With Tanaros and Malthus both trapped within them and struggling for mastery, the Ways of the Marasoumië were too dangerous to enter. He had walked out of Jakar; walked a day and a night across the plains, sifting through the dreams of Men as he went, until his ill-knit bones protested at every step. That didn’t matter to him either. The only pain that mattered was the one that circumscribed his heart; Godslayer’s branding beckoning him home, to the only home left to him. But without the Ways, his path was uncertain. To the west lay the Unknown Desert, its blazing sands forbidding. To the north lay the encampments of the Rukhari tribesmen and their scorn. To the east … ah, to the east lay Pelmar, where once the Grey Dam had called him her son, and there he did not dare go.

So he had gone south.

You need not land, Ushahin told the ravens. Only tell me what you have seen.

The ravens dipped lower, sunlight glinting violet and green on the edges of their wings as they circled in a narrowing gyre. Flickering images flitted from mind to mind; of the tops of pines like a dark green ocean; of columns of Men and Ellylon winding through the dense forest, amassing at the base of a mountain; of a fortress hunkered on the mountain’s swell; of a seamless wall of granite. Of the explosion of sunlight refracting on bronze scales and a sinuous neck lifting a vast-jawed head, amusement in one slitted green eye.

Yes, little brothers, he thought; I know. What of the south?

Their vision skirted the edges of Arduan, where men and women gathered in the marketplaces and exchanged news, waiting; waiting, with longbows close at hand. There the ravens dared not go, remembering the arrows that had felled their brethren. But beyond, the marshes of the Delta unfurled like a rich, grey-green carpet, fecund and plentiful. There, they landed and fed. The shiny carapaces of beetles loomed large in memory, crunching with satisfaction under beaks; small snails, sweet and tasty.

At that, Ushahin smiled.

And further … one had flown, only one, following the sluggish path of the Verdine River as it emerged from the marshes. There, where the sharp-toothed sedge grass grew in abundance, three horses grazed. They were tall and strong and clean of limb, with dark, glossy hides and ill-kept manes and tails, tangled from the remnants of a long-abandoned disguise. Whatever had become of the Staccians who had entered the Delta, they had left their mounts behind and no one had succeeded in laying possessive hands on the horses of Darkhaven. One tossed its head as the raven swooped low, nostrils flaring and sharp teeth bared, a preternatural gleam of intelligence in its eyes.

Yes.

Ushahin Dreamspinner laughed. “So, my Lord Satoris,” he said aloud. “It seems my path lies through the place of your birth.”