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The patrols would have found the men he had left tied up.

The first whistle came from below.

Kaoran crouched. An arrow struck the rock and snapped. Two guards were coming up the path from the pool; a third followed the channel with a glowing blue stone.

“Thennar!” the officer shouted. “Hand over the woman.”

Kaoran kept moving toward a stand of pines.

“You’ve attacked the regent’s soldiers.”

“Then you already know how little shouting impresses me.”

Another arrow passed between the branches. Isolde stirred on his back.

“Put me down.”

“You can walk when you stop seeing two of everything.”

“I can fight.”

“You can bleed with great determination. I’ve seen that for myself.”

The patrol was closing in. Kaoran looked for the white stone he had left in the clearing. Rain had washed away some of the ash, but the line still pointed toward a descent to one side. Low shrubs grew there on a sloping slab of basalt.

The slope looked stable.

Kaoran knew about the pocket of water it concealed.

He went three steps down, caught hold of a trunk, and kicked away a stone wedge. The slab gave way beneath the first guards. Mud, branches, and trapped water swept down the hillside. The men fell, clear of the larger rocks.

The officer with the blue stone stayed on his feet. He raised the device and drew a line toward Kaoran.

The mark burned in the air.

Isolde lifted her hand over Kaoran’s shoulder.

A red flame touched the blue line.

The two forces collided. The air smelled of metal and a storm. Isolde cried out. Fever turned the fire into a spreading flare that set the dry branches around them alight.

Kaoran turned to shield her with his body and lowered her hand.

“Breathe.”

“He has a stone.”

“The stone is waiting for you to feed it.”

The officer advanced. The blue light grew with Isolde’s fire.

Kaoran set the young woman behind a tree trunk and drew his short sword. The man smiled as he watched him approach with the blade held low.

“The regent will pay more for her than you’ll earn in your whole life.”

“I live fairly cheaply.”

The guard cast the blue line. Kaoran stepped to his blind side, struck his wrist, and turned beneath his arm. That economical movement had spared his knee for twenty years. The officer lost the stone. Kaoran caught it in a piece of his cloak before it hit the ground.

He wrapped it up and threw it into the pocket of water.

The device burst beneath the mud. Blue light ran across the slope and went out.

The two fallen guards were trying to get up. Kaoran struck the officer behind the ear and went back for Isolde.

She was still conscious. She watched the flames spreading through the shrubs.

“I let the fire loose,” she said.

Kaoran looked at the shrubs. Flame was already reaching a low pine branch, and the two fallen guards had managed to sit up.

“Can you draw it into the wet earth?”

“My hand is still burning.”

He brought a handful of mud toward her; Isolde turned her palm up. He let it fall between her fingers and supported her wrist from beneath, with the fire inches from his sleeve.

“Try with this flame. The one beside your thumb.”

She looked at it. Her breaths came short, and her shoulders rose before she had finished breathing out.

“Breathe in as far as your side will let you,” Kaoran said. “Then let it out slowly. I’ll watch the men.”

“They’ll catch us.”

“The forest will burn first.”

Isolde closed her eyes. Breathed in. The nearest flame bent its tip toward them. In the pause, it wavered. As she breathed out, the fire sank to the base of the branches.

“Again.”

The second breath gathered several flames into a narrow strip. The third carried them toward the wet earth. Smoke and red spots remained beneath the shrubs.

Isolde collapsed against Kaoran.

“That was magic,” she murmured.

“It was breathing too.”

“You always answer like that.”

“We’ve known each other less than an hour.”

“It’s felt longer.”

Kaoran picked her up. The guards would soon recover and bring reinforcements. He crossed the pine woods toward Bruma.

The mare was where he had left her, her rope chewed through and an expression that accused the world of incompetence. She sniffed Isolde and pinned her ears back.

“Behave,” Kaoran told her.

Bruma tried to bite his sleeve.

“I see the resemblance,” Isolde whispered.

Kaoran arranged the saddle to support her in front of him. He tied a blanket around her body and laid another over her bare legs. Only one boot remained. The skin of her other foot was cut and bruised, with two toenails torn loose.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“To a house where the roof leaks in two places and questions can wait.”

“Who knows it’s there?”

“Too many people to call it secret. Few enough that a regent won’t find it before breakfast.”

“Darian knows the maps.”

The certainty with which she said his name revealed a wound deeper than the dagger’s.

“My house was left off the maps when Vayren changed the roads,” Kaoran said. “The tax collectors visit every three winters and always get lost on the way back.”

“I want to go to Caleryon.”

“I know.”

“Aelyn is there.”

“I know.”

“My father…”

Her voice broke.

Kaoran took the reins.

“You’ll get farther if you survive this morning.”

Bruma began to walk.

The trail followed an old water channel. Horses left few tracks on its paving stones, but the flood had covered stretches of it in mud.

By midmorning he found the first sign of pursuit: three fresh cuts in a pine and a strand of white cloth caught on the bark. The Guard had sent scouts ahead of the herald.

Kaoran dismounted and listened.

The forest gave back the strike of a pick against stone, water, and a crow. Farther away, a horse snorted.

“We have company,” he said.

Isolde raised her head. Fever had narrowed her eyes, but she immediately searched the high ground.

“How many?”

“At least two. One has a tired horse.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“It helps the horse.”

Kaoran led Bruma beneath an overhang. A guardians’ niche there had been closed with small stones. He removed three and took out a packet of oats, a bottle of water, and a wax tablet.

Isolde studied the tablet.

“A map?”

“A record of crossings. Maps outlive roads and then blame the traveler.”

Several lines crossed the wax. Some ended in an X. Others had marks for the day, water, and shelter. Kaoran added a cut across the river route.

“The gorge is closed until the next moon,” he said.

“Ydrael is keeping passages open.”

“As long as there are people inside.”

“We could go back for him.”

Kaoran put away the tablet.

“You can barely stay in the saddle.”

“I survived the fall.”

“That fact has no value as a rescue plan.”

Isolde pulled at the blanket and reached for the ground with her booted foot. Bruma shifted, offended. Kaoran caught the young woman before she slid from the saddle.

“Let me go.”

“When you get your balance back.”

She pushed with her left leg. The muscle trembled from hip to knee. Her boot held for a moment. Then her body folded toward her wounded side.

Kaoran carried her beneath the overhang and sat her against the stone.

“That’s what we have to work with,” he said.

Isolde looked at the leg as if it belonged to someone else.

“The cold has numbed it.”

“The river, the fall, and the blood have played their parts. We’ll find out how much when your forehead stops burning.”

“I can wait here. You go back.”

“The Guard will come back too. They’ll find you sitting beside one of my caches and conclude that I’m a generous man.”

“They’re looking for a body.”

“Varek is looking for a key. Darian wants to close a report. Both will send people capable of noticing that you’re breathing.”

Darian’s name made Isolde’s face go rigid.

“He loved me.”

Kaoran loosened the bottle’s stopper. He could hear the scouts on the lower trail and needed her to drink before he moved her again.

Isolde looked at him, waiting for an answer Kaoran had no means to give.

“He asked me to come back with him,” she said. “I wanted to.”

The water trembled in the neck of the bottle. Kaoran rested it on his knee and left it within Isolde’s reach.

“I heard his men call off the search,” he replied. “I saw what happened in the ravine. You can talk about what he felt whenever you want, with whomever you choose.”

“Don’t tell me he had reasons.”

Kaoran shook his head. She held the bottle in both hands; she had to pause for breath before the first sip.

“If I fall asleep, keep going toward your house.”

“I will.”

Isolde drank. Some of the water ran down her chin. She wiped it with the back of her hand and looked at the tablet before Kaoran put it away.

“There’s a bridge to the north.”

“There was.”

“The line keeps going.”

“The main rope rotted last summer.”

“You marked water on the other side six days ago.”

Kaoran looked at the mark she had pointed out.

“The Brotherhood repaired one rope,” he admitted. “The other is still worn. We’ll have to spread the weight.”

Bruma struck the ground with a hoof.

“She seems to have an opinion,” Isolde said.

“Vague categories offend her.”

A short whistle came from the woods. Another answered closer to the river.

Kaoran lifted Isolde back into the saddle.

“We’ll take the bridge.”

“Ydrael?”

“The passages are still open. When we can go back, we’ll need hands to get out whoever he finds there.”

Isolde held his gaze. Kaoran expected a protest; she asked where the Brotherhood kept its spare ropes. He pointed to a mark on the tablet before closing it.

Isolde rested her hand on the root protruding from the overhang.

“Hold on,” she whispered.

The root returned a faint warmth. Ydrael had heard, or the mountain still held its heat. Isolde accepted the uncertainty and let go of the wood.

They moved quickly along the channel. Kaoran walked, leading Bruma over the clear stretches of stone. The scouts found the overhang several minutes later. Their voices carried along the channel.

“They were here!”

“The trail goes up!”