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man in Nedgalvin’s company survived to return, word would escape, and those young women who were thinking of fleeing might then think twice.
    Takis had hoped Nedgalvin would be different. She’d hoped that he could think for himself, that he would prove to be a rational man. She’d set her heart on it and her disappointment was bitter. “ Damn you ,” she whispered, feeling suddenly as if her heart would tear in two. She had liked him! But more, he had been bright and irreverent and courageous, and despite Tayval’s dour council, she had let herself believe he was capable of setting aside five generations of animosity, that he had intellect enough to see a different way.
    She had imagined too much. “So we go on without him,” she said, with only a slight tremor to her voice. Ever since Koráy had taught the craft of war to the people of the Puzzle Lands, no company of the Lutawan army had been allowed to come over the Séferi Mountains or through the East Tangle. Takis did not doubt it would continue so for another five generations, so long as the Bidden survived.
    But if we do not? Tayval asked, speaking their shared fear.
    Both sisters knew that without the Biddens’ maze of defensive spells, the Koráyos people must eventually be conquered, and not because they were weak. They were fabled warriors, men and women both, trained to the field. But they were few. Measured against the great cities of the south, the Koráyos were a tiny tribe. Without the spells of the Bidden to keep the Lutawan king at bay, his warriors would come. If the southerners lost ten thousand men each year for ten years fighting to gain the passes, they would still come, and eventually they’d break through. Then the Puzzle Lands would be overrun and the Korayos people forced to live by the cruel customs of the south—or murdered when they refused.
    So Takis and Tayval dreamed together of making peace with Lutawa, and securing the future of their people—and if peace could not be made with the wicked creature worshiped now as king, then they would do all they could to see a new king set in his place—but it would not be Nedgalvin.
    In the world-beneath Tayval tugged a thread, and the trail to the pass faded from sight. She twitched another thread—a concert of others—and a false trail opened.
    Leaning over the gazebo’s half wall, Takis watched, until far below she saw the line of horsemen emerge from the trees to follow the false path Tayval had laid for them. They entered the narrow canyon.
    The moon had sunk so low its light couldn’t reach into the defile, so Takis listened to the distant clip-clop of the horses’ hooves to gauge their progress.
    It’s time , Tayval said.
    Takis straightened. “It is time,” she repeated aloud, her voice grim. In her heart she did not believe there would ever be another general more suitable for king-making than Nedgalvin.
    Tayval tugged on a thread, and the night’s quiet was shattered by a great crack! and then by a deafening crash of stone as a cliff gave way in a thundering avalanche and the ground trembled.
    Takis walked back to her horse.

    Nedgalvin rode at the head of his column of men. The trail was steep, and the horses labored to climb it, but he was grateful for the dense forest that would keep them hidden from any eyes watching from above.
    The Bidden witch had said to come alone, and he might have done it, just for another chance of a night with her. Takis was an entirely different creature from the dull and stupid women of the south, who required guidance in the least task. She was mixed blood, of course, part Hauntén and maybe not truly a woman at all, but something more. Nedgalvin had met enough Koráyos women on the battlefield that he suspected all of them were descended from the bastard daughters of wandering Hauntén. They were bright, strong, and daring. He smiled to think of the temerity Takis had shown. It was her ambition to be a kingmaker! To tempt him to treason .