ber that most about us, do you think, after we are gone?"
"Perhaps," Saevar said. "But they will remember. The one thing we know with certainty is that they will remember us. Here in the peninsula, and in Ygrath, and Quileia, even west over the sea, in Barbadior and its Empire. We will leave a name."
"And we leave our children," Valentin said. "The younger ones. Sons and daughters who will remember us. Babes in arms our wives and grandfathers will teach when they grow up to know the story of the River Deisa, what happened here, and, even more, what we were in this province before the fall. Brandin of Ygrath can destroy us tomorrow, he can overrun our home, but he cannot take away our name, or the memory of what we have been."
"He cannot," Saevar echoed, feeling an odd, unexpected lift to his heart. "I am sure that you are right. We are not the last free generation. There will be ripples of tomorrow that run down all the years. Our children's children will remember us, and will not lie tamely under the yoke."
"And if any of them seem inclined to," Valentin added in a different tone, "there will be the children or grandchildren of a certain sculptor who will smash their heads for them, of stone or otherwise."
Saevar smiled in the darkness. He wanted to laugh, but it was not in him just then. "I hope so, my lord, if the goddesses and the god allow. Thank you. Thank you for saying that."
"No thanks, Saevar. Not between us and not this night. The Triad guard and shelter you tomorrow, and after, and guard and shelter all that you have loved,"
Saevar swallowed. "You know you are a part of that, my lord. A part of what I have loved."
Valentin did not reply. Only, after a moment, he leaned forward and kissed Saevar upon the brow. Then he held up a hand and the sculptor, his eyes blurring, raised his own hand and touched his Prince's palm to palm in farewell. Valentin rose and was gone, a shadow in moonlight, back towards the fires of his army.
The singing seemed to have stopped, on both sides of the river. It was very late. Saevar knew he should be making his own way back and settling down for a few snatched hours of sleep. It was hard to leave though, to rise and surrender the perfect beauty of this last night. The river, the moons, the arch of stars, the fireflies and all the fires.
In the end he decided to stay there by the water. He sat alone in the summer darkness on the banks of the River Deisa, with his strong hands loosely clasped about his knees. He watched the two moons set and all the fires slowly die and he thought of his wife and children and the life's work of his hands that would live after him, and the trialla sang for him all night long.


PART ONE - A BLADE IN THE SOUL

Chapter 1①本①作①品①由①①網①友①整①理①上①傳①

IN THE AUTUMN SEASON OF THE WINE, WORD WENT FORTH from among the cypresses and olives and the laden vines of his country estate that Sandre, Duke of Astibar, once ruler of that city and its province, had drawn the last bitter breath of his exile and age and died.
No servants of the Triad were by his side to speak their rituals at his end. Not the white-robed priests of Eanna, nor those of dark Morian of Portals, nor the priestesses of Adaon, the god.
There was no particular surprise in Astibar town when these tidings came with the word of the Duke's passing. Exiled Sandre's rage at the Triad and its clergy through the last eighteen years of his life was far from being a secret. And impiety had never been a thing from which Sandre d'Astibar, even in the days of his power, had shied away.
The city was overflowing with people from the outlying distrada and far beyond on the eve of the Festival of Vines. In the crowded taverns and khav rooms truths and lies about the Duke were traded back and forth like wool and spice by folk who had never seen his face and who would have once paled with justifiable terror at a summons to the Ducal court in Astibar.
All his days Duke Sandre had occasioned talk and speculation through the who