“Hmm. And a new young slave should enter my household? A wise plan. Surely no one looks twice at a slave.”

“And a slave can pass to and from the temple without being noticed either,” Kiron pointed out, “So Aket-ten can continue whatever instruction she needs from the Winged Ones.”

They exchanged somber looks; Aket-ten still looked wan and frightened; her father looked angry. “Thank you for bringing her here, Jouster Kiron,” the lord said, turning to Kiron. “You were quite right to do so. There is something about this that is deeply disturbing—yet where the Magi are concerned, it is dangerous to probe too deeply, too quickly.” Then he smiled. “If I am able to take the measure of a man, I would venture to say that you have decided to find out just what the Magi are doing with the Fledglings. Eh?”

Red-faced, Kiron admitted that was exactly what he had been thinking of doing.

“Give a father leave to make his own attempts first,” Lord Ya-tiren said gently. “Gold is a potent weapon, and a loosener of tongues. The Magi have servants. Give me time, and I will find the one who can tell us what we want to know.”

Kiron sighed, nodded, and bowed his head. Unsatisfying as it was, Lord Ya-Tiren’s plan was the better one of the two. “I will, my Lord,” he said. “And if Aket-ten wishes to go about the city, I will undertake to escort her, if she likes, just in case.”

Aket-ten’s cheeks began to glow, but she didn’t look displeased with his offer. Nor did Lord Ya-Tiren. “Now that is an offer that I will be pleased to accept. Thank you—and now, I believe, I should escort my poor, ailing daughter to her quarters?”

Well, that was as graceful a dismissal as Kiron had ever heard; he bowed, and took his leave.

But though he left Aket-ten and her dilemma behind him, it was still very much in his mind as he returned to the Jousters’ Compound, and a sleepy, but hungry, Avatre.

EIGHT

EIGHT

THREE days later, Orest was intercepted at breakfast by a servant with a message from his father, and Kiron saw him going about the compound shortly after with a worried face.

“Orest!” he called, intercepting his friend at the entrance to his pen. “What’s wrong?”

“Father says that my sister’s been sent to Aunt Rekeron in the farms beyond the Seventh Ring because she’s ill,” Orest told him. “I don’t understand this—Aket-ten’s never been ill a day in her life!”

It didn’t take more than a moment for Kiron to figure out what was going on. So, the Lord Ya-Tiren had taken his advice! That was extremely satisfying.

But either the lord learned something—or he discovered that the Magi were going to be impossible to refuse. That was not so satisfying.