Traitor's Moon

betrayed nothing but obedient devotion, just as she’d expected. If he survived this war, a ring of a different sort might just find its way onto his talented hand.
    Alone in the great tent, Phoria sat back in her chair and smiled as she regarded the slightly lighter circle of skin where the ring had been.
    Her headache was nearly gone.

27
M ORE G HOSTS
    S eregil woke before daybreak on the final day of mourning, once again trying to grasp a dream before it faded. It had started out with the same familiar images. This time, however, he seemed to recall the rhui’auros, Lhial, standing in the corner of the room, trying to tell him something very important in a voice too low to make out over the crackling of the flames.
    There was no panic this time, but he knew where he had to go; he could feel the pull of the place like a hook under his breastbone. With a sigh, he slipped out of bed, wondering if he could make it back before the day’s visitors began to arrive.
    Someone was singing a dawn song from an upper window of the Nha’mahat as Seregil approached on horseback. Flocks of tiny dragons whirled around the building, their drab bodies turned to dusky gold by the first rays of morning.
    â€œMaros Aura Elustri chyptir,”
he whispered, not sure what the reason for the prayer was, except that he suddenly felt grateful for the sight before him and the fact that he was here in this blessed place to witness it.
    Donning a mask at the door, he followed a guide into the main chamber. A few dreamersalready lay there. “I’d like to speak with Lhial, if I may,” Seregil told the girl.
    â€œLhial is dead,” she replied.
    â€œDead?” he gasped. “When? How?”
    â€œAlmost forty years ago. It was a wasting illness, I think.”
    The floor seemed to shift subtly under Seregil’s feet. “I see. May I use a dhima?”
    She prepared a firepot for him and gave him a handful of the dreaming herb. He accepted these with a respectful bow and hurried down to the cavern below. Choosing one of the little huts at random, he stripped and crawled under the door flap, welcoming the steamy closeness this time. Settled on the rush matting, he threw the herbs onto the coals and waved a hand to mix the smoke and steam.
    Taking deep, rhythmic breaths, he slowly relaxed as the mildly narcotic smoke took hold.
    His first thought was the realization that he felt no fear, and had felt none from the moment he’d impulsively decided to come here. He was not choking. He’d come here of his own volition, without fear or resentment.
    Seregil closed his eyes, pondering this as sweat collected inside the mask, tickling his nose. The smoke from the herbs seared his lungs, making him light-headed, but he welcomed the sensations and waited.
    â€œYou begin to understand, son of Korit,” a familiar voice said.
    Opening his eyes, Seregil found himself sitting on sun-washed stone overlooking the dragon pool in the mountains of Akhendi fai’thast. Lhial sat beside him, his eyes golden again.
    â€œI’m not certain I do, Honored One,” Seregil admitted, shivering a little as a chill mountain breeze blew across his bare skin.
    The rhui’auros picked up a pebble and threw it into the pool below. Seregil followed it with his eyes, then looked back to find Nysander sitting there in Lhial’s place. Somehow, the transformation didn’t surprise him. Instead, he felt a rush of the same inexplicable gratitude the sight of the dragonling swarm had given him.
    Nysander sat cross-legged, looking out over the water, his plain face serene. He wore one of his threadbare old coats, and the toes of his worn boots were wet, as if he’d been walking through dew-laden grass. The curling white hair that edged his bald pate stirred in the breeze, and Seregil could see a smudge of ink in his close-cropped beard. Not once since Nysander’s death had Seregil dreamed of his old friend. When he remembered him waking, no matter how hetried, the sight of Nysander’s bloody, dead face rose in his mind’s eye to obscure any happier memory.
    He looked away quickly, bracing for the vision to shift. A gentle hand cupped his chin, turning him back to face the wizard.
    â€œOpen your eyes, Seregil.”
    He did, and nearly wept with relief to find Nysander, unchanged.
    â€œYou have a stubborn mind sometimes, dear boy,” he said, patting Seregil’s cheek. “You can