The Hidden City

white hair and beard were tangled, and his face was haggard. ‘Please don’t make a scene, love,’ he told her. His voice was weary and devoid of any emotion beyond a kind of profound regret. He sighed. ‘Where did we go wrong, Sephrenia?’ he asked sadly. ‘What tore us apart and brought us to this sorry state?’
    ‘You don’t really want me to tell you, do you, Zalasta?’ she replied. ‘Why couldn’t you just let it go? I did love you, you know—not that way, of course, but it was love. Couldn’t you accept that and forget about the other?’
    ‘Evidently not. It didn’t even occur to me.’
    ‘Sparhawk’s going to kill you, you know.
    ‘Perhaps. To be honest with you, though, I no longer really care.’
    ‘What’s the point of this then? Why have you come here?’
    ‘I wanted to see you one last time—hear the sound of your voice. ‘ He rose from the chair in the corner where he had been sitting. ‘It all could have been so different—if it hadn’t been for Aphrael. She was the one who took you into the lands of the Elenes and corrupted you. You’re Styric, Sephrenia. We Styrics have no business consorting with the Elene barbarians.’
    ‘You’re wrong, Zalasta. Anakha’s an Elene. That’s our business with them. You’d better leave. Aphrael’s downstairs eating supper right now. If she finds you here, she’ll have your heart for dessert.’
    ‘In a moment. There’s something I have to do first. After that, she can do anything to me she wants to do.’ His face suddenly twisted into an expression of anguish. ‘Why, Sephrenia? Why? How could you bear the unclean touch of that Elene savage?’
    ‘Vanion? You wouldn’t understand. You couldn’t even begin to comprehend it.’ She stood, her face defiant. ‘Do whatever it is you have to do and leave. The very sight of you sickens me.’
    ‘Very well.’ His face was suddenly as cold as stone.
    She was not really surprised when he drew a long bronze dagger out from under his jerkin. In spite of everything, he was still Styric enough to loathe the touch of steel. ‘You have no idea of how much I regret this,’ he told her as he came closer.
    She tried to struggle, clawing at his face and eyes. She even felt a momentary sense of triumph when she seized his beard and saw him wince with pain. She jerked at his beard, sawing his face this way and that as she called out for help, but then he jerked free, roughly shoving her back from him. She stumbled back and half-fell over a chair, and that was what ultimately defeated her. Even as she struggled to regain her feet, he caught her by the hair, and she knew that she was lost.
    Despairing, she drew Vanion’s face from her memory, filling her eyes and heart with his features even as she attempted again to claw at Zalasta’s eyes.
    And then he drove the dagger directly into her breast and wrenched it free again. She cried out, falling back and clutching at the wound, feeling the blood spurting out between her fingers.
    He caught her in his arms. ‘I love you, Sephrenia,’ he said in a broken voice as the light faded from her eyes.

Part Two – Natayos

Chapter 11
    ‘I can’t find anybody willing to stay in one place long enough for me to ask him any questions,’ Komier growled when he returned late one cloudy afternoon with his scouts. He looked sourly back across the empty, winter-fallow fields all neatly bordered with low stone walls, carefully shifting his broken right arm. ‘These Astellian serfs all take one look at us and bolt for the woods like frightened deer.’
    ‘What’s ahead?’ Darellon asked him. Darellon’s helmet hung from his saddlebow, one side so crushed in that it no longer fit his bandaged head. His eyes were unfocused, and his bandage was blood-soaked.
    Komier took out his map and studied it. ‘We’re coming to the River Astel,’ he replied. ‘We saw a city over on the other side—Darsas, most likely. I couldn’t catch anybody to tell me for sure, though. I’m not the prettiest fellow in the world, but I’ve never had people flee from me in terror like this before.’
    ‘Emban warned us about that,’ Bergsten said. ‘The countryside’s crawling with agitators. They’re telling the serfs that we’ve all got horns and tails and that we’re coming here to burn down their churches and ram assorted heresies down their throats at ‘sword-point. This fellow called Sabre seems to be the one behind it all.’
    ‘He’s the one I want,’