In the next instant, the man disappeared, his weight gone as he tumbled away. She gave out a gasp of relief, able to breathe again, and tried to see what was happening. A battle was being fought between her attackers and someone else. But there were bodies flying everywhere, and forest shadows were mixed with black-clad attackers. She could hear grunts and cries, the sounds of metal on metal and the sharp hiss of life suddenly cut short. Several of her attackers went sprawling anew, and this time they did not get up. Two—she thought them the last—fought in silent desperation against a newcomer. No one spoke. The battle was swift and brutal and final.

In seconds all of those who had sought to hurt her lay still, and Cymrian was kneeling next to her.

“You test my patience, Aphen.”

She struggled to rise, but he pushed her down. “Don’t do that. Your leg is broken and needs to be set.”

She nodded and lay back obediently. “Thanks for coming,” she whispered.

“I would have come sooner if I had known where you were.”

She nodded again. “I know. It was foolish not to tell you the truth. I’m sorry.”

“Just promise me you won’t lie to me again.”

“I promise.” She met his gaze and held it. “I do.”

He reached down and handed her the Elfstones. “I think it would be best if you kept these.”

She took the Stones from him, fumbled them into her pocket, and watched in silence as he began the work of splinting her leg.

15

THE TALL THIN MAN WITH THE FLAT-BLACK ROBES AND eyes to match strode through the halls of the Federation Council chambers at midday like a wraith through a graveyard. His passage was soundless, but it drew immediate attention. Men and women stepped aside for him, offering fawning words and submissive gestures. He gave them nods of recognition, small acknowledgments with a lifting of his hand and a ruffling of his sleeve, meaningless gestures, his face dispassionate, his expression unrevealing. He kept his body still as he walked so that it appeared as if he were gliding. He kept his head bowed so that it seemed as if he were in some sense as deferential to them as they were to him.

But he was nothing of what he appeared, neither deferential nor dispassionate. He saw those he passed not as colleagues or equals, certainly not as friends or fellow citizens. They were of little importance to him, there to serve his purposes, whatever those purposes might be, there to fulfill whatever wishes might need fulfilling.

Though he would never let them see this. How he used them and how they responded were acts seemingly unrelated, in which everything was achieved as if in the natural course of things, as predestined and inevitable as the rising and setting of the sun.