“We've had a rough ride already,” Nomi said, and she leaned into Beko as she felt tears burning. The first dribbled down her cheek and she wiped it away.

“I've certainly had easier,” he said.

“You've lost friends before?” she asked.

“I don't think I'd ever consider Ramus to be your friend.”

“I was talking about you and Konrad.”

Beko sighed. “Oh. Yes, I've lost friends. Saw a woman called Tresay killed in the forests to the north of Pengulfin Landing, cut in half by a razorbill lizard. Two friends taken by sea raiders on the western shores of Marrakash. And back on Mancoseria, of course. Seethe-gators. Not every Serian survives their encounter.”

“But never like that,” Nomi said.

“No. Never killed by the Voyager who hired us.”

“I hired you, Beko.”

“And I'm still grateful you sought my service.” And perhaps it was the heat from the fire, or her unsettled state of mind, or even the elemental roar and groan of the river filling the air and vibrating through the ground, but Nomi heard more in his statement than the literal. She placed her hand gently on his thigh and he did not turn away, did not object, and she knew then what she had heard.

“My tent?” she said quietly.

He turned and looked at her, smiling. “If you're sure.”

“And all these days I've been thinking you were the uncertain one.”

Her tent was cool and filled with the sighs of the river.

THE RIVER BURROWED beneath the ground. It entered the valley from the east, cascading down a set of violent rapids and waterfalls, and then across the valley it plowed into the western hillside, disappearing in a constant cloud of heavy mist that drifted toward them on the breeze and soaked them to the skin. Nomi guessed that the valley had once been a lake with a small drain to some subterranean river, but an ancient cataclysm had opened the ground and swallowed the water, sucking it down into unknowable depths and giving the fertile valley sides and much of its floor back to the trees.

The sound was tremendous, and the clouds of mist thrown up by the tunneling river soaked the air with a permanent fog. The plant and animal life had adjusted to the environment. Soon after descending the slopes and entering the cloud, the group found themselves surrounded by huge butterflies that seemed to swim through the moisture-laden air, wings flapping intermittently. The creatures were friendly and curious, and Nomi found it amusing to watch the Serians carrying a dozen gorgeous butterflies on their shoulders, arms and head. There were many more lizards than they were used to as well, most of them harmless creatures that basked on trees, their glistening skin adapted to moisture rather than sunlight. But there were also creatures less than harmless, and Rhiana was the first—and not the last—to kill a poisonous salamander with an arrow.