Then it found sudden release.

She opened her eyes to find Kris’ own eyes holding hers; free from pain and feverishly clear. Although she could feel his pain still, he could not. She had somehow come to stand between it and him.

But he was dying, and they both knew it.

She looked around, expecting to see soldiers surrounding them.

“No.”

Kris’ hoarse whisper brought her attention back to him. “They—it is a maze. While I live, they will not come.”

She understood. His Gift had shown him that there was a maze of stairs and corridors to traverse before the soldiers reached an entrance to this area. But it had also shown him how little time he had left.

“Kris—” She couldn’t get anything more past the tears that rose and choked off her words.

“No, little love, little bird. Weep for yourself, not for me.”

She nearly fell to pieces with grief at his words.

“I don’t fear Death; gladly, willingly would I seek the Havens, if I but knew my Companion waits for me there—but to leave you—how can I leave you with all my burden and yours as well?” He coughed, and blood showed at the comer of his mouth. Somehow he managed to raise one hand to touch her cheek; she seized it with her own and wept into it.

“It isn’t fair—to leave you alone—but warn them, heartsister. Somehow warn them. I cannot carry the task to the end, so it ends with you.”

She nodded, so choked with tears she could not speak.

“Oh, little bird, I love you—” He seemed to be trying to say more when another spate of coughing shook him. He looked up again, but plainly did not see her; his eyes brightened and gladdened as if he were seeing something wonderful and unexpected. “So—bright! T—”

For one fleeting moment Talia sensed—joy; joy and the touch of awe and a strange glory that was like nothing she’d ever sensed before. Then his body shuddered once in her arms, and the light and life left his eyes. He went limp within her embrace—and then there was nothing but the empty husk she held.

The soldiers came then, tore them apart, and took her away; she was too numb with shock and grief to resist.

Eight

Eight

Her guards were anything but gentle.

They bound her hands behind her and kicked and shoved her down countless rock-faced corridors and a flight of rough stone stairs; when she stumbled they kicked her until she rose, when she faltered they sent her onward with blows. They gave her a final push that sent her sprawling into the center of a bare room. There they put her in the custody of three hulking brutes, creatures who looked more beast than man.