“And what of—” She halted on the name.
“Freaer?” Kai read her thought. “This day saw much letting of blood, but not his. He escaped with the three shraens who accompanied him—traitors all.” His voice took on a rough edge. “But at least one of them did not come away unscathed. Taelarat had to be carried.”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. Aerlic and Guaron flanked the entrance.
The door opened to admit Elcon, still garbed in blue and gold ceremonial clothing. Beside him, Daelic held a guttering lamp, its flame turned low.
As Elcon approached, Shae struggled to her feet, but swayed as the room tilted. Kai rose when she did and put a hand to her elbow.
Elcon took her hands in his. “Shae, I owe you my thanks. Had you not blocked Freaer with the shil shael, I might have succumbed.”
She couldn’t at first find her voice. “Shil shael?”
“Forgive me, I should have realized you would not know about the soul touch—Lof Yuel’s gift to those of Rivenn’s blood.”
“Tell me of it.”
“Long ago, the first Kindren who came through Gilead Riann inhabited secret places within Maeg Waer and named the mountain’s hollow core Caerric Baest, Cavern of Wonder. After garns drove out the Kindren with much bloodshed, the cave’s name changed to Caerric Daeft, Cavern of Death.”
Shae knew the story, having learned as much in her early days.
“When the garns invaded, they took Rivenn, Daeramor, and Glindenn captive and chained them in a dark cave. They knew of Gilead Riann and would not believe the gateway remained closed. In their lust for unearned wealth, the garns did not content themselves with wreaking destruction in Elderland—they yearned to pillage Anden Raven too. Daeramor and Glindenn died with the truth on their lips. Only Rivenn remained alive. The garns hunted his family, for they meant to torture them in front of him so he would give the location of the gate. They wouldn’t believe that he couldn’t, for it had vanished. That’s when Lof Yuel gave Rivenn the shil shael, the soul touch that enabled him to comfort and warn his family from afar.
“The Kindren freed Rivenn and drove the garns away, but then welkes migrated from lands across the salt waters of Maer Lingenn, making Maeg Waer their roost. The Kindren no longer wished to shelter within Maeg Waer, and so they abandoned Caerric Daeft to its dead. They moved into Weithein Faen, the salt marshes along the coast, where they built Pilaer.
“Rivenn never lost the shil shael. It passed to his children, and then to his children’s children.” His voice turned bitter. “Freaer among them.”
Shae caught her breath. So Elcon also saw the truth. “Yes?”
“Yes. You’ve heard the story of Meriwen of Old?”
“I have.”
“Kunrat fathered an illegitimate son by Meriwen—Faendenn, who grew up filled with his mother’s poison. When he reached adulthood, Faendenn vied with his father for the thrones of Rivenn and Faeraven. He almost won his campaign by fell arts, but Kunrat carried his misbegotten son with him when he fell into the flames of Lohen Keil, flames said to burn with virtue. But Faendenn has escaped the well to hide among us. I am certain that Freaer and Faendenn are one.”
Kai stirred and the lamplight cast his face in relief. “I’ve come to the same conclusion. I wish we’d realized before this!”
Shae frowned. “But what of Chaeldra?”
Craelin shook his head. “I believe Freaer used her for his own ends. She has vanished, and I wonder if we will ever find her. ”
She shivered at the implication. No one will ever tell me what to do again. Chaeldra had cried with passion as she watched Maeven die. Perhaps her prediction had come true in a way she had not intended. Shae looked at Elcon. “The shil shael…differs when Freaer uses it. He makes it into a weapon.”
“Freaer has corrupted it, perhaps by dark arts he learned from his mother.” The flame in Daelic’s lamp flared in a draft, the sudden illumination revealing the weariness that robbed Elcon’s face of its youthful vigor. But his eyes gleamed with purpose. “Daelic will tend you, Shae. You’ll depart at first light; although I wish you and your protectors had more time to recover before undertaking such a difficult journey.”
His words took her breath away. “By first light?”
“We can afford no delay. You must reach Lohen Keil before the DayStar completes its arc of the sky. ”
“But are we well enough to travel?”
“Despite their injuries, these I have chosen are still the best to guard you. But I’m concerned about you, Shae. I want Daelic to examine you again now that you’ve awakened. He will do all he can to strengthen you. Dorann also has skill to tend injuries and will look after you on the journey.”
She frowned. “You are right, of course. We must leave at once.”
“I’ve come to give you my farewell…and this.” Elcon drew a dagger from his sleeve, jewels glistening in its hilt. “Leisht belonged to our mother.”
Blinking away tears, she took the weapon, and its small weight comforted her hand. Questions pressed her lips, unspoken. Tell me of our mother. Did she hold you when you were small? Spend time with you? Talk of our father? She sighed. Such words might find utterance some day, but not now.
“Its swirlstones light to reveal magics of all kinds. Leisht cuts enchantment.”
Her fingers caressed the smooth hilt. “I’ll treasure it.”
“I wish I could come with you and keep you safe, but duties place me here—even more so now. We’ve secured Torindan, but we must watch and wait for what comes. Guard yourself, Shae. Never forget—Freaer desires you.”
She shivered. “He lusts for your death as he does for my life.”
He kissed the palm of her hand. “Lof Yuel will not forsake us.”
****
Kai settled onto his good side, and the rough canvas tick rustled as the sweet scent of straw wrapped around him. A woolen blanket staved off the cold dampness of the stone building. Tomorrow, a simple bedroll on the hard ground and the thick perse of his cloak would have to do. He fought to keep his eyes from drifting shut. He had lain down at Craelin’s insistence but would not rest fully until he knew Shae had sustained no lasting harm.
Daelic bent over Shae, his head pale in the lamplight.
The memory of rough hands seizing her haunted Kai. He could not have reached her in time, and his first duty lay with Elcon, but when he’d turned away from her peril, a part of him had died.
Daelic stepped away from Shae, his posture relaxed, and Kai remembered to breathe. He had not understood his feeling for Shae before, but his reactions now told him more than he wanted to accept. They’d not been raised together, and knowing the truth of her birth from the beginning, he’d never thought of her as his sister. He’d loved her nonetheless, without pausing to wonder at the depth of that love. Until now.
Such foolishness. He’d lived much of his life charged to protect Shae. Of course he would have a strong reaction to her danger. But that didn’t explain the fierce joy that had gripped him at embracing her. He knew the answer to that riddle, but couldn’t face it. Not now.
Daelic departed with the lamp, and Shae tiptoed toward Kai. As moonlight fell across her, she seemed more wraith than maid.
He said nothing, but closed his eyes to block the sight of her beauty and to stop the sensation, almost of pain, that grew within him.
She knelt at his side, and with gentle fingers smoothed his brow. “Rest well.” Her whisper stirred the air.
Lof Yuel, help me preserve her in safety and honor.
****
“It’s time to wake!” Kai called.
Shae tried to roll over, but the hand on her shoulder prevented her. Clawing her way to consciousness, she opened an eye. When darkness met her, she moaned. It was still night! The makeshift bed of wilderein fur had kept her warm despite the damp chill, but restless dreams had impoverished her sleep. If only she could sleep a little longer…
“Shae, we have to leave!”
/> As memory returned, she groaned and pushed to a sitting position in a feeble shaft of moonlight. Self-conscious under Kai’s scrutiny, she put her hands to her hair.
“I have your comb, but there’s no time to use it now. I wish you could have a maid to tend you. It isn’t proper for you to travel alone with such a rough lot.”
She smiled. “I can always count on you to consider my honor. But this time propriety must bow to necessity. No maid should make this journey for the sake of my grooming. It is hard enough that I do so.”
The others had already gathered their belongings and now waited for her. “You should have wakened me sooner.”
“I didn’t have the heart, you slept so soundly.”
He helped her to her feet and led her to a small vestry behind the chancel. “You can tend yourself here in private. Elcon had traveling clothes brought for you.”
She smiled when she discovered Aeleanor’s cloak waiting for her in the vestry. She donned the simple tunics beside it, and then gathered the cloak to her and pressed her face into its marmolet fur lining. Who would know if she allowed herself a few weak tears?
When she rejoined the others, she found that either her eyes had grown used to the darkness or else it had lightened—perhaps both. She could see Dorann’s black eye and cut lip, the way Eathnor held his arm, and the gash on Guaron’s cheek. How would they fare on an arduous journey when already taxed with injuries? And yet, the tilt of Eathnor’s head and Dorann’s quick smile reassured her. Guaron looked a little rough but made no complaint. Craelin and Aerlic, beside him, seemed better rested than possible.
Craelin led them into the vestry, where a small door hidden in the paneling opened under his hand. Raising a lanthorn, he passed through, swallowed at once by the dark maw gaping behind it. Aerlic and Guaron followed. From the doorway, Kai turned back to Shae.
She took his hand and stepped into the bracing chill of the secret passageway. They descended a hewn stone stair to a small landing where Craelin and Aerlic paused to light and distribute torches.
Torchlight wavered across Craelin’s face. “This stair leads through the motte to the watergate where wingabeasts await us.”
As they traveled down a long flight, the deep scent of water rose to Shae. Like the others, she kept silence, but the sound of their passage echoed in the enclosed space. Their feet stirred clouds of dust, and Shae smothered a sneeze. Grateful for torchlight on the uneven stair treads, she followed Kai. Aerlic, Guaron, and Craelin led the way. Eathnor and Dorann came last, so quiet she glanced back to make sure they followed. She did her best to keep up, but her strength flagged, and she had to catch up when those ahead paused to rest.
A memory, jarring in its urgency, hid just out of reach, and as the hair on the back of her neck lifted, she shifted closer to Kai. He had not spoken of it, but she knew by his strained expression he suffered.
They resumed the long descent but paused at times to keep together. Shae trudged on in mindless misery, through the dank passageway that seemed to have no end. Strange fantasies exercised her mind, based more in fear than logic. Perhaps the guards who held the wingabeasts at the watergate had met death at the hand of Freaer’s forces. Attackers might even now wait for them to emerge or worse—block the way out. Perhaps the door above did not open from the inside but allowed only egress. They could find themselves entombed forever. She shivered and, with an effort, pushed such vain imaginations away.
Kai slowed to a stop in front of her. Metal screeched in the stillness. Just ahead, an opening widened to let in the predawn light, dazzling Shae after so much darkness. The torches extinguished, one by one.
Shae stumbled behind the others into the sweet air. She blinked to clear her vision and caught her breath in wonder. On platforms above them two guardians watched over a small herd of wingabeasts.
The graceful creatures shone like pale ghosts, each saddled and laden for a journey, although not overburdened. She recognized Kai’s Flecht, named for the sound an arrow makes in flight. His white coat glowed beside a Gray, just fanning and folding its wings. A pair of Silvers glistened against the deeper tones of a Blue. She made out two other dark shapes against the light stone behind them. One of them shifted, and she caught the gleam of hooves.
A quiet whistle from Guaron set wings aflutter. As one, the wingabeasts pranced to greet their keeper. Craelin beckoned. “Hurry, dawn comes too soon. We need to reach the canyons of Doreinn Ravein before dawn.”
“Come Shae.” Kai guided her up stone steps that ran from the river’s edge and between the platforms to the upper gate.
Flecht nickered as they stepped onto the platform. Kai greeted his wingabeast, then turned Shae by the shoulders. “Come and meet Ruescht. Elcon has given her over to you. Don’t let her small size dismay you. She can fly with speed, thus her name. Did you know the Elder have no word for ruescht? They use only one word, ‘wind,’ for all winds and must needs add other words to tell them apart.”
“What do they call ruescht then?”
“Rushing wind.”
She stepped toward the dainty Silver, at once enthralled. When she offered her hand, the wingabeast’s moist breath warmed her palm. Delicate ears flicked forward, and liquid eyes gave Shae a look that melted her heart.
Kai helped her mount. “She will carry you well. Give her spoken commands, direct her with the reins, or do both.”
Shae’s mouth went dry. Although she had ridden Flecht with Kai, handling a wingabeast on her own would demand concentration.
Kai swung onto Flecht’s back with a smile of encouragement. “Don’t worry. She understands the command Follow, and she knows the other wingabeast’s names.”
“Follow Flecht.” Shae instructed Ruescht in a steady voice, although her stomach turned over at the thought of riding a wingabeast on her own. Ruescht obeyed at once, following Flecht to the edge of the platform with a gait so smooth Shae almost believed they did not move. Kai’s smile widened, and Shae relaxed her fingers on the reins.
Craelin’s Silver flapped into flight. Flecht followed, wings spread and legs folded. Ruescht leaped behind Flecht. The wind of their passing tugged at Shae’s plait and stole her breath but, at the heady sensation of flight, Shae’s fear melted into exhileration. She might even have laughed aloud but for the severity of the occasion.
Although they flew low, she could see all the way to the Maegran Syld, the misty hills of home. The kaba forest stretched westward from there to the shores of Maer Ibris, and her heart sang as she glimpsed the ocean gleaming through reddish trees. Weild Aenar wended a tortuous route south and east to the mist-shrouded canyonlands of Doreinn Ravein. To the east, a great desert sent purple shadows across blushing sands and thick-trunked purr trees huddled around blue watering holes. But they would not venture there. The desert heated to extremes by day and vicious pyreks, birds of prey she hoped never to encounter, swooped out of the purr trees to fell prey that came to drink by night.
Though she could not see it from this distance, Graelinn Hold sat somewhere within the grassland beyond the desert. They would travel south through the canyonlands and break their journey at Graelinn Hold. By now Katera would have wed Enric of Graelinn and taken her place as his Raelein. How strange to have forgotten so important an event.
Morning dawned as they flew into its mists, and the eastern sky washed over in pale colors—lavenders and pinks and blues. Massive walls of rough stone rose above the haze to close Shae in, and she glimpsed the sky only as a gap between canyon walls. In time the veil of mist thinned to reveal the canyon’s pink and blue hues and the white, green, and mauve of tiny windflowers nodding in windswept crevices.
A winged, white creature flew apace beside them. Shae swallowed a scream and laughed to find a whirlight accompanying her. Ruescht quivered at first, but seemed undisturbed by the presence of the ungainly bird, which croaked as it dipped and flapped. In time, the whirlight wheeled away, no doubt in search of other sport.
Shae’s back ached and h
er legs cramped. She sighed with relief when Craelin halted on a high ledge beneath a sheltering overhang.
Ruescht landed with delicate grace behind Flecht , and Shae slid to the ground on weak legs. She sat on a sun-warmed rock, content to wait for the cramps in her legs to ease. At least the sun reached them here, and they could rest and eat a rough meal while sheltering from the worst of the wind ravaging the canyons. Kai offered her waybread and cheese, which she took with appetite. She would have relished a hot ginger drink, but found only flat water carried in elkskins and tasting of them.
Bees buzzed in a nearby patch of anemones, combining with the smell of sun-warmed soil to lull her. She sagged against the boulder at her back and let her eyes drift shut.
****
Craelin nodded to Kai. “Rest while you may.”
Dorann squinted a black-ringed eye at his brother, astride his ebony wingabeast, Roaem, named for the sound of thunder. “Take care, you.”
Eathnor, his light eyes shining in a dark face, sent his brother a swift smile. “That I will.” With his head tilted at a rakish angle, Eathnor seemed ready for anything.
Roaem lifted into the air beside Craelin’s Silver, Mystael, named for the wild wind.
“How soon before they return?” Dorann asked.
Kai refrained from pointing out that they had scarce vanished from sight. “Not long, I think. They’ll climb out of the canyon and find a high place so they can see the lay of the land and check our course. We must fly low through Doreinn Ravein for secrecy, but all the twists and turns and branches can prove disorienting.”
“What of danger?”
Kai smiled. “They shouldn’t find any. Come. You and I can offer our best service by following Craelin’s instruction to rest.”
Kai smiled when he found Shae sleeping upright with a crust of bread in her hand. He pried it from her fingers, then stretched out on a slab of sun-warmed rock. He didn’t intend to sleep but the droning of bees lulled him.
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