Tiolani had the grace to blush. ‘No, no, of course not,’ she said hastily. ‘But why have you not brought him out?’
‘I am acting on your father’s orders,’ Aelwen told her. ‘He says you’ll have enough to cope with on your first Hunt without trying to ride a horse as untried as yourself. Instead, he’s lending you his own horse, Maiglan.’
‘What? That old thing? Well, I won’t do it. I refuse to have all the members of this court sniggering up their sleeves at me.’
Aelwen shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’ She called to one of her grooms, who had just left his charge with its owner. ‘Siglon, will you take Maiglan back to the stable, please? The Lady Tiolani won’t be riding tonight.’ From the corner of her eye she saw Hellorin, alerted by the commotion, looking their way, and smiled to herself.
Evidently Tiolani had noticed her father, too. ‘No, wait. Stop.’ Clearly determined to make one last effort, she turned pleading eyes on her aunt. ‘Aelwen, please?’ she wheedled. ‘You know how Father respects your judgement. Surely if you said it was all right for me to ride Asharal, he’d reconsider—’
‘Tiolani, forget it. You’re about to embark on a very risky undertaking. Your safety is Hellorin’s primary concern, and he’s right. On your first Hunt it would be madness to ride such an inexperienced, hot-blooded animal. Take it as an honour that your father trusts you with his precious Maiglan, and let her look after you on your first few Hunts. After that, you’ll have the experience to teach Asharal all he needs to know.’
Tiolani sighed. ‘All right,’ she grumbled. ‘Arvain will never stop teasing me, but if it’s the only way I can join the Hunt, I suppose I’ll have to ride father’s decrepit cast-off.’
‘Your brother won’t tease you. He learned to hunt on an experienced old horse just as you are doing.’ Aelwen smiled to herself, and stroked the mare’s bowed neck. ‘As for Maiglan, I think she may surprise you.’
‘And those stupid humans will sprout wings and fly,’ Tiolani muttered ungraciously as she mounted the mare and, without a word of thanks to Aelwen, rode off to join her father and brother.
The Horsemistress looked around the gathering, checking that all was well with her precious charges. Everything was going smoothly. The throngs of brightly clad Phaerie were all mounted now, and drinking stirrup-cups of mulled wine served by slaves in the palace livery. As a Hemifae, Aelwen was not permitted to join the Hunt, though she owned a splendid black stallion from Hellorin’s best stock, and her happiest hours were spent on horseback. Yet she had never had the slightest urge to join the hunters - perhaps because of what had happened to Estrelle?
Or because of the unwelcome, uncomfortable knowledge that the blood of their victims also ran in her veins?
Tonight, however, she wished that just this once she could have gone with Tiolani. In the excitement of the Hunt, there was no way that the girl’s father and brother, despite their best intentions, would be able to keep an eye on her. It needed someone with a clear head to do that, someone who was not participating in the Hunt. Someone whose thoughts were not fogged by excitement and bloodlust. In other words, herself. Though Tiolani was so spoilt that sometimes Aelwen itched to slap her, she was still Estrelle’s daughter, and as such the Horsemistress felt a deep sense of responsibility that would have been most unwelcome to the recipient, had she known about it.
Aelwen’s common sense, however, would not let her indulge in misplaced concern for long. You fool, she told herself. An accident like the one that killed Estrelle is a rare occurrence, and Maiglan is an old hand at this business. She’ll keep Tiolani out of trouble, and the girl will be fine, as well you know. It’s high time she started taking some responsibility, even if it is just for herself and her own safety. She knew it was true. In reality, she was far more concerned that Hellorin’s daughter was living a life in which she was constantly pampered, protected and indulged. All of Tiolani’s potential was going to waste. The girl should be allowed a chance to develop some backbone, or she’d be nothing but a useless, self-centred, feather-headed ornament to Hellorin’s court for the rest of her life. That was no existence, Aelwen thought, for the daughter of Estrelle, who had been such a competent, capable, generous and intelligent woman. Am I failing the girl in some way? she wondered. Yet what could she do when Tiolani’s father and brother spoilt and cosseted her to such an extent?
Tiolani, despite being mounted on the despised Maiglan, was standing beside Hellorin and Arvain. Her face was flushed, her eyes were sparkling, and her sulks had clearly been forgotten in the excitement of the moment. Aelwen loved her with all her heart, and would never wish any harm to her, and yet... ‘If only something would happen to throw a few challenges into the girl’s life,’ she murmured to herself. ‘That’s the only way Tiolani will ever develop the strength of character that she so badly needs.’
She had no idea, then, that before the sun came up she would bitterly regret those words.
2
INITIATION
Though Tiolani was disappointed about Asharal, she tried to do as Aelwen said, and appreciate that her father was doing her an honour in letting her ride his own horse. The silver-white mare bore her years lightly, and still had more than sufficient stamina, speed and spirit to serve a novice huntress well on her first Wild Hunt. From her pricked ears and the brightness of her eyes, it was plain that she was delighted to be hunting again. She snorted and stamped as they waited in the courtyard, as impatient to be off as any of the younger animals. Hellorin, in the meantime, had mounted his new mare, Maiglan’s daughter; a much darker, dappled grey with a black mane and tail. The creature was far more fiery and wilful than Asharal, Tiolani thought with a tinge of resentment. He had called her Corisand, an ancient Phaerie word for a tempest, and ever since she’d been a foal, she had lived up to the name.
The Forest Lord blew on a silver horn, and suddenly the courtyard fell silent save for the baying of the great grey fellhounds. He flung up his arm in a skyward gesture, and the magic of his flying spell streamed from his fingers in glittering trails that drifted down like snow to cover the riders of the Hunt, their mounts and the pack of hounds in a cloak of scintillating light.
Gwylan gave the signal to loose the fellhounds. The pack leapt forward as one, streaming across the courtyard, but before they reached the gates they were in the air and climbing fast, the shimmer of the flying spell leaving a trail of sparks beneath their feet. Hellorin’s dappled mare bounded forward, diamond starbursts appearing beneath her hooves as the spell took hold. She sprang into the air and simply kept on going, running easily as though ascending a gentle slope, with every stride taking her further aloft. Arvain, holding in his own chestnut stallion with difficulty, turned to Tiolani. ‘Come on, Monster. Follow me.’
Tiolani gathered her reins and urged Maiglan on. She felt the lurch as the mare leapt forward and they took off in their skyward leap just a stride behind Arvain. As she climbed, the frosty night air swept past her, burning chill against her face and hands, and whipping away the crystalline clouds of her breath. Beneath her, she glimpsed a dizzying whirl of rooftops; then, as she gained more height, the entire city stretched out beneath her. At the top of the eminence on which Eliorand stood was Hellorin’s palace, a cluster of elegant towers with a complex of other buildings grouped round them that contained everything from banqueting halls and state chambers right down to the palace kitchens, and the workshops and living quarters of those whose sole work it was to maintain the royal abode in all its beauty and splendour. Like all structures in Eliorand, the buildings were fashioned from polished wood and stone with the flowing, organic lines that the Phaerie loved so well, so that they seemed to spring naturally out of the hillside. Close to the palace in magnificent dwellings lived the true Phaerie, the members of Hellorin’s court. On the lower slopes were the homes of the Hemifae, as well as markets, workshops and beautiful gardens and parks.