Traitor's Moon

gathering changed subtly with the arrival of the Haman. Keeping to the background, Seregil watched as Klia greeted Nazien í Hari and his entourage. Surprisingly, the man greeted her cordially, clasping her hands and presenting her with a ring from his own finger. She did the same, and the two fell into conversation as Brythir looked on benevolently.
    â€œWhat do you think of that?” Alec exclaimed softly, coming up behind him.
    â€œInteresting. Perhaps even encouraging. After all, it’s
me
the Haman hate, not Skala. Why don’t you wander over for a listen?”
    â€œAh, there you are!” Klia smiled as Alec joined her. “Khirnari, I don’t think you’ve met my aide, Alec í Amasa?”
    â€œHow do you do, honored sir?” Alec said with a bow.
    â€œI have heard of him,” Nazien replied, suddenly cool. Clearly, the man knew who he was and detested him on principle. With a single, subtle glance, the Haman dismissed him as thoroughly as if he’dceased to exist. More amazing still, Klia seemed not to have noticed the slight.
    Alec stepped back a pace, feeling as if the breath had suddenly been sucked from his lungs. It was his Watcher training that kept him there with Klia, listening, when every instinct counseled a hasty retreat.
    So he hovered, studying the faces of the Haman beneath their yellow-and-black sen’gai as he pretended to listen to a nearby conversation. There were twelve Haman with Nazien—six men, six women, most of them close kin with the same dark, sharp eyes as their khirnari. Most chose to consider Alec invisible, though one, a broad-shouldered man with a dragon bite on his chin, spared Alec a challenging glare.
    Alec was about to go when Nazien mentioned something about the Edict.
    â€œIt is a complex matter,” the khirnari was saying to Klia. “You must understand, there was a great deal more to it than Corruth’s disappearance. The exodus of the Hâzadriëlfaie centuries before was still fresh in the minds of our people—the terrible loss.”
    Alec inched closer; this was in line with what Adzriel had told them the night before.
    â€œThen, as trade grew with the Three Lands, we watched as more ’faie disappeared to northern lands, mingling their blood with the Tír,” Nazien continued. “Many of our clan mingled with yours, losing their ties with their own kind.”
    â€œThen you feel a ’faie belongs in Aurënen and nowhere else?” asked Klia.
    â€œIt is a common sentiment,” Nazien replied. “Perhaps it is difficult for a Tírfaie to understand, as you find those like yourselves wherever you travel. We are a race apart, unique to this land. We are long-lived, it is true, but we are also, in Aura’s great wisdom, slow to breed. I do not say that our lives are more sacred to us than those of the Tír are to you, but our attitude toward such things as war and murder is one of greater horror. I think you will be hard-pressed to convince any khirnari to send their people off to die in your war.”
    â€œAnd yet if you would only allow those who wish to go,” Klia countered. “You must not underestimate our own love of life. Every day I am here more of my people die for want of the help you could so easily give. It is not honor we fight for, but our very lives.”
    â€œBe that as it may—”
    They were interrupted by a call to the banquet. The light was failingquickly now, and torches were lit around the garden and in the street below. Klia and Nazien went to join their host. Alec moved off, looking for Seregil.
    â€œWell?” asked Seregil as they took their seats on a couch near Klia’s.
    Alec shrugged, still smarting from the Haman’s treatment. “Just more politics.”
    The entertainment began with the feast. A horn sounded and a dozen riders on Silmai blacks appeared from around the corner of a distant building. The horses’ harnesses and girth straps were hung with tinkling gold and turquoise ornaments, and their streaming white manes and tails shone like combed milkweed silk.
    The riders, men and women both, were equally exotic. Their long hair was bound tightly back into a club at the back of their necks, and each wore a silver crescent of Aura on their brow. The men wore short kilts dyed the turquoise blue of their clan and tightly belted with gold. The women wore tunics of similar design.
    â€œThey’re