Traitor's Moon

wavered into view in front of him, dancing gently over the water’s surface far above. Still mired in darkness, Thero felt the power of it breaking in on him, and his mouth stretched wide with joy.
    â€œBalance!”
    Like a cork buoy suddenly released, he shot to the surface, shattering the moon’s reflection.
    â€œBalance!” he shouted up at it.
    â€œYes,” the voice said approvingly. “Nysander understood betterthan any Tír the role of Aura’s gifts. We waited for him to come to us, but it was not to be. The task falls to you.”
    What task?
Thero wondered with a thrill of excitement.
    â€œBalance was lost long ago between your people and our own, between the Tír and the Light. Light balances darkness. Silence balances sound. Death balances life. The Aurënfaie preserve the old ways; your kind, left to dance alone for a time, have forged the new.”
    Thero reached a tentative foot down and found solid ground in easy reach. Wading from the pool, he walked to the lone figure awaiting him, an ancient Bash’wai woman. Her face and skin were black in the moonlight, her hair silver.
    Thero fell to his knees in front of her. “Is that why Klia was allowed to come here, and at this time? Did you make this happen?”
    â€œMake?” She chuckled, and her voice was deep, too large for such a frail frame. She stroked his head like a child’s. “No, little brother, we only dance the dance with whatever steps we can manage.”
    Confused, Thero pressed a hand over his eyes, then looked up again. “You said the wizards of Skala would be made whole. What does that mean?”
    But the Bash’wai was gone. In her place sat a large dragonling with golden eyes. Before Thero could do more than register its presence, it darted forward between his bare thighs and bit him on the scrotum. Leaping up with a panicked shout, he felt his head connect with something hard and the moon spun away like a dropped ring.
    When Thero came to again, he was sprawled facedown and fully clothed just inside the mouth of a tunnel leading off from the main cavern beneath the Nha’mahat.
    A vision!
he thought in dazed wonder. He shifted to stand up, then pressed flat again, squeezing his eyes shut as fiery talons of pain tightened around his balls. The memory of Alec’s bitten earlobe, swelled three times its normal size, presented itself ungraciously, and he let out a groan.
    The sound of movement against stone made him open his eyes again. Through a haze of pain, he saw a seated figure uncoil itself from the nearby shadows and resolve into his young guide.
    â€œLissik.” She held a flask down for him to see before disappearing behind him.
    A mark of honor, they call these bites!
he thought helplessly asshe went about her ministrations.
If I survive long enough to heal, how am I ever going to show it off?
    People came and went around him. If the sight of a Skalan wizard cackling hysterically on the ground with his robe tucked up around his waist struck any of them as odd, none were so ungracious as to say so in his hearing.

15
D ISCOMFORT
    W here’s Thero?” Alec wondered aloud as they set off for a banquet in Bry’kha tupa that evening.
    â€œGone to visit the rhui’auros,” Klia told him. “I’d expected him back by now.”
    The rain had slacked off to a warm, sullen drizzle. Everyone rode with hoods pulled up, in little clumps behind Klia and Torsin. Alec and Seregil brought up the rear, the closest semblance of privacy they’d had all day. Seizing the opportunity, Alec confided his encounter with Beka and Nyal in the Haunted City.
    Seregil took the news more calmly than he’d expected. “According to Thero, Queen Idrilain herself encourages such unions as part of the mission,” he said quietly.
    Alec glanced around at their Urgazhi escort. “What? Marrying her soldiers off to Aurënfaie?”
    Seregil smirked. “I don’t think marriage is a priority, but one of the goals of our current mission is to get a healthy infusion of Aurënfaie blood to renew that stock.”
    â€œYes, but—! You mean she hoped Beka and her female riders would come home pregnant?” Alec exclaimed. “I thought they got drummed out for that?”
    â€œThe rules have been relaxed for the time being. No one is talking openly about it, butThero heard rumors that a bounty has even been offered. I suppose the