She shivered. The temperature felt as though it had dropped ten degrees.
“Waiting for us?”
“Yes. Not you, exactly, but for someone from Takar. For someone traveling with Lord Igraine. We’ve heard… many things.”
“We wanted to know more.” Kaede’s voice was as light, as beguiling, as her brother’s was dark. “We… We want to join you. The talk is of nothing else. Of the new life you-Lord Igraine-will build out of the old. I-We want to be a part of it.”
Khallayne stared at her through slitted eyes. There was something about her, something she thought she ought to recognize. Had she seen her before somewhere? “You said the mountains aren’t safe?”
Bakrell nodded. “We left Takar the week after Lord Igraine escaped. We’ve been forced to take back trails to avoid the troops.”
The two strangers both had their hands on the table in plain sight. Lyrralt relaxed a little, eased his hand out of his robe. “How long have you been here?” He took a sip of his wine.
“Over a week. We knew-well, we hoped someone would come this way. We thought you’d need supplies.”
“What we need,” Tenaj said, “is information. About Takar.”
“The last we heard, the word in Takar is that the Ruling Council is determined that Igraine be caught. We don’t know if it’s true, but the main trails out of the city are heavily watched.”
Tenaj grimaced. “If s what we expected.”
“So what do we do now. Live on the plains among the humans?” Khallayne asked, half sarcastically.
Kaede’s expression brightened. She turned to her brother. “That would be exciting, wouldn’t it?”
“Among the humans?” he asked. “Surely there is a better alternative?”
Khallayne looked at Kaede. “Have we met? I have the feeling I know you.”
“Perhaps you’ve seen me in the castle. Bakrell and I visited occasionally. I know I’ve seen you. That’s how we knew you were from Takar. I’ve always admired your unusual beauty. I’m so glad we spotted you. We’ve been watching the taverns for days.”
Kaede sounded sincere. Their story sounded honest. Everything seemed right except for their clothing. They wore simple garb that didn’t stand out in the surroundings unless one recognized quality. Khallayne wore the roughest clothes she owned, and the trail was beginning to tell on them. The cloth of Kaede’s and Bakrell’s tunics and cloaks was the finest material. The clasp at the throat of her cloak was brushed gold, the bands on his wrists polished silver. They seemed unlikely refugees.
“We’ve been purchasing trail supplies since we got here,” Bakrell said. “A little every day, in different places. We thought, if anyone came, it might come in handy.”
“I’m sure Igraine will welcome you both.” Lyrralt sketched a little bow of welcome.
Several hard days later on the trail, Khallayne’s skeptical opinion of the brother and sister still hadn’t changed. They did everything that was asked of them, Bakrell haughtily, glancing around to see who might be admiring him. Kaede carried water and started fires as gracefully as if she were at court. But instead of the gaze of many, in just one day, it was obvious she was interested only in the gaze of one person-Jyrbian.
With amusement, Khallayne noted that Jyrbian was as oblivious to Kaede’s admiration as Everlyn was to his.
Lyrralt sat well away from the others, behind the curve of a ditch. He uncapped the vial of water he carried always. The flickering fire was barely enough to hold back the encroaching darkness.
The fugitives were camped in a large, open area almost devoid of the dense forest that surrounded them. In the warm glow of the setting sun, the view from the ridge was fabulous, a glorious panorama of the Khalkists, awash in rose and orange and gold.
The History said the bald areas were caused when the gods thumped their fists onto the mountains. But sitting on the ground, with the quietness of the earth seeping into his bones, speaking to his heart, Lyrralt could sense an ancient fire that had burned away the trees, leaving only grass. It seemed a fitting place for his meditations.
As he did each evening, Lyrralt raised his eyes to the heavens, to the constellation of Hiddukel, and whispered a prayer, an entreaty for guidance.
Since the mad flight from Takar, he had been without direction, adrift. Hiddukel had told him nothing since. He knew only that Khallayne was involved in his destiny, and there was doom in the teachings of Igraine. There was also a blindness in the future, something he would not be able to see.
Perhaps tonight guidance would come. Glancing around once more to make sure he was unobserved, Lyrralt slipped his tunic to his waist, exposing his shoulders and arms to the cold night air. The runes glowed white and milky against his skin, mirroring the glow of the stars in the velvet sky.
He waited, lips moving in almost desperate entreaty, praying for guidance and the loving touch of his god.
The inner flesh of his arm tingled, so lightly it might have been only the breeze caressing his flesh. Lyrralt held his breath. Again, the tingle. The sensation was so layered, so complex that it could not be separated, could not be differentiated. Then pain, hunger, rhapsody all vibrated along his nerves.
He wanted to watch, to see the writings that would appear on his flesh, but he could not. The pain, the pleasure, drew his head back, made him take great gulps of air. He could only hold out his arm to the sky and wait for the test to be done.
The stars had moved in the sky by the time Lyrralt was once again conscious. The sensation on his skin had become a mere itch. He hoped the sigils would not be too cryptic, now that he had no experienced priest to guide him.
Or, looking at it another way, he had the highest advisor of all, Hiddukel himself. And with such a guide, how could he fail?
Lyrralt looked down and saw a band of runes encircling his arm, just beneath the one rune that had appeared at Khal-Theraxian. He moved closer to the fire and stirred up the embers until he had some light. His breath caught in his throat.
The symbols could be read easily, even by a beginner. Death. Stealth. Igraine-that symbol he knew already on his arm. And the next one, too, the dead queen-Khallayne. But he couldn’t tell what had appeared next to her name. He would have to study it.
For the moment, the ones he could discern were enough to set Lyrralt’s head spinning. Getting Igraine away from the protection of Jyrbian and Everlyn wouldn’t be easy. But it was necessary.
Igraine had become almost holy to most of the group. Every night, a different group huddled around him at his campfire, clung to his words as if they were bits of wisdom from the gods themselves.
Lyrralt would have to watch and wait and plan. He snuffed out his fire and returned to camp.
They rode north, higher into the mountains to avoid the main trails. Using the back ways slowed them. Somehow more refugees found them, some from Takar, some from Thorad, even a handful from faraway Bloten, and the added numbers slowed them further.
Rain poured from the sky with such ferocity that Tenaj remarked that the gods must surely be weeping. Water dripped from the leaves, cut grooves into the paths, flowed until the travelers had not a thread of dry clothing left.