Bifalt was only considering the idea. He had not reached a decision. But while he rode upward, the notion of a last stand enticed him. It seemed positively luxurious. Especially if he could take hundreds of the Great God’s men with him when he died. That was a trick he knew how to play.

Of course, Estie might never forgive him. But she already had a list of perfectly reasonable grievances for which she could refuse to forgive him, if she chose. One more would change nothing.

His people, on the other hand— They would feel betrayed. He was their King—and they would have to go on fighting without him. If he failed them, he would shame his father.

Riding to clear his mind, he looked up at the height he wanted to reach. There he could look down on his twisted fate and try to make peace with it.

Approaching from the opposite direction, a mounted figure reached the ridgecrest ahead of him.

The sun rising behind the figure made him unrecognizable, little more than a silhouette. And Bifalt was still half a league away. Still, something about the vague shape struck him as familiar.

The man on the rise turned his horse, apparently scanning the training-fields, the camp, the sprawl of the Open Hand. Soon his survey brought his gaze in the King’s direction.

At once, the newcomer drew his mount to a halt. He seemed to peer downward. With a tentative air, as if he were unsure of his welcome, he lifted one arm and waved.

King Bifalt pushed his horse faster. With every racing stride, he considered possibilities and discarded them. No scout or messenger would arrive from that direction. An enemy? Waving? Nonsense. An emissary? Impossible. The east of Belleger held no one who might send a single rider here.

A random cloud covered the sun. Cold air gusting in Bifalt’s face blurred his vision. Pain pounded in his skull. He wanted more speed, but the ascent slowed his mount.

As he closed the distance, the man waiting for him looked more and more familiar.

When he recognized the rider at last, his world veered into a new shape. Between one heartbeat and the next, every dimension and implication of his plight reeled.

The man was Elgart.

THIRTEEN

A MAN RETURNS

King Bifalt surged up onto the spine of the ridge and pounded along it toward the height where Elgart waited.

The man had changed. Bifalt discounted the grime and weariness of hard traveling, the dirt in the creases of the spy’s visage, the ominous pallor of the scar that split his face. Elgart could not have arrived after so many days without a long road behind him. He was still the man who had been Bifalt’s friend and spy, the man who had goaded Bifalt to surpass himself in the Last Repository.