Anvar took a deep breath. “I never understood how you could forgive her.” His tone was flat and uncompromising. “After what she did to us—after what became of Wolf—how can you just act as though nothing has happened? How can you be so calm about it?” The Harp of Winds, strapped, as always, to his back, began to thrum discordantly in tune with his anger, and Anvar silenced it hastily—though not without effort. Like Aurian in the early days of her stewardship of the Staff of Earth, he had not yet perfected his control of the powerful Artifact.
Aurian, who had been leaning, chin in hands, with her elbows resting on the crumbling drystone wall of a terrace, turned to look at him. “Anvar, don’t be too quick to judge. At least Raven didn’t kill anyone. Oh, she precipitated situations in which there were deaths, but that was because she was manipulated. Her chief crime lay in being too young and untried—and trusting in the wrong people.”
Anvar shook his head in denial. “So she was deceived. That doesn’t alter the fact that she betrayed us!”
“True.” Aurian looked away from him. “But I remember, not so long ago, a young girl who trusted in the Archmage, and—”
“Aurian, that’s not the same!”
“Oh—isn’t it?” Aurian’s mouth had thinned to a tight line. “Seeing the way he despised the Mortals of Nexis, should I not have realized what he was like? After the way he treated you, should I not have known that he was evil? When he tried to have his way with me, should I not have faced the truth?”
Anvar, in his mind, added the words she had left unsaid: “And if I had, then Forral need not have died. …”
“That wasn’t your fault,” he told her stubbornly.
“Exactly!” Aurian’s voice rang with triumph. “It took you to teach me that—and there’s little difference between Raven’s situation and mine—not to mention your own.”
“What?” Anvar gasped.
Aurian took his hand. “Think back, my love. Back to the young man who once loved a girl so much that he would sacrifice anything for her—though she plotted his death and abandoned him to marry, first a rich merchant, then a powerful king.”
Anvar recoiled as though she had slapped him. The blind folly of his love for Sara was not a subject he cared to dwell on. “I…” he began to protest, but there was no answer to Aurian’s charge. Anvar felt his face turn hot. She was right—much as it pained him to admit it. Suddenly, he began to see the winged girl in a new light.
Aurian squeezed his hand apologetically. “Raven changed,” she said softly. “She grew up—just as we did. She knows better now. She learned the hard way, as did you and I. Does she not deserve a chance to redeem herself?”
Anvar sighed. “I take your point, but—Aurian—can you trust her? How can you be sure that she didn’t start these rumors herself, to get rid of us? Have you ever wondered if she wants the Harp?”
Aurian shrugged. “I don’t trust her entirely—I’d be foolish if I did. But for now I’m prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt. If the situation is as precarious as she claims, then Raven has more than enough troubles of her own.”
Anvar dug the toe of his boot into the new-turned earth. “Well, she’s welcome to them. As far as I’m concerned, the Skyfolk have proved themselves to be as arrogant, ungrateful, and untrustworthy as all the legends claim. They can stay up here and squabble among themselves until the sun turns cold, for all I care. But”—his eyes flashed fire—“if any of them try to take the Harp from me, they’ll be sorry they were ever born!”
Aurian hugged him. “If they are stupid enough to try that, they’ll have both of us to reckon with!” Frowning, she dismissed the Winged Folk with a shrug. “We’ve done all we can for the citizens of Aerillia. It’s time we turned our thoughts toward heading northward once more. Our allies must be nearing the Xandim Fastness by now.”
Raven, reveling in the strong beats of her newly healed wings, approached her pinnacle-palace and looked down upon the shimmering forest of towers, domes, and spires with mingled pride and sorrow. She was Queen now—all of this was hers (as were the burdens and responsibilities that went with it, she reminded herself sharply, feeling another stab of shame for the behavior of her people). The evil reign of Blacktalon was ended, and the fell winter that had slain so many of her folk had been banished—but at what cost? Sadly, she looked up at the shattered shell of Yinze’s Temple—a hideous structure it had been, but how much irreplaceable knowledge had been lost beneath that mound of fallen stone?
The winged girl turned her eyes downward, toward the great scar on the mountainside where the High Priest’s tower had crashed down in ruin, taking so many lesser dwellings, and lives, down into darkness with it. She looked across at the Queen’s tower, her destination—and the place where her mother had died in agony and torment. The legacy of Blacktalon still lingered, and it would be long, indeed—if ever—before his evil influence could be eradicated. Raven sighed, then, taking her example from the dauntless Aurian, lifted her chin proudly. Well, so be it. Nothing could undo those sacrifices—and Flamewing, her mother, had often told her that any sacrifice would not be in vain if the good of the people had ultimately been served. As Queen, Raven knew that it was her responsibility, and hers alone, to make sure that it was so. And, by Yinze, she meant to do it.
“Your Majesty. Your Majesty! Please…”
The shrill, piping voice that had startled the Queen of the Winged Folk from her royal thoughts ended in a squeak of fright—and the enraged bellow of a guard. Raven stalled, spilling wind from her wings, and sideslipped to turn and look for the cause of the commotion. Her eyes widened in surprise as she took in the balcony of a nearby tower and the sight of the slight, brown-winged child held firmly in the grasp of the scowling guard. The fledgling was struggling and swearing, shrieking out curses that no child should know. Raven’s lips twitched in an involuntary smile at the recollection of her own rebellious childhood. Putting her own troubles aside for the moment and composing her face into a semblance of royal dignity, she flew across to question the small intruder.
“Let me go! You filthy carrion-scavenger, fit for nothing but to pick flesh off a rotting corpse! Let me—” The words were cut off in a wail as the guard cuffed his captive.
“Gracious, who taught you such language?” Raven thought it best to interrupt at that point, before matters could deteriorate further.
The child, who had been too busy yelling to notice the Queen’s approach, turned her head sharply, her mouth dropping open in an O of surprise that changed swiftly to horror. “Your Majesty!” she gasped, and writhed in her captor’s grasp in a desperate attempt to dip her wings in obeisance.
Raven fought off the tender urge to straighten the girl’s tousled brown curls, and said sternly: “How comes this? Why are you trespassing in the precincts of the palace?”
“I caught her earlier, Your Majesty,” the guard interrupted. “The little wretch was trying to sneak into the throne room. Tried to give me a lot of nonsense about an urgent message for you. I sent her off then, but she must have sneaked back—”
“Be quiet!” Raven told him. “Are we still in the hands of a tyrant, that you must bully children? And let the child go, for Yinze’s sake. If she has a message for me, she’s hardly likely to go flitting off.” She turned back to the fledgling. “Now, little one, what is your name? And what word do you bring for your Queen?”
The child, released from the grip of the scowling guard, straightened her tunic in a pathetic attempt at dignity and dipped her wings once more. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” she piped. “If you please, my name is Linnet. And I do have a message—an important one—from the cat Hreeza.”