Free In the Ruins by Kate Elliott

heart, but she said nothing.
    Eldest Uncle rested a hand on the other one’s shoulder, taking strength there, and gazed at the procession waiting on the White Road. “Who are these? Where have you all come from?”
    “We were caught between the worlds in ancient days. Now you have returned, and we are released from the shadows.”
    “There are more of you?”
    “I was with one group, but we met up with many others. There are more, still, coming this way.”
    “All those sent to the frontier before the end,” said Eldest Uncle.
    “What do you mean?” asked Sanglant’s mother and Buzzard Mask at the same time.
    “I must sit down,” he said apologetically, but it was the young one who helped him up to the tower most solicitously, who sat beside him, staring intently at his face as though to memorize every wrinkle and crease.
    “I never thought to see you again,” said the young one. “I thought you were lost to me.”
    “I, too. I despaired, but then I lived.” They had an easy way of touching, a hand placed carelessly on the other’s knee or shoulder. It was as though there was a misunderstanding between them and they had forgotten that normally there is an infinitesimal space between one body and the next, that which separates each solitary soul from another.
    “You are old.”
    “I am eldest.”
    “Not bad looking, for an old man! Not like that warty, flabby old priest of a Serpent Skirt.”
    They laughed together, almost giggling, suddenly younger than their years, boys again. Brothers. Twins.
    “Don’t you see what this means?” demanded Sanglant’s mother with fists on hips, looking disgusted as she watched them slap each other’s arms. “More will come from the north! Cat Mask’s army will grow. We need not fear our enemies any longer, not with such a force.”
    “Cat Mask’s army?” asked the young one, turning away from his brother. “Who is Cat Mask? What has he to do with me?”
    “Hsst! She-Who-Creates has much to answer for! Will you strut and preen like the rest of the young men and fight for command like so many pissing dogs?”
    His eyes narrowed. “You are my daughter by blood. My niece. Do not speak so to your elders, young one!”
    “You are younger than I am! I have a grown son! I can speak any way I please!”
    “Evidently your daughter more than mine, Zuangua,” said Eldest Uncle with a wheezy laugh. “Quick to temper, slow to wisdom. Both impatient. So I named her, remembering you.”
    Instead of answering, Zuangua rose and stared north, a gaze that swept the horizon. Now Liath saw the resemblance to his twin brother, to his niece, and to Sanglant. The lineaments of his face had the same curve and structure. She felt the warmth of a mild, woken desire, seeing him as an attractive man. Until he looked straight at her. His expression shifted, the tightening of lips, the merest wrinkling of the nose, but she felt his scorn, she knew that he recognized her interest and rejected it. Rejected
her
.
    His sneer scalded. She wasn’t used to indifference from men. She hadn’t desired or sought their interest, truly, but she had become used to it. Even King Henry, the most powerful man she had ever met, had succumbed.
    So I am repaid for my vanity
, she thought, and was cheered enough to smile coldly back at him.
    He turned away to address his brother. “We will return, all of us who were caught beyond the White Road when the spell was woven. We who were once shadows are made flesh again. We want revenge for what we suffered. We will return day by day, more coming each day until we are like the floodwaters rising. Once we are all come home, we will make an army and destroy humankind. Our old enemy.”
    “We are stronger than I thought!” murmured his niece. “Already more have joined the march than survived in exile!”
    “It is not the right path,” said Eldest Uncle.
    “So you have always claimed, but see what they did to us.” Zuangua gestured toward the barren