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closed more tightly around her every moment.
    Ria froze where she was.
    Yes, a bird could soar over cage walls.
    But a mouse, small and insignificant and nearly invisible, might very well slip through the bars.

Chapter Two—Valann
     
     
    Valann could only cough weakly now, his eyes burning, the thick smoke choking him so that he wavered in and out of consciousness. Sweat ran down his body in rivulets, but he was too weak to raise his hands to wipe it away. In a moment he would surely die, his aching lungs no longer able to draw even a little air to sustain him from the roiling smoke. He almost reached for the cord fastening the tent flap; then he let his hand drop back. He would die, and gladly, before he’d fail his passage trials.
    The fire was dying as the smoke choked it, too. Val’s body was weakened by the burning herbs and powders, but not his gift; he inched his hand toward the brazier. Almost before he focused on the dying flames, they flared anew. Val had just enough consciousness left to be dimly surprised at how effortlessly he prodded the flames to burn higher. Just as Dusk had said, the fasting and the rigors of his passage trials strengthened the spirit.
    It seemed forever, but likely it was only a short time before the tent flap opened, admitting a wonderful rush of cool, clear air. Dusk leaned in.
    “Are you ready to come out?” he asked gently.
    Valann tried to answer but could only cough weakly, wheezing helplessly.
    “Yes. I think you are.” Dusk slid his hands under Val’s shoulders and pulled him carefully from the tent, then leaned back in to pour a dipperful of water over the smoking brazier. Dusk gently wiped Val’s face with a moist cloth, nodding sympathetically while Val coughed and retched. When Val was finally able to breathe quietly again, Dusk gave him water, heavily laced with medicinal herbs, a tiny sip at a time.
    “You are almost ready,” Dusk said gently. “Perhaps I put too much dreamweed on the brazier, a poor thing for a Gifted One to do. Did you dream in the smoke? Some say the dreams of passage trials are visions of the future.”
    “No.” Val shook his head. His voice was a hoarse rasp. “No dreams.”
    “I dreamt.” Dusk’s eyes had that pale, faraway look that meant that his mind had drifted away to that distant place it sometimes went. Sometimes his mind brought back visions, too, from that place.
    “What?” Val wanted to question Dusk as he’d seen his heart-mother Rowan do, gently leading the Gifted One through the mists of his thoughts to bring the vision into the light, but he had no breath, no voice to do it. Each word was a scratching torment on his throat, and he couldn’t seem to concentrate.
    “I felt your sister walking unseen in the wood,” Dusk said, his eyes fixed on some point just beyond Val’s face. “I saw a legion of humans clad in furs, carrying fire and steel, their hands red with blood, their feet trampling the forest. They came behind your sister, far behind, like a great dark storm cloud rising over the forest, a storm bound to rend the trees from the earth, and she was a small light against that darkness, bright and pure, her brilliance piercing the great cloud like a single golden ray of sunlight. And you walked to meet her, holding out a precious gift in your hands, a gift of freedom.”
    Rowan had always said that Dusk’s visions were important, but Val only half understood what Dusk was saying, his head spun so dizzily from the potent herb smoke and the potion Dusk had given him. He was weak, too, from hunger; he’d fasted for four days while cleansing potions and ritual baths purged his body of all impurities, while ritual chants and meditation exercises cleansed his spirit. He forced himself up to a sitting position, shaking his head to clear it.
    “What?” he asked groggily.
    Dusk’s eyes cleared suddenly, and he smiled sympathetically at Val.
    “Too much dreamweed on the brazier,” Dusk said again. “You have a