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entire kingdom." He shook his head. "We have to stop this war, Bailey."
    She bit her lip. "Is it too late?"
    "I don't know," Torin said, "but I have to do something."
    He trudged back downhill. With the fire dead, the crowd was dispersing from the square, the villagers returning to their farms and fields. Licking his teeth, Ferius began rolling the wheelbarrow forward. The bones still smoked inside, smelling of burning meat. When Torin gazed upon them, the bones seemed almost human to him; aside from the skull's larger eye sockets, they could have been the bones of a Timandrian. Tethered to the wheelbarrow, the raven began to pick at the charred remains.
    Torin reached out and grabbed the wheelbarrow's handle, pausing its movement.
    "I'll return the bones," he said to Ferius. "Go to your temple. Let me do this."
    The two men stood clutching the wheelbarrow. They stared at each other over the smoking bones. Ferius's lip curled back in a snarl.
    "Do you feel guilty for killing him, gardener?" the monk asked. "Yes . . . you dueled him, busying his blade, when I brought my fire down upon him. His death is upon you." Ferius licked his chops. "Yes, return him to his filthy kind. And if the creatures attack you, you may call them friends as they drive their blades into your flesh."
    Ferius clutched the wheelbarrow a moment longer, staring at Torin with unadulterated hatred, then released his grip. Grumbling, Torin shoved the wheelbarrow across the square, wishing it were Ferius who lay charred within.
    He wheeled his gruesome charge between the cottages, waving the raven aside whenever it pecked at the bones. Past the village, he headed down a dirt path that led toward the forest; the dusk lay beyond.
    "Tor, wait!"
    He turned to see Bailey running toward him, her bow bouncing across her back, her two braids swaying. Concern softened her normally mocking brown eyes.
    "Go back to the village," he said. "I want to do this alone. Please."
    She reached him, grimaced when she saw the bones, and touched Torin's arm.
    "Are you sure?" she said. "I can come with you. I can protect you if the Elorians attack. I—"
    "No. It's too dangerous. Stay here and protect the village; the people need you." Torin's eyes stung; the damn smoke was still burning them. That last word— friend —wouldn't stop echoing. "I need to do this myself."
    He left her there upon the path. He wheeled his charge into the forest, walking silently into the shadowy borderlands. For eighteen years in Fairwool-by-Night, he had never dared enter these shadows. Now, within the turn of a standard hourglass, he was entering the darkness a third time.
    He pushed his wheelbarrow through the forest. Progress was slow at first; the wheels bounced over rocks, entangled in grass, and sank into mud. After a mile or two, the sun hung low in the sky, and the brush dwindled to a few scattered bushes and brambles. The Sern River gurgled to the south, its waters orange in the twilight.
    The raven cawed, perhaps fearing the dark, and beat its wings madly, stretching its tether.
    "Calm yourself, friend," Torin said. He reached to undo the tether and the raven bit him. Torin gasped and pulled his finger to his mouth. The blood tasted coppery and sweet, and Torin remembered cutting the Elorian's fingers to send his sword flying.
    I took part in killing him, he thought. His blood is upon me too.
    When he finally managed to undo the tether, the raven took flight, cawing until it vanished over the dark forest. Torin wondered whether it would find the moth he had seen here, the one shaped like the world.
    A raven for the kingdom of Arden, he thought. A moth with a white wing and black wing, symbol of the world. He looked at the bones. And smoking remains like a herald of war.
    There were too many signs in this place, and none soothed him. Torin's belly churned and he took a shaky breath. He had a feeling things would not end here.
    He drove the wheelbarrow a little farther, finally reaching the