But within half a moon, and deep into the rains, they all got a rude shock, and Kiron was very, very glad that Kaleth had gone. It went down as one of the black moments of his life.

Lord Khumun sent dragon boys around to the entire compound that morning as they all awakened, saying that he wished to address them over breakfast. Kiron fed Avatre without thinking very much about it; though it wasn’t unusual for Lord Khumun to address them all together, it wasn’t unheard of. Perhaps the work of the rains had gotten noticed and the Great Ones wanted to send a reward of some sort, or at least, a word of commendation.

They certainly deserve it, he thought, with more than a bit of bitterness. More than the Magi, if you were to ask me. After all, they were having to fly in that magic-befouled weather, and because of their efforts, the border had been pressed back yet again—almost to the place it had been when Kiron’s own village had been lost to the Tians so many years ago.

But when Lord Khumun finally appeared to the restless crowd of Jousters waiting for him in the kitchen courtyard, he was not alone.

There was a Magus with him, and at the sight of the man, the muttering men in the courtyard went deathly quiet. It seemed at that moment that every drop of rain on the awnings overhead, and dripping down between the gaps in the cloth, was terribly, terribly loud.

Aket-ten sucked in a breath, and Kiron was very glad that she was sitting at the back of them all, and they were at a table at the back of the wall. There were a lot of taller, older men between them and the Magus, and yet the man’s penetrating eyes seemed to sweep the crowd and see all of them. Kiron would very much rather have been in complete shadow at that moment, and he hoped that the Magus had only seen a sort of shape, and not that there was a girl among them. He did not want Aket-ten to be noticed.

It was not a comfortable sensation. Those eyes were as cold and as dead as opaque pebbles, and Kiron would have wagered at that moment that he was looking at a man who would bury his own mother alive if it got him something he wanted. But at least his gaze didn’t rest on any of them.