The other lands

Having helped orchestrate the reunion, Thaddeus takes some solace in seeing the children grown, healthy, and strong. He leaves them and sets off on a mission of his own. He realizes he knows where The Song of Elenet is hidden in the palace of Acacia, and he knows a secret way to enter and get to it. He manages this and plans to return the book to Aliver so that he can fully call on the Santoth. Before he leaves, he sees Cori

What he doesn't know is that Cori

Thaddeus shows her The Song of Elenet. Feeling its power, Cori

Meanwhile, Aliver's army meets the Meinish forces, led by Maeander, on the plains of northern Talay. The clash lasts for several days, the advantage veering back and forth. Maeander unleashes savage beasts called antoks that do great damage to the rebellious forces, but so does Aliver's co

Then Maeander approaches the Acacians personally. He offers, invoking ancient customs, to fight Aliver in single combat. Aliver can't resist this chance of ending the contest between them, instead of letting so many of the common people he's grown to love die. Against Mena and Dariel's protests, he agrees. For a time it seems he might prevail, but all too suddenly Maeander strikes a fatal blow. Aliver falls dead.

In a moment of rage, Dariel orders the troops to attack Maeander, thus breaking the oaths given prior to the duel. Fighting resumes between both armies in earnest, and the Meinish forces appear to be wi

Back on Acacia, Cori

As the book ends, a sort of peace has returned to the Known World. Cori

Prologue

In Luana, during the ninth year of Hanish Mein's rule I t should have been him. Just him. Ravi shouted this again and again. He jumped to be seen above the crowd. He pushed through the other children and grabbed at any of the red-cloaked soldiers he got near enough to reach. They ignored him or shoved him back into place or brought a crop down on his head and shoulders. Ravi would not stop shouting. They were making a mistake! He would go with them wherever they wished to take him. He would behave. He would do whatever they asked, but Mor should be no part of this! She was their parents' only other child. They needed her. Their mother could not live without her. He had heard her say so more than once.

"Please," he shouted, "let her go! Let her go home!"

A squat soldier rounded on him. He was shorter than most of the men, thick around the waist, with leathery skin and hair that bristled like a spiny rodent's. His crimson shirt stretched tight across his belly. He grabbed Ravi by the chin and spoke close to his face, the man's onion-scented words hot on his skin. "You're both quota," he said, his accent strange to Ravi's ears. "You understand? You've both been given. Two peas from the same pod, two pups from the same litter. That's just the way it is, lad. Accept it, and your life won't be so bad."

The man tried to push the boy away. When Ravi clung to his arm, the man growled that he had been patient enough. He balled his hand into a fist and smashed the boy on his nose. Ravi saw black for a moment. When his eyes cleared he stood sputtering, stu

"Ravi…" His sister's voice finally reached him. Her voice was part of why he had been yelling. He feared to hear it. He began to move toward another red-cloaked man, but Mor threw her arms around him and would not be shaken off. "Please, Ravi, stop it! This helps nothing. You'll make them angrier."

Angrier? Ravi thought. Angrier? What did it matter if they were angry? He came near to whirling on her with harsh words, but her grip on him was tight and, in truth, he did not really want to break free from her. He knew that she was right. She was always calmer than he was. She never wasted actions, as he often did. On the farm, she worked each day steadily and slowly. She moved like an old woman, he used to think. But somehow she always finished her chores before him, no matter that he was faster and stronger than she. Even now, she was more self-assured than he was. Acknowledging this stilled him more than her grip on him and more than his fatigue and his battered face.

"Good, Ravi, come," she whispered, starting to pull him back into the mass of children. "Better they don't see you. They're not going to let me go. You know that, and they might separate us if you keep drawing attention to yourself. I don't want to be alone, Ravi."

Neither did he. He let her pull him into the group, sliding between the others until they were two among many. Now that he had ceased his commotion, he and his sister were little different from the rest. He saw a few faces from the neighboring village. The rest were strangers, but judging by their clothing, demeanor, and fear-filled eyes they were much the same as he and Mor. They were farm children, too, from the fertile but isolated territory north of the Lakelands. They had been gathered together near a town he had never been to. They were like so many sheep brought into one corral and kept in place by wolves in red garments.

How many of them were there? Hundreds, Ravi thought. Children as young as seven or eight, some as old as he and his twin sister at thirteen. They all had frightened eyes and often whispered to those nearby, trying to gain some understanding of what was happening. Many had tear-streaked faces, smudged and dirty. Their hair was mostly silver blond, their complexions smooth and pale, eyes narrow and deep set in a way that foreigners sometimes laughed at, thinking them a dim, passive people. They weren't dim, though, or passive. They were far enough north that they had often gone u