Rojer laughed. “If all the Core rose up tonight, you’d be safer in Leesha’s cottage than anywhere else in the world.”

Jardir found that hard to believe, but as they came close to the cottage, he found the path laid with a walkway of stone wards, each large enough to stand upon without marring it.

Jardir stopped short, looking at the stones in amazement. He squatted, pressing against the stone with his hand. “Everam’s beard. It must have taken a thousand slaves to carve these.”

“We ent a bunch of filthy desert slavers like you,” Gared muttered. Jardir’s first impulse was to kill the man, but that was no way to impress the mistress. He embraced the insult instead and gave it no further thought, returning his focus to the path.

“The wards were poured, not carved,” Rojer said, “made from a mixture of stone and water called crete, which hardens as it dries. Leesha cut them into the ground herself, and free men poured the stone.”

Jardir scanned the path ahead in amazement. “These are combat wards. And linked.”

Rojer nodded. “Any demon that sets foot on this path might as well step into a sunbeam.”

Jardir realized he had been arrogant and naïve to scoff before. For all their savage ways, not even Sharik Hora held the power of some of the Northern woman’s wardings.

The yard was no less stunning, filled with more crete walkways that wove a complex wardnet around the cottage and its environs. A large garden bloomed brightly, the herbs and flowers arranged in neat groupings, their lines forming yet more wards. Jardir couldn’t recognize many of them, but he saw enough to know that these did far more than banish or kill corelings.

Stronger than ever, he felt Everam’s will thrumming within him. This woman was destined to be his bride. With her and Inevera behind him, what in the world could he not accomplish?

Leesha listened to the comforting rhythm of Wonda chopping firewood as she prepared lunch. The simple task helped give her mind clarity as she went over the night’s events and compared the men she had met with the tales of the refugees and Arlen’s words of warning.

It was not that she did not trust the accounts, but Leesha preferred to form her own opinions. Many of the refugees spoke hearsay and exaggeration, and Arlen’s heart could be hard and unforgiving at times. Something had happened to him in Krasia, some hurt done he could not forgive, but since he would not speak of it, Leesha could only guess as to what it was.

Whatever else might be true of the Krasians, they were warriors without equal. Leesha had seen that instantly as she watched them fight. The Cutters were generally larger and more heavily muscled, but they moved with none of the precision that marked the dal’Sharum. The fifty camped in the clearing could cut a swath of destruction across the Hollow before they were pulled down, and if the rest of Jardir’s army had half their skill, the Hollowers would stand little chance against them, even with all the secrets of fire she could muster.

And so she had determined that they must not fight, if it could be avoided. It was one thing to kill demons, but every human life was precious. The books of the old world said mankind had once numbered in the billions, but how many remained after the Return? A quarter million? The thought of the last men in the world fighting one another sickened her.

Yet neither could she surrender. She would not spit on her hand and wet the Hollow for the Krasians. She had worked too hard to hold the Hollowers together after the flux to assimilate the refugees from Rizon and Lakton to just turn them over. If there was a way to negotiate a peace, she had to find it.

The first meeting with the Krasian leader had seemed to indicate that was a possibility. He was cultured and intelligent, nothing like the rabid animal the accounts had portrayed, and clearly held true to his beliefs, even if Leesha thought them brutal and cruel at times. She had looked deeply into his eyes, and there was no cruelty there. Like a stern father administering a needed spanking, Ahmann Jardir was doing what he thought best for humanity.

Leesha paused in her work, realizing that the chopping outside had stopped. She looked up as the door opened and Wonda stood in the threshold.

“Wash up and set the table,” Leesha said. “Lunch will be another few minutes.”

“Beggin’ your pardon, mistress, but Rojer and Gared are here to see you,” Wonda said.

“Tell them to come in and set another pair of places at the table,” Leesha said.

But Wonda just stood there. “They’re not alone.”

Leesha set her knife on the cutting board and toweled her hands clean as she went to the door. Ahmann Jardir stood on her front porch, standing calmly and ignoring the way Gared glared at him. He wore a fine white robe over his warrior blacks, matching the white turban his crown nestled within. Leesha’s eyes danced across its wards, but she forced herself not to stare. She dropped her gaze to his eyes, but that was worse, for they bored into her with such intensity that she felt as if he could see her very soul.

Jardir bowed deeply. “Forgive my appearing unannounced, mistress.”

“Just say the word and I’ll haul him back where he came from, Leesha,” Gared said.

“Nonsense,” Leesha said. “Welcome,” she told Jardir. “Wonda and I were about to sit down to lunch. Would you care to join us?”

“I would be honored and delighted,” Jardir said, bowing again. He followed Leesha into the cottage, pausing to remove his sandals and leave them by the door. Leesha noted that even his feet were covered in ward scars. A kick from him would likely do as much to a coreling as one by the Painted Man.

The meal Mistress Leesha had prepared was a meatless stew served with fresh bread and cheese. Jardir bowed his head as she invoked a blessing over the food, and then everyone began eating at once. He began to lift his bowl to drink when he noticed the greenlanders were leaving theirs on the table, using some sort of tool to bring the food to their lips.

He glanced at his own setting, and saw a similar utensil there—a wooden strip with a depression at the end. He looked at Leesha and mirrored her actions as he tasted the stew. It was delicious, with heavy vegetables he had never tasted. He began to eat more vigorously, using the thick greenland bread to soak the last drops from his bowl as he saw Gared and Wonda do.

“Exquisite,” he told the mistress, and felt a thrill run through him as he saw her pleasure at the compliment. “We do not have such food in Krasia.”

Leesha smiled. “There is much we could learn from each other, if we can find a way to live in peace.”

“Peace, mistress?” Jardir asked. “There is no such thing on Ala. Not while the alagai hold the night and men cower before them.”

“So the tales are true?” Leesha asked. “You mean to conquer us and levy our people for Sharak Ka?”

“Why should I wish to conquer you?” Jardir asked. “Your people are humble before the Creator, stand tall in the night, and shed blood in alagai’sharak alongside my warriors. That makes you Evejan, though you know it not.”

“It don’t!” the giant growled. “We ent got nothin’ to do with your filthy—”

“Gared Cutter!” Leesha’s voice snapped like a dama’s whip, silencing him. “You’ll keep a polite tongue at my table or I’ll give it such a dose of pepper you can’t talk for a month!”