Azura still smelled of fear and death. It's glory flattened under the boot of its victors, it's shine dulled like a broken and discarded ornament. He had once tried to ignore the guilt and shame he'd felt at having a hand in it, told himself it was simply the way of war. But seeing the charred remains of the farms and vineyards from above; green fields black with the plague of war, and imagining Torrik ruling over the remains with a brutal iron fist, he felt nothing but shame and guilt.

But he would right the wrong.

With Corryn's help, he would return Azura to her glory, would wrestle it back from Zybar's clutches and install a fair and just ruler once more upon her throne.

As they landed upon the untouched mountains of the Gelder, he wondered if it possible Corryn and his people were unaware of what had befallen the realm. That the Gelder mountains sat so far above the cool blue sea and wine-rich fields below was a blessing to the Sun Kin.

Certainly, no Zybarian unit would have dared make the trek upwards into the mountains. There were no riches to be found here, there was nothing but crumbling temples and bronze-coloured rock as old as the Gods themselves. Nothing but sudden death-dealing drops and untraversable paths. Nothing but either sizzling heat or heavy fog. All under the watchful eye of the most skilled hunters Azura had. Corryn's Sun Kin could scent trespassers at a day's distance.

Which was exactly how Theodan planned to locate him.

All they had to do was set up camp, and wait. The Sun Kin would find them first.

It was not a plan Draden approved of.

'They will cut our throats while we sleep and we will have achieved nothing,' he complained.

'Then we will not sleep,' Theodan countered. Also, the place they had chosen to set up camp would make an ambush by Corryn's men harder. Sheltered on two sides by a curved rock wall which stretched up and slightly overhead. It would likely be the mouth of a cave in a thousand years, battered fervently by winds and cold only found at this height. For now, it was a pocketed clearing large enough to rest twenty Leoth. They had sent the Varveh off to graze, reasoning that if Corryn's tribe found them first then they would be too valuable to kill.

Draden still did not look convinced.

'Take heart. I do not imagine it will take Corryn long to find us.' Theodan joked as he directed the Twins of Aphelion where to deposit the 'sleeping' Prince of Calate. After the twins told of how the Prince had spent the journey from the Meadow of the Goddess to the Court of the Moon emptying the contents of his stomach into the wind, Ismene had kindly offered to ensure he was not awake for the far lengthier ride across the Ash Sea.

Draden looked around at the warriors and let out an exasperated breath. 'And if he refuses to hear you?' Draden asked. 'You stake much that he will care what you have to say Theodan, after what you have done... You stake much that he will not want your head.

'My head is indeed a much-sought prize, but it is not Corryn's way. He will refuse to hear me, certainly. He will want me dead, this much I have planned for. But then, he will listen.'

'Listen to what?' Vala asked as she came toward them. 'You have told us nothing of this plan. You have told us nothing of how you intend to bring Paeris to his knees because I will not remain here while he slanders and harms those I care about!' She twisted her head to where Ismene stood, her eyes glimmering with fire. Ismene held her chin high and her lips tightly closed. This was not the place for a discussion on Paeris's accusations in the clearing, both knew that. Vala slid her gaze back to him. 'So tell us, what is this plan of yours? How are we to defeat our enemies who are now as much Leoth as they are Zybar, Calate, and Azura? Which side do we fight on now Theodan for I am no longer certain? If our only allies are to be Corryn Vane and his men, and they demand your head for the honour, then mayhaps we should give it? You certainly don't seem to mind the idea of being parted from it.' And there it was. The true source of her fury.

A flare of shame rose in him and he lowered his eyes from hers.

'I had no intention of taking his head, Vala,' Draden said quietly.

'But he had every intention of giving it!' She fired, her gaze burning into Theodan's own. 'As though it was worth nothing! As though it meant nothing!'

Silence fell upon the warriors around them, who either averted their gazes or stared at Vala in a kind of quiet awe. He glanced around finding Ismene's head tilted slightly in question. Draden too looked at him in an odd way, as though he were perhaps a stranger to him.

Many moments passed as he tried to find the words to soothe her, to convince them.

'All that mattered was the lives of those I cared about,' He said at last. 'I hope you are never forced into the same position, for I would not wish it upon another.'

Something softened in Vala's expression before a pained look made its way across her face. Then, she closed her eyes and turned from him, striding purposefully across the clearing.

'You cannot go off alone!' He called after her.

'I shall do as I please, Theodan. As you have ever done!' She shouted over her shoulder before disappearing out of the clearing.

He sighed, frustrated.

'She will forgive you,' Draden said quietly after a moment. This was the difference between him and Elyon. Where Elyon may have made a joke, some light-hearted observation, Draden's part was always to ease or smooth away the conflict, to steady the rocking ship. 'Though I might not.' There was a smile in his eyes.

'When did you decide?' Theodan asked after a moment.

The smile on Draden's face faded slightly, turning thoughtful. 'There was no decision, Theodan. I knew you could not be responsible for the Visier's murder. There will be many and more who will not believe it either. I needed only to convince Paeris that I sought to recapture you. But there is much about this I do not understand...' he glanced at the sleeping prince. 'But I trust you.'

Theodan raised an eyebrow. 'You trust me?'

'Well, not with this... Simply wait for Corryn and his men to attack? Of course, I do not trust you with this.'

'Then what would be your plan, commander?' Theodan asked, smiling.

'Rest a while and then continue deeper into the mountains on foot, the Sun Kin is a sizable tribe. We will track them soon enough.'

'You think Corryn's camp is not protected on all sides? You think he would not see our hunting them as an attack? What good would it do to give him further cause?'

'I would say you have given him cause enough, Theodan...'

Theodan agreed with this. But it was the only course he had. The only course which had a hope of undoing some of the damage he had helped wrought upon this land.

'Corryn knows better than most that war is not personal.'

Except for Corryn, it was personal. Theodan had made it personal.

oOo

It was deep into the night when the Prince of Calate groaned awake. Vala had not returned and it was a test of his strength not to go after her. She was a skilled huntress and a clever and capable warrior, but could she fend off a group of Corryn's hunters by herself? The idea made his stomach twist and churn. As the sun had set his thoughts had also been filled with Fara. She would have reached Calate by now surely and he imagined a tearful reunion with her brother. It lifted his heavy spirits a little. Whether the safe return of his sister would convince him Leoth were not his enemy would remain to be seen.

Beside him, the prince sat up and looked around him, lost and confused. When his gaze found Theodan's, it hardened, narrowing slightly with suspicion. Theodan tried again to pick out the features which reminded him of Fara, but there was little he could see that marked them as kin.

'Where are we?' The prince croaked drily.

He saw no reason to lie. 'The Gelder Mountains.'

Panos's eyes grew wide. 'Azura?'

'Well, unless someone has moved them... Yes, Azura.'

The Prince's lip curled upward angrily. 'You told me you'd take me to my sister.'

Carefully slicing a piece of yellowfruit with his blade, Theodan brought it to his mouth and chewed. 'I told you nothing of the sort. I told you she was safe. And she is.'

Panos pushed himself up to sitting and glared at him. 'Then I ask the same question I asked you in the cell where you found me, how can she be safe when you and I are here? When she is in Leoth and you and I are here? We must return, now!'

Ah yes. There it was. The similarity. The command was issued in the same polished Calatian accent Fara's commands had always been. Highborn. Sharp with nobility. He found it amusing now that she had once fooled him she was no more than a castle servant. For how could she have been anything but a princess? A Goddess. A Queen.

When he moved to stand, the prince's legs shook like a newborn Varveh, and so he pushed himself against the rock wall to hold his body upright.

'Your sister is no longer in Leoth, human,' Theodan said, throwing a leather flask at him. It landed in the dust by his booted feet. 'Sit down and drink something.'

The Prince's lips pinched before he bared his teeth. 'Where is she?'

Theodan took a moment to study him. He did not search this time for those features he shared with Fara, but for the measure of him. He was tall for a human, with wide shoulders and muscular arms and legs, his hands and booted feet larger than average. He had the look of a warrior about him, Theodan supposed. Had he fought well in the grove against the Menodice? He would ask Draden. Yet he was a prince who could have lived his life indulging his every whim. Who could have drowned himself in courtesans and carnivals. A prince who had not been groomed to rule but to instead be a spare should his brother fall before producing an heir. A prince who had chosen the life of a soldier. For how else was he to feel the same sort of power his brother enjoyed? Was there not great power to be found in holding the life or death of an enemy at your sword? Not long ago Theodan would have said it was the greatest of powers a mortal could feel. But now, he knew better.

Now he knew that love was far greater, that love eclipsed all else a mortal could experience.

'Tell me where she is, Leothine.'

'I sent your sister from Leoth two moons ago.'

He shook his head, blinking with confusion. 'Sent her where?'

'Home.'

An odd look travelled over the prince's face, his eyes widening before his full mouth parted in something like shock. Then, stranger, Theodan scented fear. For the first time since he'd come face to face with him, the prince was afraid.

'Home to Valdr,' Panos of Calate said at last, his voice small, hollow.

At the mention of the name, Theodan felt a formless hand reach through him to pluck at something inside. A memory. A knowing. The note which sang over him sent a scrape of discomfort down his spine. Something reached at the sides of his vision, his consciousness, but when his mind tried to hold on to it, it skipped away from him out of sight. He shot a look at Ismene but she was on the far side of the clearing, gazing out in wonder at the mountains and valleys of Azura spread out before her.

'Valdr,' Theodan repeated, quiet, as though it were some invocation which would open his own mind to that which had sought entry.

The prince let out a heavy breath and scooped up the flask from the dirt. When he'd taken his fill from it he slid his gaze back to Theodan.

'Why?' Panos of Calate asked. 'It seems to me you risked your head to save my sister. To save me. Why?'

He looked the prince in the eye and tried to find a truth that he did not mind speaking aloud in the space between them. 'Because there are wrongs I must right, amends I must make, and nothing good can come of your death at the hands of Leoth.'

'A hero then...' The prince smiled, emptily. 'The great warrior, Theodan of Teredia, commander of the Leothine army, who saves women, children and captured princes. Is that truly why you released my sister, Leoth? Did you long to be her hero? For the Gods know she has ever needed one...'

'I am no hero,' Theodan stated, firm. 'But Fara is safe now. That is what matters.'

'Safe...' he whispered as he scrubbed a hand over his mouth. 'Gods you have no idea what you've done...'

Theodan frowned. 'Elyon will protect her with his life.'

The Prince looked at him, conflicted, and the strange note sang over Theodan once more.

Just then a commotion rose on the opposite side of the clearing, the warriors rising to their feet and reaching for their weapons. Theodan did the same, though his view was blocked by his men and so he had to push through them to see what had caught their attention. As he came closer, Draden met his eye, the men parting to let him through. A small figure stood. A boy child of about eight namedays perhaps, dressed in the stained layered skins and bearing the dark markings of the Sun Kin across his hands. A small crossbow was strapped to his back and two well-used hunting daggers hung by his sides on a thin leather belt. His hair was shorn to the scalp on the sides but a long plait hung down over his shoulder. Thin but with a strange kind of wiry strength about him, his smoke-grey eyes met Theodan's and he smiled a gap-toothed smile at him. Then he brought his hand to his chest in an exaggerated mocking of the Leothine warrior salute.

'Commander Theodan of Teredia,' the boy said. 'I bring a message from Corryn Vane, Leader of The Sun Kin tribe.'

'What makes you think I am he?' Theodan frowned, looking behind the boy, into the shadows of the trees beyond, his ears listening keenly for any human heart beating beyond. He heard none. Corryn had truly sent this child to his camp, alone?

'He said you would look at me with pity,' the child flicked his gaze to the others. 'Not mistrust,'

Theodan stiffened. 'Very well. Deliver your message.'

'He invites you to dine with us, alone,' said the child. 'If you refuse, the lady Vala of Esterus will remain hanging over the misted pit until morning. Then we shall take turns to shoot her down. The drop is further than the eye can see. All the way to the rockshore of the Whitevain Strait.' He smiled that same gap-toothed smile before reaching to pluck the string of his bow. He heard Vala's men growl quietly while he stared down at the taunting wide eyes of the child.

'Take me to him,' Theodan said. 'I will dine with you.'