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recognized quickly that if they fought Tulim the best they could hope for was to be in search of new employment afterward—for what is a prince’s guard with no prince? After all, Tulim was one of Parnad’s heirs, and although he had begun as a very unimportant one he had managed to outlast nearly two dozen others—that in itself was enough to convince them his candidacy was worth considering; Gorhan’s small but firmly committed bodyguard and their sharp spears were enough to make the argument convincing.
    So it was that Prince Tulim, whom few had even noticed and none had particularly feared, walked across the bodies of dozens to achieve the Falcon Throne of Xis, taking for himself the autarchical name Sulepis am Bishakh . In days to come, Sulepis would reassert the historical right of Xis to rule over all the continent of Xand, walking across the bodies of hundreds of thousands more to do so, covering most of the land south of the Osteian Sea with his bloody footprints. And if he then set his sights on conquering the northern continent of Eion, who could blame him? He clearly had destiny on his side: his flame had indeed proved to burn brighter than all others.
    And, like a god, Tulim-who-became-Sulepis didn’t only mete out justice on the scale of continents: he could be personal as well. Within a few days of taking the throne he found himself in disagreement with his uncle Gorhan over some minor matter of statecraft, at which point Gorhan gave the new autarch a look calculated to make him feel, if not shame, at least discomfort at his own ingratitude.
    “I am disappointed, my lord,” Gorhan told his nephew. “I thought we were to be like this ,” he held up his fingers, index and middle pressed together. “I thought you cared enough to heed my advice. You are like a son to me, Tulim. I had hoped to be like a father to you.”
    “Like a father?” Sulepis raised one eyebrow, fixing Gorhan with a stare as remorseless and golden as that of a hunting hawk. “So be it.” He turned to the captain of his Leopard guard. “Take the old man away,” he said. “Flay the skin from his body—but slowly, so that he may feel it. Not all at once, either, but in a single strip winding the length of his body, starting at his feet and continuing to the top of his head. I would like him to live until then, this new ‘father’ of mine.”
    Even the hardened captain hesitated as old Gorhan fell to his knees, weeping and begging for mercy. “A single strip, Golden One?” the soldier asked. “How wide?”
    Sulepis smiled and lifted two fingers. “Like this.”

PART ONE
    THE KNOTTED ROPE

1
    A Cold Fever
    “This Book is for all children of gentle birth, to give them instruction of the good example of the Orphan, holiest of mortals, beloved of the gods . . .”
     
—from “A Child’s Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven”
     
     
     
    T HE DISTANT MOUNTAINS WERE BLACK, as were the rocky beach and the pounding sea, and the sky was like wet gray stone; the only bright things he could see were the crests of the waves that ran ahead of the stiff breeze and the gleaming white foam that leaped toward the sky each time a wave died against the rocks.
    Barrick could scarcely take it all in. Overwhelmed by the clamor of the Fireflower voices, the inside of his head felt louder and more dangerous than the crashing surf, as though at any moment this storm of foreign thoughts, ideas, and memories might sweep him away, batter him and push him under, drown him utterly. . . .
    ... Not since Mawra the Breathless walked the world . . .
    ... But they came not by sea as Silvergleam had expected, but from the air . . .
    ... She was never after seen, although her lover and his pack searched the hills until the winter snows . . .
    It was all he could do not to scream at the unending storm of thoughts. He clenched his teeth and curled his hands into fists as he struggled to hold onto the Barrick Eddon at the center