Padraic and Lyra watched the foreigner walk away slowly, bearing her unconscious companion across her shoulders. As her form dwindled, Padraic consciously let go of his anger. Whatever the sorcerer had done to inspire it, his sister had requested his life be spared. He glanced down and said, mock sternly, "you should be in bed."

"Yes," Lyra agreed, smiling and crying, and let him take her home.

Two hours later, Kite staggered to a halt by the tree where she'd left the cloaks and her bags, and lowered Saryth to the ground with more care than the last time. She put him on his side, took the time to pick the shackle locks, threw his cloak over him and left him to sleep off the drug, while she sat drowsing by his side, wrapped in her own cloak and leaning against a tree. He woke as the dawn filtered into the small woods, way too soon as far as Kite was concerned.

"Kite? What...?"

"We need to get moving," Kite said, donning her bags again.

"My head..."

"They drugged you. Can you stand? We're still too close." She offered him her hand, and he staggered to his feet, swaying.

"What happened to the guard?"

"He went to sleep."

"The shackles?"

"I picked the locks. Come on!"

He pulled his boots on, balancing with one hand on the nearest tree. Kite flung his cloak around his shoulders and tugged the hood over his head.

"Are you -"

"I can manage."

He stumbled down the hill ahead of her, concentrating on where his feet went. It was Kite who spotted the wagon on the road ahead, and hailed it. It was a four-wheeled, low slung cart containing mainly hay, with some boxes of wrinkly apples on top, driven by a cheerful old woman accompanied by a dozy dog. She pulled up, and the shaggy pony in the traces immediately dropped his head and started munching the roadside grass. She scrutinised Kite, and her cloaked and hooded companion.

"You two need a lift?"

"Yes, please," Kite said with relief.

"To the town, right?"

"Ah, yes." She got in the back of the cart, and helped Saryth in. "Thank you very much!"

"You're welcome. Have a good party last night?"

"Something like that," Kite said, allowing the misunderstanding. Saryth groaned, inadvertently adding to the effect, and the old woman cackled with well-meant humour. She flicked the reins, and the pony raised its head and moved off, begrudgingly.

Kite eyed Saryth, bending over the back of the cart like he was about to be sick. "That'll teach you to interfere," she said unsympathetically.

"But -!" Saryth raised his head, looking offended.

"If you're going to do things like that, at least be more subtle about it! People don't seem to like it if you try and stop them killing each other."

Saryth sat back and rested his head against the damp, prickly hay.

"What was the war about, anyway?"

"I never did find out. Lyra didn't know."

"It seems stupid."

"If it is, you have to let people find that out for themselves. Otherwise, they just start fighting again." I sound like some ancient crone dispensing wisdom. But... that is correct. We were taught it, and history bears it out...

"Is it ever not stupid?" Saryth never seemed to mind being lectured by someone the same age as him. Kite wasn't entirely sure of the answer to that - it was too tempting to just say "no", but it wasn't that simple.

"What do you do if your country is invaded?" she tried instead.

"Run away? Die?"

"And if you're responsible for your people?"

"I... don't have a country. Or a people," Saryth said, dodging the question. From his tone, he knew what he was doing. Kite let it go.

"If I find the sun..." she said instead, "if someone has it and won't sell it or give it to me... then on behalf of the world that lost it, I have the authority to declare war." Her quiet words dropped heavily into the conversation without warning. She'd never said that out loud before. It seemed horribly final.

"Couldn't you steal it?" Saryth said, sitting up and turning to look at her. His expression was both dismayed and respectful at once.

"You can't steal a sun and expect it to work like normal." Although I don't know that. But it makes sense.

"Then surely fighting over it won't help, either." He had a point. The mission brief had stated no theft, along with the note of authority to declare war on behalf of Harien, and she had signed it in agreement, but now, she thought he might be right.

"Maybe not," she conceded. "But they think it's worth fighting for. A world without a sun is a world condemned to death." Above, the clouds began to spot rain down again, pattering on the hay. The old woman grumbled wordlessly, and flicked the reins, producing no discernible change in her pony's pace.

"Would you do it?" he persisted.

"I don't know," Kite said, staring up into the increasing rain. "I don't know."