Huddled on the bottom of the cage, the little creature nodded vigorously.
"You see?"
Sian shook her head. "Altimere's creature is under no geas to be truthful to you—or to me."
"I believe her," Becca said flatly. "And you harm my servant at your peril, Engenium."
There was a moment, a long moment, where the air seemed to heat uncomfortably, and sparks of gold, green, blue, and copper glittered like snowflakes in the sunlight. Becca heard a ghostly crashing, as if of waves striking rock, and a rumble as of a storm building . . .
Brume shook his head, frothy mane slapping the sides of his neck, and executed a sharp dancestep.
A damp breeze struck Becca sharply on the cheek, teasing the bars of Nancy's cage into mist. The little creature sprang aloft the instant the last wisp of turquoise had drifted away, did a double loop, and came to rest on the pommel of Becca's saddle. She knelt there and kissed Becca's hand. Her lips were cold and hard.
"You are welcome, Nancy," Becca murmured. "I trust we will have no more unseemly displays. Now, if you please, prepare yourself to ride."
Nancy leapt up. Following the flicker of color, Becca saw her settle on top of the right-side saddlebag, her hand gripping the leather strap.
"Very well." She licked her lips, tasting salt, and faced Sian firmly. "We are ready, Engenium."
"Not quite." Sian bent a stern, sea-colored gaze upon her, and Becca felt a thrill of terror, that she had dared to set her will against this Fey, who was powerful beyond a mere woman's reckoning.
"If that creature behaves in any way that I find threatening to myself, my land, or my people, I will destroy it, Rebecca Beauvelley—and you will not be able to stay my hand. Do you believe me?"
Becca bowed her head, awed, and somewhat unsettled in her stomach. Had her time with Altimere made her mad, after all? How had she thought to stand against so puissant a lady?
"I believe you," she said submissively.
Sian might have snorted, or she might have laughed. Whichever, she did turn her horse, with a click and a lean, and moved off down tree-lined road, Rosamunde following before Becca gave the signal.
If the path would not appear, he would make his own, as ever he had.
Altimere rose from his chair, shook out his lace, took a deep breath of warm, mist-tainted air, and took a single step forward.
It was as if he tried to push himself through a stone wall. He exerted his will, his
kest
rising in a blaze of silvered reds.
The mist around him flared sullen pink, gave—and tightened like a drumhead, flinging him back, off his feet, willy-nilly into the chair, ghostly hands around his throat.
"I do not permit!" The mist filling his mouth softened the shout to a whisper, but it would appear that in this, his will was, yet, sufficient.
The pressure around his throat faded.
He was alone in his chair, surrounded by mist.
Deliberately, Altimere sat upright, adjusted his collar, and closed his eyes.
He had not wished to do this; had not wished to place his pretty child in peril. But where was her safety, with him imprisoned?
Gathering his
kest
, he composed himself, and mentally told over those things which were bound to him. Not for him the gemstones and flowers braided into the hair, nor the knotted bits of silk. No;
he
was Altimere of the Elder Fey, and he had no use for such stratagems and tricks.
It was the necklace he reached for, showing blackly iridescent before his mind's eye. He did not like to endanger his child in this way, but, really, what choice did he have?
Altimere touched the necklace with his will, issued the command—
. . . and cried out as the image faded away into the mist, leaving an echoing emptiness behind.
It was impossible to tell precisely when the city became the countryside. Eventually, the road began to wind a little more among the trees, the shrubbery grew thicker and even less restrained, the now-and-then glimpse of an open window or the gable of a wooden roof grew rarer, and then ceased altogether.
They rode single-file, and at a rapid walk, Sian in the lead. The road was wide enough for them to have gone side by-side, but Becca wished to be alone with her thoughts.
Such thoughts they were! She had no notion of the geography of the Vaitura; indeed, she could not recall having seen a map of the land in the books she had struggled to decipher in the library at Altimere's country seat. There had not even been a map on the wall, which in retrospect was odd. Her father had a large and handsome colored map of the Midlands over the fireplace in his library at Barimuir House. She wondered at herself, that she had never noticed the lack in the library at Artifex. Surely, she thought, a great and elder lord living so close to the border would have maps at hand? Then she thought again. Perhaps there
had
been a map, after all, and Altimere merely willed her not to see it.
It came over her all at once, a longing for those days before she had fully understood what she had agreed to, in her ignorance and her folly. When she had believed herself safe, cherished, protected.
Loved.
Tears rose to her eyes, and she wanted nothing more than to be in her bath, ignorant and happy, Altimere lounging carelessly at the water's edge, his hair gleaming in the candlelight, the crimson dressing gown falling open over his smooth white chest.
Beneath her, Rosamunde's purposeful walk changed in response to her rider's inattention. Becca drew a shaky breath and adjusted her seat; Rosamunde's gait smoothed, and her ears flicked, as if to say, "Next time, I shall not be so gentle with you!"
"You are a marvel of patience and forbearance," Becca murmured, her voice choked with tears. "Indeed,
indeed
, I will try to deserve you."
Rosamunde snorted, and ahead of them, Sian looked back.
"We will rest after we have crossed Horn's land, Rebecca Beauvelley," she said. "Stay close and do not dawdle."
Becca swallowed a hot retort with the last of her tears, reminding herself that Sian had every reason to be doubtful of Becca's horsewomanship, after the display in Altimere's courtyard, but to assume her in need of rest after so short a time in the saddle as this! Altimere had coddled her, unwilling in the extreme to try her physical strength. But he had never suggested that riding should exhaust her or that she might tire more easily than a three-year-old.
Sian does not know you, Gardener, and she is of two branches. On the one branch, she wishes to be away. Yet on the second branch, she would not risk your health.
"Because the Queen requires my testimony to strip Altimere of his honors and remove him from his place on the Constant, you mean," Becca muttered.
The concern we hear has to do with your health, Gardener. She considers that you have borne much, and before your roots were well set. This decision that you had taken, to end your growth, she fears it as a sign of a deeper malaise, which has not yet been cured.
There was a pause, and then . . .
To end your own growth . . . that thought is unsettling, even to trees.
"Trees die," Becca muttered, as Rosamunde followed Brume 'round a corner in the path. "Certainly," she added, "Fey die." She shivered in the sunlight.
And sometimes trees and Fey too die at a time or in a manner of their own choosing,
the tree said inside her head.
But to choose a death without first making a repository of what you have learned, and to make disposition of your
kest
—that is alien to trees and to Fey.
Becca bit her lip and looked down between Rosamunde's ears. The voice in her head had sounded stern, censorious. Yet, what did trees know of subversion, lies—of betrayal? A tree was a simple thing; it grew or it did not. A tree could not be forced to murder a friend or be used as bait, to trap for the unwary.
Ahead, Sian raised her hand, signaling a stop. Becca obediently pulled up, raising her chin when the Fey woman turned in the saddle.
"We are fortunate that the Queen's artificer is elderly and prone to napping," Sian said. "The shortcut is still in place." She beckoned with long fingers. "Come here."
Becca urged Rosamunde forward until they were side by side with Sian. Rosamunde whickered as they drew up, and Brume turned his proud head to look down at her.
"Attend me, Rebecca Beauvelley," Sian said sternly, and Becca determinedly met her eyes. "Our journey from fair Xandurana to my own holding by the sea is made shorter and less wearing by use of a particular piece of artifice. To invoke it is expensive of
kest
, and some find it unnerving to traverse. But it is far less enervating than riding long days across the Vaitura. Look ahead and behold the construct of which I speak."
Frowning, Becca did as she was told. At first, she saw only trees, and the path, and a pair of redbirds playing tag in midair, twittering gaily to each other.
One of the birds dashed upward, wings flashing, and she saw it, beyond their bright busyness, like dark draperies moved by a slow, malicious wind.
"The
keleigh
!" she gasped, and turned to stare at Sian. "Is your home beyond the Boundary, then?"
"Beyond the Boundary?" Sian repeated. "How would that be?" She shook her head. "As to the nature of the artifice, you are both correct and incorrect. The substance and force are like unto the
keleigh
, but this is smaller, and transient. We shall ride but a small distance, yet cover leagues. This shortcut has been raised as a courtesy to the Queen's Constant, and will not maintain much longer."
Becca's eyes were drawn again to the bruised and billowing air. "I understand," she said.
"Good. Now, as I have said, some find the transition unsettling, though very few so much that they choose instead to ride the entire distance between Xandurana and their own lands. You may bandage your eyes, if you wish, and I will lead you."
"Why should I bandage my eyes?" Becca demanded, though in truth the movement of air against air was . . . disturbing. "I have crossed the
keleigh
itself, with my eyes open and my horse under my hand."
Sian's eyebrows rose. "Did you indeed," she murmured. Before Becca could reply, she inclined her head with every indication of courtesy. "I had no wish to offend you," she said, and took up reins.
"We go, before the gate is sealed. We will ride as hard as Brume allows, for he is the best judge in the places between. Keep hard by us. When we emerge, we will be on the border of Horn's land. Follow us closely; and
do not
for any reason dismount. Horn dislikes travelers, and has been known to harry stragglers on the road. We will rest once we have come under Sea Hold's branches. Do you understand me?"
Did the Fey think she was a child or a witling? Becca thought, a hot retort rising to her lips.
To Sian, as to us, you are the veriest sprout, Gardener.
Becca swallowed and inclined her head. "I will follow closely," she said, keeping her voice soft with an effort. "And I will not dismount until you give me leave."
"I have your word," Sian said, and it seemed that her voice echoed against the warm breeze, a thing of substance, and of portent. Becca tensed, expecting—what? she asked herself. A strike? A compulsion.
Apparently ignorant of the apprehension she had caused, the Engenium had turned away.
"By your grace, old friend," she said to her horse, and Brume walked deliberately forward.
"Now us," Becca murmured, dry-mouthed, into Rosamunde's ear. "This will be as nothing to you, brave heart." She glanced down to where Nancy sat on the saddlebag, her hands gripping the strap. "Stay there," she said sternly. The tiny creature nodded vigorously as Rosamunde stepped forward, toward the billowing curtain of power.
The wood grew darker, as if he had walked the day down into night. The voices of birds and the sounds of those others who lived among the trees faded into silence. Even the breeze stilled. The still air was surprisingly warm, and tasted of dead greenery.
Meri paused beneath the branches of an elitch, and pressed his palm against the trunk.
"I am Meripen Vanglelauf. Is there any small service which I might be honored to perform for you, Elder?"
Silence was his answer, stretching uneasily along the quiet air. At last, Meri took his hand away, stepped back and bowed.
"Elder," he murmured.
Straightening, he settled his bow, and touched the elitch wand in his belt. Thus comforted, he walked on, ever deeper into the dim, breath-caught wood.
Brume vanished between one step and the next, sublimated into the chancy air. Becca took a breath, glanced down to be sure of Nancy, and prompted by a memory both compelling and confusing, tucked her crippled left hand between the saddle and Rosamunde's warm withers.
"Stay close," she whispered, something that felt like laughter and terror combined cramping her chest, then there was the veriest flutter against her cheek and they were in.
Heat struck her face, followed by a slap of cold; wind skirled, lashing Rosamunde's mane, and casting mist into Becca's eyes. She blinked it away and shook her head, trying to banish the persistent fizzing sound. Leaning forward, she sighted a horse-sized disturbance in the mist, outlined in a wash of turquoise, cantering.
She leaned forward, and Rosamunde increased her pace, though it seemed that the turquoise-dyed shadow was pulling ahead of them.
Becca could not hear her hooves strike over the clamor in her ears, and a man's voice, as plain as if he rode beside her—
"Rebecca! Come here; I want you!"
The mist swirled, the voice was lost, even as she turned her head, and surely there was a face, right
there
, inside the tricksy air? A man, his hair bright in the mist, and a long, white hand outstretched to—
Sunlight broke the vision, the mist ahead was sundered, and she could see green fields, with trees in the distance, and on her right hand a rolling hill.
Ahead, Sian, the Engenium of Sea Hold, pulled her horse around, her face perfectly expressionless as Becca rode toward her.