Traitor's Moon

that strange gaze, Seregil felt an uneasy chill crawl slowly up his back. The dragon was watching him, too, and there was more intelligence in its yellow eyes than in those of the man who held it.
    Elesarit suddenly thrust his clenched fist across at Seregil, who recoiled instinctively.
    â€œYou’ll be needing this, little brother.”
    Hesitantly, Seregil held out his hand, palm up, to receive whatever the man was offering. Something smooth and cool dropped into his hand. For an instant he thought it was another of the mysterious orbs from his dreams. Instead, he found himself holding a slender vial fashioned of dark, iridescent blue glass and capped with a delicate silver stopper. It was exquisite.
    â€œThis is Plenimaran,” he said, recognizing the workmanship with a thrill of anticipation, even as another part of his mind piped in,
too easy
.
    â€œIs it?” Elesarit leaned over for a closer look. “He who has two hearts is twice as strong, ya’shel khi.”
    Only half listening to the man’s nonsensical ramblings, Seregil uncapped the vial and took a cautious sniff, wishing he’d thought to ask Nyal what apaki’nhag venom smelled like. The acrid aroma was disappointingly familiar. Tipping out a drop, he rubbed it between a thumb and finger. “It’s just lissik.”
    â€œDid you expect something else?”
    Seregil replaced the stopper without comment. He was wasting his time here.
    â€œA gift, little brother,” Elesarit chided gently. “Take what the Lightbearer sends and be thankful. What we expect is not always what we need.”
    Seregil resisted the urge to sling the bottle across the room. “Unless that dragon of yours is about to bite me, I’m not certain what to be thankful
for
, Honored One.”
    Elesarit regarded him with a mix of pity and affection. “You have a most stubborn mind, dear boy.”
    Cold sweat broke out across Seregil’s shoulders; Nysander hadsaid these very words to him during his last vision. Seregil glanced at the oat cakes again, then back at the rhui’auros, half hoping to catch another glimpse of his old friend.
    Elesarit shook his head sadly. “Seldom have we seen one fight his gifts as you do, Seregil í Korit.”
    Disappointment shot through with vague guilt settled in Seregil’s gut like a bad dinner. He missed Nysander terribly, missed the old wizard’s quick mind and clarity. He might have kept secrets, but he never spoke in riddles.
    â€œI’m sorry, Honored One,” he managed at last. “If I do have some gift, it’s never worked for me.”
    â€œOf course it does, little brother. It is from Illior.”
    â€œThen tell me what it is!”
    â€œSo many questions! Soon you must begin to ask the
right
ones. Smiles conceal knives.”
    The right questions?
“Who murdered Torsin?”
    â€œYou already know.” The old man gestured at the door, no longer smiling. “Go now. You have work to do!”
    The dragon spread its wings and bared needle-sharp fangs at him, hissing menacingly. The unsettling sound followed Seregil as he beat a hasty retreat into the corridor. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw with alarm that the creature was in fact chasing him. A peal of laughter rang out behind him from the open doorway.
    Getting down three flights of stairs with a dragon, even a small one, slithering after you was not a pleasant experience. On the second landing Seregil turned to shoo it away and the creature flew at him, snapping at his outstretched hand.
    Admitting defeat, he fled. More laughter, eerily disembodied now, sounded close to his ear.
    His fiesty pursuer gave up somewhere between the last stairway and the meditation chamber. He stole frequent glances over his shoulder all the same until he was outside again. Fingerlings frisked around his feet, chirping and fluttering. Picking his way gingerly past them, he hurried to his horse. It wasn’t until he reached to undo the hobble that he realized he was still clutching the vial of lissik.
    Did I really expect the rhui’auros to hand me the murderer’s weapon?
he thought derisively, pocketing it.
    Cynril’s steady pace calmed him. As his mind cleared, he slowly began combing Elesarit’s ravings for whatever message lay concealed there. In his heart, Seregil knew better than to dismiss the words of any rhui’auros as nonsense; their madness masked the face