Ramus thought of the parchment pages he had hoped to work on again that morning. But as they packed up camp and he hoisted his backpack, he did not feel sorry. There would be plenty more nights, many more mornings.

His dream of the Widow's warning sang to him as they rode out.

HE COULD SMELL the blood from a long way off. Lulah glanced back, but he nodded at her before she said anything. Maybe this is the wrongness she was sensing.

The Serian stopped her horse beside an ancient cairn. “I'll go on ahead, on foot. I don't think it's fresh.”

“You can tell that?”

“You stay here,” she said, ignoring him. “Behind the cairn. Keep the horses quiet. And take this.” She unwound her weapon roll and handed him a small crossbow. “You have your own knife, yes?”

Ramus nodded. He felt uneasy holding the crossbow, yet he could see that Lulah would not allow him to return it.

“Going for a look.” She tied the horses' reins to a stone protruding from the cairn and then stood there for a beat, tapping her hand against her thigh.

“Lulah?”

She looked at him, tight-lipped. “There should be at least two of us,” she said. “I can't watch my own back.”

“I'll come and—”

“You'll give us away.” She looked past the cairn, then up at its summit, maybe twenty steps high.

“You said you don't think it's fresh?”

“Doesn't smell fresh.” She climbed carefully, testing each foothold before transferring her weight from stone to stone, higher, pausing twelve steps up and lying flat against the stones.

Ramus wondered briefly which Chieftain or clan leader was buried beneath the stones, but he had already seen the opening where a barrier of sticks and mud had once shut the tomb. Someone had looted the cairn long ago, and he doubted there was anything inside but dank air.

Lulah slid back down to the ground.

“What did you see?” Ramus asked.

“There's a building half a mile away,” she said. “It looks like a small temple of some kind, though I can't tell to what.”

“And?” he prompted, sensing that there was more.

“Bodies,” she said.

It's a temple to the Sleeping Gods, Ramus thought. I know that already. It's inevitable, and I've fooled with curses I cannot know. It's sensing me, it knows I'm coming and its marking my route and giving me warnings I cannot read on these old pages.

Such thoughts shocked him, but they did not feel as foolish as they should.

“We should go around,” he said. “Head east for a while . . .”

“I suppose that would be safest,” Lulah said uncertainly.

They stood in silence, the rising sun reflecting heat from the light stones.

Can I ignore such a message? he thought. Lulah was staring at him, aware of his discomfort.