It was a moment before she could work it out. “You mean after we…? Why would I kill you…?” She thought he meant that she would have been horrified at what she had done, perhaps, or… No, she didn’t know what he meant at all.

“That is what happens. That is what I thought would happen,” Enth told her, speaking carefully. “Where I was, when I was… myself, that is how it would be.”

And she thought, spiders, and put a hand to her mouth. It was horrific. Worse, if he had been expecting that, the previous night, and still… and at the same time part of her wanted to start laughing hysterically.

Oh, I’ve been worrying. I’ve been worrying about how he felt. And he was worrying about being killed and… what?

“You thought I was going to eat you?” she managed.

He nodded, quite matter-of-factly. “I do not know how it is, with humans.”

“Well, now you know.” She closed her eyes, rubbed at the lids. “And I suppose that puts a lot of things in perspective. But I’m sorry. I’m sorry that…” She couldn’t quite say it. “I’m sorry I used you. I’m sorry.”

There was the lightest touch on her arm, and she opened her eyes to see the tips of his fingers resting here, before being pulled hurriedly back. His eyes were on her, his face not currently hung with any of the manufactured expressions he had learned. He said nothing, though, just waited for her to lead on.

The leader of their band of scouts was a squat, hirsute man who obviously thought them too doomed to bother with names. He chewed constantly, some herbal business or other, and spoke only when he had to. He had a very expressive face, which he dedicated in its entirety to showing just how little he thought of Dion and her followers.

They passed out of Cad Nereg at dusk, that blind hour when the shadows hid more than plain darkness ever could, and even night-adapted Ghantish eyes were at their worst. The scouts were a dozen in number, cloaked in mottled gray and carrying little recurved bows and short swords, every bit of metal on them blackened and muffled. Out there in the gathering gloom their opposite numbers were probably mirroring them unknowingly. The Dark Lord was profligate with the lives of his servants—Ghantish spies tended to come in numbers, and without much subtlety. The Light could not afford to be so cheap with its adherents. And yet they died, still, those scouts. Every scrap of news about the mustering of Darvezian’s forces was won in blood.

Dion and her band had no intention of skulking about in the shadow of Cad Usgath. Now was where Nth must prove himself. There was little doubt what Harathes would press for, if he could not.