Rees opened his eyes to the soft light of a lantern. Somewhere nearby, the moan of wind resonated from the mouth of a cave or tunnel. Recognizing the glittering contents of the rock dust under his jaw, he realized it was a mine shaft. He was lying face down in the dirt, like an abandoned trolley cart.

Rees tried to sit up and failed. His body was weak, weaker than anything he’d ever experienced before. It was then that he noticed the blood seeping into the dirt beneath him, staining the ground a deep red.

Is that mine? Rees thought, stunned. Disturbed, weary, he opened his mind and scanned his body for a wound.

He found it, a gruesome hole right next to his heart.

Someone tried to murder me. Anger and fear struggled for prominence in his mind, stealing precious seconds from him as he tried to get his emotions under control enough to patch up the wound.

It was difficult. The longer he worked on it, the stronger his fear became, until it eventually won out and it was all he could do not to panic. His life, he knew, depended upon sealing the hole before he lost consciousness again. If he didn’t, he would not wake.

Exercising as much discipline as his numbed brain could muster, he wove the wound back into place and then lay there for long minutes, dizzy, wondering if he had sealed it fast enough. He opened his awareness to his source of veoh and immersed himself in the crisp, silvery waves that rolled against the beaches of his mind.

Who would want me dead? He thought of the Vethyles, of the blood-feud they had instigated by murdering Brael’s son. Was this some sort of payback? As far as Rees knew, no Vethyles had died suspiciously in years. He had certainly never killed anyone.

Then he remembered Laelia and the children.

What if the Auldin was here for the Rockfarmer? What if he’d gotten in the way of an assassination attempt?

Little-by-little, Rees felt the veoh return some of his strength. He turned his head, slowly, looking uphill at the entrance to the mine.

Glazed blue-white eyes stared back at him.

Rees felt his gorge rise. Uncle Icel’s face was burnt, one half of his gray hair a frizzy, stinking mess. One half of his body rested beside the other half. He was dead.

Rees closed his eyes until his heart stopped pounding. As he lay there, face pressed into the dirt, he heard movement toward the entrance to the mine shaft. Two men. Dragging something. He tilted his head slightly, daring to look.

He did not recognize the two men dragging the stinking corpse, but he recognized the two standing in the entrance beyond. Bile burned in his throat as he memorized their faces. Vethyles. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, Rees had seen their tanned faces dozens of times while living in the capital city of Siorus, working as the Auldheim’s apprentice in the Spyre.

Laelia and Taebin Vethyle. Auldin Cyriaca Vethyle’s niece and nephew.

This can’t be happening, Rees thought, watching the other two drag the body closer. It was Madoc, another powerful Ganlin Auld. His head lolled too far to one side, his neck obviously broken. Like his uncle Icel, Madoc’s eyes were glazed with death.

Those two were more powerful than half the Vethyles combined, Rees thought, in horror. Then he realized they must have been ambushed, just like he had. Killed and their bodies removed before the other Ganlins found them.

No, Rees thought, thinking of Aneirin and the others, celebrating inside. They’re going to get all of us.

One by one, as Nirin’s friends and family went to relieve themselves or to lounge in the hot springs, they would be picked off by the Vethyles. And Rees couldn’t help them. It was all he could do to stay awake.

Still too weak to move, exhaustion tugging at the edges of his mind, Rees burned the faces of the four Vethyles into his mind. Laelia and Taebin were easy to remember—if there were any two Vethyles that Rees would have liked to see burn in hell, it was those two. Their two male companions were harder to place. He judged they were of the Eldrin line, since their stockiness and hazel eyes were common to Vethyles who lived along the border with Etro, bloodlines long ago crossed with the mountaineers who lived in the Hundredmile Pass.

Suddenly, a man in black shoved a skinny form past Laelia and her brother, into the mine.

Rees’s gut twisted when he realized that the wretched form that rolled to the floor beside Madoc was his veoh-son. Aneirin’s face was bruised and he had a long gash running down his arm, dribbling scarlet blood upon the floor of the shaft.

Aneirin righted himself and held his head high as Laelia moved forward, her eyes glittering like cold sapphires.

“Remember what I told you?” Laelia said. “About begging?”

What is she talking about? Rees asked, feeling delirious. And why isn’t Aneirin stopping this?

Then, for a moment, the haze cleared long enough for Rees to realize that Aneirin couldn’t help himself...he had just had every ounce of veoh drained out of him. It would take him a week to recuperate.

Suddenly terrified for his veoh-son, Rees tried to move, tried to stand, tried to speak, but his arms and legs wouldn’t respond. He was so weak his eyes were struggling to stay open, sleepiness dragging at his senses. What was real and what was dream began to blur into one. Rees called out again and again in his mind, yet never uttered a single word out loud.

When Aneirin went unnaturally stiff, held in place by a wrap of veoh, Rees cried. No one heard. When Laelia drew a knife from her pocket, Rees’s mind disintegrated into a ruin of terror and he screamed. No one heard. Aneirin stood tall throughout as Laelia drew the knife upon his veoh-son’s body, taking bits and pieces here and there. Though Aneirin gasped now and again, he somehow kept his face rigid, his lips free of pleading words. On the ground, tears wetted the dirt under Rees’s face, but he couldn’t do anything to save him.

Aneirin died, but despite Laelia’s efforts, he didn’t die begging.

When at last Laelia finished and his veoh-son’s crumpled form lay at her feet, she turned and walked back out into the night where her brother stood, watching wordlessly. Taebin said something, a low sound, and Laelia brushed by, out onto the Slopes. Laughing, Taebin followed her.

Leaving Rees staring into his veoh-son’s dead eyes.

They’re going to die for what they’ve done, Rees promised his nephew.

If Aneirin’s ghost heard him, it did not respond. Rees felt hot tears against his cheeks.

After Taebin and Laelia had gone, one of the two Eldrin Vethyles dragged another body inside and began to dig in the floor of the mine shaft near Icel’s head, giving Rees a good chance to study his face.

He was almost a head shorter than Nirin and wore his dark reddish beard cropped short, the hair of his head slightly longer and only a tint lighter than his beard. It was his roundish, bulbous nose that caught the eye, though. Like someone had shoved marbles inside his nostrils

I’m going to remember you, Rees thought as he steadily drifted towards unconsciousness, tears wetting the ground beneath him. You’re going to die for what you’ve done.

The Eldrin Vethyle paused in his digging and looked at Rees. The digger cocked his head, frowning. Rees felt himself sinking deeper into unconsciousness.

Still frowning, the Eldrin Vethyle set his shovel against the wall of the shaft and drew a wicked knife from his belt. The same one, Rees realized, that had probably put a hole in his chest. It was still stained red.

“What have we here?” the Eldrin Vethyle said. “You still alive there, old man?” He leaned forward and grabbed a fistful of Rees’s hair in his free hand.

You’ll die for what you’ve done, Rees promised.

The blade slid across his throat and sleep finally came.