A ray of sunlight briefly flashed from one of Xet's facets directly into her eyes, startling her out of her reverie. She excoriated the brittle-brained creature. Not that the dragonet cared. Xet seemed determined to remain with her.
Like Gage.
Behind Kiril, the man doggedly brought up the rear. She'd discouraged him, called him terrible names, and even left without telling him. But the clinging bastard discovered her plan and joined her. Her protestations didn't move him except to produce a smile, which only infuriated her. He said he wanted to help.
Right, that's what motivated all thieves, and she knew Gage well enough to know his profession. Still... he had returned the sword—a selfless act accomplished at some personal cost. Gage didn't speak of it, but she sometimes caught him looking at his left hand—it had once borne a dark gauntlet nearly twin to the one on his right. Yet he stayed with her, even now. While she didn't want to dismiss Gage's offer of aid outright, Kiril guessed he merely craved excitement. Hadn't the thrill of danger been the lure and glue that so often drew them both together in the taverns of Laothkund?
Though a companion on the trail wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
Kiril snorted. After being so disagreeable when she first realized he followed, admitting she was glad to have his company was the last thing her ego would allow. But it was true. In a very real way, she doubted she would've made it as far as the edge of Laothkund, let alone to the border of the Yuirwood without him. Last night, as heavy clouds stole away the day's remaining light and snow began to fall, they pitched their tents beneath the outer eaves. This morning, they moved northwest through yellow pines, toward the Causeway.
The image of Nangulis, as he had been before his self-sacrifice, bloomed fully realized into her consciousness, instantly becoming the sole focus of her attention. Not for the first time.
Nangulis! Tall, silver haired, with dark eyes of mystery that never failed to enthrall Kiril even after the years they had spent together. Was he returned to life and body? Could any possibility explain such a resurrection? No, she knew it was impossible! Kiril carried a sliver of Nangulis's soul with her even now. But yet. . .
Gage had heard her dead lover's name from Sathra's lips. A name displaced in time and forgotten. It could not be active and involved in the theft of the sword imprinted with a life lost. . .
Each notion she entertained that might explain such a possibility seemed more ludicrous than the previous. Impossibility heaped upon ridiculousness, until she felt she would go mad.
She groped for her flask and took a drink that temporarily numbed her racing thoughts.
The answers to all her questions lay in Stardeep.
She didn't dare hope those answers might fall from the lips of Nangulis himself. As she pressed him in her arms. She didn't dare imagine that scene, but once entertained, she couldn't scrub away her soul's fondest wish.
* * * * *
Some time later, Kiril paused in her breakneck rush through the forest. Her furs were too damn hot for one moment longer, even in the canopy's shadow. She was tempted to fling off her cold-weather clothing and keep going. But she would need the furs again at night. Which meant she would have to carefully pack them. She growled. Repacking supplies was finicky work, just the sort she hated. But it was now or never, otherwise she would broil.
To her left, Kiril spied a fallen tree—broad, unrotted, and most importantly, free of snow. She removed the heavy pack and balanced it on the log, then shrugged out of her coat.
From behind, Gage called, "Splendid! I could use a break, too." He joined Kiril and threw himself down on the log next to her pack. She noticed with some irritation he had already removed his coat, hood, and single fur glove. Removed and stowed them in his bulky pack while walking behind her, without raising a sweat. She narrowed her eyes, but didn't give him the satisfaction of commenting on his feat.
As she undid the knots securing her pack, Xet lit suddenly on her shoulder, pinching her flesh with its crystal-hard claws.
"Damn it, I told you to warn me before you do that!"
Xet pealed a strangely familiar tone . . . when had she last heard it? An image of the dark halls of an Imaskaran ruin to the southeast came to her, with Xet's cry echoing on stone. In that dark tower she had wielded Angul against creatures that deserved the Blade Cerulean's righteous bite ...
Xet was sounding a warning.
"Gage—"
He turned to regard her, and the black-fletched arrow only tagged his shoulder instead of finding his heart. He grimaced, flipping backward off the log. He landed on his back behind the fallen tree.
Xet flew up as Kiril spun around. She stared into the thickets of wavering daylight. The dark trunks of pines multiplied in all directions in numbers beyond counting. Where was the archer? There . . .
A pulse of dimness, like nights clasp when the sun dipped below the horizon, oozed from every shadow. But darker yet, a squirming ball of gloom bounded across the forest floor, ricocheting between the unmoving pine boles.. . . aimed right at her. Kiril dropped and the shadowy missile struck the log. A burst of fire with flames the color of coal arced in all directions. Kiril cried out in relief, until she spied several more shadows racing toward her.
"Blood!" she swore, rolling to her feet.
From behind the log, she heard Gage mutter, "Sathra! Why would she . . . ?"
Her head jerked around. Too bad—no time to ask the thief how Sathra could be attacking if she were dead, as he had told her in Laothkund. If they both survived, she would skin the truth out of him.
The racing shadows resolved into humanoid silhouettes, each merely a dark outline cast on reality.
Kiril drew Angul.
Truth's clarity burned away the darkness all around her. searing her consciousness in the bargain. Doubts, worries, and pains of mind and body were cauterized in the absolute conviction of Angul's steel. The Blade Cerulean flamed triumphantly in her welcoming grip, its star blue fire belling out and banishing shadows in every direction.
The three silhouettes resolved into charging men wielding daggers and slender swords. She held back Angul's sure retributive strike; she retained hold of her mind by the barest of threads, enough to ask the sword, "Nangulis? Are you in there?"
The blade answered only by wrenching itself around in her grip, shearing off the crown of the man who charged her. Certainty of purpose beat up from the blade through her skin as it always had, like heat. Whether or not Nangulis walked again, Angul remained as he always had been: judge, jury, and executioner of what he knew to be right.
A dagger sprouted in the throat of a second attacker. He burbled and fell at her feet. Gage was flinging daggers from behind the log. The last attacker was turning, an expression of uncertainty breaking to fear, even as she strode forward and swept Angul through him from neck to navel.
From nowhere, the air cracked, louder than anything she'd ever heard.
The breath was drawn from Kiril's lungs, and Gage fell to one knee, gasping. Halos of shadow spun around both of them, off kilter and wobbling like a swarm of ethereal wagon wheels. A voice, far-off and airy, was audible over the ringing in Kiril's ears. An arcane voice. A voice in the midst of calling down more destruction.
She leaped just as the air convulsed again, even louder. She landed face-first in muddy snow, but her legs churned for purchase and her left hand groped for Angul's hilt. The blade pulled her to her feet despite the absolute silence that had descended. Blood seeped from her ears. The sword did not comprehend failure. The weakness of her flesh was something he would not tolerate.