The soldiers had dismissed me as a threat, so the ropes around my wrists were loose and comfortable. They all knew the reason that the writ had been issued in the first place was that I was stupid. Very stupid. If they’d heard rumors that I’d recovered, the information was more than countered by my size (which had initially alarmed them), my slow speech, and the pretense I kept up that I believed I was going to a genial discussion despite the ties on my wrists. Garranon could have warned them, and I found it most interesting that he didn’t.

I put my forehead against my knees and tried to get used to being off Hurog land again. My head ached, my bones ached, and my muscles felt without strength. It would ease in a couple of days, but only being back on Hurog land would make it leave entirely.

When I lay down to sleep, my arm was tied to the general’s wrist and that rope was well-tied. He was taking my continued presence very seriously. That was all right—I didn’t intend to escape tonight anyway.

As I closed my eyes, I could feel Jade Eyes watching me. He hadn’t yet uttered a word, but his eyes had followed me constantly. The surveillance bothered me, but it was the knowledge that he was a wizard that really gave me pause. Oreg was in a nearby copse of trees not a hundred yards away.

I knew where Oreg was becausefinding was my best talent. It was the only magic my father hadn’t stolen from me the day he tried to beat me to death. I could work magic now, butfinding was second nature.

I wish Oreg hadn’t stopped so near us. In his dragon form he oozed magic. He covered it well, but I didn’t know if he was aware how good Jade Eyes was. Dragons, I had learned, were arrogant creatures.

WHENIAWOKE, THE FIRST THINGISAW WAS THEmage’s ice-green gaze.

“What is it,” Jade Eyes asked in a voice like honey, “that you do when you dream?”

It was an odd question and I couldn’t see what he wanted from my answer.

Without conscious decision, I fell back upon my old habit of sounding stupid when I was defensive. “I sleep when I dream,” I said. Had I done something while I slept?

“I could feel your magic beside us in the woods all night long,” he said. “It tastes of you as your home tasted of you. But when the sun began to rise this morning and you awoke, the magic went away. Why is that?”