Paks slept again while waiting for Amberion to return, and woke hungry. She was able to feed herself this time. With help, she managed to stand and stagger a short way to the shallow sand pit that served the camp for jacks. But that exhausted her, and she fell into sleep again as soon as she came back to her place. It was evening when she woke, with sun striking the very highest line of the opposite canyon wall.

No one was beside her at the moment. She saw the dwarf, hunching over the campfire. Pir stood at a little distance, staring up at the sunlit rock far overhead. Off on her right, Amberion and the Marshals stood talking to another taller figure. Paks recognized this as Ardhiel, the elf. She stretched, slowly. She felt a vague ache again, not so strong as before, and wondered at it. The only other time she had experienced a paladin's healing, the wound and pain had disappeared at once and forever. Perhaps she'd been lying awry.

She pushed up her sleeves to look at the marks on her arms. Ordinarily she'd have said the wounds were several weeks old; the scar tissue was raised and dark. But the others had said she'd been missing only a few days. She tried to remember what had happened. What Balkon had told her seemed to fit, yet her memories gave no life to his words. Captive—underground—that almost made sense. But what about the wounds? Had she actually fought? And who had she fought, and how? The marks gave her no clues—they looked like any healing cuts, could have been given by knife or sword or pike. The only unusual thing about them was the number—more scars than she had collected in three seasons of fighting with Duke Phelan. She could not understand how she had fought at all—how she had survived—with so many wounds, all given at once. Yet something about them seemed to convey that they'd been given in combat, rather than inflicted on a bound and helpless prisoner.

Amberion's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Paks, I'm glad you're awake again. Ardhiel is with us now, and he examined you this afternoon." Paks was suddenly angry. What right had they to stare at her while she lay helpless? She remembered what the iynisin had told her about the elves who took the Halveric's scroll. She fought the anger down, surprised at its strength, and tried to conceal it. She knew they would not understand. Amberion went on. "He would like to talk with you, if you feel well enough."

"Yes, of course. I'm just—" she decided not to mention the aching to Amberion; he would think it weakness. "I'm still confused," she said finally. Ardhiel sat beside her; he seemed thinner than she remembered, but his face was alight with some joy.

"Lady Paksenarrion, I sorrow that I was not here to defend you. I did not know that when I blew the elven horn I would be carried away—"