Maertyn let Anryn help him through the woods, surprised she could bear so much of his weight. He was tired. He`d forgotten how hard it was to kill a mage. They had their spells, their knives& and, in the end, Maertyn knew mages were human like him. It was a hard thing to take life from another human, even if they were an enemy.

　　In the moment, when his fury took him, he didn`t think of those things at all. The black fire came to his fingers, the strength came into his fists, the hard seam tearing open under his hands. He let it all come pouring out without a thought for the spells, the knives, or the humans who wielded them. It was as if that narrow place between light and dark became a hole under his feet, and all that he was fell in. Dragging those he clutched in his hands down and down&

　　 Afterward, Maertyn felt the toll that it took. The marks on his back itched and bled. His cursed skin sagged and the bones underneath wobbled, recalling their true age. Maertyn would lie down and sleep it off. When he woke, his wounds would be Woven shut without him uttering a word. At worst, perhaps, there would be one more voice among the many screams in his memories. He could drink it away like all the others.

　　 Anryn led Maertyn back to where the pyre was built for the witches of Java. Here, too, the wild magic of Ammar had run amok as the witches fought to put out the fire. The planks of new wood were all Woven over with new growth, moss and green branches heavy with leaves. The coach and the covered carriage were blackened, the fires extinguished. Flowers covered the ground.

　　 Maertyn hesitated, digging his fingers into Anryn`s shoulder. He watched the men rescued from the mages run to the women rescued from burning. Maertyn saw their arms going around one another, and heard their sobs of relief. Fathers clung to daughters, husbands to wives. Nine men and nine women. Enough for a mage to make a circle, like the one that surrounded him when they wrote the curse onto his back.

　　 Misery and woe, Maertyn remembered. The strength went out of his knees and he collapsed onto Anryn. She lowered him to the ground, onto his side.

　　Time washed over him. The sun moved across the sky and feet moved over the ground. Maertyn closed his eyes, and let it all go by. He blinked and was now lying on his back. There were flowers on his chest. The smell of burnt incense clung to them. A hastily made Winze doll dangled from a tree over his head, the white bark of the sticks smeared with ash. Did the witches try to heal him with this?

　　Idiots, Maertyn thought. Still playing with magic. It was like they wanted to get caught and burned at the stake. Or sent to Nynomath.

　　He lost more time and the sky darkened. Once in those hours, he turned his head and saw Haley Lawson stretched out beside him on the grass. Like Maertyn, flower crowns were placed on his chest. Beneath these, the veils of the women covered his body to shield his raw, burned flesh from the cold sting of the air. The professor breathed in shallow, rasping breaths. The sound of it lulled Maertyn to sleep.

　　In his dreams, he saw the stars overhead. The voices whispered, shadow and memory. Winze was what the mages had called him once he finally climbed up their steps to beg their judges to let him go. Those nine faces in the dark, condemning him. They never even knew that his name was Maertyn.

　　For a moment, he believed he was back under the Dome, watching the bright arc of the stars streak across the sky. Nine voices chanting in the dark while they fell all around him. Nine voices screaming in the fire that came into his fists when they told him he would never see his wife again.

　　The woman under the stars, last of the nine mages to carve his curse, stood over him with her silver sickle knife. Her hand etched the final sharp angular lines into his back. While she worked, she read each line written before hers, the sound of her voice like the roar of the wind over the mountain.

　　When stars wrote time into the clay, it is decreed that Mat, descended of Ny, God of righteousness, holds dominion.

　　We, the exalted descendants of Mat, who fear God, His father, do summon Ny`s righteousness in the land with these hands.

　　We, the exalted descendants of Mat, shepherds of the oppressed and of the slaves, do call upon Ny to witness and abide the terms set forth herein.

　　For eternity, never to die;

　　For eternity, never to rise;

　　For eternity, never to be reborn;

　　Conquer, thou shalt not;

　　Burn, thou shalt not;

　　Slay thou—

　　Maertyn remembered looking up into the ninth star mage`s face. Thinking she was just a little thing with small lips and doll-like eyes. His wife, God rest her, could`ve beaten that little mage bloody in a fistfight. But his wife was gone, and now they were saying that he would never see her again?

　　He remembered that he reached for the fire, then, reaching further and deeper than he ever had. That invisible hole underneath him opened. He remembered how the shackles on his arms melted in the heat, and how the ninth mage screamed.

　　It was not the ninth mage that Maertyn heard screaming, now. It was Anryn.

　　"We are not going back to Java. The witches won`t be safe there. Even if I go with them myself, nothing will stop the governor from killing them outright the moment we leave."

　　Maertyn jerked awake in the cold gray light of morning, still lying on the forest floor. His coat, reeking of smoke, was pulled over him. More flower crowns were piled up around him and Professor Lawson. Dozens of people surrounded him, sleeping under coats and veils in the early morning. Like him, startling awake when the Prince of Ammar shouted.

　　Griff shouted right back: "Then make an example of him! He impugned your honor! What would my father say? What would your father say? You let that cheat take my money and wipe his ass with your royal prerogative?"

　　"My father would say I am late to my goddamned wedding," Anryn yelled back. "I will not throw myself in harm`s way just to prove myself a man. I am the Prince of Ammar! The governor of Java knows it, you know it. I will not duel him, and neither will you! I forbid it, do you hear me!"

　　She still thinks she can talk brigands out of robbing her, Maertyn thought. He reached into the pocket of his filthy coat for his flask. He thanked God when his fingers closed around it. In another moment, the salty taste of gin flooded his mouth. He wished it were expensive whiskey.

　　Gruffydd wasn`t letting up. He pressed Anryn, "You can`t just leave it be. Already, word is spreading& Do you see how many witches turned up here in only three days? If Professor Lawson were awake, he`d—"Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

　　"Professor Lawson would agree with me," Anryn kept on. "Have you learned nothing in the last four years?"

　　Beside him, Professor Lawson stirred, hearing himself mentioned. Maertyn could see the eyes moving behind his closed eyelids.

　　"A prince puts his country before himself. Ammar`s honor depends on her allies," Anryn continued. "Every day I delay this wedding, we come closer to losing one. Is that why you took me to Dorland? To take my mind off the midterm, or to pull Ammar away from Sanchia?"

　　"That`s not why," Griff choked out. "I wanted& I wanted it to be like when we were children. Ever since we got to Amwarren, it`s as if a stranger is in your body. All you think about is war&"

　　"That`s because it`s our assignment," Anryn said, her shout dissolving into a whine. "We`re in school, studying diplomacy. That`s all that war is, Griff. God, no wonder you`re failing&"

　　"I don`t want to go to war, Ryn. You didn`t even ask me if I wanted to!" Griff said. He sounded like a child. The snob Griff may have stood as tall as Maertyn`s chin, but he was not even as old as Maertyn had been when he was married. "I`m the son of your greatest subject—I am the best friend that you`ll ever have. And you`re just going to let your father pack me off to die in Nynomath. As if I were the least of his subjects, and not the son of the greatest."

　　"I& I, ah," Anryn stammered.

　　Maertyn could picture her now, fumbling for what to say. He almost sat up to look—but then she would know that he was awake, and he would have to say something to her. About the mages. About his curse. What would she think of him, then?

　　"I`m sorry I didn`t ask your advice," Anryn finally said. Her voice sounded different. Calmer—the same tone she`d used to convince him not to chase after the last mage.

　　"Then take my advice now. Make it up to me," Griff urged. "Send the witches of Java home and set their governor straight. Leave your pet peasant with them. The way you stare at him& they won`t like that in church, Ryn."

　　God, kill me now. Maertyn wanted to sink into the ground, for the grass to cover him up and dirt to fill his ears. He did not want to hear what Anryn said to that.

　　Beside him, Professor Lawson stirred again. He wheezed, his voice ruined from the smoke. "Blackfire& may I have&?"

　　Maertyn rolled onto his side. The marks of his curse itched and stung as the grass under his back stuck to the scabs. He tipped his flask into Professor Lawson`s mouth. Around them, the witches of Java pressed close, trying to soothe the professor. They tried to offer Maertyn water. He pushed them away and told them to bring him whiskey. He recognized the men Anryn saved from the cage. Dozens more were with them, all encamped there in the woods.

　　Where did they come from? Maertyn wondered. How long had he slept? The cut on his cheek was Woven shut and the professor seemed a little stronger. Had it been days? A week?

　　Guilt racked him. He should have killed the mage before the bastard could set the coach on fire. Maertyn could have at least put it out before he ran after the mage. Why did he run after the mage, and leave Anryn alone? How could he have let the third mage escape?

　　He used the Sight to look at Professor Lawson. He could See where the burns lay on the professor`s skin, the parts of his lungs that were blackened and clogged. All Maertyn needed to do was Weave them over, pulling the skin from a place where it was whole to cover over the place where it was missing.

　　He hesitated, wary of the eyes on him. The day they buried Maertyn`s wife, eyes like those looked at him. He showed up drunk to her funeral. They scowled at him, as if they`d known all along that he was a drunk just like his father. His grandfather. He`d only hoped it would cure him of his grief. Instead, when he saw her pale, lifeless body in the casket days later, the fire poured out of his hands. All his friends turned away from him.

　　So, he drank more—and was too drunk to resist when Nynomath sent a silver cage for him.

　　A dark star& misery and woe& I am what they said I am, Maertyn thought. He thought of Anryn staring at herself in his Seeing mirror. I just did not know it yet.

　　He looked at the her now. She sat a dozen yards from him on a folding chair that someone had brought. A line of men and women queued to meet with her. Griff stood at her side. She looked like a king there in the woods, with the witches there around her. Maertyn showed her the soul that she had, and yet she wasn`t broken. She was still a prince—and others saw it, too.

　　The sight of it sparked something in Maertyn, something besides the anger and guilt.

　　So what if I am the Winze. So what if I am a drunk, Maertyn thought. He looked at his hands, rinsed clean of the mage`s blood by some well-meaning witch. I can do better than misery and woe.

　　Maertyn lifted the flask to the professor`s lips again. While the man drank, Maertyn used all that he stole from the mages and Wove the burns whole. He closed the raw red skin on Haley Lawson`s legs and chest, and pushed blood back into it. He used the Sight to look into the professor`s lungs and Wove pink flesh over the black bits he Saw there.

　　After a moment, Professor Lawson sat up. The witches sank to their knees. Some of them started to pray. Some drew back, fearful and muttering. The professor drew a breath. His hands trembled when he pushed the stained veils away from his legs. He looked at Maertyn.

　　"How long were you in Nynomath?" Professor Lawson asked, finally. "Were you born there?"

　　"No," Maertyn said. "I was born here. A long time ago."

　　"But they knew you," said one of the witches rescued from the cage. He gazed at Maertyn as if he were a wild animal. "They were afraid of you. They called you the Winze! Is it true&?"

　　"That is not my name," Maertyn said. He went to drink from his flask, then remembered that it was empty. His face flushed, whether from anger or embarrassment, he did not know.

　　"Winze is a title. Unlucky star. In the old faith, it is the name given to the guardian at the gates of Hell," Professor Lawson lectured. "We know him as the Bad Luck doll—the Devil`s eye is always on him so that it is not on us. The Church of Ammar rejects the notion that Hell is the provenance of one man& if a star winks out, it is not the Winze, but God`s own will. So says the Word."

　　A few of the witches made holy signs with their fingers. Their faith rested easily alongside their shadows. Maertyn envied them almost as much as he scorned them.

　　"One thing I do not understand," said the professor. He held Maertyn`s gaze, but his hands fluttered and his body rocked a little forward where he sat. "If they came for you, what purpose was there in& taking my face?"

　　"They were not here for me," Maertyn answered. "He chose your face because you are the only man Anryn would follow into Nynomath."

　　He tossed his empty flask to the ground. It fell onto the spring flowers conjured by Ammar`s witches, already wilting in the cold winter air.

　　"Professor!" Anryn cried.

　　The witches moved aside to make way as the prince and the lord`s son rushed to their professor`s side. Anryn knelt and took Professor Lawson`s hand while Griff squatted beside him and touched the professor`s legs, amazed.

　　"How& How are you alive?" Griff asked. "It`s a miracle!"

　　The students helped their professor to his feet. Professor Lawson gathered up the stained veils and flower crowns in his hands. He held them out to the witches, but they would not accept them.

　　"We prayed God would heal you and He has," said Hammond. He pushed the flower crowns back at the professor. "Let these symbols of our answered prayers be carried by the Prince of Ammar to His Majesty the King. As proof of our goodwill and wish for a peaceful life in Ammar."

　　They were all looking at Anryn, now, Maertyn realized. They stared at her like some hero from a fairytale. Hopeful and awed.

　　"I& will take these to Mahaut," Anryn agreed. "Return to your homes. You have nothing to fear."

　　"We will accompany you, Your Highness," said another witch. "God and His Majesty will deliver us from the mages of Nynomath."

　　"Tell the King for us, Your Highness, that the witches of Ammar are loyal to God and Nature. We want to live free in Ammar—not to die on the stake or as slaves!"

　　The crowd began to cheer. "Hear, hear! Witches live free!"

　　All around them, shouts rang out. Anryn glanced around, her face tight with anxiety. She did not add her voice to the cheers. Like Maertyn, she knew too much about the world they lived in. At last, her eyes landed on Maertyn. He thought for a moment that she might tell him to leave. To his relief, she held out her hand, beckoning him forward.

　　Maertyn rose from the ground and came to stand by Anryn`s side. He tried not to notice the face that Griff made at him.