“So you will not let me find a ledge—not that there are many in Vonja—” Stammel put the thought of bridges and the Immerest’s swift current out of his mind. Suli would be disappointed in him.

“You would not go looking for ledges,” Suli said. “Not a sergeant in the Duke’s Company.”

In the night—the true night, not the night of blindness—the dreams and memories came. He was not always sure which was which. When the grange was quiet, and the night breeze changed the scents that blew in, he lay, sometimes dozing, sometimes truly sleeping, sometimes wakeful. Now he remembered most of the day it happened, remembered the soldiers drilling, the trips in and out of the city with Arcolin. He could almost see the faces, the places. Marshal Harak—his face would not come clear. That last ride into the city … he could almost feel the saddle between his thighs. Arcolin had called him in to speak to the Council about … about something. Someone.

One night it burst in on him. Recognizing one of the caravan guards as Korryn, his fox-head brand camouflaged with more scars. His own testimony to the Council—the Council’s request that they go see the man in prison to be sure of his identity. And Korryn had said—something—and then hands at Stammel’s neck, choking; he had fallen—unconscious—found himself under bodies, a welter of blood and guts, with Korryn free, and everyone else motionless. Arcolin’s hand, near his sword, had been trembling with the effort he made to move.

But he, Stammel, could move, and he had struggled out from under the bodies, stabbed Korryn, and Arcolin had struck at once … and then … and then … like a blow inside his head, he had been stunned, and the fires began.

He woke, aware that he’d cried out and was soaked with sweat.

“Sir?” Suli, as always, was first to his side.

“Bad dream,” he said. “Just a bad dream.”

The fires, he’d been told, were the demon’s invasion. But Korryn … that was not a demon, inside Korryn. He was sure of that. It was something else, something less than a demon, something … almost human.

What humans had powers to hold men still? Arcolin had told him what the prince said of the assassination attempt. The Verrakai had such powers. Magelords. But if Korryn had been a magelord, had such powers, why go for a soldier?

At first Stammel could totter only a few steps to the jacks, leaning on someone’s arm. Then he made it out to the grange itself. His soldiers applauded. He tried to grin; he hoped it looked normal. Day by day, days he found it impossible to count without light, he pushed himself for more, knowing from years of training that his body would respond. All the way to the front entrance, where he stood gasping for breath, feeling the sun on his face. All the way back, one hand on the wall to guide him. Around the interior, still touching the wall, until he could find his own way to the jacks, to the bathing room, to the little kitchen.