God, he remembered thinking at one point, I’ll bet there’s a lot of kids born nine months after one of these feasts. A good life, he decided, being a Rider of the Dalrei, of the third tribe, of the children of Ivor—He sat up abruptly. Tore glanced at him, but made no comment. You have a father, Dave told himself sternly. And a mother and brother. You’re a law student in Toronto, and a basketball player, for God’s sake.

“In that order?” he remembered Kim Ford teasing, the first time they’d met; or had Kevin Laine put it the other way around? He couldn’t remember. Already the time before the crossing seemed astonishingly remote. The Dalrei were real, Martyniuk thought. This axe, the wood, Tore—his kind of person. And there was more.

His mind looped back again to the night before, and this time it zeroed in on the thing that mattered much more than it should, more, he knew, than he could allow it to. Still, it did. He leaned back against the tree again, going with the memory.

Liane had kissed him when her dance was done.

They heard it at the same time: something crashing loudly through the trees. Tore, child of night and woods, knew immediately—only someone who wanted to be heard would make so much noise. He didn’t bother moving.

Dave, however, felt his heart lurch with apprehension. “What the hell is that?” he whispered fiercely, grabbing for his axe.

“Her brother, I think,” Tore said, inadvisedly, and felt himself go crimson in the dark.

Even Dave, far from a perceptive man, could hardly miss that one. When Levon finally emerged through the trees, he found the two of them sitting in an awkward silence.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he offered apologetically. “I thought I might watch with you. Not that you need me, but…”

There was truly no guile, no hauteur in Levon. The man who had just done Revor’s Kill, who would one day lead the tribe, was sheepishly requesting their indulgence.

“Sure,” Dave said. “He’s your brother. Come sit down.”

Tore managed a short nod. His heartbeat was slowing, though, and after a time he decided he didn’t really mind if Davor knew. I’ve never had a friend, he thought suddenly. This is the sort of thing you talk to friends about.

It was all right that Levon had come; Levon was unlike anyone else. And he had done something the morning before that Tore was not sure he would have dared to try. The realization was a hard one for a proud man, and a different person might have hated Levon for it. Tore, however, measured out his respect in terms of such things. Two friends, he thought, I have two friends here.

Though he could only speak of her to one of them.