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The wasp sting burns in her heart as she faces the veiled figure that is Prince Bayan’s ancient e and, perhaps, exhaustion brought on by weeks of weaving weather ?"

Hanna thinks probably she doesn’tso simple, that no co," "back to my home"

"I don’t know," she answers truthfully Cold bites at her hands,them ache, and her foot hurts where the splinter pierced her skin

"No woman can serve two queens, just as no man can serve two masters," remarks the ancient woman One of her raddled old hand a tray

A single ceramic cup, so finely crafted that its lip looks as thin as a leaf, rests on the enameled tray Steam rises delicately from its mouth "Drink," speaks the cricket voice

The spicy scent stings Hanna’s lips and burns her throat As she drains the liquid, tilting her head back, she sees a scene engraved onto the botto a human baby at her breast

"In the end," continues Bayan’s mother, "you will have to choose"

Cautiously, Hanna lowers the cup Bayan’s narled and wrinkled hands, age-spotted yet so in her lap The veil conceals her face The hand out the tray Hanna sees no sign of the slave man who escorted her here They are alone, the three of thee that eyes Hanna warily as she sets the empty cup down on the tray It lifts one foot, replaces it, then lifts the other in a stately if slightly anxious dance, waiting for her answer

The handmaiden retreats behind the silk curtains, which rustle, sway, and fall silent The only light in the cha as though they have caught theto choose between," says Hanna, feeling a little dazed "I aatani’s luck"

The words seeo She’s dead" She chafes her hands nervously, re that Brother Breschius lost a hand when the Kerayit princess he loved and served as her slave died all those years ago

"Souls never die," chides the old woman "I had a cousin twice removed who is dead now, it is true That may be the woman you think you speak of, the one who took the Wendish priest as her pura But a naain You are Sorgatani’s luck, for so is my niece called In the end, you will have to choose"

The curtains stir as though in a wind In those shi depths she thinks maybe she can see all the way to the land where the Kerayits roarass so tall that a man on horseback can’t see over it Here, in her dreariffins Here, in a distance round, she sees the encampment of the Bwrmen, the dreaded centaur folk Pale tents shift in the wind, felt walls belling out, and sagging in, as though they are the of le drifts lazily above the ca woolden that it ht

Across the distance, Sorgatani speaks, "Coer"

Maybe Hanna could step through the silk curtains and find herself in a far land, in the wilderness, in the hazyBut she does not move She speaks

"I haven’t found your pura yet I have no handsolints over the ht flashes in Hanna’s eyes

"Liath," she cries, thinking impossibly that she sees Liath above in the iridescent air, a lustrous play of colors glistening like silk as she pushes through the curtains, trying to reach Liath, only to find the slave estures toward the door and the corridor filled with sleeping soldiers With a foreboding in her heart, as though she had turned a deaf ear to a suht to have heeded, she follows him back to the hall--

Hanna woke abruptly as a hand groped over her, fondling her roughly She smelled the stink of sour breath on her cheek and felt aover her She kicked, hard and accurately With an angry oath the shadowed forered back and sla to the sleeping platform Women shrieked and cursed The furs writhed as all at once every woe of the platforled with a brawny otten on top of her