Not too long after she managed to make herself presentable, four warriors wearing Alanna arms on their drab coveralls--and more heavily armed than usual for peacetime--entered her room. She bowed to them, acutely conscious of the scab forming on her cheek. They didn't return the courtesy, of course; instead, two of them secured her arms behind her back. They weren't especially gentle, but she was obscurely pleased that they also weren't as rough as she'd expected them to be with an oathbreaker. And during the flight to the Alanna clanhome, she was both pleased and a little puzzled by the warriors' continuing lack of overt hostility. Even given the ingrained politeness of a Sandeman, she would have expected some jostling, or unpleasant comments. The flight also gave her time, and energine gave her strength, to think back on the attack and Jason's dismissal of her. She still didn't want to believe that the man she'd chosen to devote her life to had set her up for such a painful, degrading death, even to give her the illusion of dying for the best reason a thakur-na could have. But she couldn't avoid the truth: from all the evidence she had, that was precisely what he had done. And then when that had failed, he had deliberately sentenced her to the death of an oathbreaker. She shifted in her seat, trying to find a comfortable position with her arms fastened behind her. She failed, and that discomfort combined with the wearing off of the painkiller to make her begin to resent her former thakur. Maybe she did deserve to die, she thought bitterly. Not for the dishonor he admitted she wasn't guilty of, but for her misjudgment of him--when it came down to first causes, that was why she was being flown to her death. While Jason would live, as wealthy, comfortable, and influential as ever . . . * * * * * Dana wasn't able to appreciate either the crisp autumn weather or the functional beauty of Alanna's clanhome when the plane landed and her guards, their weapons drawn, escorted her into the warriors' hall. The mixture of fear about what was to come, anger at Jason, and the ache of her injuries had her irritable, wanting to get the whole mess over with so she wouldn't have to think about it any more. Killian was waiting for her, sitting at the judicial-looking Chief's Bench at the far end of the hall. Some clans had theirs ornamented, to varying degrees, but Alanna's was plain: glossy jet-wood, the only color on it the arms of Alanna's chief. Dana's heart sank as she realized that Killian was clad in leather as black as his Bench, again relieved only by his arms, rather than the usual warrior-drab. She hadn't known he'd earned that--been acclaimed by his peers as having honor so uncompromising it couldn't be questioned. So much for the lady Arden's--and her own--hope of some clemency, Dana thought. Yet Arden must have known the Alanna was entitled to honor-black . . .