“I am twelve. I will be married next year or the year after, they say, after my sister Teloni is married.”

“I wish you much happiness, now and later. Your friends look as though they are about to call for the lord protector to come rescue you. Perhaps you should go.”

She began to turn, then stopped. “When I said you were King Olin of Southmarch, why did you say I was only half right? Isn’t that who you are? Everyone knows about you.”

“I am Olin of Southmarch, but no man is king when he is another man’s prisoner.” Even the sad, tired smile did not make an appearance this time. “Go on, young Pelaya of the Ocean. The others are waiting. The grace of Zoria on you—it has been a pleasure to speak with you.”

Leaving the courtyard garden, the other girls surrounded Pelaya as though she were a deserter being dragged back to justice. She stole one look back but the man was staring at nothing again—watching clouds, perhaps, or the endless procession of waves in the strait: there was little else he could see from the high-walled garden.

“You should not have spoken to him,” Teloni said. “He is a prisoner—a foreigner! Father will be furious.”

“Yes.” Pelaya felt sad, but also different—strange, as though she had learned something talking to the prisoner, something that had changed her, although she could not imagine what that might be. “Yes, I expect he will.”

10

Crooked and his Great-Grandmother

The great family of Twilight was already mighty when the ancestors of our people first came to the land, and the newcomers were drawn to one or the other of the twin tribes, the children of Breeze or the children of Moisture, who were always contesting.

One day Lord Silvergleam of the Breeze clan was out riding, and caught sight of Pale Daughter, the child of Thunder, son of Moisture, as lovely as a white stone. She also saw him, so tall and hopeful, and their hearts found a shared melody that will never be lost until the world ends.

Thus began the Long Defeat.

—from One Hundred Considerations
out of the Qar’s Book of Regret

BARRICK EDDON WOKE UP in the grip of utter terror, feeling as though his heart might crack like an egg. He could smell something burning, but the world was cold and astonishingly dark. For long moments he had no idea of where he was. Out of doors, yes—the rustle and creak of trees in the wind was unmistakable…

He was behind the Shadowline, of course.

Barrick felt as though he had just awakened from a long, bizarre dream—a feeling he knew all too well—but the waking was not much more reassuring than the dream. The endless twilight of these lands had actually ended, but only because the sky had turned black—and not just night-dark, but empty of stars, too, as though some angry god had thrown a cloak over all of creation. Had it not been for the last of the coals still glowing in the stone fire circle, the darkness would have been complete. And that terrible, acrid smell…