The air was summer-warm, but Rialla’s slave tunic did little to protect her from the night breeze. After the past few days, however, fatigue more than outweighed the discomfort. She was too tired to do more than shiver once or twice before she fell asleep.
Tris watched as she tossed and turned, but when she drew up her legs in a vain attempt to conserve her warmth he’d had enough. He shifted until he was lying next to her, and reached out to pull her closer.
Before he could do more than touch her shoulder, he felt… Terran’s fine-boned hands on naked skin… distaste so strong it amounted to horror… humiliation… hatred, and a touch of terror…
Possessive anger engulfed him, even as he recognized that the bond between them now involved more than mindspeech—at least on his part. For the first time, it was Rialla’s emotions that were clearest—a bleeding of her gifts into him. Carefully he damped the edges of his anger. He would get Rialla to Sianim; then perhaps he would provide Terran with an appreciation for the rage of a healer.
Rialla whimpered softly in her sleep. Tris exhaled. When he had the control that he needed, he eased himself back into Rialla’s dream.
He caught her gently in his thoughts, luring her from Terran’s bedroom to sweeter memories of a northern lake that shimmered silver and gold with the reflected glory of the setting sun.
Alone as usual, Rialla woke early, in the darkness that preceded the sun’s rise in the sky. Standing up, she shook out her clothing, though most of the wrinkles and dirt resisted her efforts. She took a deep breath and wondered why she half expected to smell the crispness of snow in the air. Tris’s return distracted her from her thoughts, and she bade him good morning.
They left the meadow as dawn’s first light broke in the sky. By midmorning Rialla was starting to feel hungry, and when she saw a blackberry patch she stopped to pick some. Tris found several tuberous roots that he cleaned on his pant leg. They had no flavor to speak of, but they were more filling than the berries.
“These are much better roasted over a fire,” he commented, taking a second bite of the root.
“If you say so,” responded Rialla doubtfully, though she was eating hers with the enthusiasm of hunger. “Any taste would be an improvement, I suppose, even ashes from the fire.”
Tris was about to reply when an eerie scream cut through the woods. After it was through, there was utter silence; not even a bird ventured to chirp.
“Do you know what that was?” asked Tris quietly.
“I’m not sure, but aren’t we near the ae’Magi’s castle?”
Tris hesitated, as if consulting an inner map. “There’s a large castle of some sort a half day’s walk to the south,” he commented.
Rialla nodded. “That should be it. It must be a Uriah. I’ve never seen one myself, but there are supposed to be a few left near the Archmage’s castle. When the previous ae’Magi died, there was an infestation of Uriah there that spread into the surrounding lands. Sianim mercenaries cleaned them out of the castle, but they couldn’t find all the ones in the nearby woods. I’ve been told that magic doesn’t affect them much; the only way to kill them is with fire or sword. I don’t even have my knife.”
Tris took Rialla’s arm and began walking briskly. “Vicious things, or so I’ve heard. I saw one once, at a distance, and was lucky enough that it didn’t see me. That one didn’t sound too close, but I suspect that it might be a good idea if we covered some ground all the same.”
They walked and then jogged, but the Uriah kept on a path just parallel to theirs, and they heard it call out from time to time.
“Do you think that it’s following us?” Rialla glanced worriedly toward the source of the last noise, but the trees grew too close together to allow her to see anything.
A loud scream pierced the stillness, followed by a chorus of the weird noises. Rialla stopped walking, reaching with her talent to see what was causing the commotion. The trees that she’d been looking at rustled with the fury of a battle.
Tris wrapped one hand around her arm and pulled her into a reluctant run, loosing his grip only when she had stopped fighting him. Grimly, Rialla increased her pace, and Tris stayed beside her until the howls were muted enough that they could talk.
Rialla continued several steps before she realized that Tris had stopped completely. She turned to look at him and noticed the anger on his face.
“What were you doing back there?” he snapped.
“I was trying to find out what it had run into. If it was something big, the Uriah will be occupied with it and we won’t have to worry about it,” Rialla replied steadily, taking a small step back.
He looked at her with an unreadable expression, then took a quick step toward her. “It was a stupid thing to do. Uriah aren’t like people; they aren’t even like other animals. You could have been hurt, do you understand?”
She set her jaw and took a step forward herself, until she was knee to shin with him. “I understand that it was my choice to make!”
“You could have been caught up in the death throes of the animal it killed,” he said, glaring down at her.
“Not likely. I have more control than that. I was far more entwined with the creature in the ballroom at Westhold.” Her voice held more than a hint of frost.
Tris turned and took a step away in an obvious effort to control himself. Rialla had started to suspect that it wasn’t anger that he was trying to hold in check when she noticed that his shoulders were shaking.
“You were baiting me.” If she had had a weapon at hand, she didn’t know if she would have had the control not to use it. “You sorry excuse for a snake, you were baiting me.”
“Not entirely,” denied Tris in a muffled voice. “That thing in the ballroom hurt you, Rialla. Uriah are not like other animals—they are driven by hunger and rage; everyone knows that. For an empath to contact one is beyond reckless and well into rashness; the situation didn’t require such an act.”
Rialla considered what he had said. “You have the right. I apologize for taking an unnecessary risk. You still haven’t explained why you are laughing.” Her voice didn’t warm at all.
Tris turned back to meet her eyes. “I suppose that it was relief, primarily. I was apprehensive that after…” His eyes lost their laughter, and Rialla felt the dark rage that had never died down. “I was worried that the past few weeks would affect you more than they have. I remembered that little speech that you gave Laeth in my cottage—the one about once a slave always a slave—while you were yelling at me. It struck me as funny.”
“Laugh at me when I’m mad again and I’ll see that you don’t do it a third time,” said Rialla solemnly.
“I’ll look forward to it,” said Tris courteously.
He stepped toward her and offered his arm. After a brief hesitation, Rialla set her hand in the bend of his elbow. They continued down the path Tris had chosen.
“What do Uriah look like?” asked Rialla curiously. “I’ve never seen one.”
They had long since left the Uriah in the distance. Lengthy shadows from the trees around them dappled the ground, and the eastern sky darkened with reds and golds.
Tris shrugged. “They look like a human that has been dead for a month, and then decided to grow fangs and get up and hunt. They smell like it too.”
“Not something that I want to run into in the middle of the night,” commented Rialla.
“I’d rather not run into them at all, day or night,” responded Tris absently as he examined the nearby brush.
“What are you looking for?” asked Rialla.
“I smell thornberry around here somewhere. This time of year the blooms have a strong enough odor to keep the Uriah from catching our scent if they do pass this way.” He narrowed his eyes and pointed to the left. “Over there, near that oak. Come on, we’ll call it an early night and wait until the Uriah are somewhere else before we go.”