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purred. “A perfect idea. It will get us both what we want.”
    Lyrralt drew his chair close, leaned toward her. “And what is it
you
want?” He could feel the heat of her body. “It’s never seemed to me that you strived for the usual things—position, nor even gift of land or a home outside the castle walls. When Jyrbian and I heard you were coming to court, we thought you’d seek to regain your family estate from the Tenal clan. But, unless you’re even more devious than I imagined, I haven’t seen any evidence of it.”
    She smiled and touched the rim of her goblet to his. “Thank you, sir. I
am
even more devious than you imagine. But land is not what I desire. What I have learned in my three hundred years is that land is a transitory thing, easily given, easily taken away on a whim. I seek a more permanent reward.”
    “And you will tell me. Perhaps tonight as we walk the parapets?”
    She stared at him, speculatively, and slipped a hand underneath the edge of his sleeve.
    His eyes widened as her fingers crept upward on his skin. When she touched the edges of the runes, he trembled.
    “Wouldn’t your order be extremely pleased if you obtained the sponsorship of Lord Teragrym?”
    “How?” He drained his goblet without taking his eyes from the movement of her hand under his sleeve.
    “Very simple. I think we can get our hands on something Teragrym wants very much. And we can do it so that Jyrbian would be blamed, in the unlikely event this . . . redistribution was discovered.”
    For a moment, Lyrralt was too stunned to speak. All the blood had drained from his face, rendering his skin a dull grayish hue.
    But Khallayne knew she had him—a fish swimming lazily along, complacently, agreeably, right into her net. His mouth was even hanging open in an oval, like a fish gasping for air.
    “The runes spoke of this,” he whispered.
    Her hand froze, then the tips of her fingers twitched on his skin, on the spongy runes just above his elbow. “Of what?”
    He gazed at his sleeve. The runes engraved into his skin were the gift of his god, a sign that his piety had been accepted. Even more importantly, they were a gift to his god. For a race as beautiful and as proud of its beauty as the Ogres, to allow their flawless skin to be marked and scarred was a sign of absolute devotion.
    The first markings were not usually shared with those outside his order. Few were privileged to view the first communications of Hiddukel with a disciple. Later, when his arms and hands were covered with markings, he would wear sleeves that exposed his forearms and wrists, as the High Cleric did.
    “The runes spoke of many things. Of destiny and revenge. Of position and power. And there was a reference that I didn’t fully understand, until I saw you tonight. To a dark queen.”
    “But I don’t understand. I’m not a queen.”
    “Your gown, Khallayne. The decoration on your gown, of the Dead Queen. And there’s more. The runes speak of family and revenge.”
    She slowly withdrew her hand from beneath his sleeve, scraping her nails along his skin as she moved. There was a humming in her mind, as of bees around a field of flowers, and a cold prickling on her skin. She whispered. “The Dead Queen . . . That settles it. We’re going to steal the Song of the History of the Ogre from the Keeper and give it to Teragrym.”

CHAPTER THREE
Theft of History

    “We’ll need something of Jyrbun’s. A bottle, a container of some kind. A charm, or a jewel. I’ll find a slave who knows in whose apartments the Keeper is staying, one we can trust not to tell.”
    So easy. It had been so easy. Lyrralt, though obviously stunned, had not questioned her directions.
    He had pushed away his plate of half-eaten food, followed her from the noisy audience hall, and gone, quickly and lightly, in the opposite direction, toward the southern end of the castle, toward his and Jyr-bian’s apartments.
    The hem of her gown whispered softly on the stone