She was still spellbound, her eyes fixed on a distant point in the sky where her keen eyes could still make out the couatl’s writhing dance. Tears streamed down her cheeks, past the upturned corners of her mouth. Janik watched her face for a long time, saw her smile brighten as she observed some new nuance in its movements. She looked radiant—her expression struck him as a softer, warmer version of the holy flame that had wreathed her sword in battle against the fiends. It was an expression he had seen on Maija’s face in rare moments when she was deep in prayer, and it stirred something in his soul that he had not felt in a very long time.
He watched Dania while she stared up at the couatl. When she finally lowered her gaze, it fell on Janik, and he quickly averted his eyes, embarrassed to have been caught staring at her. His embarrassment grew when he realized that Auftane and Mathas had been watching him, and he found himself wondering how much of his feelings had shown on his face. Mathas had a mild scowl on his face, but Auftane was grinning broadly.
Collecting himself quickly, Janik barked at Mathas. “Is that eye of yours still in the ruins? Or are all three of them staring at me?”
Mathas started, then closed his eyes again. “Back in the ruins. Just coming over the … Sovereigns!”
“Now what?” Janik demanded.
“They have rebuilt more than the wall,” Mathas said. “And they are still building. Like the wall, they are simply stacking pieces of the ruins on top of each other, in random fashion. The ziggurat is still standing, of course, right at the center of the wall’s circle. Then it looks like mounds of rubble are heaped up here and there around it. Hmm. They appear to be random, but I wonder—What?” His eyes popped open.
“What is it, Mathas?” Dania asked, putting a hand on the elf’s shoulder.
“Someone canceled the spell. That means—”
“They know we were watching,” Janik said. “Do they know where we are?”
“No way to know,” Mathas said.
“I think I know,” said Dania, pointing toward the ruins.
Janik followed her finger, but couldn’t see anything. “You know, I’m getting tired of this. Why didn’t my mother marry an elf?”
“They’re coming,” Dania said. “In strength.”
Janik led their retreat toward the foothills, skirting the ruined city. At first, he made a half-hearted attempt to hide their tracks, but soon he decided that getting to the cover of the hills was more important than hiding their footprints in the shifting sand. Dania brought up the rear, turning frequently to look for signs of pursuit. As the sky darkened, they made their way up into the parched hills, and Dania announced that their pursuers were out of sight.
Janik called a halt and everyone fell onto the sand in exhaustion.
“We need rest,” he said, “but I’m not sure we should use your shelter, Mathas. Too easy for them to spot from a distance.”
“You could be right,” Mathas said, sounding as if he doubted it. “They’ll certainly spot an open campfire more easily. And the shelter offers a degree of protection that is not insignificant—solid walls and magically locked doors.”
“I understand,” Janik said, “and I’m not immune to the lure of a comfortable bunk and a warm fire. But if they find us during the night, I don’t like the idea of being locked inside a tiny cottage, no matter how secure it is.”
“You’d rather be able to run,” Dania said.
“Well, yes,” Janik said. “I guess I don’t believe that little cottage is completely impervious, or I’d be happier being trapped inside it. But if you start from the presumption that they’re going to break through its defenses eventually—when the spell ends in the morning, at the latest—then I don’t want to be surrounded in a small space when they do.”
“You’re right,” said Dania.
“And—” Janik was ready to escalate the conversation into a heated argument, but stopped abruptly. “I’m right?”
“Yes, Janik, I actually agree with you.”
“Well. So we’ll make camp—here, unless you think there’s a better spot nearby, Dania.”
“This is good. Plenty of cover, but also good vantage points for the watch.”
“No fire—we’ll need to break out the blankets. It’ll get cold here within a few hours.”
“I’ll take the first watch,” Dania said.
Mathas grumbled at Janik. “I suppose now you’re going to gloat about insisting that we’d need tents.”
“Gloat?” Janik said, feigning shock. “Why yes, I suppose I am.”
Janik and Dania quickly erected two small tents in a secluded hollow. As Auftane and Mathas settled themselves into both tents, Dania climbed the side of the hollow and selected a high point to keep watch. Janik followed her and sat down beside her on the dry ground.
“You should rest, Janik,” Dania said. “I’m not going to stay up through your watch.”
“I’ll turn in soon,” he said, but he sat there, staring toward the ruins.
“Something on your mind?” Dania asked.
Janik shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose. I just … wanted to ask you something.”
“What?”
“That couatl—was it … how … oh, Sea of Fire, I don’t know what I’m asking.”
“Wasn’t it beautiful?” Dania said, and for a moment Janik saw something on her face again.
“Dania, it’s …” Janik sighed heavily. He stared at the tiny crescent of Nymm, the largest moon, following the sun down below the western sky. “It’s been a long time since I allowed myself to believe that anything like that could exist, in this world or any other.”
Dania nodded her understanding, but did not answer.
“I felt something, watching it,” Janik continued. “And then I saw your face, and I could see that you were—I don’t know, you were swept up in it. To me, it was like a faint memory of some childhood happiness, but it seemed you felt it vividly, immediately.”
Dania rested a hand on his knee and looked at the ground between them. “It was a very powerful experience for me, Janik.” She looked up, right into his eyes.
Janik fought the urge to look away and let the subject drop.
“Do you really want to hear about this?”
Janik hesitated a moment, then nodded.
She smiled. “Well, to me the couatl embodies everything that’s good in the world. Even more than the Silver Flame. At some level, I understand the Silver Flame in my head as a manifestation of the spirits of the couatls who bind the fiends in Khyber. But seeing a couatl—a real, live couatl flying free across the sky—struck something deeper in me. When I first heard the legend you repeated back in Stormreach, about the couatls binding the demons, I was stunned.”
She looked down, avoiding Janik’s searching gaze. “I guess it sounds sort of stupid,” she said, “but you have to understand what was happening at the time. I don’t think I ever fully realized the extent of the war’s effects on me. I left the front lines and sailed to Xen’drik with you, feeling like the worst sort of killer, like one of those madmen who hunts women in the towers of Sharn, or a lunatic who tries to build a magical device powered by souls. I killed so many people, Janik. So many.”
Janik saw an echo of the haunted look that came over her face every time Dania talked about the war, and he finally began to understand it.
“That didn’t really change when I started traveling with you and Maija,” she went on. “We were still fighting the war, just on a different scale.”
Janik nodded. “I’ve often thought that we were fighting the real war, and all the great battles were just a distraction.”