“I knew you would,” he said. “Someday, when Mahdha blows you home again, perhaps you’ll teach me.”
Then he was gone. Peri reached again for Atheris’s hand, and the clasp of his fingers was as solid and strong as steel.
On the plains of Bregond, Peri pulled Tajin to a stop. A fierce hot wind combed dry fingers through her braids, sucked the sweat off the back of her neck. The setting sun poured blood and gold over sharp-edged grass that scratched against Peri’s boots. Atheris reined in beside her.
“Shall we stop here for the night?” he asked, smiling. His gray eyes sparkled suggestively, and Peri felt her heart beat faster, joyfully.
“Just a little farther,” she said. “There’s a water hole to the southwest. The border’s not far now.” Reaching down, she carefully pulled loose a handful of grass tops. To the casual observer they looked dead, but peeling off the dry outer husk, she reached the moist green core. It was tough and sour and good between Peri’s teeth.
“Just think,” Atheris said softly. “You may have saved all this.”
“No.” Peri shook her head. “I think—maybe Seba did.”
“Seba?” Atheris turned to her. “How so?”
“I’ve been thinking,” Peri said slowly. “Seba had to know the ruling houses would have an army at the border. She had to know Sarkond had no chance against united Agrondish and Bregondish troops and magic. Even mad she had to know. And she sent me south to tell about Grandfather, yes, but to warn them, too—to make sure the army was ready. I don’t think she was saving Sarkond, Atheris. I think she was delivering it up to Bregond for the slaughter. Our one remaining enemy, finally vanquished at last. I wonder now whether it was revenge at all so much as”—she remembered the grace-blade still sheathed on Seba’s leg after twenty years of exile—“love and honor. The honor of one orphaned girl-child. She was right. In the end it did matter.”
Atheris shivered.
“She said you played your part to perfection,” he said softly. “Yes, a bitter and merciless love.”
“Not merciless,” Peri corrected. “She could have sent anyone to make sure I made it out of Sarkond. But she let you go. I don’t know, maybe it was one last joke on Bregond—me and my Sarkondish lover. But I don’t think so. She knew how it felt to be exiled and alone.”
Atheris gazed at her steadily, and in those gray eyes he said something without words, and Peri let her own eyes answer.
“Southwest, then, a little farther,” he said, smiling. He turned to gaze at the darkening horizon. “And after the border? Straight south? East? West?”
Tajin danced impatiently. Peri threw the dry grass husks into the air and watched Mahdha bear them away.
“I don’t know,” she said, returning Atheris’s smile. “Wherever the wind takes us.”
Waterdance Page 26