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to it, said he’d not have a robed fop for a son, and he was right. Randon would never have made a mage in any wise. He shares Father’s affliction.”
    “Affliction?” Kayli said slowly. “No mention was made of any—”
    “Oh, it’s no disease like whore’s rot or shaking fits,” Terralt said carelessly. “Father could barely read and write. He sees letters or words as if they were backward. I always had to read documents to him. Randon shares that affliction, or so Stevann says. Father spoiled him, released him from most studies, although the boy was bright enough. So he’s done much as he liked since childhood, and that’s been nothing of any worth. He’s spent too much of his time mucking around among the peasants. None of the lords will take him seriously now.”
    “Perhaps he would fare better with the support of his own kin,” Kayli said serenely.
    “Support?” Terralt glanced at her again, then laughed bitterly. “Lady, I’ve spent years at my father’s side, High Lord in all but name for the last months, while Randon played with his horses and his peasants and his women. Now he’s been made Heir to ruin all I’ve worked for, and I’m set aside, my years of labor forgotten. You have no idea how it galls me.” Kayli said nothing. She could sympathize with his frustration, but if she had whined so in the temple, she’d have been set to scrubbing out chamber pots.
    Terralt swore and reached down to free the hookthorn branch snared in his boot, then swore again as the barbed thorns pierced his unprotected fingers instead. He straightened and shrugged apologetically at Kayli.
    “Forgive the language, my lady.”
    “No apology is necessary, although my father would be scandalized,” Kayli said, stifling a chuckle. “You further my knowledge of Agrondish. The merchants neglected to teach us such colorful phrases.”
    “I believe I heard your ladyship had been brought back from service at a temple or some such?” Terralt asked, sucking his bleeding fingers.
    “The Order of Inner Flame,” Kayli said, nodding. “I was a Dedicate at the temple.”
    “Bregond must be a sorry country when out of a High Lord’s family of eight daughters, they have to drag priestesses from their temple to find a virgin,” Terralt said sourly.
    “I was not a priestess,” Kayli said smoothly. “I was a Dedicate, as many others, there to study magic. When we have progressed sufficiently in our studies, most of the Initiates leave to become mages in the great houses or among the clans, wherever we are most needed. I might never have become a priestess within the temple.” But Brisi had thought otherwise.
    “Such a lovely, virtuous maiden, and a mage, too,” Terralt said mockingly. “Randon will be beside himself at his good fortune. You, I fear, are getting somewhat less of a bargain.”
    Terralt glanced at the sinking sun and turned back to the rest of the guards, signaling a halt. The wagons formed a circle and stopped. Some of the guards continued outward to patrol the area and hunt; others dismounted to tend the horses and ready the camp. Kayli slid down from Maja’s back and stifled a groan of pain. In the year since her Dedication she’d grown unaccustomed to long riding, and her legs and bottom ached wretchedly, but the Flame would burn her to ash before she’d give Terralt excuse to call her weak and whining.
    Endra took Maja’s rein, materializing by Kayli’s side as if by magic.
    “Some of the girls are raising your tent, lady,” the midwife said cheerfully. “Take your ease and let us tend to this pretty girl and the rest of your string. It’s a mercy to stretch our legs after sitting in that wagon all day.”
    “I thank you, Endra, but Maja and I are only just becoming friends again.” Kayli laughed. “She’s borne me patiently all day; now the least I can do is tend her myself.” In truth it was pleasant to stretch her legs as she walked the mare, and the tasks of wiping dry the