White Road

of the ship. But even that did not match the torture of being trapped on this vessel with so many strangers—men who seemed to look right through him to the shame and weakness he carried in his heart. Without the khirnari to protect him, he wouldn’t have dared venture out of the cabin they shared. Ulan was coughing more, too.
    They were already under way when word had come from Ulan’s spy that Lord Seregil’s privateering vessel, the
Green Lady
, had docked at Beggar’s Bridge, and that Seregil was aboard, together with Alec—who’d shorn his hair and dyed it brown—a Tír named Cavish, and a ’faie with the odd name of Rieser. There was no mention of the rhekaro, or the Tír wizard who’d been with them in Gedre.
    “That is troubling, yet fortune has smiled on us all the same, Ilar,” Ulan had told him. “If they have gone all the way to Beggar’s Bridge, then they may well be going back to Riga on the same errand as ours. Do you think Alec knows about the books?”
    “He could have seen them, as I did.”
    “Assuming that he does, then we’ve still stolen a march on them. We’ll have the books, and perhaps Alec, as well. And if so, we shall learn what has become of the rhekaro.”
    “What if they aren’t going there?” asked Ilar.
    “One step at a time, dear fellow,” Ulan had said with a smile.
    Ilar gripped the bench until his fingers ached, trying to rein in the hope and excitement that overwhelmed him again.
Please, Aura, let them come to us in Plenimar!
    “Come now, dear boy, and pay attention,” Ulan chided gently, tapping the drawing spread between them on the table.
    “What? Oh, yes.”
    At the khirnari’s request, Ilar had drawn the outline of each floor of his former master’s workshop, and marked out the contents of each room as well as he could remember.
    “You are certain this is where the book your master showed me is kept?” Ulan asked, tapping a finger on the X Ilar had labeled for him.
    “Yes, in the little painted tent.”
    “And if it is not there?”
    Panic tightened Ilar’s chest. “There are other books. Shelves of them, Khirnari. He might have hidden the books I saw among them. I’m sure I can find them!”
    Ilar didn’t dare ask what would happen if he failed, knowing how close they would be to the slave markets of Riga. Why would this great man keep him if Ilar proved himself worthless? He had nightmares every night: the horrors of the slave markets, the cruel masters he’d survived before Ilban Yhakobin had taken pity on him, and always the terrible night that Ilban had him whipped and said he was going back to the markets …
    Those dreams had not gone away, but now he also dreamed of those days abandoned in the wilderness after the slave takers had caught up with them. He didn’t know how long he’d spent lost in the cold rain with no shelter, no food, and no water but what he could suck from a depression in a stone or a muddy rill. He didn’t know how many days he’d wandered, shaking with hunger and certain every momentthat the slave takers would find him. How could they not, with their dogs?
    Instead, Ulan’s men had found him dying in a ditch. He still carried that coldness, that fear, deep in the core of his soul, and nothing could ever take it away. Except, perhaps, to find Seregil and beg for … He still could not decide what it was he wanted, but the hunger was eating away at his mind. The thought of being alone in the world again froze him with terror.
    The
White Seal
made port at Riga in fair weather, but Ilar felt sick. Hiding in the cabin, he peered out the porthole as the cargo was unloaded at one of the many quays. A land breeze brought him the scent of the city—the smoke and reek of it—and he thought he could even smell the sweat and despair of the slave markets. It was something he knew all too well. Only when Ulan came looking for him was he able to leave the cabin. Ilar was dressed in Aurënfaie style, and a Virésse sen’gai covered his cropped hair, but he also wore a lace-edged slave veil tied securely to hide all of his face below his eyes.
    Emerging into the sunlight, trying to ignore the stares of the crew and other passengers, he took the old man’s arm as if to steady him, but in truth it was the only way he could walk down the gangplank without his own legs giving way under him. He had no brand, no collar! What if someone discovered that?
    Ulan gave him an understanding smile and patted his hand. “Steady now,