It made no sense.

I carried the swanneck back to the fire where I could look at it more clearly. Sergeant Duril was recovering from his fright at my injury. He stood up as I approached the fire. “Leave that!” he ordered me harshly.

“Leave everything, just as it is. We need to get down that trail before it gets any darker.” He walked away from me. I stood alone in the firelight and stared at my blood on the blade. I lied to myself, pretending that perhaps it had run there. I knew it hadn’t. The swanneck had pierced me, had gone right into my gut. And my flesh had simply closed itself when he pulled it free. The blade fell from my hand and landed in the flames. I turned and walked away from it. I didn’t look at Dewara’s body as I passed. When Duril announced, “We’re leading the horses down the trail, at least as far as the switchback,” I didn’t argue with him. Instead, I followed him just as trustingly as I had always followed him when I was a boy.

I didn’t dwell on what we left behind us. I doubted that either the boy or the old woman would admit to anyone that they had betrayed Dewara’s hiding place. Even if they did, even if we were connected to his death, he had attacked me, and Duril had saved my life. It felt strange to leave him lying where he had fallen, but it would have felt even more wrong to take his body and bury it elsewhere.

Darkness filled the narrow canyon like water fills a bucket. “Can you ride?”

Sergeant Duril asked me gruffly.

“I’ll be fine. It wasn’t much more than a scratch.” I hesitated, and then asked him, “Are you going to report this to my father?”

“I’m not going to report this to anyone. Neither are you.”

“Yes sir,” I said, relieved to have that decision taken from me so firmly.

We mounted our horses and he led the way back toward home. We rode without speaking through the deeply shadowed canyon. When we emerged onto the plain, we came back out of night into evening. The last light of the setting sun still washed red across the flatlands. Duril stirred his mount to a faster pace and I pushed Sirlofty up alongside him. He didn’t turn to look at me when he spoke.

“Well. You got what you were after?”

“I did and I didn’t. Dewara’s dead. I wasn’t after that, not really. But I don’t think he would have let it end any other way, once he knew what I’d done. But I don’t think I solved anything tonight. I’m still fat. According to Dewara, I’m still in Tree Woman’s power.” I shook my head wildly. “And it all sounds like a strange old tale told by a fireside. How can I believe anything so bizarre?” He didn’t say anything. I kept my eyes straight ahead as I pondered everything that had happened. “He knew,” I said at last. “Dewara knew what had happened in my dream. And he couldn’t possibly know that unless he was there. And to him, it was just as real as our visit today. According to what he believed, the Tree Woman somehow enslaved me with her magic and doomed me to be, to be—this!” I could scarcely contain my disgust. “If I believe him, I’m doomed to be this for the rest of my life, and perhaps worse things will befall me. Maybe I will go on to betray all of Gernia!”