“Good night, Grim.”

“Sweet dreams.”

• • •

I woke suddenly and fully, my heart hammering, my skin prickling with the awareness of danger. On the far side of the fire, Grim lay as if dead, a motionless dark form. Someone was kneeling over him. The firelight caught the glint of a knife, the red stain on the blade.

In a breath I was up, ax in hand. “What are you doing?” I yelled, striding forward. Flannan whipped around, rose to a crouch, the knife pointed toward me. His white face. His wide eyes. A traitor. My friend. My own voice sounded in my mind: He should face up to us.

I hit him with the haft, hard. But he was moving and the blow missed his head, glancing instead across his neck and cheek. Flannan let out an oath and staggered to his feet, still clutching the bloody knife. Now he took a lurching step toward me, moving past Grim. Oh, gods, Grim. Grim dead or dying.

I stepped back, tripped over my hem, struggled to keep my balance. Dropped the ax. I fought to find words. Time. I needed time. I would not turn and run. How could I leave Grim? “You don’t have to do this, Flannan.” I put my hands up, palms forward, in a gesture of surrender. “You didn’t have to do any of it. You were a good man once.”

“Do what? What are you talking about? Your man here just tried to kill me. Went for me without even asking what my business was. I defended myself as a man does.”

“Bollocks!” The lying swine! He thought I would swallow that? “You, beat Grim in a fight?”

“You’re angry. I understand that. Just—just be calm and listen. I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you the way we planned. There was a—a distraction. But I’ve found you now, and we can go south. Do everything we were going to do. Just the two of us. You wanted him out of the way, didn’t you? We can head off for Mide exactly as we planned.”

“So why are you still pointing that knife at me?” A knife that was less than steady. He was pale, sweating, shaking. He looked as if he might do anything. “You’re a liar. A liar and a traitor. There never was any plot, was there? There never were any witnesses waiting to speak out; there never was any network of like minds in the south. Just you, a godforsaken coward, doing Mathuin’s dirty business.” I was damned if I was going to die without telling the bastard what I thought of him.

Flannan opened his mouth, no doubt to deny it all, then swallowed and spoke again. “I had no choice.” He shifted the knife from one hand to the other. “If anyone should understand, it’s you.”

How dared he? I was on the brink of hurling myself forward and attacking the rotten mongrel with my bare hands, knife or no knife. I made myself breathe.