“Careful.” D’arvan met her eyes with a half-guilty grin. “Aurian won’t thank us for ruining her breakfast.”
Maya, busy straightening her clothing, returned his smile. “I’m sure she’d forgive us, under the circumstances, but it wouldn’t be fair to starve her for our sake.” Try as she might, however, the warrior couldn’t make herself sound repentant. Though it had seemed rash and self-indulgent to be thinking of such things right now, she and D’arvan had been so long apart that the urge to make love had been irresistible. Besides, she knew that Aurian had tactfully slipped away to allow them a few moments’ privacy—though if she and D’arvan had been embracing long enough to let the rabbits burn, then the Mage should have been back long before now.
Stifling a stab of guilt, Maya berated herself for being so inconsiderate.—It’s all very well for us, she thought—but poor Aurian has lost her lover. For the second time. It still hurt to remember Forral; he had been Maya’s commander and close friend, but Aurian had been her friend too, and she did not begrudge the Mage another chance of happiness with Anvar—if only Anvar could be found. And we should be helping her find him, Maya thought. She turned to D’arvan with a frown. “Don’t you think one of us ought to go after Aurian? She shouldn’t be brooding alone right now.”
“I don’t suppose that Aurian is really brooding—but Shia went, in any case.”
D’arvan gestured to the now-vacant spot on the opposite side of the fire.—The warrior raised an eyebrow, then shook her head ruefully. “I just can’t get used to it. Not only the fact that those creatures are so fearsome, but the idea that you and Aurian can go around talking with them just as though they were ordinary folk.” Much to Maya’s surprise, it had been Shia who had filled in a great deal of the background of Aurian’s quest for them, while the Mage had been asleep.
D’arvan grinned. “From their point of view, they are ordinary folk, love. Shia is as close in friendship to Aurian as we are—probably closer, in fact.”
Maya grimaced. “Maybe I’m only jealous. I wish I could talk to her as you can.”
“I wish you could, too.” D’arvan smiled. “I think the two of you would get along very well. You have a good deal in common—and when you come to consider, it’s no stranger than the fact that those two horses over there used to be men.”
The warrior’s eyes flew open wide. “Don’t tell me you can talk to them, too!”
D’arvan’s expression sobered. “I wish I could. But not even Aurian can reach into their minds to find the humans they once were. The Phaerie use the Old Magic, remember, with which we Magefolk are no longer familiar. Something in Hellorin’s spell that sealed the Xandim permanently into beast-form has blocked even mental communications such as we have with the cats. Unless my father is persuaded to change them back, Chiamh and Schiannath—along with the rest of their folk—are as good as dead.”
Maya shuddered at the bleakness in his voice. “And you resent Hellorin for what he did,” she added with instinctive certainty.
“Of course I do!” D’arvan slammed his fist impotently against the ground. “How could he act in such a callous fashion I loved him, Maya, despite the difficult things he asked of us, and the loneliness and danger he put us through. In betraying the Xandim, I feel as if he betrayed me, too.”
“All the legends warn us that the Phaerie are tricky folk,” the warrior murmured.
D’arvan’s jaw tightened. “Then I’m going to have to stand up to my inheritance—and be just as tricky as my father. Because I promise you, Maya—one way or another, I’m going to make my father the Forest Lord restore the Xandim to what they were.”
Maya smiled at him, burying the shiver of dread that ran through her in the glow of her pride. “I rather thought you might,” she told him softly. “But first we’d better tell Aurian. I think it might ease her mind a little if the Xandim can be saved.” Her eyes twinkled. “Which do you want to do? Tend the rabbits or go and find her?”
“Ugh!” D’arvan shuddered. “You know what the Magefolk are like at cooking. If you want any breakfast at all, I had better go and look for Aurian.”
As Aurian wandered through the misty woodland, there was a chill around her heart that had nothing to do with the bright summer day. How much time had passed? Months? Years? Centuries? What had happened to Yazour and Panic, Vannor and Zanna? Were all the people she had known and loved dead now, and gone to dust? And what of Wolf? She had left him safe with the smugglers, but what had happened to the Nightrunners since she’d departed the world? What had become of her son? Had she failed him, too? Should she have kept him safe in the South until he was old enough to take care of himself, before going after the Sword?
The Mage walked on blindly. As the questions circled in her mind without respite or answer, the desperate loneliness and isolation she had known in her dream returned to swamp her.
Then suddenly Shia was beside her, pressing against her reassuringly. “You are not alone,” she said. “Khanu and I are here, and your friends the warrior and the Mage. Chiamh and Schiannath ...” She bit off her words quickly, but it was too late.
“Schiannath and Chiamh are no more than dumb beasts,” Aurian retorted bitterly. “Thanks to my stupidity—”
“Your stupidity is in carrying on in this fashion!” the cat retorted sharply.—She looked into the Mage’s face, her golden eyes blazing. “So events have gone awry? When has that ever stopped you, before? Will you give in now, and flounder in guilt and self-pity? Can you afford such a luxury? Can your friends the Xandim? Can Anvar?”
Aurian’s head came up sharply. “How dare you say such things? I thought you were my friend!”
“I am your friend,” the cat retorted. “You have no time to indulge in such destructive thinking. We must discover what has befallen us and make our plans. Besides,” she added softly. “I understand what truly lies behind your despair. It is Anvar, is it not?”
Aurian knelt and put her arms around the great cat’s neck, hiding her face in the cat’s silken fur. “Partly, it’s Wolf—but partly, yes, it’s Anvar. Shia, I miss him,” she confessed. “And I’m terribly afraid for him. If Eliseth has harmed him ...”
“She will not,” another voice put in firmly. D’arvan had stolen up on her unnoticed. Aurian looked round at him in surprise—and not a little indignation. She had forgotten that there was another Mage present who could understand her mental dialogue with the great cat, and was embarrassed that he must have heard Shia rebuking her. “Has everybody in the bloody camp been following me around the woods?” she demanded in acid tones.
D’arvan colored, but did not flinch from her angry gaze. “Maya thought you shouldn’t be alone,” he replied calmly, “and from what I overheard—I’m sorry, but I did overhear you and Shia—she was right.” The young Mage smiled sympathetically and held out a hand to her. “Remember how I came to you when I was in trouble at the Academy? You were the one who saved me from Eliseth and from my brother. You helped me then—and now, at last, I can return the favor.—Eliseth was never one to discard what might be useful,” D’arvan went on. “My guess is she’ll use Anvar as a pawn, or as bait, or a hostage—or more likely, given her vindictive nature, she will try to turn him against you, Aurian.—Think how she would revel in such a victory.
Aurian clenched her fists tightly. “Then she’ll be disappointed,” she snarled.
“D’arvan—you’re absolutely right. As soon as it’s dark, we’ll creep down to the Academy and find out what—”
Suddenly the forest’s silence was split asunder by the harsh shrilling of many horns. Through the trees, Aurian heard Chiamh and Schiannath screaming in terror. Shadows swept across the clearing, obscuring the pale sunlight, and a capricious wind swirled leaves and dust into the Mages’ eyes as the Xaridim steeds churned the air with flashing hooves.