“It better,” Roh said. He navigated the bear back up toward the place they had crossed that morning, a dozen yards upstream. He whistled to the bear. “Fast,” he muttered. “Like the wind.”

The bear shambled out over the ice. Roh nearly lost his grip on Luna. Luna shivered and clutched at the blankets.

They cleared the river and loped out toward the curve of the road.

Roh kept up the pace as long as he dared, but the bear was starting to balk. He slowed. An hour to the keep would be too long. He’d have to ask the garrison to bed Luna down. Even that might be too late.

The road was utterly dark. He navigated by the lights of Kuonrada. He was still some way from the gate, moving up toward the curve of the hill, when he saw the dark rider.

His heart stuck in his throat. He felt a tingling across his shoulders. The rider was tall, cloaked all in black. Was it one of the invaders?

Roh gathered himself and prepared to call Para, though his hands trembled and his body shook.

The rider’s voice: “Have you found your way back, puppy?”

Roh let out his breath.

The dark rider’s bear loped to him, the shadow of a sanisi, not… something else.

“Kadaan,” Roh said.

“You expected someone else?” Kadaan said. “Your Ora Dasai said you were late. My Patron has an interest in where you are.”

“Luna fell into the river. Ze’s going to freeze. Kihin’s back there without boots.”

Kadaan reined in next to him. His knee touched Roh’s. “This is what happens when Dhais are left alone,” he said. “You see it?”

“Kadaan!”

Kadaan placed a hand on Luna’s forehead. The air around Roh condensed, felt too heavy. The blue breath of Para cloaked Kadaan’s body and then encircled Luna. Luna glowed blue for a long moment. Then his shivering ceased.

“That will do for a time,” Kadaan said. “Get hir back and get hir warm. I’ll find your friend.”

Kadaan whistled his bear past.

Roh turned back. “Kadaan!” he shouted.

Kadaan turned.

“Thank you,” Roh said.

“I do not do this for you,” Kadaan said. “I do this for my Patron. Best not confuse my intent.”

Chapter 39

39

They trussed Lilia up like a beast, slung a blanket over her, and put her across the back of a dog. Her skin was rubbed raw; she was jostled painfully, and rode that way for all the daylight hours and several more after dark. She offered no resistance. After a while, the enforcers stopped goading her.

She had fulfilled her promise to her mother, some other woman’s mother, a shadow-mother. And her mother didn’t want her. Lilia really was no one, a ghost, caught somewhere between this world and another. Despair had overcome her. She looked at the world through a black well of darkness.