Braksya grabbed her arm, wrenching her away from the scene.

“Well, that was interesting,” he said as they ran.

He could not have understood a single word the queen had spoken, but she did not doubt that the sentiment behind his remark held true, and it took some time before she could formulate a reply. “I thought you’d betrayed me again.”

He shrugged. “I wished to see if I could finally leave.” Perhaps out of some strange consideration for her, he continued his explanation without prompting. “Ever since I set my hands on that damned scabbard, I have been unable to pass the borders of Awat.”

“And so?” she asked, his words barely registering. “Can you, now?”

“Yes.”

That gave her pause. “Why did you return?”

“I do so dislike leaving behind unfinished business.” After a pause, he added, “And, after all, it was still my scabbard.”

“Not anymore.”

“No,” he agreed. “Not anymore.”

When she did not respond, he said, “I had always wanted to see the other world for myself. It is all I have wanted, ever since hearing of the sword Hazsam and its humble scabbard. When the scabbard fell into my hands...”

Still she said nothing.

“The spirit paths brush against both worlds, but just barely,” he murmured then. “They exist only in the spaces in between... And no paths exist that lead to the dead.”

“The Night of Ghosts. You knew they would take action tonight.” The night the realms drew near.

She did not ask if he had found what he was looking for.

“I suspected,” he admitted, and then, to her surprise, said, “I’m sorry. I should have told you, when I realized the princess was a sorceress.”

She stopped. “You what?”

He slowed to a stop beside her. “I did not think you would react well.”

“I would have refused to believe you,” she replied, as the last of the pieces fell into place. The insects. The fear. Laughter escaped from her mouth, sudden, desperate, gasping. “They all assumed the rumors pointed to a man, that he was not one of ours... When did you realize the truth?”

“I considered the possibility early on in my search, but dismissed it. This little one —” a small forked tongue flicked out from his sleeve “— found no traces of the trail, even with that jade comb you picked up. True, most of the deaths were in the vicinity of the capital at first, but not all of them were. And true, it has always been said that the southern kings possessed some ability to communicate with the other world. But it is not an ability that has surfaced in many generations.”

“Then...”

“On the return journey. When she grabbed the sword during the chaos by the lake — in that moment, I realized. The call of residual power within your wound was strong, but in her it was stronger. Hazsam responded to her, as it had responded to the prince. On the way back, she tried to hide it, but knowing now of the truth, I could sense it regardless.” He barely hesitated before continuing, mild distaste entering his voice for the first time. “She is powerful. So powerful that her lifestreams are interwoven into the very fabric of our world, or I should have noticed it sooner. I do not know if it is due to her blood or to the nature of her contract, or both. Frankly speaking, I do not even know if she is contracted. It seemed far more likely that she were but an innocent victim, barely aware of her own strength, rather than actively cooperating with that tiger mercenary of yours. Else I doubt your little war with Nua would have lasted so long.” He exhaled. “I assumed, at any rate, that she posed no more threat after what transpired at Gokho Lake. And I must confess, I was too disappointed in the results of my personal search to consider the matter of importance any longer. I was mistaken.”

Why are you telling me this now? she thought to ask, but in the end she did not.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she murmured instead, sifting through truths both admitted and unspoken, and the questions that remained. Would perhaps always remain.

Victim or no, the girl was responsible, must be responsible for dozens if not hundreds of deaths...

Had the queen been blind even to this? Or was this, then, the true reason for her final request?

How little she had known the people around her. But even that, it seemed, mattered no longer.

“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” he replied at length, and seemed about to say something else when a loud snap from the bushes startled them both.

It was Nalum. Face pale as a ghost’s, caked with blood and ash, streaked with sweat and tears. Jenhra’s body slumped against her shoulder, feet dragging behind in the mud.

She stared at Ashne, accusation in her eyes.

Perhaps an eternity passed as they stood there, out of time, out of place. Or perhaps only a heartbeat.

There was no going back. No going back, and all the time in world to settle their debts.

“Go,” Ashne said.

It was all she could say.

The girl watched her for one moment longer, then turned and disappeared into the shadows.

In the distance soldiers shouted.

“We should go too,” said Braksya.

Ashne nodded, eyes still trained on the empty spot where Nalum had stood.

Then, at last, she turned, and broke out once more into a run.

* * *

They slipped past the army gathered at the base of the mountain, ducking behind trees, hiding within the shadows, running and running and running without even a single moment of hesitation.

They did not stop running until they reached the lookout hill, the hill of the crooked pine.

Ashne drew to a stop beneath its needled branches. Turned back, watching the smoke rising from atop the sacred mountain.

Braksya drew up beside her.

“What will you do now?” he said.

“I...” The flames danced in her eyes, as if the fire raged before her still. “I don’t know.”

“They were heading west, last I saw.”

She did not need to ask whom he meant.

“I know.”

He waited.

“I have to bring her back,” she said.

It was some time before he replied.

“You’re free, now.” He reached out, fingers hovering above her waist, curling in the air, not quite brushing against the place where the scar Hazsam had left her remained. It no longer pained her. She suspected it no longer would, now that the sword was dead, truly dead.

She suspected, too, that it was not just Hazsam he spoke of.

“I know,” she said. “I know. But I...”

She wondered, then, if all her life until now had been nothing but a lie. If it had all been meaningless. Zsaran’s sacrifice, Zsaran’s love. The oaths they had sworn. All broken now. All lost.

Through fire and water.

Forgive me.

“This is my choice,” she said at last. “Not what I want, not what I must, but what I choose...” She swallowed. “I won’t let the Court have her.”

A breeze lifted a strand of her hair, still mottled and dark. She brushed it away and looked up at him. Could not read his expression in the gray dawn.

“Will you not come with me?”

He said nothing, watching her, but in the end he said, “There’s no point, now. The conduits are destroyed. And she wasn’t the one I was looking for after all.”

She bowed her head. “I understand.”

“I suppose this is where we part, then.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Thank you. For everything. Goo—”

He interrupted her with a light touch on her shoulder and offered a sly, fleeting grin when she looked up in surprise.

“We’ll meet again.”

She stared at him, uncomprehending. But he gazed back at her gravely, offering no further explanation.

“Yes,” she said at last, bravely returning his earlier smile. “We will.”

She turned.

As the sun climbed steadily above the horizon, she descended the hill, heading north and west.

Fin

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Thank you very much for reading! Please feel free to leave comments if you enjoyed (or even if you didn't :P)

eta: For paperback ordering info see http://www.tewaters.com/printoffer

And for a sneak peak at excerpts/drafts for the sequel see http://www.wattpad.com/story/2180312-black-tortoise-white-snake-draft-excerpts

:)