He hesitated a moment longer, then went in.
For a moment he thought he had made a terrible mistake, for Elspeth was lying beside the pool, wrapped in a lounging robe, head was pressed against another, crowned with flowing white -
:Oh, for Haven’s sake, don’t be more of a young fool than you are already,: Gwena snapped. He recognized, just before he backed out of the clearing, that it wasn’t Firesong she was lying against, it was her Companion.
“Do you - mind if I use the pool?” he said awkwardly. She propped herself up on one elbow and gave him a long, penetrating look.
“I mind only if you plan on being as hateful as you were this morning,” she said, levelly.
“I didn’t exactly plan on being hateful,” he replied weakly. “It just happened.”
“Hmm,” was all she said, and she laid herself back down again on the cushions.
:If you don’t mind, I’m going to leave you two alone,: Gwena said, getting gracefully to her feet. :I suggest whatever in the nine hells is bothering the two of you, that you get it dealt with before it shows up in the magic. That youngster and I agree on one thing, at least - that you ‘d better not bring your emotional upheavals into the reach of the Stone.:
And with that, she melted into the undergrowth.
Darkwind stripped hastily, and slipped into the water. Elsspeth stayed where she was, neither moving nor talking. He finally decided to break the silence before he got a headache from it.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be nasty.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Elspeth replied. Then she turned on her side and met his eyes. “Something occurred to Gwena, and she pointed it out to me. You’re getting a dose of what your brother gets all the time, did you realize that?”
“What?” he said cleverly. “Wintermoon?”
“Certainly.” Elspeth turned over onto her stomach, and pillowed her head on her arms. “Think about it. You were always the Adept, the one with all the power. The one who had anything he wanted, from Starblade’s approval to his pick of lovers in the Clan. He was a lowly scout, no magic, and in a position of risk, so that even if someone had considered getting close to him, they were afraid to because he was as likely to die as return every patrol. Even when you gave up the magic and no longer were the darling of your father’s eye, you still had high rank, a place in the Council, the friendship of the gryphons, and Dawnfire. Now you’ve taken the magic up again, and you have it all back. And there stands good old reliable Wintermoon, upstaged again.”
“I never thought of it that way,” he said, slowly. “It never occurred to me.”
“I didn’t think so. Ever wondered why he spends so much time outside the Vale - why he volunteered to go wandering about the countryside with Skif in tow?” She rubbed her forehead on her sleeve. “I did. Gwena says she thinks he does it so that he won’t get jealous of you. He really loves you, just as truly as any brother - but hellfires, Darkwind, it must be awful to stand around and watch you, and see everything you want just fall into your hand like a ripe fruit!”
“Oh,” he replied, feeling very - odd. Very taken aback.
“So, now you’re confronted with Firesong, and you’re feeling the same way Wintermoon has since you started j showing Mage-Gift.” Her bright brown eyes regarded him soberly from beneath a lock of hair. “Doesn’t feel very good, I’d imagine.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he admitted. “But - you - ”
“Oh, I’m used to not being the best.” Elspeth shook her hair back. “Talia was better than me at classes, Jeri was better than me at swordsmanship, Mother is much prettier than me, Kero’s better at strategy, Step-father at diplomacy, Skif at being sneaky - the only thing I was really good at was pottery, and I didn’t deceive myself into thinking I was the best in the Kingdom.” She spoke airily, but Darkwind sensed that old hurt under her words.
“Elspeth, I think the thing that bothers me the most is that Firesong has your admiration,” he said, unhappily. “I am jealous of him. He is so much more my master at magic - I feel like a bare apprentice. But it is the fact that you admire him so that angers me, and I cannot help myself.”
It truly cost him in pride to admit that, and she stared at him a moment longer. “You know, Kera told me something, once. She said - ‘you’d think being able to speak mind-to-mind would put an end to all the misunderstandings between people, but it doesn’t.’ She was right, too.”
He shook his head ruefully. “I have often found that when there were misunderstandings, both parties found reasons not to share their thoughts.”
“Exactly.” She widened her eyes, and he felt the delicate touch of her mind on his. :Firesong has Power. Firesong is too beautiful to be human. Firesong is worth admiring. But from a distance. He’s not called Firesong for nothing - he breathes in the admiration and everything else around him. Fire can warm you from a distance, but it burns when yon get too close to it.:
There was no doubting the truth of the feelings behind the words. He ducked under the water for a moment, then emerged and hoisted himself up onto the bank beside her, “Then you forgive me for being a beast?”
She grinned. “I think you could persuade me to.”
Tre’valen soared the spirit-skies in a new form; that of a vorcel-hawk. Smaller than Dawnfire - as was only appropriate for a tiercel - and with nowhere near her power, he still hoped that in this form she would see that he was trying to meet her halfway. She had avoided him for days now, and he was not certain if the reason was anything to do with him, or if it was something outside of both of them.
Surely the Goddess knew of his feelings toward Dawnfire. Could She not approve, to let him continue to pursue Dawnfire? It would take the barest blink on Her part to slap him to the ground, away from Her Avatar - yet Tre’valen sought Dawnfire still. Surely the Goddess knew that he was still devout, that he searched always mindful of serving Her people better. No matter how his heart might cry to him of how Dawnfire needed him, and he needed her - he was still a sworn shaman, and owed his loyalty to Her and Her purposes.
Hold, though - had he truly just assumed Dawnfire needed him? He did not know for certain if he read her emotions or his own. Her eyes were no longer human when he saw her. Could he believe the desire for companionship he saw in them? It was all so complex, and he had so few real facts to work with. He could only do the one thing a shaman ultimately must: trust in who he was and let his long-learned morals determine his actions.
He had always been bright-eyed and adventurous; the Goddess had not been displeased by it when She took him as Her shaman. It would be senseless to deny his nature-better to act on it.
He had walked the Moonpaths to no effect - so now he tried a desperation move. He left the Paths altogether, and turned his flight into the starry night between them.
Prudent Kra’heera had never left the Paths in all of his long life as a shaman. Tre’valen had heard of some - a very few - who had, and lived to do so again. They were not many, but their adventures had been in times calmer than these. There were new things happening, strange and promising and frightening at once, and risks were somehow more appropriate. The risk of leaving the Moonpaths paled before the danger of his courting the Goddess’ own Avatar.
Still, if Dawnfire would not come to him, he must needs go to her.
He felt the lift in his “belly” as he lifted from the Paths, on wings made of glittering golden Stardust and lit by his own life. A shiver as though from a cold wind, a knifelike wash through his sunlight-feathered body, and the Moon-paths dropped away below him.
Foolishness it might be - but glorious it certainly was.
He soared and wheeled above and under the Paths, able now to See the patterns upon patterns they coursed into, and the colors and layers as far as his spirit-eyes could discern.
But she was nowhere to be found.
Perhaps he was looking in the wrong place entirely? Well, there was nothing keeping him from using this form in the “real” world -
and if she soared the physical skies in her hawk-form, she would surely see him in this guise.
He closed the eyes of the hawk, then turned within-sought the twist that brought him home -
And opened them again as warm sun flooded through him. Through, because as a spirit-hawk in the real world, he was slightly transparent. A tiercel-vorcel of golden glass. . . .
Was it not exactly like a lovesick tiercel to court a mate with fancy flying? Leaving the Moonpaths, diving from the starry soul-sea into the physical world - was that not the equivalent of skimming a cliff face to attract a lover’s eye?
He couldn’t help but laugh at himself over it all, still a little giddy from the feel of the soul-sea between the Paths. Should he continue with the analogy and hope that Dawnfire would be impressed? Could they be enough alike somehow that she would fly with him? So many mysteries, but then, there were few answers to begin with in his life’s work. That was, he felt, part of its appeal - in searching for Truths, he’d found few absolute ones and thousands of personal ones. He’d follow his heart, wherever it led.
Perhaps his willingness to risk was only adaptability. He felt at home in this Vale of summer nestled amidst cruel winter, as he did wherever he traveled. So many times he’d been berated for his brashness by Kra’heera; perhaps his brashness was but unrefined bravery?
He increased his physical mass, steadied in the chilly breeze above his brothers’ Vale. They, too, followed their hearts as certainly as they followed the Goddess’ laws. He admired them. They fought for a goal that would come many centuries from their own lifetimes as though it would be enjoyed at day’s end.
They were not so different from his own people, who guarded the Plains and the deadly things under it. The Hawkbrothers actively fought; the Shin’a’in had the equally difficult tasks of unending vigilance and precise response. The Kal’enedral and the Hawkbrother Adepts were alike in some respects, were they not? Different but complimentary.
He had seen history drawn in tapestries in Kata’shin’a’in. Was it time now for a new tapestry to be woven?
Ah, if his thread and Dawnfire’s could be woven together, it would be like the satisfying ending to a tale, and he would feel reborn. . . .
He angled over the Vale, careful of the sense of wonder that he felt. He couldn’t let it blind him to his goal. The point of taking flight this way was to find Dawnfire, to speak with her. Tre’valen scanned the skies, widened his view - and saw something bright hurtling toward him and the Vale.
It was without physical form, a fiery spear of crackling magical energy, larger than two men. It came roaring toward him, rushing, unrelenting, like a storm-driven grass-fire across the Plains - and struck him full in the chest. A shower of splintered mage-energy burst around him and he screamed out.
He fell half a furlong, stunned; recovered; held himself in place with unsteady wingbeats. The next blow was coming, and he warded against it as best he could.
For one moment, he thought that his fears were coming to pass, that the Star-Eyed herself had decided to punish him for his audacity. But no -
No, he was not even the object of the attack. He had been in its bound-path, and it had diverted to him - and through him. He had only been in the way. The second strike was approaching differently; it struck at him, hurt him, but lost little of its power, continuing to its true target. That target was below him, in the Vale.
Starblade -
He Saw the Adept taking the force of the blow and falling to his knees while his bondbird screamed in anger and frustration; Saw him recover. Even as he folded his wings and dove to add his own small - and probably futile - strength, he Saw Kethra fling herself physically over the Adept, and magically join her power to his. Then he watched in astonishment as Starblade gave up control to Kethra, letting her spread the force of the attack over both of them.
It is Falconsbane!
A third blow came, and then a fourth; the pair sagged beneath the force of the brutal attack, their shields eroding. Kethra cried out, face toward the sky, fists clenched, transmuting the attack-energies into another form. A circle of intense cold spread out from her, covering everything it touched with a thick layer of frost. Furniture split and shattered as it was overcome; drinking vessels and pitchers burst; the very structure of the ekele was warping and cracking as it was engulfed in bitter cold.
Falconsbane -
Hyllarr shrieked in agitation and abandoned his perch, falling to the floor and backing against the wall of the ekele as the lethal white circle spread. Already, Tre’valen knew the victims were in pain from the deadly cold - which told him that withstanding the effects of the attack must have been worse even than its transmutation.
Even without ForeSight, the next few moments were writ clear for anyone to see. Help would not come from the rest of the Vale in time. Falconsbane had been merely testing their strength. The next blow would rip through their defenses, and surely channel through from Starblade inside the Vale, into the Vale -
And pour into the Heartstone, shattering it, and sear the country for leagues. The devastation would kill everyone, and unleash a score of wild ley-lines to tear through the landscape.
I must stop this -
He knew he would die.
It did not matter. Too many would be hurt -
:Here!:
He Looked up; Dawnfire was above him in her hawk-form, a blazing creature of glory. She had more than enough power to shield Starblade from the next attack. Whether he would survive the encounter, he could not know, but his brethren must be saved. And here, with him, was Dawnfire. . . .
She had the power. He had the knowledge.
:Now! Together!: he cried, and folded his wings to plummet down. She fell beside him, both of them rushing just ahead of the blast of power that they felt hot on their necks....
Firesong took up the drum and faced the Heartstone, his fingers pattering a little anticipatory run on the taut skin. Darkwind shook out his muscles, a chill of nervousness running down his spine. This was only to be an exploratory venture, a preliminary, to see what the three of them could do with the rogue Stone.
:Haiee!:
It was not so much a call, as a mental shriek of pain. And Darkwind knew immediately whose pain it was.
:Father!: He Reached for power, blindly.
But Firesong reacted first, reaching, clenching fists until his knuckles whitened, flinging the tightest shield Oarkwind had ever seen around -
- the Heartstone.
What -
Darkwind had no time for anything other than a gasp of outrage. It was Starblade and Kethra who needed protection, not the damned Stone!
Firesong fell to his knees, hands spread wide, muscles straining as he built shield after shield around the Stone. The Stone flared and a dozen fire-red tendrils stabbed out toward Starblade’s ekele, to be stopped short by Firesong’s shields. They sought purchase in the inner shields, and half of them penetrated; Firesong built another layer and another, sucking in Power from all around him.
The tendrils were all reaching out to Starblade.
Darkwind’s Sight clearly showed him the next huge fire-bolt coming in through the Vale’s shields. Streaking down before it were two sun-bright vorcel-hawks. They dove wing to wing, turned as one above Starblade and Kethra’s ekele -
- and caught the fire-bolt together. Power flared around his father and his lover, and then all was still, except for the hoarse protests of Hyllarr and a subsiding thrum from the Heartstone. Firesong constricted the shields, his eyes closed tightly in concentration. The tendrils receded.
Darkwind reached his power to Elspeth, without conscious thought of it - and found her doing the same toward him. They wove a counterattack, Lanced it up into the sky - and let it sputter off into nothing. The enemy - Mornelithe Falconsbane, he knew - had aborted his remaining attack and dispersed its power into a huge, flickering mantle over the Vale.
There was no path for a counterattack to follow.
Mornelith
e Falconsbane had escaped again.
Chapter Nineteen
That was Falconsbane!” Elspeth gasped, climbing to her feet and swaying in her tracks with shock at Darkwind’s side. “That was Falconsbane - I know it was! What stopped him?”
“I don’t know,” Darkwind replied. “I can’t tell, Elspeth.” His head rang with the echoes of power, and there was no reading anything subtle this close to the Stone. He stepped across the pass-through on the warded threshold that sealed the Stone away from the rest of the Vale, and sent out a fan of questing energy.
The trace was clear and clean, though quickly fading, and it ran back to a center that was not disturbed, but oddly empty.
No - more than empty -
When he realized what he felt, he recoiled and snapped up his own shields. Elspeth crossed the threshold, and Gwena appeared at her side. Both breathed hard from sprinting.
Vree, who had been sunning in the falls area of the Vale, shot overhead, alert for new danger. He abruptly sideslipped and landed in a tree outside the threshold, and sent a mental query, followed by a wordless message of support when he sensed how distraught his bondmate was.
Darkwind waved to warn Vree away, then began running toward a particular remote corner of the Vale - a place where he had sensed, not only the remains of burned-out power, but something more. The kind of emptiness only a Final Strike left behind.
Death.
Someone had died protecting Starblade, and given that it was a power-signature he didn’t recognize, he was horribly certain he knew who that someone was.
Hoofbeats gained behind him and Gwena and Elspeth drew up just ahead of him. Elspeth’s hand was open to him, and he grasped it and vaulted up onto Gwena’s back. Together, they rode crouched, into the far reaches of the Vale. Gwena sprinted and stooped, dodging trees, limbs, and other i obstacles. The lush, relaxing decorations of the Vale were i now clinging distractions; Gwena could only make speed in clearings.
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