Kayla flinched. She felt her eyes sting. "Widow Davis-"
"You've not come back to us with the spring. We missed your song in the winter. It may be that you need what it is he offers; it may be he'll help you to sing for us again."
Kayla buried her face in the old woman's shoulders.
* * *
Before lunch that day, she was on the road. Her neck was cramped; she'd done nothing but gaze backward, over her shoulder, until not even the hills that were home to Riverend could be seen in the distance. All of her life lay in that village, or beneath it; all of the things she valued.
Promise me, Kayla, that you'll stay. Promise me that you'll take care of Riverend when I'm gone.
I promise, Mother. But you won't be gone for a long time, will you?
Not if I have anything to say about it. Of course, she hadn't.
* * *
Riding was nothing like it had been in her dreams. It was hard work. And painful.
She could feel Darius' rueful smile. She could not see his face, of course.
"They need me, you know," she told him, the accusation soft.
:I am sorry, dear heart, but so do we.:
"Why?"
:That I cannot tell you yet. But you will understand, I fear, as we approach the city.:
"What city?"
:The King's city,: he told her quietly. :The capital. Or what's left of it.:
"What do you mean, Darius?"
Darius didn't answer.
"Are we at war?"
:We are always at war, Kayla. But the battlefields shift and change with time.:
* * *
He had to tell her what to do for him when they stopped by the Waystations left for Herald use. She did not know how to brush him, water him, blanket him; was not familiar with the food that he ate. Everything about the life beyond Riverend was strange and unexpected.
But sleep was bad. Every night she spent away from the hold, she spent beneath the great, unfurled wings of the shadow beast, the devourer. She knew that she would never have the white dreams again.
Darius would nudge her out of sleep, and she would cry out, reach for him, and then stop, letting her hands fall away.
"I don't see you in my dreams anymore." The words shook as much as her hands did.
:I know.:
"Will I ever?"
:Yes, Kayla. But . . . it was never easy to reach through your dreams to you. It takes gift. Talent.:
"But you-when I dreamed of you, I didn't dream of the-of the-other."
:I would claim that as my action, but there will be too much between us to endure a lie. If you found peace and haven from the-from your dreams, it was not a haven I could create. Not then. Not now.
:If I not been meant for you, if I had not known of you when you were a child, I would never have been able to breach the barriers set by-:I
He fell silent, and after an awkward pause she asked, "How did you know of me?"
:I heard you.:
"You traveled through Riverend?"
:No. But I heard you. I heard your fear and your terror. I heard your sorrow. I heard your song. Your song is powerful.:
"My mother used to tell me song was my Gift."
:Did she? Interesting. Song is the only way that I have seen you use your Gift. You sing, and others listen. You listen, and you hear the harmonies and disharmonies that are hidden in a speaker's voice. But that is not your gift, Kayla.:
"What is?"
His mane flew as he shook his head. :The dreams are worse, yes?: She knew that that was as much an answer that he would offer, and it made her uneasy. She said, simply, "My mother told me I was safe as long as I was in Riverend."
:You were safe there. But others are not.: He was silent while she gathered her things.
Only when she was safe upon the height of his back did he continue. :What you dream of...it is true in a fashion. We are closer to it. We will draw closer still. I am...sorry.:
* * *
On the fourth day, she woke from dreaming with Darius' muzzle in the side of her neck.
She was sweating, although it was cold, and he caught the edge of her rough woolen blankets in his perfect teeth and pulled them more tightly around her.
His eyes were dark, his gaze somber.
"Darius," she whispered, when she could speak past the rawness in the throat, "I heard bells."
He was silent.
"Not bells like yours, not bells like the ones you're decorated. with. But . . . bells. Loud and low."
:I know.:
"There are no bells here, are there?"
:No. Not on these roads; the next village is half a day's hard riding away.:
"What are they?"
:You know, Kayla.:
And she did, although she did not know how. Death bells. "Tell me?"
He shook his head. :It is forbidden for me to tell you what they are; you will know. We will reach the capital in the next two days.:
As he spoke, the hairs on the back of her neck rose. She thought of Riverend. Of Tessa and Evan, of Mitchell, of the Widow Davis. For no reason at all, she wanted to weep.
* * *
The first large town that Kayla entered seemed so vast she assumed it was the capital.
Darius laughed, but his laughter was gentle enough that it reminded her of her father's amusement at her younglings antics a lifetime ago.
"But it's so-so-big!"
:It is big, yes. But . . . it is not a city. The town is large. That building, there? That houses the mayor and his family. And that, that is as close to a cathedral as you will find.
But this is a tenth, a twentieth, of the size of the city you will enter when we-Kayla?: She sat frozen across his bare back, her legs locked so tightly her body was shuddering.
:Kayla!:
She could not even shake her head. Her mouth, when it opened, was too dry to form words. Darius...
:Kayla, what is wrong?:
The screaming. Can't you hear it? The screaming.
:Kayla! KAYLA!:
* * *
She was on her feet. Not his back, not his feet. She could not remember sliding from the complicated bits and pieces of baubles that announced his presence and his station so eloquently.
The cobbled streets passed beneath her; she noticed them only because they felt so strange to her feet, so unnatural beneath open sky. The screaming was so loud she could hear no other words, although she thought she could glimpse, from the corners of her eyes, the opened mouths and shocked faces of the strangers she hurtled past, pushed through.
She was through the doors and into the light before she realized that she had entered the cathedral; that she stood in the slanting rays of colors such as she had never seen captured in glass. A man, ghostly and regal, illuminated her and the ground upon which she stood.
She stopped only a moment because given a choice between beauty and terror, beauty could not hold her. She knew what she heard. She knew it.
The cathedral was an open, empty place of light and space, with benches and an altar at the end of the apse. She ran down it, boots pounding the ground, footsteps echoing in heights she would never have dreamed possible in Riverend. And she forgot to feel small, to feel humble; she knew she had to read the person whose screams were so terrible, and soon, or it would be too late.