Traitor's Moon

Never here.”
    Ilar’s presence made no more sense than that of the glass spheres he clutched so desperately in both hands. The flames cleared before Ilar as he approached, his smile warm and welcoming
.
    So handsome. So graceful
.
    Seregil had forgotten how the man moved, light and easy as a lynx. Almost close enough to touch now
.
    Seregil felt the cold flames eating into him, felt smooth glass slipping through his fingers
.
    Ilar reached for him. No, he was offering him something, a bloody sword
.
    â€œNo!” Seregil shouted, clutching frantically at the glass orbs. “No, I don’t want it!”
    Seregil started up in bed, drenched in sweat and amazed to find Alec still asleep beside hm. Hadn’t he been shouting?
    Shout?
he thought in sudden alarm. He couldn’t even get his breath. The cold smoke from the dream still filled his lungs, making even the slight weight of Alec’s arm across his chest a stifling burden. He was choking, suffocating.
    He slid out of bed as carefully as his rising panic allowed, still irrationally concerned about waking Alec. Snatching up discarded clothing, he blundered out into the dimly lit corridor.
    Breath came easier once he was in motion. But when he paused to drag on his breeches and boots, the smothering sensation overwhelmed him again. He hurried on, pulling on the surcoat—Alec’s, it turned out—as he went.
    He was practically running now, past the second landing and on down the broader staircase that led to the hall.
    What am I doing?
    He slowed, and as if in answer, the breath locked tight in his chest. So he blundered on, praying he didn’t meet anyone in his current state.
    Raw instinct guided him down a side passage and out through the kitchen to the stable court. The moon was down, the shadows thick. A murmur of voices and a faint glow of firelight near the gate marked where the sentries stood, just outside the gate. Scaling the back wall unseen was a simple feat for the man once know as—
    Haba
    â€”the Rhíminee Cat.
    The soft turf of the street muffled the sound of his boots as he jumped down from the top of the wall and loped away, the unfastened coat flapping loosely around his bare sides.
    For a while the feel of his heart and breath and the long legs carrying him along were enough to fend off thought. Gradually, however, he grew calmer, and the panicked dash slowed to a walking meditation.
    The confusion of the Cockerel with his childhood room—a homecoming of sorts? he wondered, beginning to pick away at the dream that had precipitated this headlong nocturnal perambulation.But the rest: glass orbs, fire, smoke, Ilar. Try as he might, the dream’s import still eluded him.
    But then again, the images spoke of the past he’d mourned and here he was, alone under the stars, as he’d so often dreamed of being during the lonely years in Skala.
    Alone with his own thoughts.
    Introspection had never been a favorite pastime. In fact, he was quite skilled at avoiding it. “Take what the Lightbearer sends and be thankful.” How many times had he quoted that, his creed, his catalyst, his bulwark against self-revelation?
    The Lightbearer sent dreams—and madness. His thin mouth tilted into a humorless smirk:
better not to dwell too long on that
. Nonetheless, this dream had driven him out alone for the first time since their arrival in Sarikali. Goose flesh prickled his skin, and he fastened the coat, noting absently that it was a little loose in the shoulders for him.
    Alec.
    Seregil had been with him or others day and night without cease since their arrival, making it a simple matter to fill every waking moment with the business at hand—so many concerns, so much to do. So very easy to stave off the thoughts brewing since he’d set foot in Gedre—hell, since Beka had told him about this mission in the first place.
    Exile
    Traitor
    Alone here in the haunted stillness of a Sarikali night, he was stripped of his defenses.
    Murderer
    Guest slayer
    With hallucinatory clarity, he felt the hardness of a long-gone dagger’s hilt clenched in his right fist, felt again for the first time the jar and give as the blade sank into the outraged Haman’s—
    You knew him. He had a name
. His father’s voice now, filled with disgust.
    Dhymir í Tilmani Nazien
    Guest slayer
    â€”into Dhymir í Tilmani Nazien’s chest all those nights and years and deaths ago. There was an