Maunyn stopped a spear's length away. A deep hood hid his face, but silver-blue light danced at the tips of his hair. He bore no signs of his house, but he was unmistakable.

“I hope you don't expect me to pay for that?” Maunyn asked.

Ren fidgeted with the boy's hair, unsure of what to say.

“A boy… that boy certainly… was not your task,” Maunyn said.

“He is a fine boy, milord,” he said. His voice squeaked out and echoed.

“He's too old,” Maunyn said, hard and growling. “Can't you see that?”

Ren turned the boy's face up. He was listening to them; the movement of his eyes told him as much. He'd seemed small at the time and folded up so neatly into the sack. Goddess above, was he already declared? Was he Benthrae's prized son, their last chance at alliance with another house ruined? Ren chewed his lower lip. But he was so small! He couldn't be older than five… six?

Maunyn's hand moved to the pommel of his short blade. “Will you do it, or shall I?”

Ren shook his head and pulled the boy away. “Why not look, milord? He has good qualities.”

He cupped the boy's chin and lifted his lip for Maunyn to inspect. “Nice coloring. Nice hair. Good teeth. Only three or four years old. I'm sure of it. Still in confinement. He had a minder.”

“You know the rules.”

The boy could not live after being taken. Could he disappear him?

It was too late. Maunyn would expect blood.

Ren didn't like the idea of killing children, not when so many needed them. And this was a good one. The boy was worth a look.

“I'll keep him for a few days, milord. Ask the High Matron. I know she will want him. He's a good boy.” His body hunched over the boy, shielding him from the expected blow.

He gasped as Maunyn came at him so swiftly and pricked his throat with the kithaun blade. It stung, and he resisted the urge to touch the wounded skin. The boy slumped to the floor. The strength of Maunyn's hand was beyond anything Ren had ever felt.

Maunyn loved to kill. That was one thing Ren knew for certain.

He looked up into the hooded face.

“We are not running an orphanage,” Maunyn said. “Each child has a place, an exact place. You will get us the one we asked for.”

Maunyn let him go. Swirls of gleaming dark wrapped around his form, and he exhaled huskily, resisting the call to kill.

“I have more important work for you… if you'd just prove reliable. You make it so hard for me to help you rise. There can be no rising without success. Do you understand?”

Ren groped for the boy's head, waiting for the strike, but Maunyn just loomed over them.

“I'll get you the one you want, milord.”

Maunyn's form relaxed. “Good. Do what you will with this one. You can earn a little on the side. Have the one I want by next tenday.”

With the poor, there was no negotiation. Just taking. That was how the high lords thought. A strange, burning anger flared in Ren's gut. The arrogance of them! His lungs burned, but he stayed bowed over.

Maunyn turned away ever so slowly, and Ren braced for a strike. He'd seen this movement before and always suspected those slim, black blades would come for him one day. Ren tensed and his lower lip quivered uncontrollably, ready to blubber like a heathen. It wouldn't do to keep failing. He'd amused the lord as a lad, but now he was a hired hand. Remember your place, his teacher had always said. Because they will never forget. These lords know very well the bounds of their power and will use it to full force when necessary. And this mistake was as necessary as it got.

Maunyn didn't strike. He walked on into the cavern's darkness.

Ren's throat loosened, and he exhaled loudly. The boy had not squealed or cried. Brave for a little one.

What could he do with him?

Returning him was an impossibility. The boy had seen and heard too much. There could be no threat to the High Matron's plans. Maunyn would expect Ren to sell the boy far away, beyond the border even. Nothing could come back to him or the house. The boy had far too good qualities to just give away, and no valley house could afford him. Anyone could see he was true Mornae.

He squinted thoughtfully, observing the flashing tendrils of Dark playing along the cavern walls. There were folk who traded in Mornae, giants even. They'd treat him like a sacred thing—or kill him as a sacred thing. He swallowed hard. What to do?

Maunyn loved leaving him with these quandaries. He'd let Ren twist and turn when the answer was obvious. The fact was he needed no coin. His state in life was fixed. He could only gorge himself so much and so often.

He picked the boy up. Large eyes, deepest gray, which would silver as time passed, looked back at him. The eyes reminded Ren of something. He thought back to the boy with the beady eyes, so unpleasant to look at. The Lor'Sarstin boy. Maunyn's or not, he was nothing like his sire.

They were about the same size.

What would that matron give him to exchange her ill-favored boy for a better one?

He cursed himself for such a ridiculous idea. What would he then do with the flat-faced boy? Maunyn's own blood!

“I'm sorry, lad,” he said. “Sorry for making such a big mistake. You can kill me when you're a man. Deal?”

The burning flared again, creeping up his throat.

“I hate him,” he whispered to the Dark.

A weight fell away. Maunyn had cared for him. He'd wanted for nothing… nothing but warmth, a home, a family.

“Goddess above, goddess my witness, I hate him. I do. I can't help it.”

He set the boy down and his little hands grabbed handfuls of Ren's coat. Maybe he wouldn't remember anything. That had to be the case. Ren grimaced. The boy seemed heavier than three or four. His mentor's memory berated him. You hate him? You fucked it all up. He has reason to hate you.

His mind raced through the possibilities.

He drugged the boy with a pinch of sleeping powder. He'd behaved, but that could change. The less he saw the better. The boy folded up into the canvas bag and Ren flung it over his shoulder. He retraced his steps out of that caustic place.

Along the way passed near a fissure just wide enough for his bundle. He could just let it slip off his shoulder carelessly. An accident! Just like his misreading of the glyph. What was half a talent, anyway? Wasn't this boy more trouble than he was worth?

Ren stood there a good while, then hugged the bundle like the mother he seemed to remember. A scrappy looking figure with gray hair.

He shook his head and moved on. What kind of thief was he? Not a child killer. This is what failure brought with it. Too much trouble.

He could not fail again.

23

Taul looked out over the fields from the estate's southeast ridge. Priestesses walked up and down the paths between rows of astera, sage, orris, chicory, and violet-flowered flax. They were small women, like most valley priestesses, more attuned to growing things than the Dark, more comfortable in the light of Sayin than the crater's shadows. Their arms swung out gently, first left, then right, gathering and granting power. They'd perform this ritual until the last blooming.