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them here.”
    “They haven’t returned yet?” Ashyn said.
    Healer Mabill shook her head.
    No matter how far Ashyn had wandered with Faiban, they’d been able to see the torches at camp, burning bright in the dim forest. If the villagers somehow could not see them, all they had to do was shout for help.
    The bard hadn’t returned either.
    Ashyn shook off the thought. No one else seemed worried. She turned her attention back to the survivor, Cecil.
    “He truly does not look mad,” she said.
    “Don’t let that fool you, child. It’s a good thing Faiban was there. If you’d been alone, you might have ended up like my grandmother.”
    “Your grandmother?”
    “She was a healer in the Seeking party. She came across a survivor who seemed well. Being a kindly woman, she knelt to give him fresh water . . . and he ripped out her throat with his teeth.”
    Ashyn’s gaze swung back to the survivor.
    “Yes, take a better look, child. I know he seems like a poor wretch, but don’t trust your own eyes. You can’t trust anything out here.”
    “What happens if the governor thinks—?”
    A gasp cut her short. She turned to see the survivor kneeling there. His head seemed bowed. Then his body fell forward, and the others staggered back out of the way, and she realized that he had no head. That it was lying in the moss. That one of the guards was wiping his bloodied sword.
    “He was infected,” the governor announced.
    “But . . .” Ashyn whispered, barely able to draw breath. I’m seeing a man’s head. Sliced from his body.
    My lady, I have survived.
    “But . . .” she whispered again.
    Healer Mabill put her arm around Ashyn’s shoulders and turned her away. “Let’s walk, child. That wasn’t a sight for you. The governor ought to have given warning.”
    “How could they know so quickly?”
    “Speed is mercy, Ashyn. And it must also be quickly because a simple bite is all it takes to pass on the fever.”
    “But what if he wasn’t—?”
    “Remember who these are, child. The worst criminals in the empire. If the governor suspects they are infected, he is not going to risk the life of a lawful citizen waiting to see if the fever manifests.”
    “Back in the woods with you, girl,” the governor said as he walked over. “The sun is falling, and we’ll lose what little light we have. You can set this wretch’s spirit at ease with the others.” He waved Faiban to her, then turned to two of the villagers. “You go with her as well. It’ll soon be too dark to fumble in the forest, following her whistle.”
    Ashyn set out to continue the Seeking, and tried not to think about the dead man in the grove, still leaking his lifeblood into the soil.

Six
    O f course, Ashyn did keep thinking about the dead man. Cecil, she told herself. He had a name. Use it. Remember it.
    One moment, he was there, talking. And then he was lying beside his severed head. How could she stop thinking about that? How could anyone?
    Yet as she looked into the forest, she wondered what sort of crimes he had committed. The empire said only the worst came here, and yet . . . She swallowed. And yet she knew better, didn’t she? Her own parents had nearly ended up in this forest, for a crime no greater than trying to protect their infant daughters.
    At first, their mother had told no one she’d borne twins. She’d kept the girls hidden and told the neighbors that she wished to take her newborn daughter to her own village. She’d sent a note to her husband, on a trade mission.
    While most twin girls were simply ordinary children, there was the chance they could be divinely blessed. The Seeker and the Keeper. In order to learn that, though, they had to be tested. That test . . . it was a parent’s worst nightmare. And failure to inform their governor of the birth meant both parents would be exiled to the Forest of the Dead.
    Before their mother could leave, the midwife came to call. Their mother brought out one of the