Read Nightrunners 03 - Traitor's Moon for Free Online Page A

ones. He watched Beka laughing with Alec, knowing he'd watch silver streak her wild red hair, too, while his was still dark. Or would, Sakor willing, if she survived the war.
    He quickly kenneled that dark thought with the others baying somewhere in the back of his mind.
    They burned two candles to stumps before Micum threw down his cards. "Well, I guess that's enough losing for one night. All that riding's finally caught up with me."
    "I'd put you up in here, but—" Seregil began.
    Micum dismissed his apology with a knowing look. "It's a clear night and we have good tents. See you in the morning."
    Seregil watched from the doorway until Beka and Micum had disappeared among the tents, then turned to Alec, belly already tight with dread.
    Alec sat idly shuffling the cards, and the flickering light of the fire made him look older than his years. "Now?" he asked, gentle but implacable.
    Seregil sat down and rested his elbows on the table. "Of course I want to go back to Aurenen. But not this way. Nothing's been forgiven."
    "Tell me everything, Seregil. This time I want it all."
    All? Never that, tali.
    Memories surged again like a dirty spring flood bursting its banks. What to pluck out first from the debris of his broken past?
    "My father, Korit i Solun, was a very powerful man, one of the most influential members of the Iia'sidra." A dull ache gripped his heart as he pictured his father's face, so thin and stern, eyes cold as sea smoke. They hadn't been like that before his wife's death, or so Seregil had been told.
    "My clan, the Bokthersa, is one of the oldest and most highly respected. Our fai'thast lies on the western border, close to the Zengati tribal lands."
    " 'Fade as'?"
    "Fai'thast. It means 'folk lands'; 'home.' It's the territory each clan owns." Seregil spelled the word out for him, a comfortingly familiar ritual. They'd done it so often that they scarcely noticed the interruption. Only later did it strike him that of all the words he'd poured out in his native tongue over the past two years, that one had not been among them.
    "The western clans always had more dealings with the Zengati— raids out of the mountains, pirates along the coast, that sort of thing," he continued. "But the Zengati are clannish, too, and some tribes are friendlier than others. The Bokthersa and a few other clans traded with some of them over the years; my grandfather, Solun i Meringil, wanted to go further and establish a treaty between our two countries. He passed the dream on to my father, who finally convinced the Iia'sidra to meet with a Zengati delegation to discuss possibilities. The gathering took place the summer I was twenty-two; by Aurenfaie reckoning that made me younger than you are now."
    Alec nodded. There was no exact correlation between human and Aurenfaie ages. Some stages of life lasted longer than others, some less. Being only half 'faie himself, he was maturing more rapidly than an Aurenfaie would, yet he would probably live as long.
    "Many Aurenfaie were against a treaty," Seregil went on. "For time out of mind the Zengati have raided our shores—taking slaves, burning towns. Every house along the southern coast has a few battle trophies. It's a testament to the influence of our clan that my father got as far with his plan as he did.
    "The gathering took place beside a river on the western edge of our fai'thast, and at least half the clans there had come to make sure he failed. For some, it was hatred of the Zengati, but there were others, like the Viresse and Ra'basi, who disliked the prospect of western clans allying with the Zengati. Looking back now, I suppose it was a justifiable concern.
    "You recall me saying that Aurenen has no king or queen? Each clan is governed by a khirnari—"
    " 'And the khirnari of the eleven principal clans form the Iia'sidra Council, which acts as a meeting place for the making of alliances and the settling of grievances and feuds,' " Alec finished, rattling it off like a