A/N: Welcome, dear heart.

This is the second installment of my Canisp series; hopefully, you noticed that because of the "Canisp II" in the title, but just in case. "But Jo," I hear you say, "You murdered the bejesus out of everyone, how is there another book?" Because there's another story to tell, obviously. You should read it! Hosni will take good care of you for the introduction. Don't worry; he's not exactly what you'd call a POV character. This is still Canisp's story, and we'll be rejoining her shortly. But, jeez, it's not like she's the ONLY untold story in the universe! The people around her, as we saw in the last book, are just as—if not much, much more—important.

Chapter 1-Hosni

Hosni was born to silence.

His mother screamed, fighting to breathe, to bring him into the world as an impatient older woman stood over her. Kitchen girls had no business bringing useless mouths into the world, and this one was particularly stubborn.

Hosni didn't scream. No more did he flinch at loud noises, or cry when the clamor of the kitchens should have kept him awake; his mother said fondly that the boy might well have slept through a stampede. He was called well-behaved, subdued, even obedient.

Wiser heads saw truer. As his mother struggled against the guards, a physician stood over the stone-deaf infant with a wickedly sharp tool, and from that moment Hosni would never cry again.

This, of course, was the idea behind the cruel surgery, the coldly severed infant vocal cords. The Tisroc always kept two or three deaf-mute slaves. They were used at secret councils, negotiations, delicate conversations; anything the Palace people wanted to keep secret. Deafness could be instigated, of course, with certain potions; but regaining the sense of hearing was not unheard-of, and the Tisroc was not wasteful with his resources.

From the moment of his birth, Hosni was groomed to this task. He learned how to keep his eyes lowered respectfully while at the same time watching for the signals that would accompany his orders. He learned how to walk backwards down unfamiliar hallways and staircases, carrying a flaming torch, without pausing. He learned how to respectfully indicate that he hadn't understood an order, and also that such an indication was usually followed by a blow and thus was not to be taken lightly.

Most of all, he learned how to watch. This was a lesson no one could teach him; he simply learned. He couldn't hear, but he could see, and before long he was able to look at a person and figure out who they were; their character, their relationship with everyone in a room, and perhaps most usefully the likelihood that they would kick at a young slave-boy simply because he was there.

Deaf-mute slaves were rare and valuable enough to ensure that Hosni was kept in decent health; however, that in and of itself was enough to make him a target. A young cripple who earned better food and quarters of his own—and as he was small-boned and sensitive in addition to being unable to hear someone coming or yell for help, he was a favorite bullying target and scapegoat. The incidents grew worse and worse, until one day at the age of ten he stumbled into his sleeping quarters covered in bruises and with a badly broken nose. His outraged mother, who knew how to communicate with Hosni as only a mother could, demanded to know who was responsible. Like all Calormene slaves, Hosni had no concept of letters; however, even at the age of ten he was a master of another form of written communication.

Hosni could draw. Working with a thin, charred stick, he managed to capture the idea, if not the image, of his opponent. Tall and wearing a cloak, a purple one, and black shoes with points; his turban was black as well, with purple tassles around the fringe, and he wore a pendant with the image of Tash in amethyst on a thick golden chain. The sketches were more than enough for his mother to recognize Ristar Tarkaan-to-be, his father's eldest son and a singularly unpleasant character. That very day, Hosni's mother went boldly to Rabadash, still a prince at the time, and demanded Ristar be brought under control.

One does not make demands of a Prince.

Rabadash, infuriated by her audacity, flew into a rage and would have flayed her on the spot had his Vizier, also furious, not demanded a public example. She was dead within hours, leaving her young son alone. No one could even figure out how to tell him what had happened; but while he may have been dumb, Hosni was not stupid. He knew.

Why, you may ask, is Hosni's tale important? Certainly he was unfortunate, but why is it necessary to know him?

The answer to this question arrived five years after Hosni's mother's untimely death. At fifteen years old, Hosni was no longer a child, but a young man who had refused to draw so much as a line in the dust since his mother had been killed.

One day, he abruptly changed his mind.

The day began with the tense wake-up call he had become accustomed to. Shaken roughly out of bed, he had hurriedly lit a torch and preceded the Tisroc to a small, secluded room. This was one time when watching was not a good idea. He tried not even to see; he tried to forget the route he took, forget the faces he saw, forget that he even existed. It wasn't a guarantee that he would survive, but if he had tried to remember his death would have been a certainty.

Try as he might, he couldn't help but notice some things. Deaf-mutes were rarely used for things along the line of planning surprise birthday parties. More often it was reports from spies, assassination plots, and other things of a similarly cheerful nature. Hosni, of course, could neither hear what was said nor repeat it; but having intelligence higher than that of the average rock, he usually picked up on the basic idea.

Not this time, however. This time, he had been truly puzzled. A young Tarkaan had knelt and made a report, seeming strangely excited. The Tisroc had been skeptical at first, but eventually seemed convinced. He spoke, and the young captain bowed and hurried from the room. The Tisroc, however, remained, pacing the room restlessly until he abruptly motioned for the slaves to precede him. Hosni, naturally, had done so, eventually ending up flanking the Tisroc's throne; he and another deaf-mute slave whose name he had no way of knowing.

Some time later, a trumpet fanfare Hosni didn't hear prompted the Tisroc Rabadash to shift slightly, sitting up straighter on his opulent throne. No sooner had he done so than the huge scarlet doors of the Palace opened, and a fascinating group entered.

Four of the bunch held little to no interest for Hosni; they were just more soldiers in Calormene armor. He looked through them as they looked through him.

It was the others who interested him. If you have not grown up a Calormene slave, you cannot imagine what a treat it is to the eyes to see a free-born Narnian. Even with her skin dyed brown, wearing an orange robe that didn't quite fit her, there was something very different about the young woman who strode at the head of the group, something very non-Calormene, and her flashing golden eyes were the least of it. There was a boldness in the way she held herself, a kind of loving fierceness in her demeanor that Hosni found very refreshing. While this singularly fearless person was not mounted, she was clearly the leader; it was with a queen's pride that she strode—with a strange, semi-liquid grace—at the head of a creature that took Hosni's breath away.

Oh, the Calormene girl astride the horse was beautiful as well; or at least, she looked like she would be when not pale and covered in blood. But the horse…Hosni swallowed a painful lump. What was it about that mare that he found so heartbreakingly familiar? It took him a few seconds to understand. Looking in the Horse's eyes, he knew that hers too was not a world of language; she, too, was a watcher.

Sensing his gaze, the mare's bright black eyes locked onto Hosni's and widened slightly.

They had no language in common, but the soul needs no words to speak. The instant their eyes met, they could sense the other's overwhelming relief. Their silent, incomprehensible world was suddenly a little less empty.

Left to their own devices, both boy and horse could have stayed that way indefinitely, simply drinking in the presence of a kindred spirit. The world, however, had other ideas. Ishdar Tarkaan, after proper introductions had been made, was quick to look to the injured girl. The leader's eyes narrowed distrustfully as he helped her dismount, but he did nothing more sinister than wave over a manservant, who took her carefully in his arms and carried her from the room. Only a tiny part of Hosni's mind registered this; only when a groom in fine clothes was summoned to take the Horse was he able to shake himself back into reality. The chestnut mare balked when the groom tried to lead her away, backing and throwing up her head in something akin to panic. She cast a frantic glance back at Hosni, who understood the sentiment only too well. He couldn't stand the thought of losing her. Not when he had to find out who she was, what she was doing here…

The Narnian, misunderstanding the cause of her friend's concern, stepped forward and said something to the Tisroc. The Horse was still visibly upset as the woman took her reins and patted her, gently leading her away; but she clearly harbored too much respect for her to fight. Never realizing the pain she was causing her companion, she led her out of the palace.

Hosni was only a slave. It wasn't in his power to so much as ask questions about the horse, let alone visit her. And so, he did what he had done all his life.

He watched.

From a hidden nook, he watched the grooms prepare a roomy loose box for the Horse. He became slightly less anxious on seeing just how well she was treated, but it still made the young man's heart sore to see the look in her eyes. She was so much more than even they were making of her, and she knew it.

Hosni also watched the other members of her party. It was obvious that the Eagle, as well, was more than he appeared, but he was a Talking Beast. His eyes were not those of a watcher, and he was not a part of Hosni's world.

Hosni watched as the slave-girl (he'd been right; she really was beautiful, with clever eyes and a boldness in her bearing that he wasn't used to seeing in people like him) healed from her injuries, and found to his surprise that he was worried about her. He watched her grow stronger, and was happy to see that she had a quick, ready smile, and that her mistress clearly cared deeply about her. He would have hated it if she had been mistreated, though he wasn't quite sure why.

The older girl—the light-skinned one with the feather in her hair—interested him. He did what he could to catch glimpses of her, something not quite as difficult as looking for the horse he couldn't help but think of as his, as the Narnian was more frequently about the Palace. He was stunned one evening when he saw her transform into a snowy wolf right before his eyes, casually and as if it were the most normal thing in the world. She must have heard him gasp from the shadows, because she whirled toward him, flaring huge wings that he hadn't noticed before. The intensity as her fierce golden eyes burned into his chilled Hosni, and he froze.

In that instant, hers was the face of a hunter.

But the moment passed. The wolf relaxed, ran out her tongue, and smiled. She gave a small wag of her tail and barked in a friendly way, and Hosni grinned before remembering himself and hastily giving a deep bow. When he looked up again, the creature's head was cocked in a confused way. She gave a concerned sort of yip and took half a step forward, but at that point someone else came around the corner and Hosni, who wasn't supposed to be in that part of the Palace, ducked down the servant's stairway in which he'd been hiding, vanishing so suddenly that if Canisp had blinked she would have missed it.

Eventually, Hosni would learn that she hadn't been barking, but trying to ask his name.

Throughout all of this, Hosni's mind never wandered far from the Horse, and it must be confessed he went slightly mad. With charcoal on scraps of paper when he could find them, and on the walls and floor of his quarters when he couldn't, he sketched her; what little he could gleam from his brief glimpses, that is. But try as he might, he could replicate only the proud toss of her head, the way she lifted her feet regally in a trot. One whole wall was devoted to a life-size rendering of her in full gallop, inky mane and tail streaming out behind her. But none of these drawings could capture that indescribable look in her eyes; the look of a watcher.

He needed to see her.

Once this idea occurred to him, he determined that he would do it. It would have to be done carefully, but it could be done. One night, he slipped out of his little room and began the journey. A new, clean sheet of parchment—stolen, as it happens, from a Tarkheena's vanity table—rolled up his sleeve, he inched along, sticking to the shadows, watching, always watching. Unable to hear whether anyone was approaching, he had to be doubly cautious and the trip took twice as long. Still, he finally managed to make his way to the stables, find her stall, and slip inside.

He was met by an untamed rush of wild-cherry fur. Snorting in delight and relief, his Horse nuzzled him, shoved him playfully, rested her head on his shoulder and pulled him close in a firm equine embrace. Blinking back unexpected tears, Hosni flung his arms around her strong neck, hugging her tightly, ruffling her ebony mane and kissing her velvet nose. After quite a few minutes of this, he drew back and took out his stolen parchment and a thin stick, charred to perfection at one end, which he had carefully prepared for this meeting. Hosni didn't know how much time he had, and he was determined to draw his horse properly for once. Working by the moonlight shining brightly through the stall's exterior door, Hosni began. Here, up close, he could see her expression clearly, and he was sure he could capture it.

However, he had barely begun when a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision made him look up. The next second his charred stick fell from his fingers as he scrambled back in shock. He would have screamed if he could.

Glaring at him through the bars were two furious eyes, burning green in the dark.