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Dread spilled into Travis's gut. He looked at Beltan. “Where is Vani?”

Beltan's green eyes were troubled. “I think you'd better come.”

Beltan moved across the dusty plain, and Travis followed, the Maugrim shuffling behind. They crested a rise, then came to a rough half circle of stones that offered some protection from the wind. In the center, a fire burned in a pit. Travis didn't know where they had found the wood—maybe one of the few withered trees—but the fire drew him forward like a moth. A group of women clustered near the fire; he saw Vani in their center.

He ran the last remaining steps. “Vani . . .”

She looked up and smiled. The expression broke his heart. Her face was lined in pain, as gray as the ashes on the ground. She wore aurochs hide clothes like Travis and Beltan, and another hide, fur side in, over her shoulders.

The Maugrim women drew back, and Travis knelt beside her. “Vani, what is it?”

She only shook her head; tears ran from her golden eyes, snatched away by the dry air.

“There's something wrong with the baby,” Beltan said.

Vani drew in a sharp hiss of breath. Travis looked up. What was Beltan talking about?

“How long?” Vani said, her voice trembling. “How long have you known I am with child?”

Beltan's face was sad, thoughtful. “Since the white ship. It wasn't hard to figure out, even for me. Your sickness in the mornings gave it away.”

She bowed her head. “I wanted to tell you.”

“I know,” he said.

This didn't make any sense. How could Vani be pregnant? Travis and she had never been together, not that way. He looked from her to Beltan, and all at once the sorrow on both their faces made the answer clear.

He staggered to his feet. “How?” It was all he could say.

Vani shook her head.

“It was the Little People,” Beltan said, not meeting his gaze. “On Sindar's ship. They tricked us. We came upon each other in an impossible garden, only we each thought . . .”

Travis clutched his arm. “You thought what?”

“We each thought the other was you,” Vani said, looking up at Travis, her gold eyes anguished. “We lay together, and only when we awoke did we know the truth. Why the Little People did this to us, we know not. Only that they did.”

A tide of emotions surged in Travis: shock, betrayal, jealousy, dread. Vani and Beltan had made love? He fought for comprehension. Only it didn't matter if he understood. The Little People were ancient, and they were not human; their purposes were a mystery. Besides, all that mattered was that Vani was with child. With Beltan's child. And that child was in danger.

Travis took all feelings save love and put them aside. He sank again to his knees, hesitated, then laid his hand on her stomach. Vani tensed but did not resist. He could feel it: the first swelling of her belly.

“What's wrong?”

“I don't know.” Vani grimaced in pain as a spasm passed through her.

One of the women pushed past Travis. She was old, her face as soft and wrinkled as her robe of aurochs hide. The robe was marked with several bright ocher handprints. She brushed knobby fingers across Vani's stomach and made hooting and grunting sounds deep in her throat.

The cold of the Void has harmed the child. Its hold upon the mother's womb has been loosened.

“What can we do?” Travis said.

The woman looked him up and down, her eyes like hard pebbles. She jabbed a finger at Travis's chest. You are a wizard. Cold has frozen the child, and only fire can warm her. You must use the Stone.

Travis stared at her. No, that couldn't be the answer. Fire couldn't save, it could only burn.

“What is it, Travis?” Beltan said. “I could almost understand her, but not quite.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the Imsari. Krondisar, the Stone of Fire. “She said the cold has harmed the baby, that only fire can save her.”

“Her?” Vani clutched her stomach. “The child is a girl? But how can she know?”

The old woman let out a chortling sound. She is awake already. It is too soon, but she speaks to me all the same.

Travis relayed these words, though he did not