1 Chapter 1 Rudolfo Outside, a cold wind muttered along the edge of the Prairie Sea, whispering over the canvas of a hundred tents. Inside, Rudolfo waited for a meeting he could not bear to hold but could not avoid. "They are nearly here, General," said the Gypsy Scout at the entrance of his tent. Rudolfo looked up from his work table. He'd reached his western border just three days earlier and had whiled away the days going through yet more reports and communications. Much had happened since he'd left the north and their exploration of the Beneath Places. The magnitude of it all left his head aching. First, there had been the earthquake.
It was slight on the surface, but many of the tunnels far below them had collapsed. Tunnels that Rudolfo's scouts and miners had been mapping. The tunnels that Isaak and Charles had taken to follow the other mechoservitors west. Next, Aedric's birds and runners had reached them with warnings about what they'd found in the Watcher's cave, followed soon after by word that Winters was returning with an unknown number of Marsher refugees. And though he'd assumed Jin and Jakob and their entourage would return with them, he'd heard no word from any of them, and that perplexed him greatly. Still, he'd convinced himself it had to do with the difficulty they'd had with the birds of late. Then, most recently, all communication out of Pylos had suddenly ceased, followed by a flurry of birds that bore dark tidings of a desolation larger even than that of Windwir. An entire nation lost.
Every man, woman and child. Gods, he thought. It couldn't possibly be true. But Rudolfo knew in his bones that it was. And now this. He looked up at the young lieutenant framed in the morning light. Nearly two thousand of his kin, his people, approached on foot, and he would have words with one of them. "When will they arrive?" "Within the hour," the scout answered.
Rudolfo nodded. "I will meet with Kember alone," he said. "Bring him to the watchtower when he arrives." The officer inclined his head. "Yes, General." When he was alone again, Rudolfo turned to the plate his cook had left for him and scanned reports while picking at bits of chilled rabbit, pickled asparagus and rice. Between bites, he sipped cold, sweet chai and tried to imagine what he would say to the man who'd been a father to him since the first days of his orphanhood. He waited until the last minute to dress, then slipped out of his tent to stride through frozen blades of grass and snowdrifts to the skeletal wood tower that stood watch over the Western Steppes.
Around the tower, hasty structures and tents formed a small town with the first soldiers of his standing army taking up their posts to guard the closed borders of the Ninefold Forest, there at the edge of the Prairie Sea. Rudolfo climbed the stairs, his Gypsy Scouts behind and before him as he went. He slipped through the heavy oak door and into a cold room furnished simply with a table and chairs. He sat and waited. When the door opened, he looked up as his second captain ushered Kember in. The forced winter march had not been kind to the old man, and it pleased Rudolfo to see it in the hollowness of his eyes and his weeks-long growth of beard. Behind him, Philemus stood by silently. Rudolfo did not invite the former steward of his Seventh Forest Manor to sit.
Instead, he met his stare coolly. "How long, Kember?" The older man said nothing. "Damnation," Rudolfo roared, his fist coming down upon the table. " How long? " "Fifty-three years," Kember finally said. More than a dozen years before Rudolfo's birth. He didn't want to believe it. "Show me the mark." Kember shook his head.
"I was not permitted the mark. Most of us weren't. It was your father's-" Rudolfo cut him off. "Did my father take the mark?" Slowly, Kember nodded. "He did, Lord. And his fondest desire was that in time, you would, too." The Gypsy King felt rage twisting in his gut like a blade. "That won't happen.
" He leaned forward and let the rage settle into his voice, chilling his carefully chosen words. "But I will tell you what will happen," Rudolfo said. "You have one opportunity for grace. Otherwise, the Physician Benoit will be here tomorrow morning to assist in your redemption." Here, he nodded to his second captain. "Philemus will spend today and tonight with you, asking questions, and if he is satisfied with your answers, you and your people will leave and never return. Your properties will be forfeit and divided among the refugees your faith and treachery helped to create. The edicts are posted; this resurgence will not be tolerated in my forest.
" Rudolfo paused and studied the man's face. It was too calm for his liking. "If Philemus is not satisfied with your answers, an appointment with my Physician will be arranged." Still, that calm remained, and Rudolfo forced a smile to his lips. "An appointment," he said slowly, "not for you but for Ilyna." The mention of the man's wife was the first sign of his resolve slipping, and Rudolfo continued. "And for every answer you do not give with promptness, accuracy and sincerity, Benoit will cut a piece of her away. If necessary, you will be afforded the opportunity to watch and hear this redemptive work.
" The blood drained from Kember's face. "I will answer your questions, Rudolfo. Certainly I will." His voice caught, and it pleased the Gypsy King to see the man's composure dissolve. "But hear this: what is coming is a work carefully conceived for your benefit and for the healing of the world. Your father would be ashamed of you for your actions today." "My father betrayed us all," Rudolfo said, "and I am ashamed of him for his own actions." And for the first time, he understood the sharpness of those feelings as that betrayal cut its own mark above his heart.
He stood. "And I am ashamed of you, as well, Kember." He turned his back upon the old man, and left his second captain to the work of interrogation. Reports of Philemus's progress trickled in throughout the day. Rudolfo tried to busy himself with work, but found his taste for it had gone sour. He sat and stared into nothing, his hands still upon the pile of papers. Finally, as afternoon became evening, he stood, put on his coat, and slipped out into the cold. At first he wandered the camp under the pretense of inspecting his men, but despite his best efforts, he felt his booted feet pulling him beyond their military outpost to the large cluster of mismatched tents that formed the exiles' camp.
His Gypsy Scouts, bolstered by two companies of his Wandering Army, stood somber watch over the ragged group of frostbitten Y'Zirites. Rudolfo walked that perimeter, his eyes intentionally meeting those of the exiles. Most looked away beneath the hardness of their king's angry glare. Some met his eyes with quiet resolve. Rudolfo was careful to keep his stare level, though he was not sure why he'd come here. It was not as if he would understand any better from the exercise or that if he did somehow gain knowledge, that it would change the course of action he'd committed to. Their faith is a poison laced with sugar. He thought of his father and felt the grief again.
A question arose within him that he'd asked many times these past two years. "Why?" He heard footfalls behind him and turned to see Lieutenant Daryn-the Gypsy Scout from earlier-approaching. His face was grim. "General," he said, "the Marshers have reached the western watch." Rudolfo quickly calculated distance. They'd arrive within the next two hours. He felt relief building in him. Sending his wife and son into the enemy's den after the explosion had been the best course of action at the time.
But now, with his borders guarded and with the surgical knife-work with which the conspiracy had been cut out of the Named Lands by Ria's people, it was time to have them at home. In the midst of the madness his life had become, Jin Li Tam and Jakob were what anchored him. "Excellent," he said, and gave a tired smile. But the smile faded at Daryn's troubled face. The lieutenant looked away quickly; then he met Rudolfo's eyes. "Charles and Winters are with them," he said. "Lady Tam and Lord Jakob are not." He paused.
"Isaak and Aedric are also missing." Rudolfo felt it like a fist in his gut, and his knees went weak. "Where are they?" But before the man could answer, Rudolfo was racing toward camp and shouting for his fastest horse. Winters The moon was a smudge of blue and green behind a veil of clouds, and Winteria bat Mardic walked beneath it, forcing each step despite the protest of every muscle in her body. It had been a long ten days, moving from village to village on foot. Exhaustion saturated her. She spent her days putting one foot in front of the other, moving among her people as they made their way southeast. And she spent her nights tossing and turning, struggling beneath the weight of bad tidings she knew she must soon share with Rudolfo about Ji.