Once she felt satisfied she was radiating no magic, she asked, “Which way?”
Rowen nodded southwest past the face of the Mule Ears. “Go ahead. You’ll see the hoof prints in about twenty paces. I’ll cover our trail.”
Though she did not like being separated from the ranger with the ghazneth so near, the princess saw the wisdom of his plan and set off at a steady run. As Rowen had promised, she soon came to a narrow trail of hoof prints left by Alusair’s company. She pulled her cloak from her shoulders and began to sweep the dusty ground as she ran, cursing Alusair’s sloppiness and doing what she could to help the ranger obliterate the tracks.
The hoof prints all but vanished twenty paces later, and Tanalasta realized that her sister had intentionally left an obvious trail to help Rowen determine the direction she had gone, but was now taking precautions. The princess continued to sweep away any tracks she noticed, but now the prints were few and far between. She shifted her own tactics, trying to stay on rocks or hard ground whenever possible and avoiding any bushes that might snap or snag as she dashed past.
The tiny speck grew steadily larger, becoming first a barely distinguishable V, then a tiny cross. Tanalasta found a series of four hoof prints turning slightly southward. She swept them away and adjusted her own course and found herself climbing a small ridge. The princess glanced back. Seeing Rowen less than fifty paces behind her, she decided to risk crossing the crest and dashed up the slope at her best sprint.
By the time Tanalasta neared the top, the approaching ghazneth appeared nearly as large as her thumb. She dropped to her hands and scrambled the rest of the way on all fours, taking care to step only on stones, and to keep the sparse brush between her and the approaching phantom. She crossed the summit itself on her belly, then ducked behind a bush and turned to watch the phantom.
Rowen was still ten paces from the hilltop when the thing grew large enough that she could make out the shape of its wings. She hissed a quiet warning to the ranger, then motioned him down. He fell to his belly and rolled beneath a bush, covering himself with his mottled cloak and growing almost invisible, even to Tanalasta.
They waited, exhausted and huffing, as the ghazneth flew past less than half a mile from the crest of the ridge.
It started to swerve toward the withered sycamore, then veered off over the canyons toward its golden-haloed fellow.
Tanalasta rose from her hiding place and motioned the ranger over the ridge. “Now, Rowen-and hurry!”
Rowen rolled from beneath his bush and swept his cloak across the ground quickly, then scrambled over the ridge beside Tanalasta. “You are quite… a runner,” he gasped. “I didn’t… know if I could catch up.”
“Fear will do that to you.” Tanalasta turned to angle down the ridge in the direction of Alusair’s trail. “You’d have no trouble keeping up if you were as terrified as I am.”
Rowen came up beside her. “If I’m not frightened, it’s only because I have nothing to lose. You… you’ll be queen some day. Why did you pull away from Vangerdahast?”
“The king commanded me to find Alusair,” she said. “There is something he wanted me to tell her.”
“No,” said Rowen. “That is an excuse, not a reason. Even if you and Vangerdahast were not so open about your disputes, the air between you is as taut as a plow lead.”
They reached the bottom of the ridge and dropped into a broad trough, with the craggy face of the Storm Horns soaring up on the south and the ridge rising more gently to the north. Rowen used his cape to sweep away four hoof prints leading directly up the furrow. Tanalasta glanced over her shoulder and found the sky mercifully free of ghazneths-at least for the moment.
“You’re trying to coerce him… into something,” huffed Rowen. “What?”
Tanalasta flashed a scowl in his direction-then stumbled on a rock and nearly fell. “Even if you were… right,” she said, now starting to gasp herself. “It is not for you to question a royal princess.”
“It is now, Princess.” Rowen emphasized her title. “When you did not go with Vangerdahast, you made it my duty to ask.”
“Very well.” The princess was finding it more difficult to maintain the pace, though Rowen only seemed to be growing stronger. “I know you’re familiar with how Aunadar Bleth embarrassed me. If I am to
… rule well, I must win the respect of my subjects back. I won’t do that by teleporting to safety every time there is the slightest danger.”
“No.” Rowen stopped running.
Tanalasta halted two paces later and turned around to face him. “What are you doing, Rowen?”
“You do not earn people’s respect by lying to them,” said the ranger. “That is how you lose it.”
Tanalasta glanced at the sky behind him and saw two dark specks weaving back and forth through the air. “We have no time for this.”
“You do not need to win my respect, Princess,” said Rowen. “You have already done that with your bravery and your intelligence. Now, please show me that you respect me.”
Tanalasta rolled her eyes. “Then can we go?”
Rowen nodded.
“Very well.” Her gaze dropped, and she found it impossible to raise it again. “If you must know, I stayed because of you.”
“Me?”
Tanalasta nodded. “You are certainly aware of the royal magician’s concerns that I may be growing too old to provide an heir for the realm.”
“Those concerns are shared by many,” said Rowen. “But I hardly see-“
“Do you want to hear this or not?” Tanalasta snapped. She waved a hand toward the two ghazneths. “We don’t have much time.”
Rowen swallowed. “Please.”
“My father’s birthday celebration was a thinly disguised effort to prod me into marrying Dauneth Marliir. Everyone knows this.” Tanalasta paused to grind her teeth, then continued, “What they don’t know is that when the invitation arrived at Huthduth, I told the High Harvestmaster I would be returning to Cormyr to wed him.”
“And what did the High Harvestmaster say to change your mind?”
“That he wished me well and knew Dauneth to be a good man.” Tanalasta’s reply was sharp. “My doubts arose later, when I was out alone, taking my leave of the mountains.”
Rowen nodded and said nothing, as though he did not see anything alarming in the crown princess wandering orc-infested mountains alone.
Tanalasta continued, “When I reached the headwaters of the Orcen River, the air filled with the sound of song-birds and the light turned the color of gold. A magnificent gray stallion came out of the forest bearing an old crone with eyes of pearl and armor of silver lace, and when I called to her, the woman guided her mount down to the water across from me. She would not speak, but when the horse drank, an inky darkness passed from its nostrils into the stream. The grass along the shore withered before my eyes. On the hillside above me, the pine trees browned and lost their needles.”
“And this was not a dream?” Rowen asked.
“I was as awake as we are now,” Tanalasta replied. “A single tear ran down the crone’s cheek, and she shook her head at me.”
“And you think-“
“I did not think at all,” Tanalasta said, cutting him off. “I was so frightened that I fled without regard for how far I ran or what direction. Before I knew it, I was lost and the day was nearly gone. After a time, I came to a copse of willow and choke-cherry so thick I could barely pass. I would have turned back, save that I heard a woman giggling and thought she might tell me how to return to the monastery.”
Rowen’s expression grew apprehensive. “And?”
“I fought my way through the thicket to the shores of a small pond, where the young woman I had heard was watering her mount from the pool. The beast was as white and luminous as a diamond, but even then I did not realize what it was until I called out to ask the way to the monastery and the creature raised its head.”
“It was a unicorn.” It was not a question.