The Queen’s eyes glinted when they had moved on to rest on Torres.
“ And who are you, stranger, so strangely appareled, the helmet of a knight upon your head, upon your feet the sandals of a slave?”
“ I am Da Vasco,” he answered stoutly.
“ The name has an ancient ring,” she smiled.
“ I am the ancient Da Vasco,” he pursued, advancing unsummoned. She smiled at his temerity but did not stay him. “This is the helmet I wore four hundred years ago when I led the ancestors of the Lost Souls into this valley.”
The Queen smiled quiet unbelief, as she quietly asked:
“ Then you were born four hundred years ago?”
“ Yes, and never. I was never born. I am Da Vasco. I have always been. My home is in the sun.”
Her delicately stenciled brows drew quizzically to interrogation, though she said
