the dark when she barely knows one end of a horse from another?”
“Not particularly, no,” Sasha snapped.
“Because she needs you,” Teriyan said firmly. “I'd never met the girl until now, but you read me some of the less private bits from her letters before, and Lynette tells me some more…” Memories of the Steltsyn Star, warm before the fireplace with a mug of ale, reading some delightful palace scandal from Sofy's latest letter that she knew her friends would love to hear. “You think of her as the smartest girl in Baen-Tar, and perhaps she is at that. But Sasha, she worships the ground you walk on, just as much as you ever did with Prince Krystoff. And now when she gets into the worst possible trouble, she comes running all this way to see you. Not Daddy the king, not brother Damon, not her palace friends and fellow girlies…you, Sasha. She needs you.”
Sasha stopped on the riverbank, hands to her head, and stared agonisedly across the water. Wind gusted at the riverside trees. Above the eastern hills, the broken edges of cloud glowed golden in the dawn light. Perhaps the rain would hold off after all.
“Why can't people just look after themselves?” she said plaintively to no one in particular. “Why do I always end up getting caught in other people's problems?”
“If you really think that,” Teriyan said sharply, “then you're even more arrogant than I thought.” Sasha rounded on him, disbelievingly. “You, who spent your early years latched onto brother Krystoff like a foal to its teat, and your later ones just as much so upon Kessligh. That man gave his life to you when most people would have given their right arm for him to even say hello, and what thanks do you give him for it? You're a smart, strong girl, and you've more talent for swordsmanship in your little finger than most of us have in total…but you've a hell of a lot to learn about responsibility. The spirits grant each of us responsibilities over others. When they need our help, we give it. All I see from you right now is complaints and selfishness.”
“I'd accept that dressing- down from a friend,” Sasha said coldly. “But from someone who lied to me, who was spying on me in secret, and has been setting up this whole campaign, with me to lead it, and never a word to me…” She took a deep breath, trying to keep from shaking. She'd nearly lost it completely, in full view of everyone. It had been that close. “From that person, I'll not hear anything lest I ask for it. Is that clear?”
“Ah…” Teriyan gave a contemptuous wave, turning his back as if to dismiss her in disgust. But he paused, and looked back at her. “I'm not perfect, and I'll bet I've made mistakes, with you, with Lynie, with Kessligh and everyone else. But everything I've done, Sasha, I've done with the good of other people in mind. You have a long, hard think about it, and you ask yourself if you can honestly say the same thing.”
Damon rode across the chaos of the Rathynal tent city in the cold light of dawn, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The once orderly, sprawling camp now looked as though a great wind had sprung up in the night and come howling across the slope, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Some tents were collapsed and belongings were strewn upon the ground. Mustering squares for horses now held only half their proper number and cartloads of fodder were stripped of feed. Soldiers wandered aimlessly, some talking in small groups, some sitting by lonely campfires and sipping tea.
Damon caught snatches of conversation as he rode past, some angry, some exasperated, some forlorn. There was not a Goeren-yai man to be seen. At Damon's side, Myklas rode with a bewildered expression. Myklas had never found the bickering of lords interesting before. A sixteen-year-old prince in Baen-Tar, Damon knew all too well, could lead a sheltered life, safe within the illusion that all Lenays shared the same values, paid homage to their superiors and would die for the same causes, if needs be. Damon had been eased from that illusion slowly, one small step into the freezing water at a time. Myklas had been thrown for a headlong plunge and his eyes now registered the chilling shock.
In a field beside the road, a group of soldiers gathered about a morning campfire. Damon