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from the raiders, I saw ”—I added emphasis so that no one there could have any doubt how I got my information—“the raiders kill Daryn, my father, and Caulem. Then I saw something else. A bloodmage tore the bindings of the land away, and one of the aftereffects of his spell was the earthquake that toppled Silvertooth.”
    I expected to feel relief once I’d told them my story—or, if not relief, then fear of my impending death. But I didn’t feel anything.
    Cantier held out his hand and, after an assessing look, Koret dropped the acorn into his hand.
    â€œCan you prove you are what you say you are, girl?”
    I looked at him stupidly for a moment—why would anyone claim to be a seer if they weren’t? When it was apparent that he was serious, I shrugged. “The sight comes when it wills. What do you want me to look for?”
    He frowned, looking grumpier than usual. Finally he pulled up his sleeve, displaying a jagged scar. “How did I come by this?”
    I stared at the scar for a bit, then closed my eyes and pictured it in my mind, but nothing came. At last I looked up, opened my mouth, and—visions came, if not precisely the ones I had sought.
    Lord Moresh argued with another nobleman. There was no sound, but the smell of blood and death was overwhelming. Moresh gestured toward something lying beyond sight. The other man nodded and turned away as an arrow slid into Moresh’s eye.
    Glimpses of battlefields full of men one moment and ashes the next. Faces of people flashed by so fast that I could only know that they were strangers to me.
    Sound came at last: screams and prayers of the dying….
    My face hurt suddenly, and I saw Kith, his upright hand a few inches from my face. But the screams in my head continued unabated. I pushed my face close to his and said, “The wildlings will return.”
    â€œIs she all right?” asked Cantier, kneeling on my other side and taking my shoulders in his hands. I realized I was sitting on the ground.
    Kith raised his eyebrows and said, “How the…” He drew in a breath. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
    A man in strange livery pulled his gold-embroidered, purple cloak around himself, striking a heroic pose as he stood before his men. Something…something happened between one moment and the next. Where he had been was a skeleton in his uniform, standing in front of a skeleton army. Nothing moved but the purple cloak flapping gently in the wind. Then the skull of a horse, bitted and bridled, slid off the narrow bones that held it in place. It dangled momentarily, held up by the reins. But the finger bones that held the reins fell apart. They all came apart then, the whole lot of them, one after the other. An army of bones in uniforms lying on a field of yellow flowers; bones that shifted to ashes and blew away in the spring wind.

    I CLOSED MY EYES AGAINST THE ANGRY VOICES, ONE shouting over the top of another so none was heard. At last Koret’s bellow rang over the rest, shouting them down until they were silent.
    â€œKilling the mageborn is barbaric,” said Tolleck the priest in his smooth baritone. “The One God does not demand it—he condemns the bloodmages and those who call upon their power from death. But a man…or woman cannot help how they were born. To condemn them for it is wrong.”
    â€œBrother Gifford did not agree with you,” called someone from the crowd. “He had more experience as a priest than you.”
    â€œBrother Gifford is not here now,” thundered Tolleck in a voice I’d never heard from him. It almost made me look, but I was afraid I’d see something else. There was power in his voice, and it subdued the crowd.
    Calm and forceful, the priest continued. “It is not for you to condemn someone who has committed no crime.”
    I saw the priest’s face, proving that I didn’t need open eyes to