Traitor's Moon

not much older than Alec himself, and racked with desperation as he glared back past the girl.
    He loomed closer until he seemed to fill Alec’s vision. Then came a wrenching lurch, and Alec was looking down into the face of a young woman with his own dark blue eyes, full lips, and fine-boned features, all framed by ragged clumps of dark brown hair, hacked cruelly short.
    Ireya!
    He didn’t know if the voice was his own or his father’s, but he felt the agony of that despairing cry. Helpless as his father had been, Alec watched in horror as she thrust the baby into his arms and dashed back the way she’d come, toward the horsemen who pursued her.
    Then Alec was looking down at the small, bruised feet again as she ran at them, spreading her empty arms wide as if to gather the arrows speeding at her heart from the bows of
    brothers
    The force of the first shaft knocked Alec flat on his back and hot pain sliced the breath from his lungs. It passed as quickly as it had come, however, and he felt his life leaving like smoke from the wound, rising on the sparkling morning air until he could see the horsemen gathered around the still body below. He couldn’t see their faces to know if they were pleased or horrified at their own deed. He saw only that they ignored the distant figure fleeing west with his tiny burden.
    â€œOpen your eyes, son of Ireya ä Shaar.”
    The vision collapsed.
    Opening his eyes, Alec lay sprawled on the cold floor, arms flung wide.
    Elesarit crouched next to him, eyes half closed, lips parted in a strange grimace.
    â€œMy mother?” Alec asked through dry lips, too weak to sit up. The back of his head hurt. In fact, he hurt all over.
    â€œYes, little brother, and your Tírfaie father,” Elesarit said softly, touching Alec’s temple with the fingertips of one hand.
    â€œMy father—he had no other names?”
    â€œNone that he knew.”
    The smoke closed in around him again, bringing another wave of dizziness. The ceiling overhead dissolved into a miasma of shifting color.
    Stop!
he begged, but his throat was numb. No sound escaped.
    â€œYou carry the memories of your people,” the rhui’auros said, lost somewhere in the shifting blur. “I take these from you, but not without giving something back.”
    Suddenly Alec was standing on a rugged mountainside beneath a huge crescent moon. Barren peaks stretched out in front of him for as far as he could see. Far below, a torch-lit procession wended its way along a twisting track, hundreds of people, it seemed, or thousands. The chain of tiny, bobbing lights stretched back through the night like a necklace of amber beads tossed on rumpled black velvet.
    â€œAsk what you will,” a low, inhuman voice rumbled behind him, like rocks grinding together in an avalanche.
    Alec whirled, reaching for a sword that wasn’t there. A few yards from where he stood, a cliff rose into the darkness overhead, sheer except for a small hole near the bottom not much larger than the door of a dog kennel.
    â€œAsk what you will,” the voice said again, and the vibration of it sent loose pebbles clinking and pattering down around Alec’s feet.
    Sinking to his hands and knees, he looked into the hole, but there was only darkness beyond.
    â€œWho are you?” he tried to ask, only somehow the words came out “Who am I?” instead.
    â€œYou are the wanderer who carries his home in his heart,” the unseen speaker replied, sounding pleased with the question. “You are the bird who makes its nest on the waves. You will father a child of no woman.”
    A deathly chill rolled over him. “A curse?”
    â€œA blessing.”
    Suddenly Alec felt weight and heat against his back. Someone placed a thick fur robe over him, one that had been warmed before a fire. It was so heavy that he couldn’t lift his head to see who had covered him, but he glimpsed a man’s hands and recognized them—strong, long-fingered Aurënfaie hands. Seregil’s.
    â€œChild of earth and light,” the voice pronounced. “Brother of shadows, watcher in the darkness, wizard-friend.”
    â€œWhat clan am I?” Alec gasped as the warm robe pressed down on him.
    â€œAkavi’shel, little ya’shel, and no clan at all. Owl and dragon. Always and never. What do you hold?”
    Alec looked down at his hands, pressed to the rocky ground as he fought now to hold up the