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Gwydion.”
    “Well, it's good to know that at least she is well enough to make use of her fire lore and to still order me around like a child,” Gwydion murmured to his godfather as they slowly descended the stairs into the gloom. “ 'Sam'—I've never asked you this—why does she call you that, anyway?” The Lord Cymrian smiled but said nothing, following the turning staircase down into the subterranean repository. Gwydion shuddered involuntarily at the memory of being thirteen in this place, left in charge of his five-year-old sister and a handful of sobbing children he did not know, waiting to hear if any of their parents survived the assault of the soldiers of Sorbold on the winter carnival where they had all been celebrating a few moments before. His father had lived; Gwydion tried to blot out the memory of the sounds that had risen from those whose parents had not been so fortunate. At the bottom of the stairs in the darkness Rhapsody was waiting for them; Gwydion thought perhaps heat had caught in her golden hair, making it shine even in the lightless gloom, but a moment later recalled that her title as the bearer of Daystar Clarion, the ancient sword of elemental ether and fire, was Iliachenva'ar, translated from the old tongue as meaning one who brought light into a dark place, or from one. His “grandmother” certainly had that ability; seeing her now, even in the gloom after all her months of absence, somehow gave the dank air a sudden freshness of hope. Or perhaps, rather than Rhapsody herself, it was the presence of the tiny sleeping infant that she cradled in her arms. Ashe rested his hand on her waist and brushed a kiss on her cheek. “You didn't wish to remain within?” he asked. “I didn't like the way Achmed and Grunthor were looking at Meridion,” she replied mildly, drawing the baby closer. “They kept dropping broad hints about missing breakfast.” Ashe smiled slightly and opened the stone door hidden within the rough granite wall. An almost blinding light spilled into the dark stairway from the room beyond. Crouched within it around a small wooden table on which a large parchment scroll was lying were the two Firbolg, Achmed and Grunthor; Anborn, looking testy as he usually did; and a Lirin man Gwydion recognized after a moment as Rial, Rhapsody's viceroy in the forest of Tyrian where she reigned as their titular queen. Rial's presence made Gwydion's hands tremble unconsciously; if the Lirin elder statesman had traveled all the way from the sacred forest to he southwest of Roland, the scent of blood in the air must be unmistakable. “Hurry up and get inside, all of you,” Anborn growled. Ashe stepped aside to allow Rhapsody to enter first; Rial rose and bowed respectfully as she entered, but the other three men remained seated, Anborn because he had no other choice, and the Firbolg because they had no intention of doing otherwise. As she passed into the small hidden room Gwydion leaned discreetly toward Ashe and murmured in his ear. “How did Anborn get down here without the walking machine or a litter?” Ashe cleared his throat to cover his reply. “He allowed the only other Kinsman who was able to carry him,” he replied under his breath. Gwydion nodded and bowed to Grunthor, knowing that it was to him Ashe referred. The order of the Kinsmen was sacred to soldiers, a brotherhood deeper than that of blood, achieved over a lifetime of soldiering or a great deed of self-sacrifice, chosen by the wind itself. Rhapsody, Grunthor, and Anborn were the only Kinsmen Gwydion knew of in the world, though his “grandmother” had assured him there were others. The Lord Cymrian pulled the stone door shut behind him. In the light of the lanterns Gwydion caught a better look at his face, and those around him. In spite of the appearance of calm, there was a tightness about Rhapsody's lips, a floridity to Anborn's face, a tenseness in Ashe's shoulders which belied that calm. Gwydion shuddered; he had