Aedric's face registered surprise. "You want to see them?"

Rudolfo nodded. "I do. I want to speak with them. Question them."

He glanced to Jin Li Tam. She regarded him with a face he could not read, but her hands moved with subtle grace along the reins. He admired the care she took to be sure none saw but him. Are you certain giving them voice is the answer?

He smiled, though it was brief and felt out of place. He'd just started teaching her the subverbal language of House Y'Zir last month, and she was nearly proficient. Of course, she'd already known eleven other subverbals. Rudolfo's fingers moved over Jakob's shoulder and head as he formed his reply. I'm not certain.

Rudolfo felt the power of his words even as his hands made them. He truly wasn't certain, and it was foreign to him. "I think our old strategies are no longer serving us well," he said, keeping his gaze steady on her blue eyes.

Then, he looked away from her, toward Aedric. "Be certain they're well cared for, Aedric. I intend to return them whole to their bloodletting queen."

He did not wait for Aedric to speak before he pushed his horse forward. He wondered if Jin Li Tam would follow him but secretly hoped she wouldn't. He needed this time for himself and his son.

Two years ago, he'd ridden these same plains, Gregoric at his side. A shadow had moved over the light of that second summer day, and he'd looked up to a pillar of smoke on the sky. He marked it now as a day when his life-and his world-changed utterly. From that moment, so many other changes had flowed out to him, sweeping him away with the force of their current, including his betrothal to Jin Li Tam and the birth of their son.

He felt the warmth of his son against his chest and thought about the new shadow passing over the light that remained. Six months earlier, at the edge of spring, he'd watched Ria bring Petronus back from the dead with her blood magicks and had watched his betrothed beg for their son's life as a result of it, the culmination of a grand manipulation.