Ilna didn't believe in charms of that sort. From what she'd seen since the hunters joined her, the strength of Asion's shoulders would be sufficient for most purposes. Ilna glanced at the strands of yarn in her hands, ready to be woven into a pattern to freeze the mind or stop the heart of anyone who saw it. She could instead knot the yarn into a simple oracle to answer the question, "Does an enemy wait for us below?" She did something similar every morning to choose the direction for the day's travels… but such care wasn't required now. She trusted the long, fine fur growing on the top of Asion's ears, and she trusted her own instinct to tell her if something ahead wasn't right, was out of place in a peaceful valley. She didn't feel that here. Ilna'd lived in a hamlet on the east coast of Haft until she was eighteen. Two years ago a wizard named Tenoctris had washed up on shore and everything had changed. She and her brother Cashel had left home forever, accompanied by their childhood friends, Garric and Sharina. And now- Garric was ruler of the Isles; his sister had become Princess Sharina of Haft; and Cashel had the only thing that'd ever mattered to him, Sharina's love. He could be Lord Cashel if he'd wanted, but the title meant no more to him than it would've to Ilna.

Ilna's lips were as hard as knife edges. At one time she'd have said she didn't want anything beyond what her skill at weaving brought her.

Then she met Chalcus and Merota, a man and a child who loved her… until they were killed. Ilna smiled. Death was the greatest and perhaps the only peace she could imagine. Until then, she'd kill catmen. "We'll go down," she said, standing and stepping out of the brush without waiting to see whether the hunters agreed. That was their business; they'd joinedher, rather than Ilna os-Kenset clinging to a chance-met pair of strong, confident men for protection. The skills Ilna had learned in Hell were far more lethally effective than the hunters' weapons and muscles.