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fear would return. The pain in her leg became a constant, like the wind and dust, but she still pushed on until the muscles spasmed, because when her leg was on fire and exhaustion closed in, the memories were also held at bay. Her other constants were the certainty that the Wall offered no succor, and the reluctant conviction that she would be safer if she kept close to Jaransor. Nhairin would never willingly go into those hills again, but although even their silhouette, seen through the Gray Lands’ haze, made her shudder, she knew both ’spawn and other Derai would feel the same aversion. Besides, proximity to the Telimbras and the hills beyond, however dangerous, meant more game to hunt.
    On my way to where, though? Nhairin thought, peering at her dirty face and bedraggled hair in another shallow pool. As soon as she stopped, she noticed the chill in the wind, blowing down out of the Winter Country. For the first time, she realized that autumn was upon her, and she needed to think beyond her crisscross traverse and the imperative to keep moving. To where? she asked herself again. If she turned north, into the face of the wind and oncoming winter, she might eventually find the nomads of the Winter steppe. But death seemed a more likely prospect, even if the Winter People were prepared to take her in.
    Nhairin frowned at her reflection, because despite erratic progress she had gradually been working her way southwest. Eventually, she would reach the Border Mark—although not, given her lameness and recollection of distance, before winter overtook her. Yet even if she survived that far, onlythe unknown lay beyond the Border Mark: first the Barren Hills and then all the alien realms of Haarth.
    The reflected face wavered, as if disturbed by Nhairin’s doubt rather than the wind—because until the evening when Malian’s company crossed into the Gray Lands, she had never left Night’s territory, let alone the Wall. She had not traveled with Tasarion and Asantir to the River lands, all those years ago, in the time before Tasarion and Nerion even talked of being married. She had wanted to go, but Nerion had intended visiting her Sea Keep kin and wanted Nhairin to come with her—
    â€œAnd I always did what Nerion wanted.” Nhairin whispered the words aloud, and the wind caught them up. Always, always, always, it sighed back at her.
    Ay, always, Nhairin thought—just as I could never hide from her when we were children, playing truant in the Old Keep. She shivered, remembering how she had never liked to go far into the echoing, lightless halls. At the time, she had thought that was why Nerion always discovered her hiding places so easily, although she could never find her friend.
    Nerion always wanted to explore further into the darkness, too, Nhairin reflected, and she never got lost, while I always did. She shivered again and huddled her arms close, remembering how the Westwind song had not only cleared her mind of the Madness, but illuminated secrets she had previously kept hidden from herself.
    No. Nhairin shook her head sharply. Not secrets—truths that I would not allow myself to know . This time she shuddered, reliving how Nerion’s voice had whispered into her dreams on the night the Keep of Winds was attacked and so many had been slain, Malian’s household among them. The whisper had told Nhairin what she must do, how the keep’s alarms could be silenced. Later, the same whisper had held her immobile, staring into the fire, while a siren worm crept close to kill Malian as she slept. In both cases Nhairin had barely recalled either the whisper or the compulsion afterward, beyond fragments she assumed were dark dreams.
    Because I always did what Nerion wanted, Nhairinrepeated silently, and she bade me forget. The song had illuminated that truth, too, when it dispersed the darkness that shrouded her mind. Nhairin rocked back and forward on her heels, because she now