“Eliseth, if you think I’ll trust you with my plans, so soon after your treachery—” the Archmage began heatedly, but smoothly she forestalled him.
“Miathan, please, That was all a regrettable mistake, I only want to make amends, but how can I help you when I don’t know what is going on?”
“I’ll tell you my plans in my own good time.” Miathan snapped. “At the moment, all you to know is that in order for my trap for Aurian to succeed. she must have access into those southern mountains. You will facilitate this, will you not?” His voice sank to a sinister purr. “For remember, Eliseth—the ruin of your youth that I accomplished once, I can easily wreak again!”
The Weather-Mage met his gaze, her face expression* less. “I promise, Miathan, that you will never again have the need,” she lied. “You can trust me, I swear—for it’s as much to my advantage as yours that Aurian should be captured.” Eliseth turned away to hide a smile. And once you have captured her for me, Miathan, she thought, you and Aurian must look to yourselves!
3
Raven’s Fall
Within the pine-scented shelter of the fallen tree, Aurian rested against a pillow of packs and folded blankets. Shia dozed beside her, her lacerated feet covered in salve and swathed in rags. She purred in her sleep as she lay with her head in Aurian’s lap. Anvar was curled on the Mage’s other side, his dazzling blue eyes closed in the profound sleep of pure exhaustion. His fine, dark-blond hair, lightened and sun-streaked now from their trip through the desert, had fallen across his face, moving lightly in time with his breathing. He deserved his rest, Aurian thought. He had saved their lives when Eliseth attacked, and for a half-trained Mage, he had acquitted himself admirably.
Aurian’s thoughts shrank from the fact that Anvar’s devotion was based on feelings far deeper than friendship. The memory of Forral was still too strong. Yet she had chosen to stay with Anvar, rather than follow the shade of her murdered lover into death . . . Aurian shook her head as if to jolt away the pang of guilt that accompanied the thought, but there was affection in her gaze as she gently brushed the errant strands of hair from Anvar’s face, and pulled up the blanket that had slipped from his shoulders.
Aurian’s unborn child moved restlessly, disturbed by his mother’s unease, and the Mage reached out with her thoughts to reassure Forral’s son.
“Do you never rest?” Shia’s mental voice was tart, but Aurian heard an underlying note of concern. The cat regarded her gravely with an unblinking yellow gaze. “Aurian—why must you burden yourself so? The cub has a claim on you, true; but that other who concerns you is dead, and beyond your help.” As Aurian flinched from her blunt words, Shia’s tone softened, carrying an echo of what the Mage had come to recognize as a smile. “As for Anvar—you need not worry about him. The strength in him is growing all the time. He will wait.”
“I never asked him to wait for me!” Aurian objected.
Shia’s projected thoughts held the equivalent of a shrug. “He will wait—whether you ask him or not.”
Aurian dozed again, and was awakened by the delectable aromas of roasting meat. Anvar was already up and about, helping Nereni finish the preparations for her feast. The little woman had been working all afternoon, having sent Bohan and Eliizar out into the forest to find tubers to bake in the ashes of her fire, and berries and greens to go with the venison she had prepared. Yazour, having seen what was coming, had promptly volunteered to go fishing. He returned near suppertime, whistling and empty-handed, to a scolding from Nereni. “What could I do?” he protested innocently. “They were simply not biting.”
Aurian exchanged a grin with Anvar at the success of the warrior’s ploy. How good it was to have their group all safely back together again! Then suddenly it hit her. Something had been nagging at her—and now she realized what exhaustion and the joy of the reunion had put out of her mind. “Where on earth is Raven?” she asked.
“Raven keeps wandering off to hunt in the forest,” Nereni replied. “She brings back birds and such, but I worry so! What if she should meet a wild beast?”
“You worry too much,” Eliizar told his wife. “If a wolf or a bear should come, she has only to fly away]”
“That’s true,” Aurian agreed—but nonetheless, she wondered at Raven’s solitary behavior.
Raven perched awkwardly among the spiny branches of a fir, watching twilight steal through the dark and tangled trees. In the north, the high peaks were still gilded with the fiery light of sunset, and the winged girl scowled at the sight. Accustomed to the long days of her mountain home, she could never get used to the fact that the light faded so early from these wretched lowlands,
The winged girl blinked back tears of frustration. It was not her kind of hunting—skulking in a smother of trees. She missed the vast arena of the open skies; her joy was in the speed and skill of the chase. Back in Aerillia, her lost home, she had hunted for sport, releasing her feathered prey to sing and soar in peace, She had never known, then, what it was to be hunted herself—to live as an exile without shelter; to be ruled by the demands of an empty belly. Now she knew—only too well.
Raven cursed Blacktalon, who had forced her to flee in terror from her rightful place as Princess of the Winged Folk. He had to be stopped—and by the Sky-God Yinze, she meant to do it. If her companions of the desert had failed her, at least she’d found one who would not. At the thought of Harihn, she suppressed a shiver of guilt. Skyfolk mated for life, and her people would revile what she had done—with a human. But he’d been so good to her ... At the thought of him, her grim mood softened. She would show the others! Aurian, who would not listen to her plea for help—and Anvar, of whom she’d had better hopes . . .
It was a sore point, but Raven forced the thought away as her growling belly reminded her to concentrate on the hunt. Waiting with wary patience, she weighed a stone in her hand as she tried to peer through the layer of ground mist that accompanied the forest dusk. There was a rustle in the bushes, followed by a harsh cry ... Raven hurled her stone. In a blur of wings the pheasant broke cover and she launched after it with the clean swift grace of a hawk. Swooping on the bird, she grabbed it in an explosion of feathers and, with a practiced jerk, broke its neck in midair.
“Well caught, my Jewell” The voice came low but clear, from a gap in the trees below. Raven’s blood sang in her veins. Harihn had come at last! Glowing with excitement, she turned in a breathtaking sideslip to angle down through the narrow slot between the tangled boughs. It had been days since she’d seen Harihn, and it had been so lonely without him! Her wings stirring the mist in gossamer swirls, Raven, panting from the exhilaration of the chase, swept down to meet her lover.
Harihn emerged cursing from the bushes and ran his hands through his tangled hair, dislodging leaves and bits of twig. This clearing was so well hidden that only the winged girl could reach it with Dusk had fallen sooner than he had expected, and he’d been forced to blunder his way from his camp in near-darkness. By the Reaper, this had better be worth it, he thought.
“Harihn?” There was a rustle above his head, and a creak of branches—then Raven landed beside him. The prince of the Khazalim hesitated, torn as always between awareness of her oddly alien beauty and revulsion at the thought of coupling with a creature that was not human. Then the Voice was in his mind, spurring him on impatiently, “Get on with it, she suspects!”