Nightwalker’s eyes shifted to Bird, as if to assess whether she really would act. He spun, cocking back his arm, and threw his blade, hard, at Bird. Then he sprang toward Raisa, leading with her knife.

Night Bird’s bow sounded, but he kept coming. Raisa swung her staff the best she could. It struck Nightwalker in his midsection, stopping his forward momentum, but it was by no means a disabling blow. For a long moment, he stood upright, extending the blade toward her as if he could reach across the distance between them. The bow sounded again, and he flinched, eyes widening, then toppled to the floor, two black-fletched arrows centering his back.

Raisa shuddered, remembering Bird’s furious reaction to Elena’s betrayal of Han. You’re the fool, Nightwalker, she thought. You never bothered to get to know your bed partner, as you called her.

She looked up at Bird. Bird gazed down at Nightwalker as if to verify that he wouldn’t be getting up. Her eyes shifted to Raisa, and she pressed her fist to her chest, a clan salute.

And Raisa saw what she hadn’t before. Nightwalker’s blade had struck true—through the base of Bird’s throat.

“Bird!” Raisa screamed. “Sweet martyred Lady!”

Bird swayed, eyes wide, groping at her neck with both hands. Blood bubbled from her lips. And she fell, landing like a rag doll on the warehouse floor.

When Amon Byrne found them, Raisa was sitting on the blood-spattered floor, cradling Bird in her arms, crooning a clan requiem.

C H A P T E R  F I F T Y - N I N E

REDO

Han discovered that being at war could serve as an excuse for almost anything—including a small, rather hurried wedding.

He’d never expected to be going to temple at eighteen—and he was barely that, having just had his birthday. But then, for most of his life he hadn’t expected to live to be eighteen. Looking at it that way, he was marrying late in life.

Han was eager to get it done before the opposition could organize, or some new calamity could befall them. He couldn’t shed the nagging worry that Raisa might change her mind. Or the speakers at temple might decide that 95th cousins couldn’t marry.

He recalled what he’d said to the girl he knew as Rebecca one night at Oden’s Ford.

Every time I try to set something aside for the future, it gets taken away.