There was once a woman who lived and loved and lost.

They called her the Phoenix

She was a legend in her life, a woman with a fiery smile and lightning reflexes, a match for any man, woman or immortal that cared to fight her. Some said she was beautiful, and some said she was beyond beautiful, and thousands lost their hearts to the shade of a woman who trailed fire in her wake, and set the land aflame wherever she stepped.

 She was a Shang warrior, not merely the greatest of her land, or of her age, but the mightiest of them all.

 They called her the Phoenix, but when she died in a blaze of glory and tragedy, her rebirth never came.

 Until now.

~*~

 The poppies grew red and lush here, like a sea of rippling crimson velvet. Silence hung heavy in the air, pressing in on him like unseen hands. Hands clutching at him, hands clinging to him, hands reaching out for help and imploring, begging...

For a fleeting, fearsome moment, Neal thought he heard his brothers' voices pleading, beseeching, praying to him.

 They were buried under here, under this glorious wash of scarlet that hid the horrors of the battlefield. He had come here for the vast emptiness, so he could almost feel his little cares, unimportant problems leak away so he could think again, so he could get some perspective on the things that truly mattered.

 The things that mattered. It was odd how few there really were.

 And today, when you came down to it, there was just one.

 The fact that someone he loved beyond anything he might have believed would be fighting for their life. The thought terrified him, because the Ordeal of Shang was something taken lightly by no one. It meant death to someone, violent thoughtless death.

 But he didn't pray. Neal had never told anyone, but he stopped praying to the gods when they took his brothers.

Good luck, he thought to the echo of a girl who was far away. I think you'll need it.

~*~

 They were an odd pair among the peacock finery of the nobles and the practical black and white of the staff who thronged around the practise court, waiting for the Ordeal to begin. A slip of a girl who seemed to have been made from ivory and gold, but dressed in casual attire, gripping the hand of the boy who led her through the teeming masses.

 Many of the young court ladies caught their breath as he went by, hoping, hoping. If he had stopped to speak of course, they would have turned their heads away sneeringly after stealing one longing look at his face, because he was a common thief and one simply did not associate with him.

 But still...as one whispered to a friend. Look at that face!

 The boy had the clean-cut bone structure of an aristocrat, and wide-set eyes that were a soft dove-grey, filled with mischief and intelligence. His full mouth always seemed to be about to curve into the delicious smile that curled many a toe, and his dark hair had the slight wave that made every girl who saw him wonder if it would still be there after she had run her hands through it.

 If he had stopped to speak of course, they would have turned their heads away sneeringly after stealing one longing look at his face, because he was a common thief and one simply did not associate with him.

 The girl often stood on tiptoe to whisper in his ear, and the pair of them laughed and chatted. Once, the boy casually swiped a nobleman's purse, and the girl swatted him on the head with a stern glare. The boy sighed, and threw it back to the startled man with a warning to keep his money more safely.

 In short, Ryan Talver looked like a fallen angel, and moved with the stealthy elegance of a panther, all long legs and subtle strength.

If he had stopped to speak of course, they would have turned their heads away sneeringly after stealing one longing look at his face, because he was a common thief and one simply did not associate with him.

 The pair were also the two most powerful mages to grace the earth, greater even than Numair Salmalin, who taught them. A thief and a village girl, brought together in an odd throw of Fate's dice.  

 "Well, well," a snide voice said. "if it isn't beauty and the burglar."

 Ryan ignored the comment as he elbowed his way through the crowds to get a good view. Half the palace had turned out to watch the Ordeal, electrified by the news of this mysterious would-be Shang who never said a word and wore a mask to hide her face.

 He was shocked when Andi let go of his hand and turned on the speaker.

 "Why don't you crawl back under whatever rock you came from?" she snapped, her Northern accent making the words chime. "You'd be a thief too if you'd had to live the kind of life that Rya-mmmf-mmm-mmm!"

 Ryan removed his hand from her mouth and glared at her. "Lass, don't go makin' trouble with nobles!" he hissed.

 She stared up at him, her eyes the sparkling gold of amber in sunlight. "He was insulting you!"

 Ryan glanced at the man, who arrogant face bore a distinctly shocked look. He could understand why; slight and slender and distinctly elfin, Andrea Kirisra didn't look like she could say boo to a goose. She was a pretty little thing, he had to admit, with her big, soft eyes and the fall of long gilt hair that rippled as she moved.

 She was also irrevocably linked to him by magic, and sometimes she was a pain in the neck.

 "So?" he said, putting a guiding hand at the small of her back to try and push her away from the noble who was beginning to recover. "I don't care. He ain't worth the breath it'd take to speak to him."

 "Huh," was all she said, but she was looking at him thoughtfully.

 You'll be a real beauty in a year or two, Ryan thought wistfully. Half the Court'll be chasing you, even if you are a common-born lass.

 "Thank you," Andi murmured, flushing. They ducked and dived their way through to the front, unceremoniously treading on people's feet, employing elbows and knees to part the sea of people. "That's...incredibly sweet."

 Ryan stopped. Had he said that aloud? No...

 Had she read his mind?

 Surely not.

 She perched her elbows on the fence, looking at the practice court that was bare except for the three Shang who waited there. The Horse, the Wildcat and the graceful girl they called the Stormwing.

 You think this newcomer'll win? he thought as loudly as he could.

 Andi turned her head towards him. "I don't know," she answered. "They say she's good."

 So are they.

 She blinked, and then a frown marred her face. "I heard that..." she said quietly. "But your lips didn't move..."

 I know.

~*~

 "I don't care, Father," Princess Kalasin said, and tossed her head.

 Roald could see his father's eyes beginning to smoulder dangerously. Here we go again, he thought wearily. Kally was being such a brat.

 She'd been that way for eight bloody years now, ever since she had been banned from being a page. Ever since she'd been told about her arranged marriage to Emperor Kaddar, who she hated though she had never even met the poor man.

 "You damn well will care!" King Jonathan snapped. "You are going to marry the Emperor, you will unite our kingdoms, and you will not cause a war!"

 Kally fixed him with the cold blue stare that was a direct inheritance. "If I want to cause a war, daddy dear, then I will." Her voice was rich, mocking, lazy.

 She'd changed so much. When they were kids, Roald had always liked playing with Kally, because she was bright and funny. But now, she was sullen, and sulky, and selfish.

 It didn't matter that he agreed with what she was saying. She was going about it the wrong way.

 Oh, and my way's so much better? He asked himself. Sneaking off, stealing kisses, pretending I'm happy being married off to some Yamani girl?

 It was a terrible truth to admit, but Prince Roald had fallen in love with someone else.

 A herald approached, and the Royals fixed their faces into smiles.

 "I hate you," Kally said out of the side of her mouth.

 "You'll obey me," his father muttered back through gritted teeth.

The Queen and her son exchanged weary looks as the man bowed hurriedly. "The tournament will begin presently," he said. "Will your highnesses require anything?"

 "An axe," the King snapped, glaring at Kally.

 "A fast horse," she snarled, stabbing a clip into her coal-black hair as if it was the King's head, not her own.

 "A headache remedy," Roald muttered glumly.

 "Uh..."

 "Some cool drinks would be good, Bevan," his mother said wryly. "Please ignore my family. They're only joking. The Conté sense of humour is rather obscure."

 Kally and the King were still sniping at one another.

 The herald, his face as red as his garb by now, backed away. "Ma'am. Sir Roald."

 Thayet turned her hazel eyes on him, and he was pleased to see the proud smile on her face. "I still can't believe you passed your Ordeal!" she said. "Of course, we knew you would, but still, you've done us proud...Sir Roald..." She sighed. "You're an adult now."

 And I'll be married soon, he thought glumly, but kept his expression obedient for her.

 This wasn't his mother, commander of the Riders who wielded a blade as well as any knight, and put the fear of the gods into any bandit. This was his mother the family woman, who worried about her children and her kingdom; someone gentler.

 She smiled at him. "At least one of our children understands duty," she murmured.

 And Roald thought of the girl who had danced with him at a Court ball, and kissed him under the hallowed silver of a full moon, and said nothing.

~*~

 Kel found Ryan and Andi where she expected them, at the front and annoying everyone else around them. She was as scruffy as them in old clothes, but everyone recognised the sturdy girl with the bright hazel eyes and the mongrel trailing after her and made way for her.

 "Kel!" Andi exclaimed, relief in her voice. She was oddly white, pale as marble. "Oh, Kel, the strangest thing's happened!" Then, even more bizarrely, she turned to Ryan and said, "Oh, shut up!"

 "He didn't say anything," a puzzled Kel said, squeezing past an indignant noblewoman to join her friends.

 "Oh, but he thought it!" Andi wailed, and her gold eyes were lost and bewildered.

 She looked at Ryan for an explanation. The grey eyes met hers, and were just as baffled. "She can read my mind," he explained.

 "Very funny," Kel said, grinning at her boyfriend. She knew Ryan's penchant for practical jokes was never-ending, though he'd stopped playing them on her the day that she challenged him to a bout.

 "I was laughin'?" he said. "Kel, I'm serious! She keeps on doin' it!"

 Kel looked from one to the other. Both beseeching her to believe them, staring at her with the hopeful look that meant they were, for once, serious.

 "Oh, yuck!" Andi said, clapping her hands to her ears. "Ryan, don't think about Kel like that!"

 She was astonished to see Ryan, who had lived with a prostitute, go an interesting shade of scarlet. And his eyes were beginning to go the brilliant, blazing blue that they turned when he got emotional. "You shouldn't be listenin'," he said defensively and lowered his voice so no one around them could hear. "An' she's my sweetheart, I'm allowed to think of her like that."

 "In leather?" hissed the elfin girl, wringing her hands. "I can see what you're thinking as well, Ryan Talver, and what you two get up to in your spare time is none of my business, but that is...disturbing."

 Kel could feel her mouth beginning to twitch desperately and she fought to hide her mirth at seeing her cool, calm boyfriend begin to crack. "Oh Ryan, I thought you better than that...you've been to see that dancing show in Corus, haven't you?"

 He was staring at the ground. "It weren't just me, lass."

 She arched her eyebrows. No...she'd bet it had been Cleon's idea, with a little help from Neal. "Go on then - who went?"

 "Well..." the thief shifted on his feet. Kel caught Andi's eye briefly, and the peasant girl turned away with a hand over her mouth. Her shoulders were shaking. "Cleon, Neal, the Prince, Seaver, Faleron...but mind you, we saw Lord Wyldon there!"

 "On stage?" she said mischievously.

 "Oh gods!" Ryan said, "Andi, I did not need that mental image!"

 Kel looked at the golden haired girl curiously. Andi coughed guiltily. "Well, if you will show me what the costumes were like..."

 "So you really can read each others' minds..." she mused. "Can't you...turn it off? Is it some kind of magic thing you've been doing?"

 Ryan shook his head. "Don't reckon so, lass. It's all just been normal."

 She wriggled her way next to him, touched when he hesitantly slipped a hand into hers briefly, before snatching it away. Kel was a noble, and a relationship with a commoner was taboo; it would only make her life yet more difficult if word got about. Sometimes Kel thought she didn't care about that, but Ryan did - he always said she didn't need any more problems.

"I don't mind you going to see that show," Kel said dryly. "It's one of those man things, I understand."

 She felt him exhale, and the dove-grey eyes were grateful as they met hers. "You're wonderful, Kel."

 "So of course," she said evenly, "you won't mind when Andi and I go down to see Carthaki performers that are stopping in the city next week...?"

 He stared at her, giving her a look that said he didn't like it but he had no choice about agreeing. "If ye want."

 "As it happens," she informed him, unable to keep the amusement from ringing in her voice, "I don't. I'd much rather be here with you."

 His smile could seduce angels, and Kel was very glad it was directed at her. When he wanted to, Ryan could be utterly charming. "Here? I can think of better places we could be."

 Andi elbowed Ryan. "Stop it! Can't you do something about your hormones? I'm an innocent peasant girl!"

 "Hah!" snapped the thief, his lip curling. "Not with the way you're thinkin' about Faleron, missy, an' trust me, no one looks that good naked-"

 "No!" Kel slammed a hand over his mouth. "I do not want to hear it! Gods, can't you think about something else? Flowers or, or...rainbows, or anything?"
 
 But a roar from the crowd interrupted them, and as they saw the slight figure come striding out to the court, tall and pale in a white mask and dark clothes, her feet bare, all three fell silent.

 She looked like a warrior, Kel thought, with tendrils of her crow's-wing hair fluttering in the air. Moving with a grace and surety of step that made her seem to glide to the court, mysterious in her masquerade, and frightening; there was nothing familiar on the mask, only rudiments of features, holes for her eyes and mouth.

 So this was the girl, the mute girl who wished to be Shang.

 The Ordeal was about to begin.

~*~

 So here she was.

 With her love far from her, maybe watching and maybe not, with a swelling crowd that muttered and babbled. Step after step on the flat, hard ground in her feet, feeling each grain beneath her. Reaching that barren square of fenced land, and bowing to the three.

 The girl, the Stormwing, straightened. She had a proud face, not beautiful or even pretty, but striking. Her nose seemed to dominate it like a beak, above a thin and contemptuous mouth. She could tell from the stances of the Horse and the Wildcat that they disliked her.

 The girl threw back the long fall of silvery hair that curled wildly. "I am the Shang Stormwing. If you dare to challenge me, step within and prepare to fight."

 Pip bowed.

 The girl gave a flat cackle. "Civility will get you nowhere!"

 But it is a lady's shield, Pip thought. The words her mother had said to her, words that Pip had taken and kept close to her heart and ignored at every possible opportunity.

  ~ A lady's shield is civility, Pippa, and we can fight our enemies with gracious words and motions. When they are cruel, be calm and aloof. For words are only sounds strung together, but actions are what the gods judge us by. ~

 She merely bowed again, and took a deep breath and a step within.

 It was done.

 The Ordeal was begun. But Pip could not stop her thoughts from flying back through the dark tunnel of recollection, back to the point where had it begun; back three months to that first moment in the library...

  And in a field filled with poppies, Neal of Queenscove hoped for a girl he loved, unknowing of what the gods held in store for him.

 But Pip was lost in her memories.

 From the moment of her birth, the Phoenix was something rare and special.

 She was born among the mountains, a world of crisp, pallid colour and icy death. And on that night, that dark night seeping with shadows, the screaming winds fell silent, and in the hush was heard an infant's cry.

 Even the nestlings of the firebird have the power to drive away the cold.

 And as she grew, the babe became a child, who seared her people with a beauty and a breathtaking tumble of flaming hair that they had never seen. She moved as if she flew, they claimed, and called her J'has-rai: the sunwing.

 And the child became a girl, who left the mountains to seek her destiny.

 It was a great destiny, so great that a thousand, thousand learned mages had dreamed it, that it was written in every culture as a legend, or a myth, or a prophecy.  It was a great destiny, momentous...

 And terrible.

~*~

It began, Pip supposed, in the library. Eight short months ago, when she had been poring over scrolls in an effort to help a friend finish his class work so he could carry on teaching her staff work and swordplay. Occasionally, she sipped at the glass of water she had brought with her in the stuffy summer heat of the library.

 "Good mornin'."

 She looked up at the youth who had stuck his head through the door. Tousled dark hair framed an aristocratic, disturbingly good-looking face. And although he was dressed in expensive clothing, dark shades of blue and silver that set off his dove-grey eyes, his voice was that of a commoner.

"I'm lookin' for Andi," he explained. He was lean...needed a good meal or two, Pip thought critically

 Pip frowned and closed the faded scroll she was reading. She knew all the pages and squires, but she hadn't heard of an Andi. "I don't know him. What does he look like?"

 The boy's eyes darted about the empty room with its stacks of towering shelves, stretching up to an arched ceiling. It was filled with dusty tomes and the latest discoveries alike, and to Pip, it was a veritable paradise.

 "She," he corrected absently. "Master Salmalin gave us dozens of scrolls to read. I ain't done a thing, but Andi'll be up here slavin' away." He blinked as if he had suddenly noticed her, and a charming smile lit up his thin face. "Sorry, I'm Ryan Talver." A tanned hand was offered.

 With a jolt, she placed him. Pip took it, startled by the strength of his grip despite his obvious emaciation. "So you're that Ryan," she said wryly. Everyone in the palace knew about him, the mage and thief - his taking ways had resulted in more than one skirmish with the palace guards. "Phillippa ha Minch."

 His eyebrows arched. "So you're that noble," he said cheerfully. "I hear you beat up men for fun."
 
"I hear you stole the crown from King Jonathan's head before he noticed a thing," she retorted.

 Mischief danced in his eyes. Now Pip looked closely, she could see tears in the rich fabrics he wore, and none of the jewellery it had become fashionable for Court men to display. "It were a dare. Andi ain't quite up to my standards yet, but she can think up some evil challenges when she wants. An' what about you, m'lady?"

 Pip pulled a face. "I'm no lady," she told him. "And I haven't beaten all of them. Only the ones who annoy me."

 He gulped, but a smile tugged at his wide mouth. "Should I be a-feared?"

 "You should," she assured him gravely. "What does Andi look like?"

 The boy smiled faintly. "Gold hair, eyes to match an' shyer than a violet. Pretty, but you ain't ever to tell her I said that."

 "Hmm." She looked around, and her eyes lighted on the slender girl, sound asleep with her head on a table at the same time as the boy's did.

 "Typical." Affectionate exasperation in his voice. "I told her, nothin' is that important. Master Numair ain't goin' to fry her if she ain't read one scroll."

 Though she would never be called beautiful, the girl had a delicate prettiness to her face, something Pip envied. And she had the ultra-fashionable waifish figure, with the handspan waist and pale skin. Whereas Pip had a healthy tan from being outside so much, her figure was far too full to even approach waifish, and her looks were nothing extraordinary.

 "Can I nick that glass?" There was a note of mischief in Ryan's voice as he watched the sleeping girl. Pip wondered what he was thinking.

 "Be my guest."

 She watched, curious as he picked it up and silently walked over to the girl. He paused a moment to look at the serene face, the gilt hair fanned out over the faded scroll, the quill fallen useless in one hand.

 He upended the glass over her head.

 The girl screamed and sat bolt upright, a flush spreading over her cheeks. Then she saw the boy.

 "You!" she shouted and flew at him, tiny fists pummelling him, kicking and twisting like a wildcat. The boy fended her off easily, laughing all the while and finally holding her arms so she could do nothing but squirm furiously, until she stilled.

 Something in Pip ached at the way she smacked him round the head, scolding gently, because it was obvious that they knew each other well, squabbling like old friends.

 Then the girl saw Pip, and gasped as if shocked, ducking her head so the curtain of damp golden hair fell to hide her face.

 "Oh, Andi, you don't need to go all coy on her," the boy said with a resigned sigh. "She ain't no snob. That's Phillippa ha Minch, the Mule."

 The Mule? Pip thought. She wasn't sure to be flattered or insulted by the name. Then she shrugged inwardly. If they give me a name, she thought, I'll take it and make it my own. Then it won't be an insult.

 "Pip, actually," she corrected, smiling at the girl who lifted her head with her skin gone scarlet. "You must be Andi."

 The girl's eyes widened - they were gold, the shimmering liquid colour of a hawk's but far softer, seeming to dominate her face. "I am," she murmured. "I suppose moron here told you." Her voice had a northern accent, and chimed like tiny bells. Everything about her made Pip feel clumsy and oafish. Even her clothes were feminine, unlike the noble's breeches and shirt.

 "Who are you talkin' about?" the boy inquired mock-innocently. "Yeah, Pip, this is Andrea Kirisra, better known as Andi."

 "Pleased to-" she began, and then the doors to the library burst open and three of the Palace Guard poured, their faces furious and flustered.

 "You!" one shouted, pointing his sword accusingly at Ryan. "I want that statuette back! It's solid silver!"

  Doe-eyed, baffled look. "I ain't taken nothin' from here. I like livin' here too much."

 "You lying wretch," the guard snapped. "Who else steals round here, eh?"

 "Well, your butler for a start," the boy retorted. "I used to fence things for him an' I can tell you for free that half the household staff are nickin' things-"

 But Ryan's protestations of innocence appeared to be convincing no one, as the guard ran at the thief.

 The street-boy let go of Andrea and edged over the nearest window. "Look, it weren't me!"

 "You revolting thief!" the guard howled. "Who else is it going to be and-you come back here right now!"

 Pip and Andrea flung open the nearest window, sticking their heads out to watch Ryan. "Idiot," Andrea hissed softly. "Oh, that boy can be so stupid!"

 "He's a boy," Pip muttered, her sea-green eyes wide. "They're all like that."

 The boy had flung open the window and in an acrobatic act that made Pip gasp, grabbed the top window-ledge and pulled his body up and over into a handstand that turned into a roll, planting both feet square on the library roof, which fortunately for him, was fairly flat and tiled.

 "He's mad," the girl hissed, clutching Pip's arm so tight she thought the circulation would be cut off. "Living in a palace and he has to steal."

 "Well, he is a thief," she pointed out reasonably. "It's how he's always lived."

 "And why did he go along the roof?" the girl said, incensed. "The library runs right next to the ramparts."

 "The guards can't get up there," Pip pointed out reasonably. But she was worried for him - the library was three floors up. One slip, and Ryan would be the world's largest, thinnest raw steak.

 Andrea bit her lip as the guards, shouting after him, ran along the battlements that ran alongside the library building, looking up and warning Ryan he had better get down right now or there would be trouble.

 And there isn't already? Pip thought.

 "Come on," Andi said grimly, pulling at Pip with her tiny hands. "I know what'll happen if I let that boy out of my sight, he'll-"

 They both froze as they heard the thief's wild yell, and a terrible, flat thud.

~*~

 He moved with a swift, darting ease that made the girls standing around the practice court gasp. The sword flickered back and forth, dancing in to clash and kiss his opponent's weapon with a sharp ring of metal. Parry, and thrust, and slice, and bring the sword round in a neat, perfect arc-

 "Well, damn me," the Lioness said in astonishment as her sword flew into a corner. "I-"

 Her words were drowned out by the spontaneous applause from the throngs of immaculately dressed noblewomen, who seemed to be in a running competition for most cleavage in smallest space.

 Prince Roald winced, and gave the Lioness a thoroughly embarrassed look. That move had been pure fluke - he had been meaning to do something else entirely.

 Gods, but he hated these cloying, clapping idiots! They followed him everywhere, and maybe Neal was right, he shouldn't have been polite and chivalrous, should have told them to take a long walk on a cliff in high winds, but-

 "God, I don't know why they're applauding," his sister said, vaulting over the fence with the ease of practice. Her mouth was in its usual sullen set, and she was in her customary gauzy wisps of fabric that showed more than they hid. "Look at you, dripping with sweat. Honestly, Roald, it's repulsive." Sneer, and a flash of her cobalt eyes. "Just because you can wave a bit of big metal about in fancy patterns, they think you're a man..."

 There was no mistaking the bitterness in her voice. The princess Kalasin had never forgiven her father for forbidding her from becoming a page. She had been forced to watch her brother, forced to watch him moving through the knightly chain. From page to squire, and soon, he hoped, to knight.

 "Did you come here to insult me?" Roald said in the bored voice that seemed to be the best way to stop Kally.

 Eventually.

 "Gods, no, you're not worth the waste of breath," she said contemptuously. "Lioness, I need a favour."

 Bad choice of words.

 The Lioness's coppery eyebrows lifted. "Need?"

 There was a long silence, as his sister looked up from her dainty height of five foot four, with her black hair all neatly plaited and her barely-there clothes, and her acres of silver jewellery. He never dared push her in the pond anymore because he was afraid she'd sink without trace.

 "Would like," she said finally, but there was no surrender in the regal tilt of her head.

 If their father would make her a princess, she had told Roald eight years ago, when she began this stupid, selfish phase that hadn't ended, then she would be a princess. She would be feminine, and vapid, and demanding, and royal.

 The Lioness wasn't known for her love of royalty.

 "Go ahead, Lady Kalasin," Alanna said mildly. She shot a questioning look at him, but Roald only shrugged. He didn't know Kally anymore.

 Kally laced her hands together in front of her, and put her best demure look on. "Sir Alanna, I shall be acquiring a bodyguard. A Carthaki bodyguard, as a gift from my..." Gritted teeth. "Betrothed."

 She said the word with the same inflection someone else might use to say 'fungal infection'.

 "However," she continued, flashing her teeth in a savage grin. "I require that he be trained in the arts of Tortallan fighting. The Carthaki are little more than-" Kally caught herself, but the words still hung there.

 Little more than savages.

 "They are undisciplined," she said, a faint coral flush upon her pale cheeks. "It seems to me that the greatest fighter in the realm should teach him."

 "Right now," the Lioness said dryly, "That's your brother."

 Kally didn't shift her eyes from the Lioness's face. From the corner of his eye, Roald could see the other pages and squires eyeing her, and made a mental note to chat to some of them later. And to tell Kally to get something that showed a lot less of her bosom. And midriff. And legs. And put a bag over her face too.

 Alanna sighed, finally, her eyes dark as a field of violets. "Oh, all right. Send him to me when he arrives."

 She went to pick up her sword, leaving the two siblings in the centre of the court, and the centre of attention.

 Both the Conte children had the luxuriant coal-black hair that caught red in sunlight and blue in moonlight, combined with the fiery azure stare of their father and the rich, curling mouth of their mother. But where Kally was slender and petite, Roald had gained his father's height, and no one knew at all where his unusually sweet temperament had come from.

 Kally nodded curtly, then let her eyes flit to Roald. "Coming to face the adoring crowds, brother dear?" She leaned forward and whispered confidentially, "They're all hoping the gallant Squire Roald will sweep them off their feet, you know. They think that one look at them in their pretty pink and purple, and you'll be so overcome you'll break off your engagement to your Yamani yawn and beg them to marry you."

 Roald rolled his eyes, wishing, oh, wishing that he had been born without royal blood. "I know my duty."

 Kally's face darkened like a storm swept over it, becoming hawkishly lovely. "As do I. And neither of us like it, brother dear."

 "I know," he said tiredly. "But sulking doesn't make it go away."

 "And ignoring it does?" She spat on the floor, and Roald wondered how she could talk of Carthaki savagery when she was no better herself.

 Still, he didn't point that out. He liked his head attached to his shoulders.

 And she was right. His eyes grazed over the waiting, simpering noblewomen, and a positively wicked idea sprung into his head. No...they couldn't...

 They would.

 A sinful smile tugged at Roald's mouth, and Kally frowned as she saw it.

 "Come on, then," he replied simply, taking her arm and giving her the conspiratorial smile of their childhood. "Why don't we go and cause a bit of a fuss?"

 An intrigued glance, as her voice softened like mist had crept into it. "What do you mean?"

 "They say all us royals are arrogant bastards," Roald said wryly. "Let's prove them right."

 Kally heard him out, and then her laugh rang out across the court. Prince and princess smiled, and strolled towards their infuriatingly thick-skinned admirers.

~*~

 She drew back her lips and snarled.

 The would-be robber gulped, and made a noise in the back of his throat like a mewing kitten, and backed away.

 "Get out of my way."

 Her voice lazy and deep, with a gravely lilt to it that made every word sound a promise...or a threat. She took a graceful step forward, her hips swaying.

 Only a boy, she thought, with big scared eyes and ragged clothes. Only a boy, scraping a living the only way he could think of. Desperation in his face like a candle flame, lighting it, showing her all its flaws and shadows. The gauntness, the scarred nose, the cracked lips.

 "I'm...I'm sorry, m'lady," he whispered, still backing away.

 Still she stalked after him, moving like a snake given legs. She swept the fall of silver hair back, locks glowing with a clean, metallic sheen that fell down to her calves clad in their good, expensive boots.

 "Sorry?" She laughed, and the sound rippled as smoke on the breeze might. "I think you're sorry that you attacked the wrong person. I think you're sorry your pathetic, parasitic life is so dreary. But I don't think you're sorry for trying to rob me."

 Moving forward, into the light so he could see her proud face, with its aquiline nose that jutted like a beak, and her cruel mouth, curving into a cold smile that didn't touch the mirrors of her eyes.

 Her eyes were black as pitch, eyes to see only the darkest, most dreadful facets of yourself in. Eyes that gave nothing away, and swallowed everything in. She devoured the world, and did as she chose.

 Only a boy, with the whippy strength of a young willow. His mouth slack as he saw the globes on her gloves.

 "So sorry," he whispered again, and shivered. But a little bit of hope in his eyes, because he knew what those globes meant, and he knew what the Immortal animal embroidered on them meant, and he knew that the Shang had honour.   

 She folded her arms and stood still, tall and imperious in the bright light of the road. No dusty traveller this, but a Shang who lived from the land and roamed as her heart guided her.

 And if she had no heart...?

 "Perhaps you are," she said. "Come here, boy."

 The hope blossoming into trust, his eyes lingering on her money pouch. A little step forward, and as she let her smile widen, another, and another until he was before her.

 She unfolded her arms...and drew out the gleaming blades that had been strapped to her sides, the top of their hilts resting below her armpits.

 She swung them once, her arms crossing over each other as the blades cut through his neck, one from each side.

 They really were fiendishly sharp.

 She stepped back and cast a professional eye over her handiwork. Very neat indeed, one clean cut, the blades passing across one another nicely. The smell of blood made her wrinkle her nose, and move away from the spreading pool of crimson.

 "Let that be a lesson," she murmured, and walked away humming.

 Only a boy. Only a corpse.

 Her name was Yvenia, and she came from Carthak, a land of sun and swelter...yet a land in whose tongue her name meant 'the void.'

 Her name was Yvenia, and she was the Shang Stormwing.

~*~

 He had eyes like emerald, and a smile as sudden and startling as a peacock's plumage. But right now, sweat pearled on his forehead, and slid down his back like the nervousness slid through his mind.

 "Concentrate," his father warned, calm and still is his mourning black.

 Neal of Queenscove didn't look up from his patient, but kept his hands fixed over the gaping wound, and tried not to shake.

 All he could think of was the endless weapons drills he spent each morning doing, and it was driving him absolutely insane. Wounds, he told himself. Sutures, healing, not metal and screams.

 A knight and healer. The two were absolutely opposite; one gave life, and the other severed it.

 The girl moaned. She had been found lying half-dead in an alley, and her frantic family had begged at the palace gate for healing, unable to afford the city's healers, and praying someone in the palace would care enough not to charge them.

 "Concentrate, Neal," Duke Baird said gently, placing a hand on his son's shoulder. In the simple weight of it, Neal felt the burden that lay on him. The need to be a knight, to live up to the promise his brothers had shown. To heal as his father wished, to be everything he could.

 But Neal was so, so terrified that he would be only nothing.

 Sweat trickled down his back and sides, and he tried to focus the beam of his magic more tightly on the wound, the vivid jade light spilling forth from his fingers in wavery rivulets, flowing over the massive gaping cut in her leg. He watched, relieved as flesh began to knit.

 But he could feel his magic draining from him. Using too much, he thought, I'm not going to be able to heal it properly.

 I have to, though. I can't let Father down.

 He wouldn't let his father know how difficult he found healing. Small things; bruises, scrapes, easy, But this...he was beginning to pour his own life into it.

 But he heard the pride in Duke Baird's voice. "Good, Neal. You're doing well."

 Just a few more drops, Neal urged himself. Just a little longer-

 The wound was healed. The hand upon his shoulder lifted, and as Neal straightened, dizziness filled his head like a cloud billowing outwards, horribly thick and overwhelming.

 "Excellent-"

 Neal swayed, for a second tempted to tell his father to tell him what lay in his heart.

 It was tearing Neal apart - he missed the lively university debates, the solitude of the library (where Pip was now, helping him with his history essay, he supposed), the calm pace of learning. But he loved the knight's life too; the fierceness of battle, the desperate patriotism of all the queen's horses and all the king's men.

 "Neal?" Concern in his father's voice. "Neal, are you all right-"

 The giddiness took him over, and Neal felt his legs buckle under him, and was only dimly aware of the floor hitting him hard.

 All the queen's horses and all the king's men...

 But no one could put Neal of Queenscove back together again.

~*~

  Pip and Andi tore out of the library and onto the battlements, the golden haired girl running with the quick pattering steps of a fawn, her golden hair streaming out behind her.

 How can she look so wretchedly pretty when she runs? Pip thought dismally. I feel like a hulking tiger.

 She was trying to slow down, not to outdistance the girl, who was screaming Ryan's name in a high, eagle-fierce voice. But her legs were longer than Andi's and she felt the temptation to give in and just run forever. Run away from who she was, and what she was, and the bleak future of being a noble that no one wanted.

 Then she saw Ryan, a darkly crumpled heap on the ground, barely visible through the guards ringing him.

 Pip elbowed them inelegantly out of the way, her face flushed and gasping for breath. "Let...me...through."

 She was nearly knocked over by Andi, who cannoned through to fling herself down by the boy. "Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, you stupid, stupid boy!"

 The thief raised a grin for her, but Pip could see the pain cutting deep lines in his face. No one's leg should be at that angle.

 "Oh, what have you done?" Andi said, her hands hovering over the broken bone. "I thought you said you never fall!"

 "Even angels fall, lass," he muttered. His  skin was grey, and he bit his lip as Andi lightly touched the wound. Still too good-looking for anyone's peace of mind though, with those eyes almost black in their agony.

 "You're a fool, Talver," the golden haired girl said, the worry vanishing from her pretty face, giving him a light slap on the shoulder. "And lucky for you, I can heal this."

 "Anyways," he said, grimacing as she put her hands either side of the broken bone. "I didn't fall 'cause I lost my balance, I fell because-aaaargh!"

 Pip had never seen anyone heal a broken bone - in fact, she had been told it wasn't possible, but to the open-mouthed stares of everyone surrounding them, a pulsing golden flame rippling around Andi's hands, and she simply snapped the bone back into place.

 "Mithros' blessed blue socks," she heard one guard whisper. "What in hell are these children?"

 "Mages," another said softly. "They aren't normal, Rob. Not even close."

 The girl sat back on her haunches, pushing strands of hair from her eyes. "There," she said, satisfied. "Fixed."

 "That hurt," Ryan said indignantly. But he tentatively stood, testing his weight on his leg. A slow grin spreading over his face. "Well, paint me silver an' call me a stormwing! It's healed! You're a godsend, lass."

"And you're under arrest," a guard said, wiping the startled expression from his eyes. "You don't thieve in this palace, my lad, and get away with it."

 Ryan gave him an injured look, a slight smile playing around his mouth. "I told you, it weren't me. But I know who...or what it was."

 "What do you mean?" the guard said, his saturnine face dark with suspicion.

 "Like I were sayin'," he drawled, "I didn't fall off 'cause I lost my balance. I'd a' been dead long afore now if I'd done that on the streets. I fell off because...you got harpies nestin' on your roof."

The Phoenix came down from the mountains in the spring, chasing after the melting snows. Before her flew the rumours, and behind her nested the truth.

 The rumours shouted of a girl unique, who moved with the lightness of a butterfly and the surety of a panther. Who could crush men with a stare, and kill with a touch. A temptress beyond dreams, yet somehow real in this world of harsh realities.

 The truth whispered reverently of a graceful thing, who still stumbled like anyone else, who was a pyre among the dark and dour northern people with her sunlit spill of flaming hair, whose voice was honey in the sunlight, a girl who healed and helped, and touched the hearts of all she met.

 Many hearts were touched with love, with respect, with pleasure.

 Some were touched by awe, a little fear perhaps, with admiration.

 But some were seared by envy, by jealousy, by a hatred of all that she represented and all that they would never be.

 In the Phoenix's wake...came the hunters.

~*~

Prince Roald swept his sapphire blue stare over the assembled people, Kally on his arm standing as tall and slender as she could manage, which considering her lack of height, wasn't very. He'd never been a big fan of crowds, but this one was making him so annoyed that he even managed to overcome his bashfulness.

 They keep telling me I'm my father's son, Roald thought. Well, I'll be him.

"We thought we'd have a game," he drawled, and the Lioness, walking away from the practise court, thought for a moment that Prince Jonathan of old stood there, lofty and arrogant as he could often be.

 Roald paused, and let a lazy, feline smile slip over his face.

 The girls beamed back, unused to seeing the quiet, self-possessed prince smiling. Roald's friends hastily began to edge away, recognising it as the same kind of smile that was most commonly seen on sharks.

 "The winner," Kally purred, "gets..." he knew without looking that she was lowering her lashes demurely, "a kiss from whichever of us you want."

 A brief, excited mutter. Line, hook and sinker, Roald thought triumphantly.

 "All you have to do," Roald said sweetly, "is answer a riddle."

 Brows were drawn now. Noblewomen frowned prettily, or behind fans if they couldn't manage that, and pages looked wary and intrigued. There were plenty of intelligent people in the Palace - but one thing Roald and Kally had noticed was that the people who followed them around were significantly lacking in wits.

 "It's very simple really," Kally said. "Listen closely, darlings, we wouldn't want you to miss anything." She paused, then her cool voice rang over the utter hush of the place. Roald couldn't remember when he'd last seen so many people in one place, mute.

"I lack any wings, yet high do I fly
 I do have a head, without mouth or eyes.
 I once had a heart that never did beat
 I oft touch the ground, yet lack hands and feet."

 There was a busy silence, the silence caused by two dozen people trying to think.

 Roald and Kally looked at each other, and in his sister's eyes, he saw the laughter she was holding back, tugging at her mouth.

 "Oh," he added, apparently casually, "and to make it fair...everyone gets one guess, and one guess only. And so we can't be accused of helping anyone, we've decided not to speak to any of you until you've guessed." He winked. "Have fun."

 "We'll see you in...oh...a thousand years?" Kally said to their admirers.

 And leaving a flummoxed gathering behind, prince and princess exited.

~*~

 Harpies?

 Pip had heard the name - somewhere - dimly, but she couldn't remember what they were. Instead she, like everyone else, looked at the roof, where there was nothing to be seen but the graceful arch of the sky, and back at Ryan, who had the wounded, glowering look of the terminal liar who had just decided to tell the truth.

 "There are what nesting on the roof?" one of the guards said.

 Ryan Talver, thief and mage, glared. "Harpies," he replied. "You know, damn great winged things with women's bodies, an' lion's claws, an' dragon wings? Them as steal anythin' that shines, an' lives in nests high up?"

 The guard snorted. "Pull the other one, lad. You think we wouldn't know if there were harpies on the roof? We've all heard the legends - they make a racket like you've never heard. They're supposed to deafen a man with one word."

 Ryan gestured to the roof, his face tight with irritation. "Go an' look. I ain't lyin'!"

 Something in his voice must have convinced the guards. "All right," one said shortly. He glared at Ryan. "But if you're lying..."

 "I only lie when it's goin' to get me out of trouble, not into it," Ryan snapped. "Why don't you take your overbearin', annoyin' friends onto that roof an' look."

 "Rob, stay here," the guard who seemed to be their leader ordered. He had a craggy, leathered face with narrow, dark eyes that had crow's feet spreading from the edges. A man past his prime, Pip judged, and perhaps resentful that he hadn't risen any higher in the ranks. "The rest of you, we'll go and investigate this...this fabrication."

 The youngest guard nodded nervously and tightened his grip on his sword. "Sir."

 When they were gone, Ryan heaved an exasperated sigh and had there been a brick there, Pip suspected he would have heaved that after their departing backs too. "Morons."

 "Just because they don't like you," Andi began, until he quelled her into silence with a star-bright glare.

 "They only like you because you're little an' delicate an' pretty," he pointed out levelly. "Bet you if I dressed in them peasant girl clothes, they'd like me too."

 The image made Pip grin. "Actually," she said, "I think they'd fear you. But you're right. They're all snobs, the guards. They like what's in fashion, and what's in fashion is honour and strength in men, and beauty and fragility in women."

 The grey eyes, slightly startled, swung to meet hers. "That's us screwed then," Ryan commented dryly.

 "You have honour!" Andi protested, nudging him in the ribs. "You didn't steal that statuette even though they-"

 Then she stopped, and the most horrified expression crossed her face, making Pip wonder what on earth was wrong with the girl.

 Andrea's golden eyes were spitting. "Since when has your stomach been rock-solid?" she hissed, obviously trying to keep her voice down.

 Ryan shot a look at the guard. "Pip, can you do a little...uh...diversion on him?" he hissed. "She's goin' to start yellin' soon-"
 
 "You're damn right I am, you stupid, idiotic thie-"

 The guard - Rob, was it? - was looking over and Pip hastily grabbed his arm and spun him around so he couldn't see the furious gestures of Andrea which suggested Ryan's imminent dismemberment.

 "So," she said brightly, "how long have you been a guard then?"

 She could just hear them arguing in soft, hushed but livid voices. ("I'm just muscled, lass."

 "Muscled?" Step forward, and the girl's face was taut with vexation. "You're a human toast rack!")

 Rob, who had extraordinarily bright blue eyes, like a piece of the sky had been chopped away and set into his face, looked bashful. "Not long, miss. Nearly a moon now."

 ("Show me what's under your shirt!" the girl was demanding-)

 Rob half turned, and Pip gave a little laugh and putting two fingers under his chin, turned his head back.

 (Ryan was looking coy, something she would never have thought he could pull off with any conviction. From what court gossip said, Ryan was about as pure as mud. "I have my male modesty!" he declared.)

 Those big, astonished blue eyes really were arresting. "Miss...?"

 "Oh, ignore them, they're always arguing about trivialities," Pip said brightly. She didn't want to get Ryan into any more trouble than he was obviously in with Andrea - she liked what little she had seen of him. He hadn't treated her like Phillippa ha Minch, court outcast. "Tell me, Rob," she rolled the 'r' a little, and made her voice breathy like the court flirts. She wished that she had the looks to match, but she would have to hope sheer shock would keep him distracted. "What do you like most about your job?"

 (Andrea yelped. "Modesty? You were walking around half-naked last week!"

 The thief cast an anxious look at Pip. "Keep your voice down! Anyway, you're always tellin' me I should develop morals an' now I have, you're wantin' me to strip-")

 "Uh..." Rob was flushing. He had an open face, with those round eyes above a nose which had obviously been broken once from the crooked line of it, and a smattering of freckles along his cheekbones. Not handsome, but appealing. "The....uh...I...uh..."

 Pip leaned even closer.

 ("That's it!" the mage-girl snapped, and prodded Ryan in the chest. "I can feel that statuette. You did take it! How could you?"

 "Well, I just picked it up an'-"

 A hiss of exasperation. "You know that's not what I mean! And you lied and spun them that stupid tale about harpies-")

 Rob seemed to be having trouble getting the words out. He stepped back nervously, and the summer sky eyes looked anywhere but at her.

 "Oh, am I too close?" Pip purred. "Silly little me..."

 ("I wasn't ly-)

 "Um...m'lady..." Rob uttered, looking around desperately. "I..."

 The scream cut like a honed axe.

 And then the guard came flying into the air, flipping over like a child's rag doll and thrust from the roof with such force that he soared straight above them and over the battlements, onto the level below.

 "Oh gods!" Pip heard herself say, clutching at Rob with no predatory intention, only pure human need to cling to someone.

 Her world seemed to slow them, time moving as if underwater with exaggerated and snail-crawling motion. In her ears, that scream deepened and echoed, bouncing about the hollowed cavern of her mind, the only sound in a world that had become inevitable and terrible.

 A moment ago, her heart had been light. Now, coldness seeped in and filled her, reducing her to merely a watcher, powerless.

 Turquoise fire streaked past hers eyes, following that fatal plummet.

 Yes, yes, that was how it should be, Ryan and Andrea, these two astonishing and gods-gifted children would save the guards who were being flung, one, two, three, like so many pebbles in a boy's careless throw. Cartwheeling and flailing, flashing past so she could catch a glimpse of the fixed and vapid expression on one's face.

 Mithros mighty, oh, he was only a boy.

 But Andrea and Ryan would save them, surely they would...as those darts of fire slipped past her, reaching to those men who moved faster even than their magick, plunging down, down from her vision.

 No! They had to save them. They had to. It was how the world worked.

 But not even magick could hunt down death.

 The thuds that sounded in her ears were deafening, and had a nauseating crackle to them that sounded utterly final. It was the sound of the human form giving way to stone and speed.

She didn't realise that she had turned her face away until she lifted it from Rob's shoulder. But he seemed to have gone strangely boneless, and as she let go of him, he fell forward, gasping.

 His wheezing grated along her ears, sawing at her. Still her world spun in submarine slowness, and she seemed to move through treacle.

 And because she had to, because she could not walk away without looking, for surely she owed those dead guards that much, Philippa ha Minch shuffled to the ramparts, unaware that her breath was briefly trapped in her throat. Looked over.

 For seconds that passed like aeons, she saw only meaningless shapes, and people below crying out and running over. Some held still by what they saw, others anxious to help those shapeless carcasses that could not be helped. Meaningless blurs for seconds...before they formed into the trio of bodies that were broken and useless things.

 That was the moment when Pip realised that life did not have a happy ending.

 She didn't know until far, far later, but it was the moment when the resolution turned from cloud to steel in her heart; that the only way anyone could have any control was to make their own ending. And that she would make and control hers. That, she knew later.

 But now, she only heard the swishing, leathery sound of massive wings and again that keening and shrill scream.

 She didn't think she could drag her eyes from that scene of devastation, but somehow she did.

 There was Ryan, staring at his hands in disbelief, unable to comprehend that his magick had not worked, and Andrea somehow calmer, if pale, for she was a healer and maybe she understood that you could save most, but you could not save all.

 And beyond...

 It was perched on the roof, hunkered down like an animal. Its feet were hooked and clawed, the same smooth and deep shark-blue as its skin. The body was that of a woman, the hands clenched at the side of the thing, as it rocked back on its heels and screamed and screamed and screamed triumphantly.

 Pip had clapped her hands to her ears, but it was no shield against the shriek that drilled through her head.

 She couldn't stop staring at it. It was like nothing she had ever seen, and the worst of it was the fact it was so human. Its face was scrunched up in rage, tilted to the heavens, and a ragged firestorm of orange hair shivered down to its waist.

 The sound seemed to go on forever, pouring out like a river of acid while the four of them were frozen.

 On and on and on until Pip thought her ears would burst. She had never felt so helpless, so useless, such a waste.

 She could see Andrea's mouth moving, as the girl, a slender flame in this moment of darkness, shook a frozen, shocked Ryan hard. Strange, Pip would have thought the streetrat would have coped better with this, but Andrea acted as though she was used to this kind of death.

 It lent Pip a kind of strength, broke her own paralysis. After all, Andrea was just a fragile girl, a tiny thing spun from magick and minutiae. But she was coping, thinking clearly. And if she could, Pip could.

 What can I do? she asked herself. There must be something, anything, I can't stand around like one of those useless noblewomen.

 That thought galled her, and despite the jelly-like horror that filled her, she took her hands from her ears - they made no difference anyway - and looked for something to do.

 She couldn't stop the harpy. It was immortal, and she wasn't. Pip had no urge to be a hero - particularly not a dead one.

 That was Ryan and Andrea's territory; and she could see them link hands as the streetboy nodded slowly, though a blank horror was set on his face. Gold and turquoise fire haloed them, and they seemed immortal themselves at that moment, set alight by divine fire that slowly turned to a single, smouldering emerald colour as their power combined.

 Leave the harpy to them, she told herself, for a moment briefly envious of them. They could stop this.

 The guards were...dead. Nothing she could say or do would alter that. She pushed away the horror, the nausea that roiled in her stomach. She could cry and retch later, but now, there had to be something she could do-

 Rob was curled on the floor, and she could see he had his hands covering his face, fingers flexing spasmodically. He was so young, she thought painfully, only a boy, and he had just seen his friends recklessly killed. They hadn't been faces to him, but people.

 She crouched down by him, ignoring the blood that was starting to trickle from her abused ears, and put a hand on his shoulder.

 Sometimes, all you could do was be there.

 She couldn't imagine what he saw when he looked up, the striking eyes filled with the clear diamond lustre of tears. Words spilled from his lips, but she couldn't hear them at all.

 What could she say? Nothing that would help him.

 The emerald fire around Andrea and Ryan was narrowing now, shaping into an arrowhead of light aimed at the harpy.

 She had never been good with advice or counsel. So she just treated him like she might one of her younger nephews, and awkwardly hugged him.

 His head went into her shoulder, just like a terrified child, and she could feel him shaking. Uneasily, Pip patted his shoulder. No one had ever told her how to cope with crying men. It was assumed among the nobles of Tortall that women wept and men warred.

 The harpy stopped to draw breath-

 The emerald fire seemed to spring forward, flashing straight and true at the immortal. In the astonishing buzzing left by the absence of that inhuman howl, Pip's shocked intake of breath sounded like bellows.

 It hit.

 A light so fabulously bright it burned a crimson imprint of her veins on her shut eyelids onto her vision. And not a sound, not a whisper from the creature, or perhaps she simply couldn't hear.

 When she opened her eyes, an odd grey powder drifted through the air, settling on her as confetti might.

 The ashes of the harpy.

~*~

The village was small, the last before she came to the great and glittering urban sprawl of Corus, but the men guarding it were fierce. They were like dogs, she thought, dogs panting before a fight. She could see the wild whites of their eyes, and the tight grip of their hands on their weapons.

 The Shang Stormwing arched her eyebrows. "Good morning."

 "Get out."

 She marked the man who spoke as their leader. Not the tallest or the strongest, but the boldest, certainly.

 "Is that how you greet travellers these days?" she said smoothly. The Carthaki accent made her voice rich and rolling, caressing as a writhing snake. "Have the smallfolk lost all regard for the Shang?"

 "We'll greet Shang," the man said stoutly. "We won't greet murderers."

 She saw women, peering from doorways, clutching their children to their skirts. Thin and worried faces, people struck by poverty but fighting back. She'd been born in a place like this, though not in this muddy land, but in the dry dust of Carthak.

 She'd been a child once.

 Yvenia gave him a tiny bow, pressing her palms together. "I? A murderer? I am Shang, and I kill only when I must."

 "Ain't what the rumours say," he answered. None of them moved an inch. "Three of my people found a body on the road yesterday."

 "A robber," she said carelessly. "A bad one."

 She fixed her dark eyes on him, eyes that were ruthlessly cold and reckless, and waited. Letting him read in them her message, that he could make this easy, or he could make it difficult. And she would like the difficult way.

 He persisted, his broad face showing no amity to her. Obtuse man. "He's not the only one. We've friends in other villages."

 Have you now? she noted silently. Little folk, sticking together over little matters. A body here, a corpse there - who cared? She took life cleanly, at least. The death of her parents had not been clean. Burned alive, burned because they had the courage to stand up to Emperor Ozorne.

 And only a Shang man had plucked her from the pyre, only one foreign man among the villagers whose children she had played with. He had waited for the horrific burns on her legs and arms to heal, though they would never vanish, and taught her his dark and bloody art, for reasons known only to himself.

 She had learned from him, and kept revenge in her heart like a frozen flame, ready to burn at her will.

 In these villagers' faces, she saw again herself strapped to that pyre, watching them and knowing they would never help her. Knowing that she had to die because of one word from a man who sat on a throne and knew nothing about her.

 "I kill when I must," she said flatly. "A robber on the road, yes, a fraud in that last village, and a rapist-"

 "They never proved he was!" a voice flashed out. It was a young woman, a tough and swarthy creature with her hair tangled and cropped, and clenched fists.

 "Only because you lied for him," someone else said sharply, and for a moment, their show of unity disintegrated into petty quarrels.

 The headman raised his axe, and it shone bright in the sun. The only clean thing around here, Yvenia reflected.

 "Enough!" he boomed, but people still muttered.

 "I was asked to dispense justice by one of his victims," Yvenia said, looking proudly at them from the arch of her nose, reaching up to pin back a loose strand of her hair. That unique and pure silver hair that seemed half-alive itself. "I did."

 "Who are you to say who lives and dies?" the same woman said, her eyes two hard green pebbles.

 Her smoky laugh startled them. "I am the Shang Stormwing," she answered. "And I am immortal."

 "We could test that," the woman spat. She stepped out of the horde, brave, if about to be very short-lived. Yvenia didn't even bother to move into a fighting stance. One blow would knock the fool senseless.

 "The gods chose me for this," she said smoothly.

 And she believed it.

 Why else had she been saved? Why else was she touched by silver, the godsfire, and plucked from the kiss of mortal flames? Why else was she given such a gift to kill, if not to use it? She was their sword, and she cut down those who were not worthy.

 And if she never heard their voices, well, she knew that the gods spoke through her own thoughts. Nothing she did could be wrong, because she was a child of the gods.

  It was her belief, it was what had held her revenge steady all these years. It was what had kept her strong while the ghastly burns healed, what had held her to the hard Shang life. It had made her into a human weapon, a thing of deadly accuracy and wickedly honed logic.

 There was only one small flaw to Yvenia's logic.

 She was entirely wrong.

~*~

 The world dawned back in on Neal slowly, waveringly.

 "Ah, you're awake." The calm voice was his father's, and as he blinked, he recognised the face above him, and the hands that sat him up gently. "Overdid it there, son," he chided mildly. "Next time, don't try to heal if you're that drained. Suppose you collapse in the middle of battle?"

 His father frowned, and sent a last pulse of healing into him.

 "You must put yourself before your patients," Duke Baird counselled. Neal could see his own face in his father's features, and seemed to see the future he would never have. No university and education for Neal, only knighthood and hardship. "Healers are few and far between."

 "Sorry," Neal mumbled. He still felt fatigued, but the room no longer spun dizzyingly.

 "Having said that," and the sternness left the healer's voice, to be replaced by a warming approval. "That was very well done, very well done indeed."

 Neal forced a wan smile, and carefully swung his feet off the bed someone had placed him on. And now it would be back to the endless training with the Lioness, and back to the battles, and back to taking lives and saving lives, and feeling the healer in him cringe at every cut he made, and the warrior in him spitting contempt at every moment he stopped to cure and aid.

 He didn't know who he was, what he was, or even what he wished he was.

 Too many people, expecting too many things.

 He needed to get out, to get away, to escape, just for a little while. And as it happened, his luck was about to change.

 Along with a few other things.

~*~

 Evening was curling over the earth as Pip went to the wide, empty room where she did her training with the Shang. She felt numb within, as if the part of her that should have been outraged had been torn clean out.

 There had been interrogations all afternoon from the guards, from the Provost, from Sir Myles, from the Wildmage, from Master Salmalin, from every court dignitary of any importance. She, Ryan, Andrea and Rob had been pushed from room to room and inquiring face to inquiring face.

 All it did was reinforce how helpless she had been.

 Her daily training with the Shang warriors had begun as a punishment for her recklessness, and turned into a joy.

 The Shang warriors weren't there when she entered, but she launched into her warm-up routine anyway. It was a dance almost, that she had developed since she was five, when the first Shang had come to Westos, the ha Minch home, and Pip had coerced him into training her.

 There had been a string of them, all teaching her older brother Shang ways to help him when he became a page. Some had been reluctant to teach her, some eager, but all had given way under Pip's burning desire to escape the dreadful fate - as she saw it - of becoming a vacuous, ineffective court creature.

 It wasn't proper Shang training, of course, the Shang had told themselves as they taught this odd, noble child. After all, it was only an hour a day, and only the most basic moves.

 They never knew that Pip would practise those moves every night until she ached, and that she had been fed on the legends of the Dragon, the Unicorn, the Kestrel.

 In time, it became mere habit, incorporated into the repulsive dance lessons her parents insisted on, and later used to repel men with wandering hands. Mingled with the acrobatic moves she had demanded a court tumbler teach her, it became a fast and furious collection of martial art and marital art.

 And now, as she punched at the air, teeth gritted, it was the mirage of the harpy she struck at, as she leapt, it was to catch those hurled guards, and every move became more honed. In focusing on her actions, she no longer had space for emotion and thought as well. She could forget.

 When she stopped, panting for breath and bending over to try and stop the stitch in her side, she was aware of nothing and no one else until a dry voice remarked,

 "It's lucky you're only boxing at shadows."

 Startled, Pip shot upright, and found the Wildcat staring at her with thoughtful eyes, slapping a glove on one leg. Her grandmotherly air always present, yet merely a silken layer covering her core of hardest iron.

 "I fear for any enemy that comes across you today," the woman said and flashed a dour smile. "That was impressive."

 Pip couldn't stop the flare of resentment. "I did come across one," she said with more curtness than she intended, but she could only remember her helplessness. "I couldn't do a thing."

 The Wildcat shrugged. "It was a magic creature. What magic makes, only magic can break in the end. Harpies have witched voices, girl, and not you or I or Hakuin, or even the Dragon himself could have stopped it."

 "But I should have done something!" Pip said angrily. "What's the use in this if all I can do is stand by and watch?" She gestured to the room.

 "You have to choose your battles," the Wildcat answered, and there was genuine regret in her voice. "It's a hard lesson, and one we all learn. You can't defeat everyone, and you can't save every life. From what I hear, you did well. You didn't panic."

 But I came so close, Pip thought. I nearly did.

 For a moment, she couldn't think how to reply, then remembered her manners and curtsied. "Thank you," she answered, watching her teacher warily. There was something worrying in the Wildcat's expression.

 "No, no," the Wildcat sighed. The small, wiry woman shook her head. "Curtsying is for nobles, not warriors, and when you are in this room, you are no noble. We bow." She paused, and walked towards Pip. "Yes...that was very impressive. I could easily have mistaken you for one of us."

 Pip smiled awkwardly, flicking perspiration from her cheeks and nose. "I don't think so!" she said lightly as she could. The Shang woman was circling her, stalking around her in a motion both assessing and calculated.

 She didn't even know the Wildcat had attacked until she found her body automatically blocking the savage kick. This was new, and unexpected.

 "Good," the woman said in her husky, sardonic voice.

 A feint to her left, and Pip's legs seemed to leap of their own accord to avoid the sly move that nearly dislodged her feet from beneath her.

 The Wildcat's grey eyes narrowed, and then came a barrage of blows and kicks so fast Pip couldn't have kept track of them if she tried, yet somehow she blocked and dodged them, her heart screaming fit to burst in her chest and her stitch cramping her entire left side.

 The kick that finally knocked her to the floor was a sharp, vicious snap of the Wildcat's leg that hit her square in the chest.

 "Yes..." the woman said calmly. "I could have mistaken you for one of us."

 Pip looked up. The Wildcat no longer seemed so slight and slender, but towered above her. The face was darkened from this angle, more imperious.

 "And," the woman said, half-wondering, "if you hadn't noble blood, I might consider..."

 Frozen, Pip couldn't understand what she was talking about, her green eyes hazy with confusion, and her hair darkened by perspiration and clinging to her face and neck.

 Then the Shang woman shook her head violently, the cap of silvery curls bouncing. "But you have," she said firmly, "and there's a reason why we have such rules. Hundreds of years of Shang tradition can't be wrong."

 "I don't understand," Pip said, baffled.

 The woman gave her a hand up. "Don't worry about it," she said casually.  "Just an old woman's senile ramblings."

 The thought of anyone calling the Wildcat old or senile made Pip smile wanly.

 "Better!" the Wildcat proclaimed, pointing a finger at her. "Now, let's get started on your lesson. Hakuin's busy giving those ruffians that pretend to be pages a good runabout." Her smile was wicked. "So no slacking today! You'll earn your supper tonight, girl."

 That was certainly true - but Pip still found her mind drifting back to the Wildcat's pensive, unfinished thought, and wondered what she had been going to say.

 But at that supper, the thought was put from her mind by an appearance that shocked everyone.

 Unstoppable, unbelievable, unearthly. The Phoenix, flying high above the world, leaving trails of fire behind her.

 The Phoenix, invincible, invulnerable, inhuman.

 She moved south through the land, bringing certainty in a time of uncertainty; people watched her pass  through them and knew that a legend was walking in their lifetime.

 And behind her...the hunters, swift and slinking, moving in her shadow, unseen and unheard.

 Dragons were slain by her, and their children dragged from their mouldering lairs. True, so true, but the tales of the Phoenix forgot that not all those children lived. Ogres brought down by her courage. True, so true, but the myth did not recall that the Phoenix nearly died herself. The almighty Shang Cobra, a warrior gone mad and turning from the law to slaughter without care, falling to her feet and weeping for all he had done, forgiven by this firebird. True, so true, but the legend never spoke of how, after she forgave him, she took an axe, and hewed his head from his body, because forgiveness is not forgetting.

 Legends like happy endings.

 Life does not.

 The Phoenix knew that sometimes, the ending could not be happy. And when the world began to shape her into someone she could not be, she would fly back to her nest, and fly back to the people who were the foundations of her world.

 And suppose someone knocked away the foundations...?

 Legends like happy endings.

 Hunters do not.

~*~

 "Oh, I ache," Pip moaned as she sank onto one of the long tables that made up the dining hall of the palace. Halfway through the meal already, she noticed grumpily. "The Wildcat's such a tyrant. I swear, there's a mean lean slavedriving machine inside that innocent old lady. She'll kill me one day-"

 And then she remembered the dead men, and flushed at her awful and tactless words.

 "I didn't mean that..." she said in a low voice.

 Ryan shrugged morosely. He wasn't gobbling his food in the usual may-never-see-tomorrow way, but picking at it. "S' all right, Mule, I keep doin' it too." The eyes that lifted to her were lost and smouldering, the same deep grey as thunderclouds. "I can't stop seein' 'em, just flyin' through the air like that-"

 "Stop it!" Andrea snapped. Her lips were pursed together, and the golden eyes held a little-seen fire in them. "Now you listen to me, Ryan, we tried to save them. You warned them-"

 "I shoulda' said more-"

 She clamped a hand over his mouth. "They wouldn't have believed you! Thieves get short shrift round here, you know that. We tried our best, and maybe our best wasn't enough this time, but you cannot save everyone. And yes, it hurts when you can't, but that's how the world is."

 He took her hand away, and there was a stiffness to his movements that warned Pip this was winding into a truly explosive dispute.  "I'd a' thought you'd understand. You're a healer-"

 "Yes," Andi cut in, her expression blackening into a scowl, "and we know that you can't save them all, Ryan Talver. You try and you try, but you'll always lose some. And maybe you don't like it, but you have to accept it."

 "You brought me back from the Realms of the Dead," he pointed out, much to Pip's astonishment.

 "That was different," Andi said through gritted teeth. "How can a thief be so idealistic?"

 Pip clutched her fork nervously as Ryan's eyes went from stormy grey to brilliant, blinding blue. "You think just because I'm a thief I'm bad?" His dark hair was thrust back from his stare in one quick, angry gesture as he leaned in to Andrea. "Is that what this is about?"

 "Ryan," Pip put in hastily, because she could see where this was going, "she didn't mean it that way-"

 The furious glare was turned on her. "No? Why don't you tell me what she meant then, noble?"

 Like a cornered creature, she thought, snapping and snarling to keep people away. The words stung bitterly, but she reminded herself that she mustn't get angry, she should remember that his day hadn't been a dream either.

 "You got it so easy," he continued, that sculpted face animated with rage. "Born with money, what have you ever wanted? All you got to do is find some man to marry, an' you ain't got to do anythin' for the rest of your life!"

 That's not fair, she wanted to say. That's not who I am.

 "Playin' your little games, ain't you?" he hissed, and the poison in his voice shocked her, but not as much as the anguish in his eyes, the tearing guilt. "Just fillin' up your time playin' at bein' Shang, an' then you'll move onto your next hobby, an' what will you ever do for the world? Just leech it dry, bleed the poor folk poorer. You're useless, all you nobles an', an'..."

 Something fractured in his face, and he was on his feet and almost sprinting from the hall, a lithe blur of dark.

 Pip stared after him, stunned.

 "Oh...I'm sorry..." an anguished voice said. Andrea was pushing herself up too, casting agonized glances between Pip and the thief's retreating figure. "He's just been so upset, and he can't even talk to Kel...I...I'd better go after him. I'm sorry, Pip, he didn't mean any of it-"

 Her words trailed off as she ran out after him.

 "Kel?" she asked to the rest of the table at large, who were trying to pretend they hadn't heard anything.

 Neal of Queenscove's emerald eyes met hers for a second, and she thought how oddly pale and strained her was looking. She knew Neal, and she resolved to find out what was wrong with him. "Keladry of Mindelan."

 "Oh, the female squire," she said, and saw a muscle flicker in Neal's cheek. "Friend of yours?"

 "Yes," he said shortly, then with his usual elephantine subtlety, changed the subject. "Where do you disappear off to every evening? Are they hazing noblewomen or something?"

 Pip pulled a face at him. "Don't be stupid, Neal. Hazing with nobles never stops. No, I have training."

 "Training?" he frowned. "For that long? With who?"

 "The Shang Masters." Neal looked at her properly, and must have noted her practical clothing. The other boys around the table looked surprised, except for Prince Roald, who smiled as if quietly amused. "It's a punishment. Just one I happen to enjoy."

 "But you're gone most of every evening," he protested.

 She shrugged. "I train three hours a day."

 "Three hours?" Neal shouted incredulously. He looked at her, mouth half-open in an amazingly life-like goldfish impression. "Pip, we only train for one! You weren't kidding about the Wildcat being a slaver, were you?"

 She felt a smile curve up her mouth. Honestly, even Neal was so old-fashioned in some ways. "Not at all. I chose how long to train for."

 "But why?" Neal said, completely baffled.

 She shrugged, moving food around on her plate. "I like it. That's all."

 "Batty," her squire friend said dourly. "Why are all the women I know mad?"

 "Takes one to know one," Roald said cheerfully. It was a rare comment from the taciturn prince - who was looking very pleased with himself tonight. Odd, Pip thought. Usually he's so miserable.

 Neal snorted. "You can talk, you sly fox! All day I've had people asking me what the answer to your wretched riddle is."

 Pip looked from the prince's carefully innocent expression to Neal's exasperated face. "Riddle?"

 "Roald and Kalasin are playing games with their entourage," Neal explained. "You see, Roald's too polite to whine around you, Pip, but we get to hearing him moaning about how much he hates all those brainless noblewomen that trail around after him, because they hope he'll drop everything and marry them."

 "Not a brain cell between them," Merric said in disgust, lifting his flame-red head to grin at Pip. "Noblewomen are all the same."

  "Keep your voice down," Roald hissed. "If any of them hear they'll be hurt."

 Neal rolled his eyes, looking for a moment exactly like the Lioness in a fit of impatience. "Stop being so nice! If you'd been horrible in the first place, they wouldn't be shadowing you like lost sheep."

 "Could this be the reason why you lack admirers?" Pip said dryly, knowing she could tease Neal without him taking offence. "Because your declarations of love run along the lines of 'push off'?"

 He scowled.

 "Anyway," Merric said brightly, "while we were out on the practice courts, Roald and Princess Kalasin-" His eyes glazed over and he paused. "She is so..."

 "Try not to drool on your food," the prince said with uncharacteristic waspishness. Pip hid a grin behind her hand, and wondered if he wasn't quite as meek and sweet as he seemed. For a second, the sapphire eyes met hers and swum with undecipherable emotion. "They're all gaga over her."

 Pip patted a dreamy-eyed Merric on the head, and saw the same faintly thoughtful look on the rest of them, their eyes inevitably turning to where Kalasin ate with the other noblewomen, resplendent in gauzes and shimmering silks.

 "You men are all the same. One flash of bosom and you can't move for saliva," she muttered.

 "It's her mind I'm interested in!" Merric protested in.

 She met the prince's eyes again, and a tiny, wicked smile curled up his mouth. "Merric, who's my sister's favourite author?" he inquired.

  The squire stumbled and stuttered, for all the world like an actor who had forgotten the words, then guessed wildly, "Marco de Marcin?"

 Roald shook his head.

 "What was she wearing yesterday?" Pip asked innocently, and saw Roald cover his mouth with his hand. They shared a conspiratorial look.

 "Pale pink gauzes," Merric said distantly.

 "Low cut basque," Neal murmured.

 "A skirt slit all the way up her leg..." a pensive Seaver added.

 "Too much," Faleron completed.

 "Case rested," Roald said. "You're all hopeless, and the rest of us are trying to see through the steam rising off your heads."

 Neal shook his head like a dog throwing off water, and blinked a few times. "Anyway, as we were saying, Roald and Ka-the princess came up with this bright idea to make their little pack of hounds leave them alone."

 Intriguing... "Oh?"

 Her eyes, the pellucid green of the sea-spray in sunlight, slid to Roald and saw the grin edging his mouth. Smile, she urged him silently, we don't see it too often.

 "Well," and the smile broke free, filled with a radiant joy that she had never seen in Roald. "It was Kally's idea really. But it's perfect." He chuckled, and around the table, the boys grinned. "We set them a competition. A riddle - they each get one guess, and until they have made their guess, they're forbidden to talk to us. Whoever guesses correctly first wins a kiss."

 Pip put a hand to her forehead and pretended to swoon. "Bliss! Roald, don't tell me they're that eager to swap saliva with you."

 "Nicely put," Neal drawled, pulling a gargoyle face. She slapped him lightly. "It worked - no one has been near our dear royals for a good few hours. I haven't been elbowed out of the way by one hulking idiot, or had a single despicably high heel put through my frail feet in the crush. Mind you, none of us can answer the riddle either."

 "Well, I'm intrigued!" she said, arching an eyebrow. "Do tell, dear Prince. Let's see what's got them all so flummoxed!"

 "It's difficult," the Prince warned. "We had to make it up on the spot." The smile had become teasing, and she thought how warming it was to see him happy. She had never realised this devilish streak ran through the Prince.

 "Well, I'm not after your undying love," Pip informed him breezily, "I'm aiming higher."

 "Ouch!" Roald said with a half-laugh. "Going for a god, are you?"

  A shrug of one shoulder. Pip had no ambitions as far as love was concerned - love, yes, it was a possibility, but she couldn't stand to swoon over some man when there was so much to learn, so much to see, so much to be!

 "All right, now you've deflated my ego," he continued, "here's the riddle:

"I lack any wings, yet high do I fly
 I do have a head, without mouth or eyes.
 I once had a heart that never did beat
 I oft touch the ground, yet lack hands and feet."

 Silence. Pip looked from one equally baffled face to another. "Is that it?" she said.

 "It's a fiend, isn't it?" Seaver agreed. "Even Neal, the brain of our operation, is struck dumb by it."

 "Small mercies," Merric put in, wincing as Neal rapped him over the knuckles with his fork.

 "A fiend?" she echoed, looking from one to the other in genuine disbelief. "Why, that's not difficult at all!"

 The entire table, and those who had been covertly eavesdropping, did an excellent mass impersonation of goldfish. Roald's eyes widened under the sooty black of his eyelashes was flat against his sockets. "Huh?"

 "Oh," said the high and accented voice of a noblewoman, "as if she knows!"

 Roald's eyes were curiously intense, and as word spread through the hall, Princess Kalasin slid out of her seat, and wandered over to lean on her brother's shoulders. Two pairs of sapphire eyes pinned Pip, one cool and piercing, the other warm and startled.

 "Go on then," the Princess ordered, flicking her hair back to the accompanying wistful sighs from every male around the table. "I doubt you can solve it so easily!"

 Oh, really, Pip thought.

 "It's an arrow," she said flatly.

 The Princess jolted upright, her face flushed. "How did you guess?" she demanded. "You must have cheated! Did Roald tell you?"

 Roald swung his head round to glare at his sister, and his voice was a little sharper than normal. "No, I did not," he said indignantly. "Pip's smart enough to work it out for herself - you won't find many people in the palace sharper than her."

 "An arrow?" someone said. "How can it be an arrow?"

 Pip just heard Kalasin and Roald mutter under their breath in unison, "Moron." She had to work hard to stop her smile showing, but instead, turned to face the speaker.

 "An arrow flies without wings," she stated simply. "It has a head - but of course, no limbs, unless you count the tail-feathers. Arrows are made from wood - and trees have hearts, though they certainly don't pulse, at least not to the best of our knowledge. And we've all seen badly aimed arrows hit the ground."

 There was a stunned silence, and Neal smacked his forehead with his palm, muttering, "I'm such an idiot."

 "So she's won?" a petulant noble demanded. "But surely Prince Roald doesn't want to kiss that."

 Roald's eyes met hers, and they seemed a shade darker than usual, as if dipped in shadows. His smile was sweet, and secretive. "We'll see," he said softly. "We'll see."

~*~

 Night, lying like a carelessly thrown shawl over the land, was her shelter, with the gaps among its weave the bright and icy stars. The village lay uneasily asleep, its people unwilling to have her there, she ignoring and perhaps savouring, just a little, just a jot, their sullen and silent resentment.

 Yvenia could not sleep.

 The night was the time she loved, the time when she was no longer confined by the harsh truth of the light, when she could ease from shadow to shadow like a slinking snow leopard. In the black oil of her eyes the night was enthroned, a secret and lovely mystery that was the only remnant of her annihilated childhood, her mangled past.

 In the night, she couldn't see the scars upon her legs; there was no sun to remind her of the fires that had wreathed her and the blank, insipid faces that had watched her burn.

 And so she stood, and shook the straw from her hair and clothes. She, the Shang Stormwing, hunger immortal, and they had made her sleep in a barn.

 Outside, the houses seemed mere hollow shells, moonlight casting streaks the same impossibly pure silver as her hair across the walls. So beautiful, the night, compared to the day where so much that was ugly happened in the name of war and religion.

 She wandered among the streets, not searching for anything, only enjoying the tranquillity and the peace.

 "Are you a ghost?"

 The voice startled her - how had someone managed to steal up on her? - before the chiming, high timbre of it fell into her ears, and she had whirled to let her gaze drop.

 The child looked a ghost herself in the moonlight, her face a pattern of ebony and ivory in the moonlight, though something about it seemed faintly wrong. There were the indigo concaves of her eyes, and the triangular shadow of her nose but there was a curious, irregular shape upon her cheek that Yvenia couldn't quite make out.

 Then she realised it was a bruise, and an anger as brilliant and chill as the stars swelled in her stomach. She had once been a child too, a defenceless creature dragged back and forth by the tides of adult politics.

 She had become Shang to save herself, and to save other children. The adults could die, but she would save the children, for who knew what they might be?

 "Are you?" the girl repeated, blinking her eyes sleepily. Her feet were bare, daubed with mud that appeared soot-black. In the gloom, there was only black and white and grey, no colour.

 "I..." Then she recovered herself, and recalled who she was. "No, I'm not. What are you doing up, little one?"

 "I couldn't sleep. And I ain't that little," the child protested, standing on her tiptoes. The eyes were solemn, and seemed to Yvenia too knowing. "I'm old enough to work."

 She arched her thin black eyebrows at the three-foot silhouette, and then hunkered down so her eyes were on a level with the girl's. "And where do you work?"

 The child tucked her hands behind her back. "In the mines. I ferry coal for my Da." The last was said with a touch of pride. "He's the boss here. He mined twenty carts yesterday!" Her voice was hushed and awed. "Ain't no one works like my Da do."

 And his child is still scrawny and thin, Yvenia thought. "Is that where you got the bruise?" she asked, reaching out to touch it, but the child flinched back, and stumbled as if she would fall. But before Yvenia could catch her, she steadied herself.

 "No," the girl said. The openness in her face made Yvenia wonder if she had ever been that way. That chaste, that untouched. "That were my ma. She gets angry sometimes...she clouts Da too. She don't mean it, Da says she's got a demon in her."

 "Demons don't exist," she answered easily. No, the real demons hid beneath human face and form, and behind their power.

Ozorne had been one, and he had been killed before she could reach him. And the man on the other side of that war had opposed him, had slaughtered as many innocents as Ozorne, all in the name of justice and vengeance.

 King Jonathon of Conte, she had decided, should die.

 "I heard Stacy say you was one," the girl announced.

 Yvenia shrugged, and that fall of silver hair, unfettered and untamed, rippled like silk caught in a breeze. "They may say what they like. I know what I am."

 "What are you?" Raw fascination, and the girl had stepped forward again. "I seen you practising this afternoon. Doing all that fighting. I want to do that!"

 She laughed at the fire in the girl's face. "I'm Shang, little one. I was trained to do that when I was your age."

 "Could you teach me?" she burst out, pathetically eager.

 I travel light, Yvenia wanted to say. No baggage. No attachments. Only myself and my revenge. "Maybe one day."

 The girl's eyes were wide under her lank fringe, hair that unsullied pale colour of childhood that soon fades and darkens. "Which one are you?"

 "I am Yvenia, the Shang Stormwing," she said proudly, and the words, almost a mantra now, rolled from her tongue.

 The girl tilted her head on one side, a scruffy angel in the dimness. "I'm Kyrie," she said. "Do your friends call you Eve? It's such a pretty name."

 "No," she answered, startled at the pang the girl's words evoked in her. "I have no friends."

 "But that's awful!" the little girl said. "Everyone has friends. Da does, and even Ma-"

 The hoofbeats snapped her words into silence. And then the creature burst into the village, and brought lightning and change with her.

A Lady's Shield - Chapter Five

A cold mountain, one of many that rise like dark teeth across a jagged skyline. A cold mountain, and at its base a half-concealed entrance where the firebird was born.

 She rides back slowly, aching within and without, battered by her battles with a world that is neither fair nor kind. Fire seems to crown her, a flaming mass of hair leashed tightly into place that seems lit with the life that does not show in her slumped shoulders and bowed head.

  Even a Phoenix can burn out, even a Phoenix must return to its nest.

 Her thoughts are dreary and dark as the stormclouds that ever hover here in the winter chill, bruised against a grey heaven. The children, she thinks, and closes her eyes against the memory of a clearing surrounded by those gently swinging bodies. Ah, the children - and now more vividly than those pathetic carcasses float the faces of their parents, how hard they clung to one another, how tired and grieved their eyes.

 Those children were no firebirds, to rise from the ash in a glorying blaze. They were meat, meat interred in earth, and she cannot help but recall the rows of tiny headstones, and how terribly clear the day had been. They thanked her when she brought justice to them, when she brought them their killer, but they should not have thanked her, for she was too late, too many lives too late. They had expected the legend, and found only the woman.

 He eyes are near closed, and the wind sways her in the saddle. Like every animal, she flees back to the place she considers real when the world asks too much and gives nothing in return.

 This is what will heal her - this dank little cave in the mountain, not praises or gifts or the constant need to prove herself.

 Her body seems to slide, half-fall from the horse and the last spark leaves the Phoenix - she is only a girl again, a girl starving for something which cannot be created anywhere but the heart.

 They come out to greet her, as they always do, their faces smiling but their eyes anxious as she stumbles towards them, and falls into their arms. The Phoenix- full of fire, full of energy...the Phoenix, weeping salt water like all the world.

 The Phoenix, home again.

 And the hunters, watching, and noticing, and laying their ambush with the greatest of care.

~*~

The unicorn came from nowhere.

  The air tore apart before her wild flight. She was an impossible creature that should never have existed in so ordinary a world. Her hooves kicked up sprays of ivory dust, her mane pulled into moonlit tendrils by a wind that could never catch and keep a creature that shimmered like pearly smoke.

 Yvenia pulled the child close to her, and slid back into the shadows, half-awed and half-wary. Unicorns did not simply appear in remote mining villages without good reason - or bad reason.

 The creature halted, and tilted a long glossy head to the glowing lamp of the moon that hung swollen in the sky. Impossible, incredible beauty that had been carven with divine care and painted with an innocent imagination. Yvenia felt her breath catch beneath her ribs and flutter like a butterfly.

 Oh, how beautiful, her heart breathed.

 Oh, how valuable, her mind remarked.

 And then her ears heard the sounds...faint, far-away, like the voice of a mother she had half-forgotten. They seemed almost soothing at first, the lure of a siren, but as they grew in her ears, she became aware of a jagged undertone, an eerie whistling tinge that felt as though someone ran chips of ice through her blood.

 Kyrie clung to Yvenia's waist, and she patted the child's head absently. "Stay silent," she voiced as quietly as she could.

 "It's so pretty," the girl whispered back. Her face was lit by awe, by something that Yvenia would have called rapture and that reminded her chillingly of the white and fanatical look on the faces of those who burned her parents.

 "Diamonds are pretty," she murmured, and the small, eager face glanced at her for a moment. "But they cut deep, child. We will watch for now, and see what it is and what it brings."

 The unicorn's head swung, gazing behind her. For a moment, Yvenia saw the flash of golden eyes, the only warmth in this wondrous being. She was listening, the Shang realised, listening to that baneful song that had grown louder and closer.

 Then she reared, and silver hooves glittered sharply.

 And Yvenia could hear the song more clearly, and it was a melody no longer, but voices howling in one wordless and unrestrained cry. It seemed all about her, riding the wind and calling for blood.

 Something was hunting.

 The unicorn fell back to earth, her mane foaming curls, and shining like liquid starlight, lit by a light from another world, beautiful and translucent.

 "Eve," the child said, her voice quivering. "Eve, I'm scared."

 I gave up fear long ago, she wanted to say, but felt the lie as chills rippled up her spine. I gave it up, but it has not given me up.

 "Hush," she whispered. "Stay in the shadows, child, and we may be safe. Whatever it is, it is not us it wants."

 The immortal had been shifting from hoof to hoof, somehow poised, expectant. Yvenia's heart was pounding against her ribcage like a rabid beast pleading to be let free, but she didn't know why. Only that the howl belonged to nothing mortal, nothing human.

 And then they came.

 Shadows, low-slung slinky shadows that revealed only glimpses of needle-sharp teeth, the glimmer of red eyes and the stink of rotting meat. They came from the south, and for scant moments were only blurred and dark shapes that even the moonlight could not brighten. The unicorn was lit by another world - and they, they were shadowed by another.

 The unicorn threw back her head and screamed, a terrifying and shrill sound. Here, in the secrecy of the night, she ran free.

 And how she ran...

Streaking away from those hunters that Yvenia could see clearly now; massive hounds that were all coarse fur and serrated claws. Her hooves left no imprint, nothing but a sweet summery scent drifting in her wake. Searching, endlessly searching for a way out that did not exist.

 Behind her, a hound bayed, and others answered in eerie, wailing chorus.

 For all their size, easily twice that of a wolf, they were fast as flitting dragonflies. At last, though Yvenia remembered her knife and drew in from the sheath in her boot, it gave her no comfort. The child stirred at her side upon glimpsing the weapon, yet said nothing.

 They seemed to be herding the unicorn, the trio nipping about her with an easy, lithe and dreadful speed. Bellies to the ground, sometimes slinking - then breaking into a run as the unicorn tried to flee through a gap, blocking her escape. Saliva fell to the ground, forming brief and gleaming puddles.

 She turned back and forth on her slender legs, uneasy and caged. As she lifted her head, the curving horn flashed like a scimitar in the moonlight, flashed a curious honey-gold.

 But they were close - so close, and now Yvenia saw, moving in for the kill, and something in her heart seemed to snap like a violin string.

 You can't help, she told herself, You know that. It would be madness - utter madness to think otherwise.

 "Eve..." Kyrie stared up at her, mouth trembling. "Eve, they're going to kill her!"

 "Yes." The word stung her.

Madness to even think of it - insanity, pure insanity.

 This glorious creature would die beneath the jaws of the hounds, rent to shreds because she - she, the Shang Stormwing - had clung to the shadows. She couldn't...she wouldn't let it happen.

 "Stay here," she ordered the child.

 Madness - but what in her life had ever been rational?

~*~

 "Curse it!" Raoul of Goldenlake hurled his gauntlets onto the ground in pure frustration. "Why can these wretched astrologers never get anything right?"

 "They trust tea leaves to tell them future," Commander Buri put in dryly, her dark eyes alight with equal irritation, though her mouth had a humorous slant to it. "Is it any wonder they have trouble deciding if tomorrow will follow today, never mind where the Hunt will arrive?"

 The big knight scowled, and turned the map around and around as if it would offer answers. "Once every seventy years," he grumbled. "Once every seventy bloody years, and we've missed it for the third time in a row. Kel?"

 Keladry of Mindelan looked up from where she was checking and rechecking the astrologer's disturbingly vague predictions. "Sire?" she said politely, trying not to grin at her knight-master's obvious disgust.

 "Anything new?"

 Her hazel eyes were weary, half-squinting in the light of the lantern that hung on a tent-pole. "This village seems right, sir," she said resignedly.

"Mines nearby, directly on a leyline. Close to a keystone." She said it with a sceptical note in her voice; leylines were an astrologer's favourite word, up there with 'energy', 'cosmic' and 'money please', but everyone else insisted they were pure rubbish.

 Raoul glared resentfully at the map she had next to the predictions. "When I get hold of Prava Mavres," he said slowly, his eyes narrowing at the thought of the thin, reedy-voiced King's astrologer, "I will personally ram that keystone-"

 "M'lord?" A breathless messenger boy ran in, flushed from his run. "The village head wishes to speak with you."

 The knight gestured irritably. "Send him in. He's probably wondering why fifty men are camped in his courtyard."

 Buri's eyes met Kel's, and the Rider grinned sourly. Over the day of riding, Raoul's dislike of this particular assignment had become quite clear. He had even snapped at Kel, and took every possible opportunity to grumble about the King. The journey had been - interesting. Only Buri didn't seem to mind his smouldering resentment, and gave as good as she got. After receiving a long string of K'Miri epithets, curses and general ill-wishes, Raoul had stopped complaining to her.

The one village woman unfortunate enough to offer to read his palm had run out of the tent with an array of mugs and cutlery thrown after her, and the mere mention of astrology was enough to make Raoul go a remarkable shade of beetroot.

 "Lord Raoul?" The man that entered was built like a blacksmith, specks of dirt still clinging to his face. He didn't seem awed by his illustrious company, merely slightly startled. He bowed. "Kursan Morraine. I've been told your company is, ah, borrowing our courtyard."

 Through the opening of the tent, Kel could just glimpse the company huddled around fires, and hear laughter and chat. There were several girls hovering at the fringes, she noticed, no doubt wanting to chat to some of the soldiers who lounged so carelessly, exuding confidence and experience. ('First trick every man of the Own learns', Dom had confided with a chuckle earlier.)

 "We are." Raoul gestured to the man to sit down. "My apologies for arriving so suddenly, but we departed in much the same way." His smile was strained. Kel had overheard the harsh words exchanged between the King and the knight before they left. "We are searching for a phenomenon - have you ever heard of the Horned Hunt?"

 The man blinked, and his gaze flicked about the room as if to ensure that Raoul was serious. "Aye, but...it's just a myth, m'lord. We still tell our children the tale."

 "No myth," Raoul informed him. "Or so the King's astrologers believe."

 Morraine ran his hands through dark, rumpled hair. "M'lord, I mean no offence - but the Horned Hunt? Hounds that appear from nowhere and take a sacrifice when they cannot catch the unicorn? It's a tale to frighten our children, little more."

 "Humour me. Squire, the predictions?"

 Kel slid the yellowed parchments across the table to him and the man, and stared at the dog-eared originals in Prava Mavres' scrawling, impossible script that was hopelessly melodramatic. Raoul had often been heard to comment that Prava Mavres' horoscopes were the greatest works of fiction since Marco de Marcin wrote The Turning of the Shrew.

 ~ ...and on the night of the full moon, they shall come; the child of the stars and the spawn of the shadows. Two and twenty leagues shall she run, and her arrival shall be the lightning strike, her passage the summer's kiss. After her shall come the hounds, numbering three, and permitting no freedom, and their arrival shall breed fear like man has never known, their passage death upon all who them see.

 In the village they shall meet that is the crossroads of the ley and lies in the keystone's shadow, where silver is stolen from the earth and the Stormwing makes her nest; and if the star-child should escape, a mortal shall be made sacrifice - and if she should die, joy shall slip from that place for seven decades. ~

 "...and you did have a problem with Stormwings a while ago, I believe," Raoul finished. "The Wildmage came to bargain with them."

 Morraine laughed, but it was a hard and humourless sound. "We've had a Stormwing problem since, m'lord."

 "I thought Daine made sure-"

 There was genuine agitation in the man's dark eyes now; he cut Raoul off without a thought. "They've not been back, but there's no difference between them and that harridan!"

 His voice shook with rage, and Kel glanced at her knight-master to see if she should say or do anything. A fractional shake of his head was his answer. But there was a tight line to Morraine's mouth, and one hand had curled into a fist.

"Who?" Raoul enquired delicately.

 The man banged the table with his fist, making Kel jump. "The Shang Stormwing! Turning up here but yesterday and executing one of our men without trial! My own cousin!"

 "Was he guilty?" Buri asked, her tones quiet yet somehow none the less dangerous. The K'Miri's eyes were fixed on the man, fingers tapping almost idly on the table.

 The man scowled. "The girl was a tease," he said curtly. "All know that."

 Yes, Kel translated, but they would have turned a blind eye. Then the thought caught her - the Stormwing...

 The same thought has obviously crossed Raoul's mind too, because he stood and leaned forward, his shadow swallowing Morraine, dwarfing him. "Where did she go?"

 "She took the road to Greendell," the man said curtly. "May they have much joy of the bitch."

 "There are ladies present!" Raoul snapped.
 
 "Where?" Buri and Kel chorused almost automatically, and received Raoul's 'really don't push me' glare that could cook a plucked chicken from twenty paces.

 Kel looked down at the spare, slightly ripped map to escape that glower. "Sire?" she said tentatively. "Greendell isn't on the map."

 Morraine snorted contemptuously. "Aye well, it's only been there these past ten years. Your mapmakers are all so busy drawing that Carthak place and them Yamani Isles that you miss that." He stabbed a grubby finger at Raoul's copy. "It's there. 'Bout an hour's walk, a half hour's ride."

 "Damn!" Raoul muttered. "This place is only on one leyline. That one is where two meet." A heavy sigh. "We've got the wrong one."

 "I'd like to see him blame that on the astrologers," Buri said very softly.

The headman's eyes glinted, and there was a distinctly smug curl to his lip. "It's not far," he urged. "Sooner you start, the sooner you'll get there."

 Buri's closed expression said clearly that she didn't like Morraine.

 "Quite right," Raoul said curtly. He didn't shake Morraine's hand, and an hour later, they were on the road, Peachblossom's hooves clattering on the dusty track.

 By the time the village was in sight, the moon above was ripe as a pomegranate, and Kel's back ached from riding all day, bar that brief stop in the village.

 By the time Greendell was in sight of the Own with their fifty men and honed weapons, Yvenia had drawn her knife, and stood alone to face fear like man had never known.

 The Hunt was on.

~*~

 Andrea Kirisra slowed from a run to a walk as she saw the slender form she was looking for, sunk down against a wall with his knees drawn up to his chest, and his head resting on them. He had wrapped his arms about his legs as if he was looking to lock out the world, and perhaps he was.

 She didn't say anything, but sat herself down beside him, trying not to shiver with the cold of the wall at her back, and laid a tentative hand on his shoulder.

 He threw her off angrily, but didn't look up.

 "That was unfair," she began quietly. A laconic shrug was her answer, and Andrea's gold eyes narrowed a little. She'd never really seen Ryan upset - he was so bright always, determined to make the best of the things the way he had needed to just to survive the harsh street life. "Pip's no court girl. She was only trying to help."

 Silence, stonier than the bricks behind her. She put a gentle hand on his head, on the wavy hair dark as ink, and this time he didn't move. She broke the touch, uncomfortable with this awful hush.

 "But I should apologise."

 He looked up then, his grey eyes wide and bemused. Andrea smiled at him, glad of the response, and continued.

 "That wasn't very sensitive of me. I'm - used to seeing people die, even if I don't like it."

 Her eyes fell shut, and it seemed that she heard her mother's thin fevered wail, and smelt the terrible, cloying reek of her parents' bodies rotting from the inside out. She had buried them with her own hands, her feeble and untrained healing Gift no use against the virulent and violent plague.

 "You do get used to it," she continued, unaware of the faint tremor to her voice, or the curious way Ryan watched her. "It's awful to think, but after a while, it can't shock you anymore, and it stops being people dying and starts being - things. Like when you say a word over and over and the sounds lose all meaning. And those men - ah, it was horrible, but maybe I've seen too much death to be touched by it. Maybe I'm cold."

 "No," he interrupted, a little roughly but with a certainty that made her eyes fly open. "No lass, ye're not cold. Just - a healer to the bone. An' I ain't." There was turbulence in his face, that wondrously moulded face. "I ain't been helpless in a long time. Not since - not since my Da threw me out."

 He touched his jaw, as if it was an old reflex, and must have seen her bafflement because a sour smile twisted his mouth.

 "He hated me, see," he explained softly, though she knew that. "Used to beat me black an' blue, an' all the pretty shades of the rainbow. An' that last day, he cut me. Left a scar that used to run here..." The grubby fingers traced a line from his ear down to his jaw. "An Immortal took it away, 'cause I helped her."

 No, Andrea wanted to say. She took away what could be seen. But it's not gone. Each scar on our body leaves a scar upon our heart.

 "It just...scared me. Bein' helpless again. I wanted to help them, Andrea - what's the use of all this magick if we can't do anythin'?" His hands were twisting and untwisting round his knees, and he looked so desperately miserable that for a moment, Andrea couldn't think of any answer.

 Finally, she sighed, and toyed with the golden strands of her hair because it meant she wouldn't have to look at Ryan. "I don't know. But I know that magick can't save the world - it didn't save my parents, and it didn't save me from the Arachon, and it barely saved us. All we can do is learn all we can, and try to use it the right way. You can't put the ocean in a glass and you can't save everyone."

 "An' that's it?" The faint thrum of anger. He thrust himself up, and stood glaring down at her. "That's all there is?"

 She stared up serenely, refusing to show how this strange irrational anger shook her. "It's all I know. You just try all you can. And maybe it'll work. It's the first thing Duke Baird told me, it's the first thing Numair told us. Maybe it's true."

 "So you just let people die? An' then ye say, 'Oh well, terrible tragedy, that's seventeen gold nobles, if ye please?'."

 Andrea ignored the venom. It wasn't like Ryan - sharp wit, yes. But this curtness...no. "You try, that's all, Ryan. You try."

 For a moment, he stayed, glaring down at her like an angry angel painted in storm colours. "No. I don't try. I succeed."

 He was gone in a blur of fury and disgust, the sound of his footsteps like departing thunder until only the silence was left.

~*~

 The Court herald shifted from foot to foot, bored beyond belief. All these long evening meals, and he stood here for hour after hour on the faint chance someone interesting would arrive and he would have the brief thrill of calling their name to the young ingrates and inbreds that made up the Tortallan Court.

 It wasn't as if it was even the Court, with its stunning marble steps and long, slow walk to the throne. No. He was made to stand before the dining room.

 Idiots, most of them. The younger generation seemed to have no grasp of their elders' social graces. Never a please, or a thank you, or a so sorry, was that your foot. Simply sweeping past in their gowns - every year the same fashion, necklines lower, skirts higher, waists smaller. At this rate, by next year, necklines would end up meeting the rapidly raising skirts, and fashion would be to stroll in wearing a belt.

  Still, there was some revenge. Lady Ilse Morraine had been infuriated to be announced as Ill Moron, while Lord Kizarze had been frankly smouldering after an unfortunate insertion of sibilance on the herald's part.

 One or two, he liked; Neal of Queenscove never failed to thank him, or ask how his wife was and how the new baby was doing, and the young Prince, well, he'd even been to see Mary and the tyke, and left them a generous casket of food. And that Phillippa ha Minch - a cheeky girl, but she's stoutly defended him after Lady Morraine flounced up threatening to have him fired. In fact, the two had had a brief and memorable conversation:

 "You!" Lady Morraine had snapped, fluttering her fan furiously. "How dare you - I expect a full apology and your immediate resignation-"

 Lady Phillippa, who had been suggesting middle names for the baby, had turned round and given the lady the full benefit of her blazing green eyes. "We were having a conversation, Ilse. It was a mistake anyone could have made. Do try to open your mind a touch - your earrings will be banging together soon."

The herald grinned at the memory. Aye, she was a true lady, that one, and bright as magick with it. Of course, he'd heard all sorts about he-

 "Do they pay you to stand about and grin like an imbecile all day?" a voice demanded. It was cold, and dark, and oozing a purring exotic accent.

 The herald jumped, wiping the smile at once, and stared at the hooded figure in front of him who had rainwater dripping from his oiled cloak. "Sir?"

 "Apparently so," the man continued, and muttered something obviously unflattering in his own language. Carthaki - the herald placed his accent with a shock. "Well, are you planning on announcing me or shall we make small talk for the next five hours?"

 "I...I..." Wrong-footed, the herald finally composed himself. "Sir, it's normal to be a little...uh...more presentable before meeting their majesties. Besides, they're eating."

 "Excellent!" the stranger said, and the herald thought he glimpsed a tiger's gleaming smile in the shaded hood. "I am ravenous. I am not here to wow that Court with my fashion sense; that, I have heard, is my charge's prerogative."

 He sounded - young. His charge? Who on earth could he be supposed to look after?

 "But-"

 The voice became a fraction cooler, and the herald had the unnerving feeling he was about to be pounced upon. "Now, sir herald, or I may have a spate of spontaneous violence in your vicinity."

 Swallowing hard - there wasn't a trace of humour in this stranger's voice - the herald hurled open the doors to the dining room and announced unsteadily,

 "Mysterious and threatening stranger!"

 The clamour came to a halt, and the man strode in. Gratefully, the herald shut the doors behind him, and leaned back against the wall, shaking.

~*~

 Princess Kalasin stood up straight, lovely and slender as a dew-kissed rose. A collective sigh rose from the male half of the hall, except the Prince, who merely looked exasperated, and Pip was tempted to throw a glass of water over Seaver, who looked close to asphyxiation.

 "Breathe," she whispered to him, and he started guiltily.

 "Who the hell are you?" Kalasin demanded, stepping forwards towards the cloaked man. "How dare you intimidate our servants?"

 She made a magnificent sight, Pip had to admit, her sapphire eyes stern and brilliant under the arching brows and framed by the mass of shining black hair. She doubted she could ever look as formidable. You had to be svelte and beautiful to pull it off, and she was neither.

 "Who are you to question me?" the man demanded, his Carthaki voice a prowling softness that was velvet to the senses. A surprised whisper scuttled about the room, before settling as everyone fixed their attention on the pair. "Though I hardly need ask - only the Princess Kalasin has such atrocious manners. Where are your parents, girl?"

 Pip doubted, from the rage that made Kalasin quite unlovely, anyone had called her that in a long time.

 "They do not dine with us," she said tersely. "You may speak with me, and you will be more civil about it. I am royalty!"

 "And I'm the son of a blacksmith - what of it? Your blood does not give you the right to order me about," the man replied. He threw back the hood of his cloak, and the Princess stared.

 Pip stared as well. He wasn't handsome - not in the way the Court admired, but he had hypnotically dark eyes that flashed around the room like a wave of fire, and a sardonic curling mouth that wore a disdainful half-smile, made all the more radiant by his dark golden skin, the colour of heavy caramel. And of course, there were the three dark marks that sliced down each side of his face, as though claws had swiped him.

 He was young. Surely not more than late teens, early twenties, and yet there was something in the way he spoke, and his expression that told Pip that young might not mean untried.

 "We're in trouble," she heard Roald mutter gloomily, and she followed his eyes to Kalasin; the Princess's mouth was open, and her eyes avid.

 "Davir sin Porphyros," he drawled, with just the faintest hint of contempt. "I believe I am your new bodyguard." His eyes swept the Princess. "And if that's what you usually wear, you're going to need me."

 A flush crept up the Princess's cheeks. "This is the pinnacle of fashion!"

 "In the brothels?" he purred.

 From the corner of her eye, Pip could see several ladies pulling their necklines up. Well, how novel. A man who could reverse fashion with three devastating words.

 Kalsin stepped forwards, pale hands clenched. "You are not wanted here! Go back to your filthy country!"

Davir's smile widened, as if she amused him terribly, but his voice was barbed as broken glass. "It will be your filthy country, my not-quite lady, when you marry my Emperor."

 "I will never marry him!" she declared, and the entire room looked at one another in sheer shock. "Out!"

 The Carthaki shrugged his cloak off his shoulders onto the floor. "No."

 "Out!" she screamed, pointing to the door.

 His teeth were bared, but smile or snarl, Pip didn't know, and could only watch with a mixture of awe and pity for the Princess. "Make me."

 With a shriek, the Princess picked up a carving knife that someone had left stuck in a roast, and charged at him.

 For a moment he stared - purely from disbelief, Pip suspected, for the Princess's gauzes and heels hardly lent themselves to attack - then as she stabbed the knife at him, dodged. As she stumbled past, the Carthaki simply twisted her arm, and the knife clattered to the floor.

 The Princess tried to knee him.

 He threw her over his shoulder.

 Pip looked over at Roald to see he had his face in his hands, and his shoulders were shaking rapidly. The rest of the table was staring open-mouthed - whether at Kalasin's sudden loss of temper, or at the Carthaki's action, she didn't know.

 "Attack me again, Kalasin," Davir said flatly, "and I will break whatever is closest to hand."

 She sat up, scraping back mussed hair from her eyes, trembling with what seemed like anger. "Princess Kalasin," she spat. "If you think I will be your Empress, you can damn well treat me like it!"

 "We are equals," the Carthaki told her, not offering to help her up from where she sat in a sprawled mess of gauzes. "If I am to call you Princess, then you are to call me Kyrios."

 "Kyrios?" she snapped, trying to recover her poise. Pip could have told her there was no point.

 The smile that blazed on his face was genuine, wondrous and really quite charming. "It means Prince. I am the heir to the throne - Kaddar's cousin."

 "Oh gods," she heard Roald say. "I don't know which of them to be sorry for."