To the morning lands where the fires of day take
flight,
where the cries of brothers tear.
Sisters, bound to torment, rage.
Lift them, unbind them, sing them upward.
Thy giving is ever, beloved. Glory to you ever.
Roelan. My perception of his towering anger and his indescribable joy and gratitude vanished almost as quickly as it had come, a hammer blow that left me a dizzy island in the sea of unknowing Aberthani. The daylight seemed pale and insubstantial after the dragon’s touch, the colors of the marketplace washed-out, the noises thin and meaningless. Passersby cast curious glances my way, and I realized how odd I must look standing stupidly in the middle of the marketplace with no hair, no eyebrows, no eyelashes. And I had no gloves to hide my hands. I pulled up the hood of my cloak and hid my hands in the pockets of the cloak alongside Narim’s journal and my mother’s pearls. I hurried through the square and into narrower streets.
The clamor of hammers and saws greeted me as I turned into Mervil’s lane. At least five Elhim were making repairs to the front of the tailor’s shop. The splintered wall looked as if it had been kicked in by a dragon. None of the Elhim seemed at all familiar—or rather all of them did, but in no particular way. Though there were only a few other people abroad in the lane, I was cautious, strolling past the shop, then slipping through the alleyway that would take me to the back of it. I considered simply riding off with one of the horses in Mervil’s stable. I knew the kindly tailor would not grudge it. Yet, in view of the heavy damage to the shop, I could not leave without inquiring after my friends.
An Elhim came out of the house and was picking over a stack of thin wood strips when he caught sight of me and straightened up again. “Who are you? What are you doing sneaking around?”
“Is Mervil here?” I said. “I’ve a job for him.”
The Elhim examined me carefully as he started gathering up a load of strips. “Mervil is dead. His cousin Finaldo has inherited the business, but he won’t be taking on work for a few days until these repairs are done.”
“Mervil dead? Vanir’s fires, no!”
“What do you care as long as there’s another tailor to serve you?”
Something about the Elhim’s tone held my dismay and anger at bay.
“I care a great deal. Mervil was my friend,” I said.
“A friend of yours?” The gray eyes looked skeptical as he took in my odd appearance. “How so? Finaldo would be interested to hear it.”
Interesting. He was not grieving. He was listening and watching ... for Finaldo, Mervil’s cousin and a tailor, too. The Elhim were very good at losing themselves when times grew difficult. I decided to test my theory before I shouldered a new guilt.
“A good friend. Would you tell Finaldo or whoever in the house might be taking an interest that I’d like to pay what I owe, then? It looks like he needs the income.” Into the astonished Elhim’s hand, I dropped my mother’s pearls. He dropped his wood strips and stared at the jewels and my hands. “I’ll wait here by the stable,” I said.
In no more than three heartbeats Davyn ran out of the door holding the pearls, only to stop short at the sight of me, the eager smile falling off his face. “Who are you?” he demanded harshly. “Where did you get these?” An Elhim who looked remarkably like Mervil, but probably answered to the name Finaldo, was at his shoulder, and a bandaged Tarwyl hobbled out slowly after.
I hadn’t imagined they wouldn’t recognize me. “Eskonia, the first time,” I said. “My mother’s jewel safe, the second. Then a lady’s feet. My pocket, this last.”
“Aidan?” Davyn’s face blossomed into delight tempered with wonder; then he laughed and hurried over to grab my hands. But to our mutual discomfiting, sparks crackled and flew upward from our touch. The Elhim cried out and fell back, his outstretched hands red and blistered, his face stunned. “By the One!”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I had no idea. ...” My hands tingled strangely, and thin, blue smoke drifted away on the morning air. “Are you all right?”
I stepped closer to see the damage, but the Elhim backed away from me, glancing upward nervously as if expecting a dragon to be perched on Mervil’s chimney like a pigeon. “Only singed,” he said. Then his voice dropped to a whisper. “What’s happened to you? Are you a Rider, then?”
It grieved me beyond all expectations to see Davyn step away. Awe and mystery can place an untenable burden on friendship. “I don’t know,” I said. “I ought to be dead.”
I tried to tell them everything at once, in the pitifully inadequate words that I could muster to describe such extraordinary events. Once I was inside the shop with a mug of wine in my hand, exhaustion muddled my telling, so that I wasn’t sure I made anything clear except that Roelan was free and Lara in danger. “They’ll be taking her to Garn MacEachern—they’ll not dare do otherwise—but I don’t know where he is. So I need to follow the clan as they move out.”
Davyn spoke softly, his eyes wide. “Will you call down the dragons to make them free her?” He really believed it might be so. After all of it even Davyn didn’t understand.
“No.” I tried to explain that I had no idea if I would ever hear Roelan again. What I did know was that the clan would not relinquish Lara while one Rider yet lived, and no matter what befell in our strange relationship, never could I ask Roelan to kill for me. Even for Lara I could not ask it. “... so I can’t.”
“Then there’s nothing to be done as yet,” he said. “The clan won’t exchange her for you—I see in your face that you intend it. They’d only kill you, too. From their point of view, you’ve done your worst, and unless you can undo it, vengeance will be their only satisfaction.”
I closed my eyes, wishing desperately that I could disagree with him.
“Come, my friend.” Davyn’s kindness transcended awe, and gingerly he laid a hand on my shoulder. No sparks flew. “It takes no holy gift to see that you need food and rest. I’ll send out word, and we’ll find out where the high commander lies. Until then, take this comfort: She believes you dead, so she’ll feel free to tell them everything they want to know. And when she hears that the dragons are free, she’ll know you won. That will sustain her.”
I was not eased. Not even a god could sustain one through Ridemark vengeance.
While the Elhim dispatched an unending stream of blond, gray-eyed messengers to track the movements of the clan, I sat by Mervil’s hearth and ate what food was put before me. I did not feel connected to any of it, no matter how much I tried to listen. I pulled out Narim’s journal, anxious to unravel his plotting, but my head ached and the fine scrawling blurred in front of my eyes. All I could see was Lara at the Udema wedding party, her hair unbound, laughing at my foolishness. All I could feel was the weight of her head on my chest.
Even as I held that image and cherished it, the world flicked out again. The talk and the incessant hammering, the shop and the gathering clouds of noonday outside its windows disappeared in the space of a heartbeat. My vision was filled with sky and brilliant sunlight and rolling clouds beneath me like a gray ocean. The voice of Roelan pounded in me like my own blood gone wild.
What sorrowing is there when Jodar flies?
When Rhyodan, Noth, Lypho, and Vanim soar through the dawning airs?