One moment he was standing beside the well.
The next he was inside, gripping the kitchen table hard enough for his knuckles to turn white.
Naya stood near the doorway.
She had to duck slightly beneath the frame.
Tomas remained between them.
Elena had been carried into Corvin’s bedroom.
The elderly gray-haired warrior sat beside her.
Corvin poured whiskey.
His hand shook.
He drank.
It did not help.
“My father was Gideon Torne.”
Tomas nodded.
“That is the man you knew as your father.”
“Knew as?”
Naya said something sharply.
Tomas hesitated.
“Perhaps we should take this slowly.”
Corvin slammed the glass down.
“There are three hundred warriors outside my house, a woman I buried thirty years ago is lying in my bed, and another woman walked onto my property carrying a toy from my childhood. I think we’ve moved beyond slowly.”
Naya stepped closer.
She pointed toward Corvin.
Then toward herself.
And finally toward Elena’s room.
Corvin understood before Tomas translated.
“No.”
Tomas said quietly, “Naya is your sister.”
Corvin laughed.
It was a terrible sound.
“No.”
“She remembers you.”
“I said no.”
“She was seven years old when you disappeared.”
Corvin looked at Naya.
Yesterday he had mistaken the expression in her eyes for suspicion.
Now he understood.
She had been studying his face because she was searching for the child she remembered inside the grown man standing before her.
Corvin shook his head.
“My father raised me.”
Naya spoke.
Tomas translated.
“Gideon took you.”
Silence.
Corvin’s face hardened.
“Took me where?”
“Away.”
“Why?”
Naya did not answer.
Instead she looked toward the window.
One of the warriors outside had suddenly raised his arm.
A distant rider appeared on the southern trail.
Tomas stepped outside briefly.
When he returned, his expression had changed.
“We have less time than we thought.”
“For what?”
The old gray-haired warrior appeared from the bedroom.
He spoke rapidly.
Tomas listened.
Then turned toward Corvin.
“Men are coming.”
“What men?”
“Gideon Torne’s men.”
Corvin actually smiled.
“My father has been dead seven years.”
Nobody else smiled.
Tomas slowly shook his head.
“No.”
Corvin stared.
“He fell into Red Knife Canyon.”
“No body was found.”
“We found his horse.”
“His horse was supposed to be found.”
The floor seemed to shift beneath Corvin’s boots.
Tomas continued.
“Gideon Torne is alive.”
Corvin’s voice became a whisper.
“Where?”
Naya answered before Tomas could.
This time Corvin understood one word.
“South.”
Tomas translated the rest.
“Coming here.”
Seven years earlier, Gideon Torne had ridden away during a winter storm.
Three days later his horse had been discovered wandering near Red Knife Canyon with blood on the saddle.
Searchers found Gideon’s coat near the cliffs.
