Rerdas sat in a chair with his head tilted back, a clean cloth pressed to his lip. He could still taste a little blood in the back of his throat. Heckly, Etiana and Hammond were all arranged around the table, watching him.

"He did a pretty good job of it, didn't he?" Hammond said.

Rerdas shrugged. "I'm glad," he said. "Glad to see he can still fight back. I'd be worried if he tried to do some damage and failed."

It wasn't what he was really thinking, but it sounded good. Rerdas did not want to unravel his feelings about what had just happened. He had never seen someone move like that, with such perfect, deadly speed. It was terrifying. He did not want to think about what kind of life produced such ferocity.

"How did it go at Iffroa?" Heckly asked.

I think it went quite well. Although we did have to settle for a less than ideal day for the fight," Etiana said.

"When?" asked Hammond.

Etiana brushed a few loose curls back from her forehead. "Red King's Eve," she admitted.

The butler gaped at her, and Heckly let out a weak laugh. "I suppose it's a good thing you don't go in much for superstitions, Etiana. Although I'm surprised that Ori was willing to stage a fight."

"The curse doesn't apply to the battlebox house." Etiana sighed. "It's only supposed to be for the fighters. And besides, it's not real anyway. It'll be a good thing for us. There won't be any other high profile fights going on, so interest will be high for ours. And when Imalroc wins, the doors of all the other battlebox houses will open again. We'll be on our way."

"And...if he loses?" Heckly asked.

"He won't," Etiana said. She stood up and swept toward her mother's room without another word. Rerdas chuckled bleakly to himself.

"You're going to have to show him where the power lies. Can't let him hit you and get away with it," Heckly said, nodding at Rerdas.

"I can't fight him my damned self. I'd lose in the blink of an eye."

"Just tie him up and give him a good beating. Hang him from the ceiling like the practice bag. Or better yet, get a whip. Although you might want to save that for after the fight. Not a good idea to send him into the box with open wounds."

"I...that doesn't seem very fair," Rerdas blurted before he could shove the words back in his mouth. Hammond snorted and Heckly's eyebrows rose.

"It's not supposed to be fair," Heckly said gently. "You must always remember that battleboxers are not like real people. They only respond to violence. It's all they know."

"I see," Rerdas said quietly. But even as he said it, he was not quite sure he could make himself believe it. Imalroc seemed very much like a real person to him. A deranged and very dangerous one, to be sure, but a person nonetheless. He did not go back to the cellar that night.

With the inauspicious date set, time seemed to speed up. Rerdas did everything he could to get Imalroc back into peak condition, but the fighter remained thin and lifeless in practice. Imalroc did not try to strike him again, but for a while it seemed as though they were both constantly circling each other, watching and wary. The days grew shorter and night swallowed up more and more of the evenings. A cold wind blew into Kirinoll from the east, and green vitality was slowly sapped from the leaves that quivered in its grasp.

Dried leaves crunched under Rerdas' boots as he walked home, leading Hastings by a long-line. He had spent most of the day avoiding being caught alone in the woods with the Duke of Umber on yet another hunting trip. The man was damnably persistent.

The huntmaster slid Hastings tack off once they were inside the dilapidated stable. He fed the horse and sat down to work at the specks of dried mud on the leather saddle. The clanking sound of a lantern swinging made him look up.

"Rerdas. I've been looking for you," Dantin Heckly said.

"The hunting party was late getting back. And then Umber tried to get me to stay with him again, and it took me a while to get away without being rude."

"Dear boy, the point is that you not get away," Heckly said.

Rerdas laughed. "What was it you wanted to see me for?"

"Well..." Heckly glanced around before gingerly seating himself on a bale of hay beside Rerdas. "I've been at court selling a great deal of artwork in high circles, and I've heard some unsettling talk. Rumors are spreading about your aunt."

"What?" Rerdas straightened with a jerk, the saddle falling off of his knee. "What are they saying?"

"Lots of things. Mostly I heard talk of the Southern Felds. That she's spending her time with the disgraced Feldlords and Feldladies, helping them build up resistance to the Queen. A few people are saying that she's lost her mind and abandoned her status to live in a village with some primitive Southern tribe. But...there are some rumors going about that she has the Sleeping Sickness. And that she got it because she was a spy for the Draalish Empress, and she's been in Draal with the moratorium on."

"That's preposterous!"

"Most of it is," Heckly said. "I can't figure where all of the rumors are coming from, but I'd bet my life that the one about Draal and the Sleeping Sickness is coming straight from courtier that were directed to spread it. Which means the Queen wants this rumor alive in the court. She may suspect something, but she can't be certain of it yet. If they knew Uralta had the Sickness, the Guard would have ripped your estate apart to find her."

"But if they don't know about the Sleeping Sickness, why are they so intent on talking about her?" Rerdas moaned. He vaulted to his feet, paced away from Heckly and wheeled back to look at him. "She's sick, yes...but no one besides you saw her when the illness first set in. Just you, right Dantin?" Rerdas fixed the Earl with a frantic gaze.

Heckly nodded slowly. "Yes, but—"

"The Southern tribe rumor must have come from what Etiana said at the Duke's ball. Damn them all, we should have just stayed away from the court. And Aunt Uralta, a spy for Draal! It's ridiculous. She's never even been there!" Rerdas raked his hand through his hair in frustration.

"Rerdas...I...I'm sorry...but the truth is that she has," Heckly said.

Rerdas' knees locked and his spine stiffened. "Has what?" he heard himself ask.

"She has been into Draal. I...helped her over the border after the moratorium went up. I was supposed to meet her in Orsha when she got back, far in the north, but something happened. She was late. Only by a day or two, and she said she'd been detained by some group at the border but got away alright. I swear to you, she was fine that night...but then she went to sleep...and didn't...didn't wake back up. By the time I got her back to you the symptoms were all there."

"Dantin," Rerdas began. His voice felt as though it were drifting from someplace far away. "You let my aunt go into Draal by herself?"

"She would have gone with or without my help," the Earl said. "Eternals, Rerdas, if I'd known she was going to get sick I would have stopped her. I never would have—"

"How could you have let her go alone!" Rerdas slammed his hand into the nearest wooden pillar with a crunch. Hastings whinnied in alarm and shied away from him.

"She wouldn't let me go with her...it's more dangerous in Draal to go in with protection. They don't look kindly on Inofarans in the first place. And she'd gone before without there being any real problems. I'm so sorry. I just—"

"What do you mean, she'd gone before?"

"I don't know much, Rerdas. Only that she had contacts there...people were waiting for her. She only came to me because of the trade moratorium. But she said she had friends in there."

"Eternals..." Rerdas whispered. His anger fled, replaced with a shocking chill of fear. "Then she really was a spy."

"I...I don't know," Heckly said. He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead.

"She was a spy, and now she's sick. And somehow Advisor Yadi suspects her. Dantin, we've got to get out of here."

"Yes. That's what I needed to talk to you about. Given some of the things I'm hearing...I think you ought to buy one of the old Eastern Feld houses."

"Why?"

"It's far enough away from Kirinoll that the Queen and the Advisor might take it as a sign that you're backing down. Nobody goes to the east to involve themselves in politics."

"Unless they're sneaking across the eastern border to spy for our country's mortal enemy," Rerdas snapped.

Heckly frowned at his boots. "Don't speak of her that way. She would never betray Inofar."

"Then why was she going back and forth to Draal?"

"I don't know. Honestly. But your aunt was...is...one of the greatest voices of this age. She believes in Inofar. She never would have sold its secrets to Draal."

"What if we can't find the treatment out there? The medication?"

"The closer you are to Draal, the easier it will be to find the medicine. I'll help you find a supplier. But you need to be very careful with your timing. Leave too quickly and it'll set the whole court alight with gossip. Stay too long and I fear the Queen will move against you."

"We don't have the money to buy an Eastern feld. Even an impoverished one."

"I know. I'm afraid I don't have much in terms of hard onyx at the moment, or I'd lend you some. You'll have to find a way to save a good deal of it. I hate to say it but...you need the battleboxer. If he wins often, you might have enough by the end of this season."

"Why do we keep pinning everything on that damned fighter?" Rerdas growled. He felt sick to his stomach with nerves, and the mention of Imalroc made him feel truly miserable. "Have you...have you told Etiana this?"

"Yes. She's in the grounds house."

"We will see you later then." Rerdas strode out of the stable without sparing a backwards glance for the Earl, who was still hunched over on his bale of hay. The man's apology echoed out of the stable after him, but Rerdas could not bring himself to look back.

Etiana was on her knees at her mother's bedside. Tears beaded at the corners of her eyes, and she held Uralta's hand between her palms.

"Did he tell you?" she asked. She did not look up as Rerdas entered the room.

He stepped silently toward the bed and stared down at his aunt. "Yes."

"Do you believe it?"

"I don't know."

"I can't understand...why she would do such a thing."

"We have to go east, Eti. We can't stay here. They'll take her away from us once they discover she has the Sleeping Sickness."

"I know." Etiana slid the back of her hand across her eyes and then stood up, brushing dust from her knees. "We'll find a way out. How is the fighter?"

"He's shit. Angry. Tired, I imagine. We can't count on him."

Etiana's shoulders slumped, and then she lifted her chin. "We don't have a choice. He'll be fine. You'll see." She passed him without another word.

Rerdas stared down at his aunt's wasted face for a long while. Then he reached over and put out the lantern, and the room was swallowed by darkness.