Custom in Heredon dictated that the dead be interred before sunset on the day of their death, but so many lords and knights were swelling in from the hills around Longmot, setting up tents, that King Sylvarresta could not be buried. King Orden, too, had not been interred, and whether this was done as an honor, so that the kings might be buried together, or because the people did not want to bury a foreign king on their soil, Gaborn did not know.

But too many people wanted to view the bodies, to pay their last respects.

Gaborn found Iome still mourning her father. The bodies had been cleaned and laid out on fine blankets over beds of paving stones. The Earl of Dreis lay near their feet, in a place of honor.

Upon seeing the dead, the wounds on Gaborn’s heart felt all fresh and new. He went to Iome, sat beside her, and took her hand. She clenched his fingers tightly, as if her very life depended on his touch.

She sat with her head lowered, eyes forward. Gaborn did not know if she was only deep within herself, fighting her pain, or if she kept her face down simply to hide it, for now she was no more lovely than any other maid.

For a long half-hour they sat while the soldiers of Sylvarresta came to pay their last respects, talking to one another in hushed whispers. Many a proud soldier shot Gaborn a disapproving scowl on seeing how he touched Iome so familiarly, but Gaborn defied them.

He feared Raj Ahten had won a small victory here, had succeeded in driving a wedge between two nations that had long been friends.

Vainly, he wondered how he could ever heal that wound.

All along the downs, for a mile around, campfires began to spring up for the night. A soldier came with two large torches, and planned to set one at the heads, the other at the feet of the two kings, but Binnesman warned the man away.

“They died fighting flameweavers,” he said. “It would be inappropriate to put flames so close to them now. There is starlight enough tonight to see by.”

Indeed, the sky was alive with stars, just as campfires lit the valley.

Gaborn had thought it an odd sentiment on Binnesman’s part. Perhaps he feared the flames as much as he loved the earth. Even now, on the cool of the evening, he walked barefoot, keeping himself in contact with the source of his power.

Yet almost as soon as the torches were withdrawn, Iome tensed, as if every muscle in her body spasmed.

She leapt to her feet and raised her hands high over her eyes, gazing up to the surrounding hills, and shouted, “They come! They come! Beware!”