So, Gaborn surmised, Raj Ahten had come here, had seen the clouds of Gaborn’s passage, the distant herds of cattle and soldiers mingled together, had fallen for the ruse.

That gave Gaborn some comfort. Raj Ahten could be fooled, could be beaten.

Gaborn circled the tower, tried to see down into the woods. He imagined his father and Raj Ahten struggling on the tower, until at last, perhaps, his father was thrown over.

He looked down, saw what he dreaded: at the base of the observatory, among the rocks, a hand thrust up, dead fingers clutching a palm full of snow.

Gaborn raced down the winding stairs, found his father, and pulled at the corpse, shaking it to clear the snow off.

What he saw broke his heart. For on his father’s frozen face was a broad smile. Perhaps in death, some fleeting memory had made him smile. Or perhaps it was but a grimace of pain. Yet Gaborn imagined that his father smiled at him, as if to congratulate him for his victory.

57

TODAY I AM DEATH

Gaborn had already ridden ahead when Iome’s glamour returned. Iome had no idea how Raj Ahten’s vector had died, felt little relief at the woman’s passing. Like Iome, the woman had been a mere tool in Raj Ahten’s hand, one that was poorly used.

Yet Iome’s beauty returned. She felt it as an easing of her heart, a return of her confidence. Like a flower blossoming.

Yet it was not the unnatural beauty she’d had since birth, not the borrowed glamour. The skin on her hands softened and lost their wrinkles. The blush of youth returned to her cheeks. For once in her life, for the first time, Iome was simply herself, without benefit of endowments.

It was enough. She wished that Gaborn could have been here to see, but he had ridden ahead.

Though messengers from Longmot had told Iome what to expect when she reached the castle, had said that Raj Ahten had destroyed it with a shout, nothing they said could have prepared her for the ruin.

She rode at the head of ten thousand people from out of Groverman and the villages round about. Many of the women had already turned back, heading for their own hearths, their own homes. Their work here was done.

But others followed Iome, particularly people who’d lived in Longmot, who had come to see what was left of their homes.

As they neared the ruined castle, saw the empty fields with wolves slinking about the hedgerows, many women and children began crying for what they’d lost.

They’d deserted their homes three days ago, but a few days of huddling under ragged shelters at Groverman had shown them just how difficult it would be to make do once the snows fell.