“The night barracks burned,” Laren murmured.

Uxton nodded vigorously.

“He lies,” Spurlock insisted, a note of desperation creeping into his voice. “A madman’s ravings; fantasies.”

Laren looked sharply at him. “A wraith was here. I encountered it.”

At the king’s encouragement, Uxton continued his tale of the Second Empire, of how they secreted themselves into Sacoridian life by participating in all trades and levels of society. Yet, they remained separate, marrying only within the society, revering texts and artifacts from their ancestors almost as holy relics.

If true, a grave threat to the kingdom had gone unknown and unseen for a thousand years, ready and willing to re-ignite the Long War if necessary, to reclaim what they believed was rightfully theirs.

Or had the threat been entirely unknown? A glance to Zachary showed he was disturbed, but not surprised by Uxton’s words.

“Madman,” Spurlock muttered.

Uxton stuck his hand through the bars and revealed a tattoo on his palm, a tattoo of a dead tree. “Members of the inner circles of each sect bear this mark.”

Corporal Hill grabbed Spurlock’s wrist and pried open his fingers. On his palm was an identical tattoo.

“It proves nothing.” Spurlock snatched his hand away. “It’s just a tattoo. I know nothing about this man’s ravings.”

Laren believed Uxton. She could read the truth in his maddened eyes, but to be sure, she did what she had no desire to do, for she feared unleashing her gift. She feared touching it would be like uncorking disaster, and she herself would fall into madness again, that dark place to which she had no desire to return.

She passed her hand over her brooch and her ability passed its judgment on Weldon Spurlock’s words.

“Spurlock speaks false,” she said.

Zachary nodded, not hesitating, not questioning. To Corporal Hill, he said, “Hold this man for further questioning.”

Spurlock curled into himself like a wounded animal, his eyes turning to steel, his hands like bared claws. “You haven’t a chance. We’re in every province. There are thousands of us loyal to the cause. Unlike him.” He glared at Uxton with palpable rage.

“I’m sure you have much to tell us,” Zachary said. “Arms Master Drent has many years of experience as an inquisitor.”

Spurlock turned even whiter, if it was possible.

Uxton chortled as the two guards dragged Spurlock into a cell, slammed it shut, and turned the key in the lock.

Sperren entered the blockhouse accompanied by anxious courtiers. “Sire, it’s mayhem down in the city. We’ve been receiving reports of . . . of all manner. It would be helpful if—”

“Of course,” Zachary said. “I’ll come right away.”

Laren started to follow him out, but then paused, and walked back to the cells. Uxton gazed at her with eager madness, and Spurlock sat on his cot, arms folded, his expression acid.

“Tell me,” she said, “what it was you wanted with my Rider.”

“It’s not me that wanted her,” Spurlock said.

“Then who?”

“Blackveil.”

Laren crossed her arms, disturbed. “So you were just going to push her into the forest like you did Alton D’Yer?”

“I have nothing to say to you,” Spurlock said. “I don’t have to answer your questions.” He stubbornly faced the wall.

“I expect Arms Master Drent will get what I need from you.”

As she left, Uxton called out, “Don’t trust her, that Rider of yours—she’s Galadheon,” and he returned to his own cot, giggling hysterically.

Karigan dreamed of a white world, a freezing place where snow flurries fluttered down. She wrapped her arms around herself. Trees in shades of gray could be discerned, their spindly dead branches dangling down like spider legs.

A figure hurried through the snow ahead of her and she pursued, trying to run through drifts, trying to see through the driving snow. The trees became denser, the branches snagging in her hair. She brushed them aside. Coated with ice, they tinkled like wind chimes.

The figure turned. A man with beautiful dark eyes and bronze skin. The snow grayed his jet hair. In her memory-dream, he had been a boy, his name Alessandros. Even as a man, his features were unmistakable.

His eyes swallowed her, and robbed her of all cover. She stood naked before him, shivering uncontrollably. She tried to hide her nakedness with her arms, wanted to run, but his eyes held her captive, and violated her by delving into her deepest desires and hates, and her secrets. When he learned her name, his lips curved into a smile of knowing.

“You will come,” he said, and he walked off into the snow, and vanished. “I know where the Deyer is.”

Something in Karigan’s left arm writhed and bulged. Through the translucence of her skin, she could see a black snake wriggle and slither.

She screamed.

But then she heard a distant sounding of a horn, and hoofbeats. Green—she became submerged in green like a soft cloak . . .

SPURLOCK

Spurlock glared at the wall, one hand clenching the medallion at his throat. The medallion of his brave ancestor, a man stranded in a strange land and forced to live among barbarians. Throughout his life, Spurlock had felt much the same, stranded among barbarians who were unequal in intelligence and ingenuity. He had never fit in among the Sacoridians.

He gazed at the medallion. A depiction of the emperor’s palace was engraved on one side and a stately cypress tree on the other. The medallion represented a very high honor. After the empire’s abandonment, Lord Mornhavon had taken the sigil of the dead tree to represent his disconnection with Arcosia and the new regime he planned to build.