rolling down my cheeks stung like windblown sleet. I thought I had saved Ostoria. Of course, I was wrong. Othea had already laid her curse on me, as she told me with her last, rattling breaths: her shadow will lie over Bleak Palace forever, filling me with a cold, sick regret for what I have done. I am free to leave, but when I do—this is the true treachery—when I do, I will become mortal. I will grow old and infirm; eventually I will die. The choice is mine: to spend eternity in cold twilight,

princess?” Goboka stands before me: a tiny, loutish figure lost in the vastness of my audience hall. I sit upon my throne, cloaked in a magic mantle of purple shadow. I have forgotten why I started concealing myself from mortal visitors—perhaps it was shame over my fall—but the habit has served me well. The giants have come to think of me as a sort of sacred spirit, and they do my bidding as if by divine command. “The princess will … be born next … year,” I explain, barely forcing the words

contemplation has made me naught but stronger. * * * * * Brianna sat braced in the splayed sill of a second-story arrow loop, holding a crimson ash leaf in her hand and uttering the mystic syllables of her spell. Kaedlaw, tied to her stomach in a makeshift sling, fidgeted and growled, clearly unhappy with the scratchy bundle into which he had been stuffed. Avner was on the floor above, with the five guards who had been in the tower when Lanaxis pulled it from the ground. Brianna finished her

bubbling out of the hole. There would be no sewing this wound shut. Avner pulled his dagger and cut Kaedlaw free, then laid the baby on the lee side of a boulder. The young scout choked on a mouthful of blood, reminded himself to spit, and unbuckled his sword belt. “There, Awn see him!” yelled a fomorian. “Maybe kid, too!” Awn was so close that Avner could hear the stones clattering beneath the hunter’s feet. “Give me strength, Hiatea,” Avner gasped. “For Kaedlaw.” Without removing his sword

in the center. Flanking the fire-scar were a pair of ten-foot terraces where the titan had placed his feet, and on the rim above was broad depression where his rump had rested. “The titan stopped and made camp.” Tavis glanced back to make sure Orisino and the other verbeegs were keeping their distance, then sheathed his sword and climbed over the rim into the crater. “He was waiting.” “That rules out one of my most troublesome theories.” Basil started down the slope after Tavis. “If Lanaxis