She guided me and we threaded our way through the back streets of the fort. I’d never really explored the area where the officers were housed; I’d never had reason to. The structures dated from the fort’s earlier days and were tidily built. Most of them seemed to have a fresh coat of paint, but that sprucing up could not completely disguise years of previous neglect.

Wooden steps sagged, window shutters were missing slats, and the few gardens had the bare, brave look of fresh effort. The housing for the junior officers and their families was humbler and had not been as well built.

“Pull in!” Amzil warned me, and at the corner of a street, I hauled Clove to a halt.

“I’ll get down here,” she said, “so Mistress Epiny does not see you dropping me off.” Before I could start to climb down to assist her, she gave a little jump and landed in the dust of the streets. Her skirts billowed out around her as she landed, and for a moment I had a glimpse of her stockinged ankles. “Keep the children in,” I reminded her as I took up Clove’s reins.

“I will,” she promised and then, holding up a hand to bid me wait, she asked, “What are you going to do?”

I almost laughed. “I’m going back to the cemetery. I’ve got a lot of graves to dig. I may as well get started today.”

My words startled her. “You really do believe the Dust Dance will bring on the plague in the next few days.” Her brow furrowed. “Aren’t you going to warn Colonel Haren?”

“I saw him this morning. I had my say then, and he didn’t believe me. I doubt he’ll believe me now. He’d only be angry to find I’d defied his direct order and come back into town. I’m supposed to be hiding out in the cemetery so his visitors don’t see me. I’m an embarrassment to the regiment, you know.”

She squinted her eyes looking up at me. “Do you still care about things like that?”

“Of course I do.” I shook Clove’s reins. “I’m a soldier son.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

THE AMBUSH

I guided Clove back through the streets the same way we had come. My mind seethed and my blood simmered with both unfocused anger and frustrated magic. My peoples were set on killing each other off. The moment I recognized that thought in my mind, I realized how much the magic had changed me. Not so long ago, I had belonged to only one people. At one time I would have shared Colonel Haren’s conviction that the road and trade would bring good to the Specks, and like him I would have rejected the idea that the trees could be anything more than trees.

Yet the part of me that had been initially stolen and made Speck was now as integral to my self as the soldier son was. Every day, his memories surfaced more clearly in my mind. Removing those trees was the equivalent of burning all Gernian libraries. The Specks might go on without them, but they would lose their roots.