“Iome,” Gaborn said, “how can you doubt that Raj Ahten is evil? What do you have that he has not yet tried to take? Your body? Your family? Your home? Your freedom? Your wealth? Your position? Your country? He has taken your life, as surely as if he’d slain you, for he desires to strip away all that you have and all you hope to be. What more must he do to you, before you know him to be evil? What more?”

Iome could not answer.

“I’m going to cut off the bastard’s head,” Gaborn said. “I’m going to find a way to do it, but first we need to get out of here alive. Now will you come with me, if I bring your father out of the city, too?”

He took her hand, and when he touched her, all darkness fled. Iome’s heart pounded. She almost dared not to believe her fortune, for when she looked into Gaborn’s eyes, all her fears, all her self-loathing and sense of ugliness vanished. It was as if he were some living talisman that wrought a change on her very heart. A stone fortress, she thought. A haven. “Please,” he begged, using all the powers of his Voice.

She nodded yes, numb. “I’ll come.”

Gaborn squeezed her hand. “I don’t know how, yet, but I’ll come for you and your father—soon—in the Dedicates’ Keep.”

Iome felt again that sensual thrill, the longing she associated with the presence of Binnesman. Her heart pounded. He had just held her tenderly, as though she still had her endowments of glamour, as if she were beautiful.

He turned, took a short sword from a corpse and tucked it in the folds of his robe, then hurried from the tomb, his fleeting shadow blocking the cold sunlight a moment.

As he fled, she almost dared not believe he would return for her, that he would not save her. Yet a warm certainty filled her. He would be back.

When he was gone, Iome’s Days said, “You should be careful of that one.”

“How so?”

“He could break your heart.” Iome could not fail to note something odd in the Days’ voice, a tone of respect.

Iome felt terrified. If Raj Ahten caught her trying to escape, he’d show no mercy. Yet she knew that her heart was not pounding in fear, but for another reason. She held her hand over her heart, trying to still it.

I think he already has broken it, she told herself.

18

DUELING WITH DECEPTION

Two hours after Gaborn fled Iome in the tombs, Borenson rode up to the ruined gates of Castle Sylvarresta, a green flag of truce flying from a dead nomen’s lance. He forced a smile.

His muscles ached, and his armor was covered in blood. He now rode a new horse, gleaned from a fellow soldier who would never ride again.