    He faltered to a halt.
    “Eater of Death!” Alec finished for him, scrambling up to his knees. “That’s it, isn’t it? Just like in the prophecy at the Sakor Temple. We’ve got to find Nysander. The Eater of Death must be that death god you told me about, the bad luck one, Seri—”
    Seregil lunged forward, pages scattering as he clamped a hand over Alec’s mouth.
    “Don’t!” he hissed, face white as chalk.
    Alec froze, staring up at him in alarm.
    Seregil let out a shaky breath and dropped his hand to Alec’s shoulder, gripping it lightly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
    “What’s the matter?”
    “Be still a minute; I have to think.”
    Seregil felt as if a black chasm had suddenly opened beneath them.
    Seriamaius.
    —if you let slip the slightest detail of what I am about to tell you, I shall have to kill all of you
    join our song, the only song. For the Beautiful One, the Eater of Death—
    For an instant the only thing that made any sense was the solid feel of Alec’s shoulder, the warm brush of the boy’s hair as it fell across the back of his hand.
    Memories crowded in on each other, treading dangerously on each other’s heels as they threatened to coalesce into a pattern he didn’t wish to see.
    The palimpsest, telling of a “Beautiful One” and leading to a crown surrounded by the dead. Micum’s grim discovery in the Fens. The ragged leather pouch that Nysander had burned. And the coin, that deceptively prosaic wooden disk that had nearly killed him with madness and dreams—dreams of a barren plain and a golden-skinned creature that embraced him, demanding a single blue eye that winked from a wound over his heart. Voices singing—over a barren plain, and deep in the depths of a mountain cavern as blood dripped down to pool on the ice. Nysander’s threat—a warning?
    “Seregil, that hurts.”
    Alec’s soft, tense voice brought him back and he found himself clutching the boy’s shoulder. He hurriedly released him and sat back.
    Alec closed cold fingers over his own. “What is it? You look like you’ve just seen your own ghost.”
    A desperate ache lanced through Seregil as he looked down into those dark blue eyes.
    if you let slip the slightest detail
    Damn you, Nysander!
    “1 can’t tell you,
talí
, because I’d only have to lie,” he said, suddenly dejected. “I’m going to do something now, and you’re going to watch and