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come a long way from that first awkward kiss Alec had given him in Plenimar, but then, the boy had always been a fast learner.
    â€œThose must be some good cards you’re holding,” said Micum, giving him a quizzical look. “Care to show us a few? It’s your turn.”
    Seregil played a ten pip and Micum captured it, cackling triumphantly.
    Seregil watched his old friend with a mix of sadness and affection. Micum had been about Beka’s age when they first met—a tall, amiable wanderer who’d happily joined Seregil in his adventures, if not in his bed. Now silver hairs outnumbered the red in his friend’s thick hair and mustache, and in the stubble on his cheeks.
    Tírfaie, we call them: the short-lived ones
. He watched Beka laughing with Alec, knowing he’d watch silver streak her wild red hair, too, while his was still dark. Or would, Sakor willing, if she survived the war.
    He quickly kenneled that dark thought with the others baying somewhere in the back of his mind.
    They burned two candles to stumps before Micum threw down his cards. “Well, I guess that’s enough losing for one night. All that riding’s finally caught up with me.”
    â€œI’d put you up in here, but—” Seregil began.
    Micum dismissed his apology with a knowing look. “It’s a clear night and we have good tents. See you in the morning.”
    Seregil watched from the doorway until Beka and Micum had disappeared among the tents, then turned to Alec, belly already tight with dread.
    Alec sat idly shuffling the cards, and the flickering light of the fire made him look older than his years. “Now?” he asked, gentle but implacable.
    Seregil sat down and rested his elbows on the table. “Of course I want to go back to Aurënen. But not this way. Nothing’s been forgiven.”
    â€œTell me everything, Seregil. This time I want it all.”
    All? Never that, talí
.
    Memories surged again like a dirty spring flood bursting its banks. What to pluck out first from the debris of his broken past?
    â€œMy father, Korit í Solun, was a very powerful man, one of the most influential members of the Iia’sidra.” A dull ache gripped his heart as he pictured his father’s face, so thin and stern, eyes cold as sea smoke. They hadn’t been like that before his wife’s death, or so Seregil had been told.
    â€œMy clan, the Bôkthersa, is one of the oldest and most highly respected. Our
fai’thast
lies on the western border, close to the Zengati tribal lands.”
    â€œÂ â€˜Fade as’?”
    â€œFai’thast. It means ‘folk lands’; ‘home.’ It’s the territory each clan owns.” Seregil spelled the word out for him, a comfortingly familiar ritual. They’d done it so often that they scarcely noticed the interruption. Only later did it strike him that of all the words he’d poured out in his native tongue over the past two years, that one had not been among them.
    â€œThe western clans always had more dealings with the Zengati—raids out of the mountains, pirates along the coast, that sort of thing,” he continued. “But the Zengati are clannish, too, and some tribes are friendlier than others. The Bôkthersa and a few other clans traded with some of them over the years; my grandfather, Solun í Meringil, wanted to go further and establish a treaty between our two countries. He passed the dream on to my father, who finally convinced the Iia’sidra to meet with a Zengati delegation to discuss possibilities. The gathering took place the summer I was twenty-two; by Aurënfaie reckoning that made me younger than you are now.”
    Alec nodded. There was no exact correlation between human and Aurënfaie ages. Some stages of life lasted longer than others, some less. Being only half ’faie himself, he was maturing more rapidly than an Aurënfaie would, yet he would