He felt so odd. So numb. He wanted to rest, to have time to sort things out.

When they’d reached the far side of the meadow, beneath the shade of the exotic trees, Gaborn heard shouting behind. He glanced back up the trail.

Night had almost completely fallen. Gaborn could see lights shining now from the watchtowers of the Dedicates’ Keep, and from down below at the Soldiers’ Keep, and from the King’s own chambers. A few lonely stars had begun to glow in the sky. This surprised him, for the eyebright so aided his vision that it did not seem night.

But uphill, on the trail behind them, far brighter than any other lights, a fiery man strode into view, the green flames flickering across his shoulders like the tongues of snakes, licking the clean skin of his hairless skull.

The flameweaver was behind the gate still, the same gate Gaborn had entered only minutes before. The guards had fallen back from this sorcerer, and the flameweaver reached out a hand. A bolt of sunlight seemed to burst hungrily from his palm, and the iron gate melted and twisted. The flame-weaver pushed past the ruined gate, entered the garden.

Behind him came Raj Ahten’s scouts. Men in dark robes, searching for Gaborn’s scent.

“Hurry!” Binnesman whispered. If these had been normal men, Gaborn would not have feared. But he sensed now that this was no fight between mere mortals that he engaged in. This was Fire, seeking him.

Then they were running through the woods, over marshy ground beside the stream. Just downhill a few hundred yards, the stream would meet with the River Wye, and there Gaborn hoped to find a means of escape. The maid and the wizard could not match Gaborn’s speed. He jumped some low bushes, and in a few moments they reached a small cottage with whitewashed wattle and a thatch roof.

“I must go and save my seeds,” Binnesman hissed. “Rowan, you know the way to the mill. Take Gaborn. May the Earth be with you both!”

“Come,” Rowan said. “This way.”

She reached back for his sleeve, pulled him down a brick road. Gaborn did as he was told, rushing with a renewed sense of urgency. He could hear shouting in the meadows behind him. He still had his boots in hand, was painfully aware with each step that he needed to put them on, yet Rowan ran over the uneven stones recklessly, feeling nothing.

Yet even as he ran, he felt . . . astonished, full of wonder, incapable of comprehending all that had just happened. He wanted to stop, to take time to ponder. But at the moment, he knew it was too dangerous to do so.

At the edge of the garden, Gaborn told Rowan, “Stop, stop. Put on your shoes, before you break every bone in your foot!”

Rowan stopped, put on her own shoes while Gaborn pulled on his boots; then they ran with greater speed.