Traitor's Moon

cold at night up here.”
    Just beyond the village they struck a broad outcropping, steep and treacherous with loose rock and threaded with little rivulets from a spring above it. A few cairns still marked the way to several trails that continued on from here.
    They gave their horses their heads, letting them pick their way carefully up the slope. Looking back over his shoulder, Alec saw that the animal’s unshod hooves left almost no marks in passing. It was going to take one fine tracker to catch them, he thought with satisfaction.
    â€œI don’t have it! I destroyed it, burned it up in the fire,” Amali sobbed, cowering back against the bed. She’d started out defiant but quickly dissolved into tears. It made her seem even younger thanshe was, and Rhaish hesitated, wondering if he had the resolve to strike her if it came to that.
    â€œDon’t lie to me! I must have it,” he said sternly, looming over her. “If my fears are correct, you may already be found out. Why else would Seregil not have come by now?”
    â€œWhy won’t you tell me what this is about?” she sobbed, instinctively shielding her belly with both hands.
    The gesture broke his heart, and he slumped down on the bed beside her. “For the sake of Akhendi, and for our child, you must give me the rest of it if you still have it. I know you too well, my love. You would never destroy another’s handiwork.” He fought to keep the rising desperation from his voice. “You must let me protect you, as I always have.”
    Amali stifled another sob as she crawled off the bed and went to a workbox on her dressing table. Opening it, she lifted out a tray of charm-making goods and reached beneath it. “Here, and may you make better use of it than I did!” She threw the woven bracelet at his feet.
    Rhaish bent to pick it up, recalling a similar moment four nights earlier. He pushed the thought away with a shudder, knowing himself damned.
    The knot work on this bracelet was simple but well done; some magic still lingered despite the loss of the charm, strong enough to hold both the memory of its maker, a peasant woman from one of the mountain villages, and that of the young man it had been made for. Alec í Amasa’s khi had permeated the fibers as surely as his sweat.
    Amali was still weeping. Ignoring her for the moment, Rhaish sat down in a chair by the bed and pressed the bracelet between his hands, speaking a spell. The bracelet throbbed against his palms. Closing his eyes, he caught a glimpse of Alec and his surroundings, saw dripping boughs close overhead, distant peaks just visible through a break in the trees. Saw Seregil riding beside him, gesturing at something—a large, oddly shaped boulder that Rhaish recognized immediately.
    Realization knocked the breath from his lungs, and he fell back in his chair. They did know! Klia must know, or why else would she have sent them, of all people, for the northern coast?
    Cold hands clasped his, and he looked down into Amali’s tear-streaked face as she knelt before him. “You must return home, talía. Say nothing of any of this, and go home.”
    â€œI only meant to help,” she whispered, picking up the fallenbracelet and looking at it in horrified wonder. “What have I done, my love?”
    â€œNothing the Lightbearer has not ordained.” Rhaish stroked her cheek gently, glad of her warmth against his thighs. He was cold, chilled to the bone despite the sunlight that had broken through the clouds. “Go on now, and prepare our house for my return. Your wait will not be long.”
    His legs shook as he stepped out into the deserted garden, heedless of how the wet grass soaked his slippers and the hem of his robe. Sitting down in Amali’s arbor, he pressed the bracelet between his hands again, stealing glance after glance at the runaways as long as his strength allowed, until he’d seen enough to guess where they were headed.
    Folding his hands, he rested a moment, feeling the comforting power of Sarikali seeping into him from the ground and air, replenishing him. He cupped his hands, picturing a distant village and the men he trusted there, while an orb of silvery light formed in the cage of his fingers. When he’d thought his message into it, he touched it and it whisked way, carrying what he hoped were the right words to the right ears.
    Watching him from behind the window hangings, Amali