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“We were both frustrated,” I said. “My own anger was uncalled for.”

He nodded, and after a bit: “Do you think it will be your brother who meets us tomorrow at the Rattling Saber?”

“I think it will be men trying to kill us. I’m not sure why I think that.”

He nodded. “Your brother seemed...an important man among them. He did not....”

I waited for him to continue, and when he held his words I prodded. “He did not what?”

“He did not seem much like you.”

“How so?” I asked, not sure that I truly wanted to know.

“He was cold. I judged him brutal. And thought he needed no reason to show it.”

I started to protest but he rushed on.

“He resembled you greatly, though his hair was dead white and his face tattooed, like the ritual scarrings of the Thorn Nomads. But done in ink.”

“Bryce’s hair is nearly as dark as mine, I said. “He has no tattoos.”

“Then you have a second brother on Talera,” Graye retorted. “And his hair is white and his face tattooed.” He frowned as if something more had occurred to him. “There was something...odd about his markings, too. Something I don’t know how to name.”

“Tell me,” I demanded, leaning forward, fists knotted against legs. “What about his marks?”

Graye met my gaze and did not flinch. “They moved.”

I shook my head. “They could not have.”

“But they did,” he said, and now he looked down, into the fire, and he spoke so softly I could scarcely hear. “His eyes were the worst, though. The very worst.”

I reached out to grab his collar and he caught my wrist, held it as he lifted his head and the shadows and fire played on his lean face.

“His eyes were red. Like pearls. Bloody pearls. He had no pupils. It wasn’t...human.”

I shook off his hand. “You lie!”

His lips twisted. “I am still enough of a nomad not to lie. And you and I both know that I speak the truth now.”

My shoulders slumped. The blanket and fire were suddenly not enough to warm me. “What has happened to him?” I asked to no one, and wondered if my voice sounded as hollow and empty as I felt.

Diken Graye shrugged, rose to his feet to loom over me.

“I will stay until you find your brother,” he said. “Or,” he paused, scuffing a furrow in the dirt with his boot, “until it is clear you will not.”

Then he turned and sought his blankets, leaving me alone in an overwhelming darkness.

“Brother,” I murmured. “Where are you? What are you?”

There was one other question that I did not voice. Even in a whisper. But I thought it.

The parchment note that Rannon had shown me in Timmuzz, the one that had done so much to discredit me in her eyes and in the eyes of her father: why had Bryce written it?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE “RATTLING SABER”

Alone on my sabrun, I landed in the market square of Trazull where yesterday I had announced the search for my brother. It was deep into the Spring Passage by now but still there were no celebrations underway here to rival the kind of city-wide festivals that would be taking place in Nyshphal and many other lands. I suppose a government is needed to plan such affairs, and there is no government in Trazull save the will of mercenaries and pirate captains.

Fewer people were in the square today than before, but it was clear that most knew who I was. Fingers pointed; I heard whispers as I led the saddle bird to the hitching rail in front of the Rattling Saber tavern and tied him off. From beneath the stirrup at the right side of the bird’s saddle, I drew out an eight-foot lance of steel. My left hand gripped the scabbard of my sword, just behind the quillions where I could push the blade forward to draw it quickly if needed. At my right hip, and in a sheath sewn into my boot, there were daggers.

The door to the tavern stood open. Even in the fresh sun and the salt air I could smell stale odors from past spills of wine, and ale, and kumiss. I stepped onto the wooden walkway in front of the tavern and strode inside. Six beings sat at the tables, not all at the same table. Bryce was not among