However, they were not the only ones here. Talyn's heart raced faster as she bent to the Salt.
“Not alone, then.” Finn was at her side and apparently he knew tracks also. “The steps of a small woman.” They shared a knowing look.
That was another problem. She suddenly realized past-Talyn would have known these things about him. Finn had the advantage over her. What had she shared with him in the night? What secrets and plans?
The world had certainly turned upside down in the last few weeks, and people being at the Bastion was the least of it.
“Probably grave robbers.” Talyn got up and brushed salt from her knee. “Let's see how they like a live Vaerli.”
He smiled faintly at that. “Do you want me to come with you?”
Talyn eyed Wahirangi, who was watching all this with a dragon-sized interest. It would indeed be better to get Finn away from the creature. She sighed and pretended annoyance. “Very well, since you won't be the first.”
She led the way down the steps and into the depths of the Bastion. Finn trailed behind. It was not as if there were statues to loom over him or doors of knotted gold to blind his eyes, but there was the aura of the place. The Harrowing had not changed it. It was cooler below, but still the air seemed close. The mind somehow heard sounds even if the ear did not.
Finn dropped back so that Talyn was forced to retrace her steps. He was standing before the Promise Stone, the oldest piece of pae atuae the Vaerli had ever written, the very first.
“I understand this,” Finn said, his fingers hovering over the ancient words.
Talyn had ceased to be surprised by the talespinner—that he should know a language reserved for her people was the least of his miracles this day. She was surprised when he actually spoke the words of the Pact in the Vaerli tongue, as faultlessly as if born to it. Emotion choked Talyn, and for a minute she feared she might cry right there in front of him. She hadn't heard the Pact words spoken in her native language for three hundred years.
Finn turned to her. “They forgot the last two stanzas.”
She wouldn't tell him that they hadn't wanted to recall those terrible warnings; they only wanted to remember how great they were. “Come, it is not far now,” she said softly.
The Swoop dropped out of the clouds like a long-lost god's revenge. Equo looked up at the cloud of eagles, falcons, and buzzards spinning above their heads, and wondered at how death could come in such a magnificent shape.
“Crone's whiskers,” Varlesh hissed, dragging Si by his elbow, “we need a Song, and now!”
Si pulled his arm free, suddenly very determined. “The wings are not ours to touch.”
Equo glanced across at Baraca. For a rebel leader, he was showing no signs of fear as the Caisah's enforcers swooped closer, merely watching out of his one good eye the dance of the birds above.
His Portree compatriots did not run or scatter. A few muttered and clutched tighter to their pikes, but there was no sign of fear on their faces. They were not surprised, Equo realized with a start.
“You expected them,” Equo blurted out. “You knew they were coming.”
Baraca did not answer him immediately, but the corners of his stern lips lifted just a little. Something was, as Nyree had already suggested, different about the rebel, and it was not merely age or the loss of his eye. Equo couldn't put it down to anything physical. The man had always been brusque and sure of himself, but he still should have been worried by the sudden appearance of the Swoop.
In the cage the White Eagle screamed again, but it was not as loud or demanding as it had been. In fact, it sounded almost mournful.
Sheathing the sword he'd drawn at the approach of the newcomers, Baraca strode over to the nervously shifting donkey. Before anyone could cry out, he'd wrenched open the cage door. Equo's shout of dismay dried to nothing on his lips; the eagle, instead of leaping skyward to her Swoop, clenched her talons around the rebel's muscular forearm. She drew blood, but did not sink them as deep as she might.
It wasn't his vision; there was a faint aura of light around the rebel. Equo blinked.
“I don't believe it,” Nyree gasped, taking an involuntary step back. “That cannot be!”
The fear in her voice chilled Equo, but he didn't have the opportunity to ask what she meant, for the birds dived at them.
Materializing as the woman warriors in their azure armor, he fully expected them to begin lying about with their swords. However, their stern faces were softened by confusion; some cocked their heads and looked about as if sensing something on the wind they recognized but did not believe.
Baraca turned to Varlesh, Equo, and Si. “I think it is time you returned this young lady's form to her.”
“By the Maid's backside, we will not!” Varlesh's face was flushed red under his beard.
“Do as he says,” Nyree whispered. Her tattooed hand was pressed to her head in pain, shielding her eyes as if the light was too bright. Something in Baraca's look promised everything would be all right. It didn't seem foolish to believe that, even though it had been a long time since Equo really felt it.
“Yes!” Si's hands were clenched at his side. “As he says.”
Varlesh shook his head but began to sing. The low rumble echoed through his chest, Equo easily gave it form, and then their third opened his throat and formed words from their song, words that unbound what they had tied.
The eagle keened, raising its great wings to the sky before tumbling into the shape of the leader of the Swoop. Everyone seemed to hold their breath as she got to her feet. Azrul, still in her armor, unfolded herself and released a great sigh. Her breastplate was dented, and when she removed her helmet, shaking out her hair, her face was drawn and tired. Equo noticed again how young she was—very young indeed to be the cat's-paw of the Caisah.
She turned and looked at Baraca. For an instant they all expected combat, then with a creak of armor she bent her knee to the ground and dropped her head to her chest in front of the rebel leader. The gasp of shock that passed through her Swoop compatriots was loud and shocked. Equo stared in just as much disbelief at the cascade of Azrul's honey-colored hair that obscured her face.
Her voice, when it came from under it, was youthful but determined. “I surrender into your care the Swoop of the Lady of Wings, and ask for absolution for its deeds.”
“Azrul!” One of the women, tall with an intricately braided head of copper hair, stepped from their ranks. “What are you doing? We are sworn to the Caisah.”
Their leader looked up for a second at the stone-faced Baraca before shooting her reply back over her shoulder. “No, not sworn: shackled. Nephai, you forget that we owe allegiance only to the Lady herself.”
Before the other woman could reply, Azrul had spun about and got to her feet in one smooth movement. “If you disagree then it is within your rights to challenge for the right to lead the Swoop.”
Equo waited for the two warriors to begin combat. The tense moment ticked on, but the red-haired woman could not hold her commander's gaze for long. With a slight bow of her head she stepped back, but the rows of her fellows shook like birds rearranging their feathers.
Azrul, tall with the confidence of youth, turned to Baraca. “Do as you promised, then.”
Nyree was suddenly at Equo's side. She burrowed in against him, and in surprise he wrapped his arm around her shuddering form. “I knew this would happen,” she whispered mournfully, an apology for something he didn't yet understand.
The suggestion of light around the rebel leader grew stronger, as if a thousand pieces of multicolored glass were directing their beams at him. Abruptly, Baraca lifted his eye patch and the essence of the Void captured there burned out of the hole: it was unmistakable.
The world was outlined by the white light of the Void. It poured forth from the place where Baraca's eye had once been. It streamed through the air of Conhaero with a scream that hovered on the edge of what the ear could make out. Standing in its path, only Azrul remain
ed upright. Everyone else, the Portree and the Swoop, staggered back. The Void was unbearably close.
Equo thought of the Trifold Spirit in that light, the person who'd been swallowed up by something indefinably “other” so that his people could reach Conhaero. It was the color of madness and Equo understood that the friend they'd once known was gone. Baraca had become more than human. He was now a scion, the first to arise in many, many centuries.
Above the howling Void, the rebel leader's voice called out in a language Equo did not recognize. Then the light snapped away and the world let out its held breath.
Azrul was wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. Baraca was standing as he had before, but now that light which he'd kept hidden flickered around his shoulders, a reminder of the power he commanded. His eye patch was still closed and its power shuttered.
“A scion,” Varlesh's voice was cracked and hoarse. “A real scion like the old days. Baraca…”
“What is your real name?” Nyree asked, and her tone was somewhat sharp.
“One-eyed Baraca will serve well enough for now,” he said simply.
Equo had always wondered about the scions. They had been long gone from Conhaero when he'd been born into it, but people's passion for them had not waned. They were not the old gods of the places before Conhaero, but some part of the mortal soul needed divinity.
Yet their old friend's shoulders were bowed and his expression weary. He might carry the spark of something greater, but it looked a burden and not part of his nature.
“So what have you done, One-eyed Baraca?” Nyree took a step forward while everyone was, in fact, taking one back. “I know, even if they do not. These fools will think you offer hope, but all you are is the beginning of the end.”
Azrul tucked her helmet under her arm and stared as the Vaerli Seer became visibly irate. “He has freed us from the Caisah, and my Swoop is indebted to him.”
Nyree rounded on her, now. “Foolish Manesto-child, as always your people tread on matters that they do not understand. Did you not think there was a reason that the scions left Conhaero?”
She shrugged. “They just did, no one knows why.”
“That is a lie!” Nyree's pae atuae were beginning to shift on her skin. “They told their followers they could not risk staying. The first sign that Putorae saw of the next Conflagration was the presence of the scions.”
“What do you mean, Nyree?” Varlesh's frown of confusion was deep indeed.
The Seer took Equo's hands. “The return of the scions is the sign that the end is near. The burning my people have feared, the disaster that they risked damnation to prevent, cannot be far behind.”
“Vaerli superstition,” Baraca rumbled. “I am here to free Conhaero of its oppressor. The world needs the scions again.”
The pae atuae began to glow, slithering on her arms and face, but when she turned to Equo he saw with horror that she was crying through black eyes: those Vaerli eyes which were full of stars. “It is all coming true, dear one. Everything I saw, everything that Putorae feared is happening. Now I understand what it really means to be a Seer; to see everything and be able to stop nothing.”
“You're not saying Baraca is doing something wrong, are you?” Varlesh asked softly.
“Not by himself, no, but the return of the scion is the first sign,” Nyree said with a ragged sigh, “the first sign of the new Conflagration. Our problems are so much more than merely the Caisah.”
“Rebellion and now flame,” Varlesh rumbled, casting a look at the other parts of his being. “Can nothing ever be just simple?”
It was an eerie place—this city under the earth—and the hovering presence of his inherited Blood Witch did not make Byre feel any better. So he passed two nights in the home of his father's woman as on-edge as he had ever been. Moyan avoided him, though he could feel her simmering concern with every gesture and glance. She tried to be kind to him but was obviously still very angry with his father.
However, he was aware that it was not just the three of them in the small house. His suspicions were confirmed when, in the still dark of the second night, Pelanor materialized at the foot of his bed. Byre gave no sign he'd woken but opened his eyes just wide enough to see her. A Manesto couldn't have distinguished her ebony skin in the shadows, but he could. Watching her, keeping his breathing regular, he admired the strong line of her face and the thick curl of her hair at the nape of her neck. Vaerli were supposed to be uninterested sexually in other races—part of being unable to breed with them, he supposed. Yet those heightened senses, as far as he was concerned, made that very difficult.
Perhaps it was also the danger. The Phaerkorn had almost as many dark legends attached to them as his people.
“Brother of Talyn,” Pelanor whispered, fixing him with her dark eyes, “you are no good at keeping still.” The smallest tips of her canine teeth pressed against her lips. Byre did indeed twitch.
He coughed uncomfortably. “I can't sleep.”
“That I can see…” She cast an arch look at his rumpled sheets. “Are you perhaps worried about this task your father has set you?”
Women of all races made Byre terribly uncomfortable if he found them attractive—so now he knew he was blushing. Pulling himself up in the bed got him a little away from her. “Not at all.”
Pelanor cocked her head and smoothed the edge of the bed. “It is more than likely a path to your death, and since I am sworn to protect you, I should stop you going.”
It would have been easy to take that opportunity, to nod and say that was just fine. He could have pretended that he didn't have a choice, but life as a Vaerli had taught him to take the hard road. Instead, he leaned across and grabbed her arm. It was warm, and that had to be from his sister's blood.
This closeness brought the room to life. Even secondhand, touching another Vaerli was a joy he had never expected to feel again. The vague tickle of empathy alerted his senses, but he ignored it. “You agreed to keep me safe—not to prevent me from doing anything.”
Pelanor frowned. “How did you know…”
“Like my sister, I am not without some tricks. Do you think you could really stop me if it came to it?”
He caught a flash of discomfort from her. Shaking off his hand, she pursed her lips and stared at him, considering perhaps how to react. The second of empathy had passed as he waited anxiously for her to decide. Whatever had happened between Pelanor and his sister he could not tell, but he was sure he was not yet as powerful as the Hunter. He hoped the Blood Witch didn't know that.
She sighed dramatically. “By the goddess' third mouth, you are a fool!”
“We have no divinities in Conhaero,” Byre said without thinking. “They were lost in the White Void. Your ‘goddess’ is merely another scion.”
Pelanor gave him a sharp look out of her lustrous eyes. “Surely there are few who would dare split hairs with a Phaerkorn on that particular matter,” she observed tartly.
Byre shrugged, though his body thrilled with the hint of danger in her voice, but after a moment she gave a short little laugh.
“Just to be clear,” Pelanor continued as she got off the bed, “I think I probably could indeed stop you, but you are right; I only agreed to keep you safe.”
“Then you won't interfere tomorrow?”
“Interfere, no,” her whisper caressed his ear even as her body faded to gray and evaporated into the warm air of the bedroom, “but I will definitely be keeping an eye on you.”
Byre dropped back into a hot and restless sleep, never far from the knowledge that she was still in the room with him.
Retira woke him the next morning with a gentle pat on the shoulder. “It used to be tradition for a Vaerli going into battle to watch the sunrise with his kin, to see the new day and know that not all is darkness. Down here, though…”
Byre quelled his own rising fear as best he could. “I don't need to see the sun, Father. I have seen enough of its rises and falls. Instead, I'd like
to see the world of the Kindred.”
Moyan watched them go, her arms folded over her chest, and said nothing. After days cooped up in the little house, Byre thought it would have been good to go outside. He was wrong.
This city was not a welcoming one. Byre and Retira passed beneath marble archways and corridors carved from the very rock of the earth—they were very beautiful, yet everywhere doorways and windows were shut against them. No one was on the streets. A city this large should not be so quiet. Whatever the festival meant, he didn't like it.
They passed through cavernous gardens lit with a curious yellow light that came from the very walls, and fruits and plants that Byre vaguely recognized grew under its light, though distorted in frightening ways.
Yet it was the complete lack of people that sent shivers up his spine. Every corner they turned, he expected to run across some pale-skinned group of people, or find a child playing with a ball in a courtyard. But nothing happened. The air was so still and warm that Byre found he was happy to follow his father at such a hectic pace. If he had his way, they would have been sprinting, such was the air of menace and desolation around them.
It was obviously worrying Retira, too.
“This is not usual then?” Byre dared to ask.
“It is the festival,” was the unconvincing answer. “Not much farther now.” He forged ahead like a drowning man sighting land.
Byre kept pace with his father but couldn't help looking behind them. The people were still somewhere here—it was as if they were lurking behind doors with breaths held. The thought of the Witch was now somewhat comforting. Pelanor's ethereal presence was at his back, and her disembodied voice echoed in his ear, “Quickly.” So she, too, sensed something was not right.
The corridors changed. The dwellings disappeared, and it became one seamless black, hot tunnel that angled sharply down. Sweat began to run down Byre's neck, and his clothes suddenly felt very heavy indeed. Even more uncomfortable was the thought that this was just a taste of the Kindred's fires.
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