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threatening you. To the contrary! My only
desire is to ensure that you fully understand your situation.”
    He tapped on the one of the walls. The door opened. A
man with a long blond beard and a chest as broad as an elk’s filled
the doorway.
    The adept motioned the big man inside. “This is
Volgo, the captain of my personal guard. He led the expedition into
the forest. Ask him what you will.”
    This, Honor had not expected. She took a moment to
put her thoughts in order.
    “Rhendish said you were pursuing a band of Gatherers.
Why?”
    The captain blinked. “Those were my orders.”
    Honor turned to Rhendish.
    “These men had sold several elven artifacts to people
in Sevrin who collect curiosities. I have purchased one or two from
them, myself,” Rhendish said. “But over time, the sheer number of
items they collected suggested a more, shall we say, active means of acquisition?”
    “You thought they might be raiding elven
villages.”
    “It seemed a possibility worth investigating,”
Rhendish said.
    “Why do you care? Would too many elven handiworks
weaken your claim that the Old Races and their magic are gone?”
    “It might,” the adept said coolly. “Especially if the
elves marched in force to retrieve these items and seek reprisals
for the raids.”
    The unexpected candor of this remark brought a wry
smile to Honor’s face. Rhendish did not want trouble with the
elves. If she learned nothing else from this odd meeting, that was
information worth knowing.
    She turned back to the captain.
    “Did you speak to my sister?”
    The big man hesitated. “As to that, I can give no
guarantee. The elf said she was your sister.”
    “She looked like me?”
    “She might have, at one time. You were both badly
wounded. Under the circumstances, a resemblance would be difficult
to determine.”
    “Describe her.”
    The man’s gaze grew unfocused as it shifted to the
contemplation of memory. “White hair, streaked with brown and gray
like the bark of a birch tree. Pale skin. Light eyes. She was about
your size. If she was human, I’d say she’d lived no more than
five-and-twenty years. But that could describe nearly all the
females in the clearing.”
    “Everyone there was dressed in dark blue,” she
said.
    “Nearly everyone,” he said. “The elf who claimed
kinship to you wore a white gown and a mantle of some sort of white
fur.”
    Honor’s throat tightened. She did not recall the
details of that night and retained no image of her sister’s part in
it, but Volgo’s description matched the sort of gown Asteria would
have worn to a winter tribunal.
    “What did she say to you?”
    “She spoke to one of my men at first. He called me
over when she demanded to speak to the ‘warlord.’ There was
something in her manner that prompted obedience.”
    This, beyond doubt, was Asteria. “What did she ask of
you?”
    “She asked for your life,” the man said. “Her wounds
were mortal. Yours did not appear to be. She asked that you be
tended. You were to return a stolen dagger to your people. She was
most insistent.”
    The adept’s pursuit of the Gatherers, the honor shown
the slain elves, the undertaking of Asteria’s quest—all these
things bore evidence to Rhendish’s determination to prevent trouble
between her people and his. Honor found that admirable. As the
queen’s sister and champion, she could do no less. Logic told her
that Rhendish was an ally.
    And yet.
    Rhendish reached out to touch her hand. He seemed
neither surprised nor offended when she snatched it away.
    “Does that suffice?” he asked.
    She nodded. The adept dismissed his captain with a
flick of one hand.
    When they were alone, Rhendish leaned forward
confidingly. “You don’t need to take the dagger back to the forest,
if you don’t wish to.”
    “Why wouldn’t I?”
    Her words came out sharper than she intended.
Rhendish lifted both hands in a placating gesture.
    “The captain told me certain other things that
painted a