It was the second day of their travels and the second camp in the cold, stark night. The camp was made in the hollow of a hill, its trees tossed bare of their leafy cloaks. Water and ice had carved a shallow shelter from rock, and its nature was known to Ewan from his memory as a Sedlaral. That he now hunted them did not disturb him in any way Kiema could perceive. Reserve of her energies inside kept her from the temptation of battering at his internal walls to get some hint of what he was feeling.

?Stare all you want,? he said as he poked at the timid fire meant to keep them in a small measure warm, ?it will not help you make the decision you should have made weeks ago.?

The warm baritone of his voice held the edge like a sliver of ice along a frozen finger. ?Dealing death is your trade and service, Ewan, not mine.?

?If you do not do what you are suppose to do then it will be our deaths you deal, and? his voice held the scowl his face did not reveal, ?this is the only way to keep others from being killed or taken.?

?The only one we know,? Kiema countered. ?It is just beyond my reach, Ewan, the real answer to this without the killing.? The strain inside began again; to think beyond the expected and reach for that just unheard note of a new tune to play this song a different way.

His leap around the fire was deadly accurate to startle her with his sudden nearness. ?They are not alive anymore, Kiema. They were bodies taken, stolen, their souls driven from them to the purpose of those who want to take over this country and yours.? Heat came from his words as suppressive as a forge. ?Will it take the Sedlarals consuming your sister and her family before you do this? Does it take something personal? I have seen you drive men to bleed each other with their own hatred before without such a torment upon your soul.? A turn of his feet, not unlike the intricate move of a country dance, and he twisted and reached steps back around to the opposite side of the fire.

The words she wanted to hear from him were not spoken, but she could hear them in her mind as clear as flute song across a meadow. ?You have to make a choice and believe it, or you will fail us all.?

"It is true," she began in half notes of uncertainty, "I have driven people to focus their anger on each other to the point of harm. I have not stirred entire races to slaughter themselves into oblivion." It soured as a note of a cracked reed to think of the use of her gifts in such a manner. The Circelus had approved it, or even a step further, condoned and encouraged it. It all felt out of step and out of tune with her inside. She had to accept the truth, the terrible truth, that it was in her power to do so and cast that melody unfaltering to its dark purpose.

?Here,? she motioned to Ewan. When he arrived crouched by her side behind the copse she pointed to the stone ring around a small opening in the side of the hill. It had been concealed by a collection of shrubs, and if there had not been a sign of a fresh turned stone and the rich earth beneath it, Kiema would have passed it by without a glance.

?That should be one,? Ewan agreed. He moved around and she could see he was looking for others now that he knew what to look for. Kiema did the same and in time along the edges found four more.

The two gathered together again, and Ewan gave her a hard, unflinching look. ?Are you ready??

?I will do what must be done,? she agreed and nodded to answer his question.

?Then let us be to this deed and be done with it.?

Kiema felt the shiver course over her body with the hollowness of his voice. His smile grim and greeting the dread works of the day. She could not bring herself to feel that same greeting though she knew that Master Pearan and some other Changlings in country were in meditation and ritual to focus their gift and reach for the collective power of the Circelus in session to support her endeavor. All their power, the number of twenty seven to be used in this attempt, was to be granted to her. It would be her mind, though, that shredded the souls of the Sedlaral into nothingness.

One by one, three of the escape routes were blocked and confined. Ewan gave a last, simple nod and with a touch of spark from flint, the time was upon them. The dark powder of explosives set to light shook the hills from inside the collapsing tunnels. Echoing in the trembling of earth that fell, cries of surprise and confusion rose in a tide of rage and terror.

In that moment, Kiema reached out and twined a rope of her gift to Master Pearn and two other Changlings in land. She could feel their power, and those of the Circelus, infuse her gift with abundance. No more did the powers of the Sedlaral suppress her abilities. She felt as if her skin stretched, her body contorted in growth to hold that power, though in truth she changed in no fashion at all outwardly except her eyes. From dark brown into the blood red hue of rage her irises shifted. The surge of Sedlaral hatred was the instrument she now played and created the tune to which they would dance.

She felt the rage of Ewan as well as keen as one of the two blades he wielded at her side to protect her from those few that would fight her persuasion and try to defeat her. He was her shield of flesh, and his skill alone to see she did not fail in this endeavor.

?Seek freedom from the confines of your enemies that surround you. Once kin now you know they betray you. Nothing does this cave hold for you,? she crooned into the hate of the Sedlaral. ?Draw your weapons, know the emptiness of your friendships, and paint the white world red.?

Screams and cries as the Sedlaral poured from the mouths of the caves, Ewan and Kiema at their heels through the last secret entrance unharmed. Blood had not spilt yet, the fever pitch not met, and still she drove them on and out into the blinding bright of sunlit snow.

At Ewan?s command, she sent out a whipcord of gift at one of the Sedlaral facing him and imbued it with the hammer ring of hatred for his nearby kin. Even in the deepest thoughts were tainted as she reached in and found once again that whirling darkness of the mind and the parasitic thoughts that consumed and cast away the body?s former owner.

Her vision doubled, seeing around her and seeing inside, the layers communing into a symphony of sight. With the power of the Circelus alive and thrumming inside her, she began to the terrible task of rending the Sedlaral apart. The thoughts, both high and low, surged their claim upon the body, planted fierce inside its host, and she sunk deep threads into and tugged at their anchors to break them free.

The Sedlaral stumbled at her attack and in that moment one of Ewan?s blades cut deep into the man, sending a surge of blood upon the ground trampled clear of the snow. Kiema felt the Sedlaral?s grip on the body weaken in chorus. In alarmed curiosity, she sought out the path of weakness where the soul fled.

Darkness and warmth, the scent of the earth upon her mind, all the sensations became primal in desire. The need to find shelter, a home, a body to bring to life surrounded the being she chased into the darkness. Slender became the thread of her gift, but the answer she had sought filled her as true as the power she wielded.

There was no challenge or remorse at hearing Kiema's wish. The shaking of the trees in the unfelt breeze caught as disturbing in some corner of his mind, but the purpose of his foremost thoughts was on the drowning of his blades in the blood of his enemies. The desire to make them suffer quelled by the knowledge that Kiema was doing that well enough to satisfy him.

With the pitch of chaos rising, the Sedlaral began to turn on each other, and he took advantage of their distraction to draw out their blood with a sharp jab or slice of the blade. It was his touch that brought them down in violent spasms or gasping dismay. Each Sedlaral down was a token of victory in Kieran?s name and revenge for the abuse of his mind and body. Ewan's Mistress Death guided his hand and sang through his body, convincing him that he was saving the others peoples? bodies from being enslaved against their nature by the consuming Sed.

Bright rose the sun casting light down through swaying branches onto the mud and blood trampled field. Bodies cast about as so many leaves of the season before. The numbers dwindled against him, and he could feel the exhaustion tingle through his body. Throbs of bruises started their hail upon his senses. Sweat cooling upon his brow and raising an itch down the center of his back, but he was not done.

A group of young Sedlaral stood at the edge of a cave entrance, the elders defending the younger ones wailing in terrored confusion. The blue intricate lines contorted on tear strewn red faces. Two of the eldest held up their weapons in uncertain hands, anger and fear alive in their eyes, against Ewan?s approach.

With blades drawn up to defend and cast down the final product of the Sedlaral defilement, Ewan felt the swift motion pass him accompanied by the cry of Kiema?s voice defying his intentions, ?No!?

She stood between him and the children, defending them. ?Don?t do this, Ewan.?

In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.
-Hannah Arendt

Be saved? She had saved them in some fashion. They were still alive. Another body? There were other bodies to be had. Ewan?s mind tumbled up and down over the words drawing conclusions in moments against the triumphs of breaths before.

The trees alive in the glen against the touch of breeze, and he knew what had happened. Now the remaining Sedlaral stood behind Kiema, their weapons down on the bare rock of the cave entrance. Clinging to each other, they watched the two strange adults who had destroyed their families. ?They will grow to revenge, Kiema. We cannot leave it like this. We cannot let them live.? The conflict inside him flared to life as he struggled with reason and right.

The hilt and his hand were sticky with the blood of the slaughtered, but his grip did not falter. ?I will not say it again, Kiema. Get out of the way.? The decision was hers now, and he lifted his sword to strike. He had no knowledge of what his gifted blade would do against the strength of the material that protected Kiema beneath her garments, and so he aimed for the revealed flesh at her neck.

A strong, rough hand grabbed around his wrist with a force like iron. No, not a hand, the touch was too slender, like bone and not flesh. Another took hold of his other wrist and he struggled against them as he looked up and saw the wrapping of twigs around his arms to hold him fast.

A boy, one of the elder of the children, spoke in a rough, breaking voice. ?It is done. They are content. We are content. They say it is done. Listen to them. You were once one of us. You can hear them.? The broken way the boy spoke Ewan knew he was translating for the Sedlaral now in the trees.

Ewan did listen. He wanted to know it was done. Hope and reason urged his quiet action and soothed the eager demand to complete it all in blood shed. Straining to let his mind into the place of his mind he avoided, the remnant of that broken life content to be quiet, he could hear the murmur of voices not alive in anger, but as peaceful as the swaying of branches in a summer breeze.

It was done.