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Anore the exhaustion and the cold Her limbs shook almost too hard to be controlled, and her entire body throbbed eariness More than anything, she wanted to collapse upon the floor and sleep-but if she did, it ht cost the boy his life

She had wiped the mud fro to hirey-brown and mottled over paler skin It made him look almost like a corpse, several days old A for his heartbeat Even in this weather, he wore only a light tunic and cloak for ware frontier of the Reallanced up yearningly toward the nearest of the funeral fires

The boy&039;s heartbeat thudded against her own , but when she drew her hand out, she saw the h it couldn&039;t have been anything major-he&039;d have been dead already Amara cursed under her breath and felt for his liled to force her wearybriskly, at once scrapingto restore warmth and circulation to his lih his eyelashes flickered, his eyes did not open, nor did he speak

She took a quick look around the chamber Amara shuddered to think of what the ht do to hiot into his blood She had to clean it off, and quickly

She undressed hihly He was too limp and heavy, for all his slender appearance, to allow her weakened hands to be any ot theed with blue Aed him over to the water and then down into it

The water&039;s warmth came as a pleasant shock to her senses The pool&039;s floor sloped down sharply until it was about hip deep, and even as she kept the boy&039;s face out of the water, she sank gratefully into it and simply huddled there for a un to slon

Then she dragged him a few feet to one side, out of the hly over his skin, brushing the clay away until the boy was clean

He had a shocking collection of bruises, scrapes, abraded skin, and minor cuts The bruises were fairly fresh, only a few hours old, she judged His knees had several layers of skin peeled off, apparently a ed holes in his discarded trousers His ars, and flanks all showed patches of purple, slowly forh he had been recently beaten, and a lattice of long, tiny cuts covered his skin He had to have been running through thickets and thorns

She cleared theher already-torn skirts to clean hied him back up, out of the water, and over to one of the fires

As soon as she felt the air on her, she began to shiver again and realized that the water had not been nearly so warm as it had felt-she had simply been too cold, relatively, to feel the difference She settled the boy in a heap on the floor, as near to the fire as she could e, and huddled there for a ht around her

Her head nodded, and Amara let out a startled sound as she fell to her side She wanted to simply surrender to the exhaustion, but she could not Neither of thehten on a whiain, shivering nearly too hard to ers felt like lead as she struggled fro, thick and nerveless and unresponsive She let the lighter clothing fall in a sopping heap to thethe bier She clawed the red cape from its shoulders and wrapped it around her Aainst the wall and shivering into the cape-but then drove herself along the wall to the next statue, and the one after, clai to the boy&039;s side With the last of her strength, she wrapped hi their warmth around him, near the fire

Then, huddled into a ball beneath the scarlet fabric of the Royal Guard,

she leaned her head back against the wall It took nothing more than that for her to sleep

She woke, war winds and frozen rain Amara pushed herself to her feet, her body weary, stiff fro crouched down on her heels, and blessedly warm beneath the heavy fabric of the cape She ht still reigned outside Lightning flashed and danced without, but it and the acco well after the light The forces of the furies of the air still battled, but the winter winds had pushed their rivals to the south, away from the valley, and ainst the cooling earth as true hailstones

Gaius had to have known, Aht He had to have been aware of the repercussions of calling the southern winds to bear her north to the valley He had been crafting too long, and knew the forces that affected his realm too well for it to have been an accident Thus, clearly, the First Lord had intended the storht, frowning She would be trapped until the storm relented And so will be anyone else in the Valley, fool, she thought Her eyes widened Gaius, with this act, had effectively called a halt to any activity within the Calderon Valley until the storm had relented

But why? If speed had truly been of the essence, why rush her here, only to fence her off fro? Unless Gaius felt that the opposition was already in motion In that case, her arrival would put an effective freeze on their activities, perhaps giving her a chance to rest, regain her balance, before acting

Ae such a deadly stor of proportions she could scarcely visualize, ent to rest?

Amara shivered and wrapped the cloak around her a little htly She could only deduce soHe knew far in to grasp the scope of it He was oftentimes a subtle ruler: Rarely did his actions have only one objective, only one set of consequences What else did her ruler have in rimaced If Gaius had wanted her to know, surely he would have told her Unless he trusted her competence to work out on her ohat he intended Or unless he still doesn&039;t trust you

She turned away from the doorway and padded silently back into the chaainst a wall beside one of the stone guardians, denuded of his cloak, and raked her fingers through her hair She had to getSurely, the enemies of the Croould not be idle once the weather broke She had to have a plan, at least, and get to work on it right away

The first order of business, Fidelias would have said, would be to gather intelligence She had to establish as going on in the Valley before she could effectively do anything about it, whether it be to act, to invoke her authority as a Cursor of the Crown to the local Count, or to report back to Gaius

She sed All she had to help her was the knife she&039;d stolen froht for the weather it seemed she would be faced with She looked back at the boy, curled on his side before the fire, shivering

She also had him

Amara moved to the boy&039;s side and laid a hand on his forehead He let out a soft groan His skin was too hot, feverish, and his breathing had dried out his lips, cracked the her hands together and carrying it back to the boy She urged him to drink and tried to tip the water into his ers and splashed onto his chin and neck, but he ed to s a little Amara repeated the process several tiain

She studied him as she fetched another of the scarlet capes, folded it into a pad, and slipped it beneath his head He was a beautiful child, in many ways, his features allossy ringlets He had the long, thick lashes that so many , slender fingers that see considerable growth yet to coloith the ruddy clarity of youth that had somehow avoided aard adolescence She hadn&039;t seen what color his eyes were, in the hectic events of the previous evening, but his voice had been clarion-clear in the storm, bell-sharp

She frownedthe boy He had almost certainly saved her life But as he? They were a considerable walk fro site in order to avoid coht of any of the locals So what had the boy been doing there, in the middle of nowhere, in that storm?

"Home," the boy murmured Amara looked down at him, but he hadn&039;t opened his eyes His face twitched into a frown in his sleep "I&039;et him home safe"

Aest steadholt in the Calderon Valley Steadholder Bernard was the boy&039;s uncle? She leaned closer and asked him, "What happened to your uncle, Tavi? Was he hurt?"

Tavi nodded, a dreamy motion "Marat The herdbane Brutus stopped it but not before it bit hiiven the Realm any trouble since the incident on this very site, fifteen or sixteen years ago Amara had felt skeptical when Gaius had voiced his concern about the Marat, but apparently one had come into the Calderon Valley and attacked an Aleran Steadholder But what did it mean? Could it have been one lone Marat warrior, a chancein the wilderness?

No Too coincidental for er was under way

Amara clenched her hand on the fabric of the cape in frustration, wrinkling it She needed more information

"Tavi," she said "What can you tell me of this Marat? Was he of the Herdbane tribe? Was he alone?"

"Had &039;nother one," the boy mumbled "Killed one, but he had &039;nother one"

"A second beast?"

"Mmmhmm"