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right where I had expected her to be, kneeling in the shadow of the low wall that encircled the rooftop, and she was indeed a member of the Hand.
    There was nothing particularly distinguishing about the loose dark robes the slight figure wore. Nor the long spell-lit rod she held like a crossbow, braced on the wall and sighted in on the front of Ashvik’s tomb in the distance. But the cord holding her ponytail in place was tied with the ritual knot of those who served the Son of Heaven, and she had a Storm at her side.
    This one took the form of a huge gemstone, like a star sapphire with wings the exact green of the swirling clouds that gave birth to whirlwinds. It was of middling size for the breed, with a central body maybe three handspans wide by five long. Its wings were furled at the moment and most of it lay concealed below the level of the parapet.
    That would slow the thing down if it spotted me before I could kill its master, which was good since I didn’t know how well my shroud would hide me from it. It had no eyes and no obvious way for me to tell which direction it was facing, but I knew from my training that its most important senses belonged to a family other than sight anyway. A creature of sky and storm, it relied primarily on the movement of air currents to bring it information.
    I was downwind, which would help conceal me, and was another reason I’d chosen to come in from the direction I had. But I didn’t honestly know whether that would be enough. Silently, I slipped over the edge of the parapet and started toward the Hand.
    That’s when I heard Jax’s voice, low but clear and sounding far too close. “Aral, is that you?”
    Reflex put my hands on my swords as I shifted my attention from the Hand’s back to focus my unvision beyond her to Ashvik’s tomb. Jax stood there, silhouetted by the altar flames just to the right of the door, her shroud lowered to pool around her feet. Dammit! What was she thinking?
    With a flick and a twist I released my swords. Dropping them down and around to point at the roof just in front and to the outsides of my smallest toes. That kept them within my shroud but ready to use on the instant.
    Jax spoke again, and I realized that the Storm must be picking up noises from the area of the tomb and making them louder somehow, or I could never have heard her that clearly. “I see a Shade there,” she said. “Just beyond the fountain and—”
    I never got a chance to hear what Jax would have said next. As the Hand in front of me started to shift her aim toward the place Jax had indicated, a slender lance of brilliant white light speared out from somewhere off to my right. It punched a neat hole through Jax’s left side before it carved a deep pit in the granite face of Ashvik’s tomb.

3
    L ove may burn away to ashes, but it never lets us go. Despite all the years and all the pain that lay between us, it felt like I’d taken an arrow in the chest when Jax let out a quiet little cry and crumpled to the ground.
    The sapphire Storm snapped its wings then, popping straight up into the air before diving toward Jax, and Ashvik’s tomb. That was an opening I’d never expected, and I leaped forward to take advantage of it. But even as I moved, the Hand whispered a word of power.
    The long rod she cradled in her arms flared and sparked in my magesight, briefly surrounding itself with a blazing azure halo. As I brought my right-hand sword around in a beheading stroke, the rod spat forth a lance of fierce white light, like lightning smoothed and shaped into the form of a bright spear.
    In the distance I heard Faran’s familiar voice yelp and say, “Motherfucker!” And then, “Somebody’s gonna die for that.”
    I continued forward. Blood fountained from the Hand’s neck as her head fell free, bouncing off the lip of the low wall before dropping to the grass below. It splashed my left leg, hot and sticky, as I leaped past her slumping body and put one foot on the parapet