“But it also proves another”—she took a deep breath as if even she needed to brace herself—“a more dangerous conclusion. Some or many of their kind have entered Amika.

“The Hearth-Keepers cannot know how many strangers have passed beyond their reach. They will kill as many as they can. But their distance from each other makes it impossible for them to know how many hundreds—or thousands—have escaped.”

It was too much. Estie did not know how to bear it. A third enemy? And she could do nothing to warn Bifalt. She was helpless, as helpless as she had always been to breach the walls around his heart.

Abruptly, the devotee stood. “Now, Majesty,” she announced, “I must ride to the Last Repository.

“I will not advise you to have no fear. But I urge you to fear as little as you can. I will be days ahead of you when I reach the Repository. As soon as I arrive, Magister Avail can make this new peril known to Belleger’s King. He will do everything that can be done.”

While the assassin called for her horse, a renewed pang snatched Estie to her feet. Lylin had told her too much—and not enough. This might be her last chance to get an answer.

As the devotee prepared to leave, the Queen asked once again, “Why did you fight Jaspid?”

Lylin paused. Over her shoulder, she said, “He demanded my best.” For the first time, she sounded angry. “I could not give less. Not to him.”

A moment later, she was gone.

She left Estie thinking that Jaspid may have achieved more than he realized.

Later, the Queen considered that perhaps the same could be said of her. She, too, had accomplished something more. She had swallowed her reluctance to trust the most holy devotee. The result was like opening a door. Lylin would warn the Magisters. Magister Avail would warn Bifalt. Estie’s husband would not be taken by surprise.

Since the day of their first meeting, he had surprised her often. In fact, he had shaken her whole understanding of the world. Because of him, she had become more than she would have been otherwise, far more. When he knew what Magister Avail could tell him, he might be able to devise a surprise or two for this new enemy.

Estie hoped for that. The prospect eased her fretting as she settled herself to endure the last stages of her journey.

TEN

THE LAST REPOSITORY’S WELCOME

Queen Estie’s journey from the bridge to the Last Repository took four days. During the first two, she traveled the road that caravans had used for generations or centuries. Crossing the desert at a distance from the mountains in the east, it made its way southward among the dunes.