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The parade lasted about an hour, and not once did Chelise turn a kind eye to him or show any hint of misgiving. She rode erect, with no emotion at all. She was right: this was her truth.

He spent the night in his cell, too nauseated to eat. But he still couldn't wash her image from his mind. He begged Elyon for her understanding, her heart, her mind, her soul. He finally cried himself to sleep.

He did not dream.

Chelise rode to the royal garden the next morning, as soon as she felt she could get away without the prying eyes of the court on her. She was flirting with a dangerous game. Even the smallest kindness shown to Thomas could drive a wedge between her and Qurong. Her father loved her; she was sure of that. But his love was conditioned by his people's ways. Hundreds of thousands of men had died in battle trying to defeat Thomas of Hunter. Aiding him in any way would be seen as treason. Qurong could never accept treason, especially not in his own court.

And Woref . . . She shuddered to think what Woref would do if he even suspected the small kindness she harbored for Thomas of Hunter.

She'd settled another matter last night with her maidservant, Elison.

“Why are you so upset over this, Chelise?” Elison had asked. “I would think parading your new slave on a chain would suit you. Thomas of Hunter, of all men! Qurong is calling him his slave, but the word on the street is that it was your idea.”

“How did that get out? Do the walls have ears here?”

“I think Ciphus said something. The point is, the people love you for it. The princess towing about the mighty warrior in chains.”

“No man should be insulted in that way. Especially a great warrior. The people are like ravenous dogs! Did you see the look in their eyes?”

“Please, my lady,” Elison said. “Don't misunderstand the situation here. Thomas of Hunter is the man responsible for widowing one out of every ten women in this city.”

“He's great, but not that great.”

“The Forest Guard then. Under his command.”

“The Forest Guard no longer exists. They don't even carry swords—what kind of enemy is that?”

Elison looked at her, dumb.

“Don't play ignorant with me, Elison. If I can't trust you, then who can I trust?”

“Of course.”

She turned to her servant, took her hand, and led her to the window seat. “Tell me that you would rather die than betray me. Swear it to me.”

“But, my lady, you know my loyalty.”

“Then swear it!”

“I swear it! What is this talk of betrayal?”

“I sympathize with him, Elison. Some people might consider that treason.”

“I don't understand. If you were to say something more scandalous, some service you required of him as your slave, I might understand that. But sympathy? He's an albino.”

“And he has more knowledge than Ciphus and Qurong put together!” Chelise said. Elison's eyes widened. “You see why I insisted you swear? To kill Thomas of Hunter would be to take the greatest mind. He may be the only one who can read the Books of Histories.”

Her servant looked at her with dawning. “You . . . you like him.”

“Maybe I do. But he's an albino, and I find albinos repulsive.” She looked out the window at the rising moon. “Strange that we call them albinos when we are whiter than they are. We even cover our skin to make it smooth like theirs.”

Elison stood in shock.

“Sit.”

She sat.

“You're forgetting yourself. I would think you should sympathize with Thomas yourself. You're both in servitude. He's a very kind man, Elison. The kindest I've met, I would say. I simply sympathize with Thomas the way I might sympathize with a condemned lamb. Surely you can find it in yourself to understand that.”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose I can,” she said, eyes still wide. “Have you . . . touched his skin?”

Chelise laughed. “
Now
who is scandalous? You're trying to make me ill? I have no attraction to him as a man, thank Elyon for that, or I might be in a real bind. Can you imagine Woref 's reaction?”

“Loving an albino would be treason. Punishable by death,” her maid-servant said.

“Yes, it would.”

She'd risen then, confident in her simple analysis. It was the first time she'd thought about her use of the morst as a way of becoming more albino. Just a coincidence, of course. Fashion was something that changed, and at the moment this new morst that happened to cover their scaly flesh distinguished women of royalty from commoners. In the years to come, it might be a blue paint.

Chelise passed through the royal garden's main gate and turned to Claudus, the senior guard who'd grown up as the cook's son. “Good morning, Claudus.”

“Morning, my lady. Beautiful morning.”

“Anyone pass this morning?”

“The scribes. No one else.”

“Has my slave bathed as I instructed?”

“Yes, and wasn't he filthy! We gave him a clean robe as well. He's waiting inside with the Books.”

“Good. I should have asked that you powder him as well.” She nudged her horse and then thought she'd better clarify her statement. “I can hardly stand being near him.”

“Shall we powder him?”

“No. No, I'm not that weak. Thank you, Claudus.”

“Of course, my lady.”

She headed toward the library, eager to be among the Books again. With Thomas. In all honesty the thought of powdering him felt profane to her. She didn't want him to be like her. Now there was a scandal.

Chelise tied her horse at the back entrance and slipped into the library, chiding herself for sneaking like a schoolgirl. They all knew she was here, doing precisely what they expected her to do. Qurong had insisted on having the Books read to him after her first lesson, but she'd stalled him. She claimed she wanted to surprise him by reading the Books to him herself. Thomas was her slave—the least they could do was let her spend a few days learning to read before robbing her of her gift.

She also convinced him that the other prisoners might be able to read the Books as well. They should be kept alive for the time.

Chelise unlocked the door, put her hand on the knob, took a deep breath, and stepped into the large storage room.

At first she thought he hadn't been brought yet. Then she saw him, on the ladder high above, searching madly through the Books again. He looked like a child caught stealing a wheat cake from the jar.

“Still looking for your secret Book?” she asked.

He descended quickly and stood with his arms by his sides, twenty feet from her. The long black robe made him look noble. With the hood pulled up and a little morst properly applied, he would look like one of them.

“Good morning, my lady.”

“Good morning.”

“I have a confession,” he said.

She walked to his right, hands clasped behind her back. “Oh?”

“I found the parade yesterday appalling.”

She knew he was probing, but she didn't care. “I'm sorry about that. My confession is that I found it appalling as well.”

Her statement robbed him of words, she thought.

“No decent man should have to suffer that,” she said.

“I agree.”

“Good. Then we're in agreement. Today I would like to learn to read.”

“I have another confession,” he said.

“Two confessions. I'm not sure I can match you.”

“I can't get you off my mind,” he said.

Now his statement robbed
her
of words. Heat spread down the nape of her neck. He was saying too much. Surely he realized that she could only do so much for him. Light, food, a bath, clothing. But she had her limitations.

“I will never be your savior, Thomas. You do realize that, don't you?”

“I don't think of you as my savior. I think of you as a woman, loved and cherished by Elyon.”

“You're saying too much. We should start the lesson now.”

He looked away, embarrassed. “Of course. I didn't mean that I had feelings for you. Not as a woman like that. I just . . .”

“You just what? Do you have an albino wife?”

“She was killed by your people when we made our first escape from the red lake. Our children are with my tribe now. Samuel and Marie.”

She wasn't sure what to make of that. She'd never heard that Thomas of Hunter had lost his wife. Or had children, for that matter.

“How old are they?”

“Samuel thinks he's twenty, though he's only thirteen. Marie is nearly fifteen.”

Thomas walked to the shelf and pulled out a Book. “I think it's important that you realize that your teacher respects you. As a student. As a woman who has ears to hear. I meant nothing else. Shall we begin?”

They spent an hour with the Book, carefully going over the letters that he insisted were English. They weren't, of course, but she began to associate certain marks with specific letters. She felt as if she was learning a new alphabet.

He worked with her with measured reason at first, gently explaining and rehearsing each letter. But as the hour passed, his passion for the task grew and became contagious. He explained with increasing enthusiasm and the movement of his arms became more exaggerated.

They worked closely, she on the chair behind the desk, he over her shoulder, when he wasn't pacing the floor in front of her. He had a habit of pressing the tips of his fingers together as he walked, and she found herself wondering how many swords those fingers had held over the years. How many throats had they slit in battle? How many women had they loved?

She would guess only one. His late wife.

They laughed and they argued over fine points, and gradually she became more comfortable with his proximity to her. With her proximity to his side, bumping her shoulder when he hurried in to point at a letter she'd missed; to his finger, accidentally touching her own; to his hand, gently tapping her back when she got it right.

His breath on her cheek when he was too passionate about a particular point to realize he was speaking loudly, so close.

She was no fool, of course. Thomas was no buffoon. In his own measured way, he was trying to draw her in. Disarming her. Winning her trust. Perhaps even her admiration.

And she was allowing him to do it. Was it so wrong to bump the shoulder of an albino? Did the guards not touch his skin when they shackled him?

Three hours had passed when Thomas decided that a test was finally in order.

“Okay,” he said, clapping his hands. “Read the whole paragraph, beginning to end.”

“The whole thing?” She felt positively giddy.

“Of course! Read what you've written.”

She focused on the words and began to read.

“The woman was give the sword man if running . . .” She stopped. It made no sense to her.

“That's not what you've written,” he said. “Please, in order, exactly as you wrote it.”

“I am reading it exactly as I wrote it!”

He frowned. “Then try again.”

“What's wrong? Why does it sound so mixed up?”

“Please, try again. From the top. Follow with your finger as I showed you.”

She started again, pointing to each word as she read. “The woman running if horse . . .”

Chelise looked up at him, horrified. “What's this nonsense coming from my mouth? I can't read it!”

His face lightened a shade. He stepped forward, took the paper she'd written on. His eye ran across the page. “You're not reading what's on the page,” he said. “You're mixing the words.”

Chelise felt hope drain from her like flour from a broken clay jar. “Then I won't be able to learn. What good is it if I can write the alphabet and form the words if they don't make any sense?”

He set the paper down and paced.

Chelise felt crushed. She would never be able to read these mysteries. Was she so stupid as that? Her throat suddenly felt tight.

Thomas faced her. “I'm sorry, Chelise. It's not your writing or your reading. It's your heart. It's the disease. As long as you have the disease, you'll never be able to read from the Books of Histories.”

She suddenly felt furious with him. “You knew this? How dare you toy with me!”

“No! Yes, I suspected that the disease might keep you from hearing, but the other day you did hear the truth behind the story. I thought you might be able to learn.”

“I have no disease! You're the albino, not me!” Tears sprang into her eyes.

Thomas looked stricken. He hurried around the desk and knelt beside her. “I'm so sorry. Please, we can fix this!”

Chelise placed her forehead in one hand. She took a deep breath and calmed herself. She didn't understand his sorcery, but she doubted her ignorance was his fault.

Thomas put a hand on her shoulder. “I can help you. I can teach you to read the Books of Histories, I swear. I will. Do you hear me? I will.”

“What's the meaning of this?”