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of Amefel's power that sure, the fugitives must ask themselves, if he housed the sisters of Heryn Aswydd?
    The news would go to their enemy, Tasmôrden, sitting in his newly won capital of Ilefínian, up in Elwynor. He had tried to stir the Amefin to rebel against Cefwyn, with the promise of reestablishing the Aswydds and supporting them in war. What must he think?
    And not last or least, word would reach Cefwyn, telling him that wizardry or the malice of Men had overturned his sentence and freed the two most dangerous prisoners in his kingdom… for they were that. They certainly were that. Sorcery was their crime, not to mention an attempt on Cefwyn's very life, and on his kingdom.
    Forgive me, should he write to Cefwyn, but I could think of nowhere else to send them?
    The only place he could think of to send them, indeed, at this hour, was to hasten them upstairs, into rooms fit for the royalty they claimed to be… aethelings , of the old noble house of Amefel, with wizard-gift strong in their blood.
    They were not the only survivors of that line, to be sure. His friend, fortress of dragons.html
    his foremost supporter in council, Earl Crissand, was kin of theirs, and heir to the name… so he had sworn to himself, so Auld Syes herself had said, in an appearance as curious and ominous as he had ever seen—and no, these women would not take what was Crissand's: whatever came of his constrained charity, Crissand's heir-ship could not be challenged, not while these stones stood one on the other. It was that certain in his thoughts.
    "What's Emuin say?" Uwen asked. They were still standing in the lower hall, Uwen and his guard all deaf to magic and wizardry alike, but Uwen knew his resources, and knew that Master Emuin tended to be awake at night; and knew by experience that his lord's moments of woolgathering were often conversations.
    "He's not pleased," Tristen said, blinking the ordinary world into being. His sight centered on Uwen's gray-stubbled, earnest face. "Nor am I pleased, but what can I do?"
    "I'm sure I don't know," Uwen said, and bit his lip, which usually presaged his saying something anyway. "Except as His Majesty might ha' had their heads on the South Gate, and didn't, on account of ye told 'im they'd be worse threats to us all if they was ghosts. And, ye know, m'lord, I ain't so sure on that, now."
    "I'm not sure on that point either," he said, not in jest, and added:
    "But I don't think I can kill them, Uwen."
    Uwen's look was the more distressed. "Ye ain't o' the mind, nor ever were, m'lord. An' her sister bein' with child, an' all—what's to happen? Ask Emuin. Ask Emuin, m'lord. This is beyond me."
    "I fear it's beyond him, too." Uwen was right: he had never been willing to exercise a lord's cold justice, nor had done. But despite his thinking on slippery steps, something felt so utterly wrong in the notion of killing the women, he could not compass arguments about it, could not consider it—whether it was wrong in the magical sense or wrong because it was terrible to kill at all, he had no way to sort out. He only knew he shuddered at it. "Emuin's as surprised as the rest of us."
    " 'At there," Uwen said, with an upward glance, the way the women had gone, "looks to be seven, eight months she's carryin'."
    "Can you say so?"

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    "Summat," Uwen said, as they began to walk their own direction, toward the other stairs. "Looks to be. Nine's the term of a child that'll live, an' by the look, that 'un ain't far from it. That 'un's bloomed in the nunnery, gods save us all, but I'll wager she didn't get it there."
    Being not born, himself, and never a child, and never intimate with a woman, he had only uncertain questions where ordinary men had sure knowledge. He felt helpless in his ignorance, and so many things had converged in the last few days… magical things, dreadful things, hopeful things, and now, it turned out, Tarien's child, which it seemed would come sooner rather than