A pause. “It doesn’t matter what you say. We should not involve ourselves. What would you have us do, anyway? I won’t stay here and risk being caught.”
“No, I don’t suppose so. Something else, then.”
“There is nothing else!”
“Don’t just dismiss me like that. Think of something!”
Arling drifted away again, riding the crest of her lethargy and weariness, returning to darkness and silence. Nothing disturbed her journey. She was buoyed by a deep sense of peacefulness, wrapped in a promise of safety and well-being. She could not determine its source, could not decide from whence it came. But it bore her on through time and held her with the firm gentleness of her mother’s arms and she gave herself over to it.
When Aphenglow Elessedil woke, not knowing how long she had slept, her first thought was of Arling. She had left her to come to Cymrian, but she had not intended to leave her sister this long. She had not intended to fall asleep. Anything could have happened to Arling in the interim, and it would all be her fault for abandoning her.
Cymrian was looking at her. “I think I might live,” he said, with a shaky grin.
She blinked and yawned. “I think you might. How badly do you hurt?”
“Hardly at all. Whatever you did, it took away the pain.” His quirky smile surfaced. “You saved me.”
She blushed in spite of herself, shaking her head. “Not yet, I haven’t. I can still do a little more. I can make you stronger so you can travel.” She sat up. “Here. Give me your hands.”
He did so, and, conjuring the magic that was needed, she sent an infusion of strength washing through his body, careful not to overdo it, to keep it moderate and controlled so that it would not disrupt the healing that was already under way. When she finished, she looked at him for approval, one eyebrow lifting quizzically.
“Better,” he agreed. “Much better. I can feel the difference. Amazing. I should be bedridden for weeks, but I think I can even walk.”
“You’ll have to. I can’t carry you.”
“No, I wouldn’t expect that.”
She stood up. “I’m sorry, but there’s no more time. We have to hurry.”
“Arling?”
“Sleeping when I came to find you. I found the problem and fixed it. But she’s very weak.”
He sat up gingerly and flexed his shoulders. “We’ll do whatever we have to for Arling. At least we won’t have to worry about being hunted. Not right away, anyhow.” He nodded toward the bodies surrounding them. “There’s one more farther back—another mutant. Ugly things. Men, once, but something much less now.”
“Who made these creatures?” she said. “That woman, Edinja Orle?”
“It’s possible.” He climbed to his feet, testing his weight, looking down at himself as if to make certain he was all in one piece. “I know her. A witch. A member of a powerful Federation family, most of them practitioners of magic. She was one of the candidates for the position of Prime Minister of the Federation Coalition Council when Drust Chazhul got selected as a compromise choice.”
She gave him a look. “How do you know this?”
“I keep up on what’s happening in the camps of our enemies. I’m surprised you don’t.”
She shook her head. “I’ve had no time for keeping up. I’ve spent almost a year shut away in a cellar looking at ancient documents. I’ve lost touch with a lot of things.” She paused. “Things I should have been paying better attention to.”
She placed her hands on either side of his face and kissed him on the mouth. When she drew back, she kept her eyes fixed on his. “But I might want to think about changing all that.”
Without waiting for his reply, she started away. He fell into step beside her, his movements still tentative. “Let me know if I can do anything to help,” he said after a moment, and the smile was back once more.
They returned the way they had come, finding the path easily enough. Aphen was anxious to make certain Arling was all right. Her sister had been sleeping soundly enough when she left, and the danger from the shards that had penetrated her body seemed under control, but you could never be certain with wounds of that sort. In other circumstances, she would never have left her, but abandoning Cymrian to his fate when he was risking so much for them was unthinkable. Hard choices both, and she hoped she had made the right one.
The woods thickened, and the mist grew steadily heavier. Shadows floated all around them, cast by tree trunks, limbs and things unseen and unknown. The woods were still, and there was an odd sense of emptiness about them that was troubling. Aphen picked up the pace, suddenly worried.
She had reason to be. When they reached the clearing where she had left her sister, Arling was gone.
29
The pitted stone bulk of Kraal Reach rose against the gray smudge of the horizon, easily the most formidable keep that Oriantha had ever seen. Hidden in a thick cluster of boulders to the west, she studied the fortress in silence.
Next to her, Tesla Dart shifted restlessly. “We should not be here.”
Oriantha nodded. “But here we are, anyway. Is there a way in?”
The Ulk Bog stared at her in horror. “We do not go in there! You did not see what they do? Somehow you are made blind?”
Tesla was speaking of Khyber Elessedil’s head, spiked atop the east gates, ravaged by the elements and picked over by scavenger birds. Oriantha had crept close enough with dawn’s approach to make certain of what she was seeing. Such a terrible thing to witness, but it was not the first and would not be the last. Not while they remained inside the Forbidding.
The shape-shifter and the Ulk Bog had come looking for Khyber Elessedil and Redden Ohmsford almost a week ago—immediately after leaving Crace Coram to make his way back through the break in the Forbidding’s wall. If the boy and the Ard Rhys were still alive, Kraal Reach was where they would be found. Tesla Dart was certain of it. All of Tael Riverine’s prisoners were taken to his fortress as a matter of course, and that’s what would have been done with them.
Not that Tesla Dart believed for one minute that being here was a good idea. From the moment that Oriantha had told her what they were going to do, she had bemoaned their impending fate, railing against the foolishness of such a decision. But Oriantha was determined. She had made up her mind that even though her mother and most of those who had come with her were dead, she was at least going to bring back the two who remained alive. She was not going to leave them behind; she was not going to save herself without first doing what she could to try to save them.
And she had made it clear that the Ulk Bog would help her whether she wanted to or not.
Mostly, it was because of the boy, she thought. Redden Ohmsford. There was a quality about him that reminded her of herself. It spoke to her, intrigued her, drew her. Maybe it was the magic, a vast store of power and possibilities that were a birthright like her own—inherited, not learned, an inseparable part of who they both were and which defined them in ways that none of the others would ever entirely understand.
So after coming down out of the Dragon Line Mountains, they had journeyed on through the Pashanon, avoiding Furies and Harpies and several dozen other dangerous species, the Ulk Bog guiding them and Oriantha keeping a careful watch on her while she did. Pleysia’s shape-shifter daughter had learned the hard way to be cautious. She didn’t trust Tesla Dart. Her part in the demise of the Druid company was still suspect. Whatever had happened to Oriantha’s companions was not going to happen to her. Because of her shape-shifter heritage, she was much closer to being one of the things that were confined to the Forbidding than had been any of those who had come with her. If Tesla Dart did anything to arouse her suspicions, she would sense it and be able to act on it.
She had pointed this out to the Ulk Bog early on, warning that any suggestion of betrayal would result in swift retribution.