The sickness left my head muddled, and soon I was flying again, across the river of blood to take my destined place in the fortress of darkness. Images and words were laid one upon the other until I could no longer distinguish vision from reality . . .
Circle . . . observe . . . You have no home but this . . . truth awaits . . . magnificence . . . glory . . . peace . . . It is your place. Your birthright.
“I thought you’d never get back, old man. What of the Derzhi? Any sign?”
“Nothing. No movement.”
I soared and swooped like a homing vulture. No, Vyx, don’t do it. I need you to tell me what is this place. What am I? As I touched my feet to the gray battlement, an arrow of fire pierced my side, shot from an unseen bow, and a spear of ice pierced my back. I could not stop the bleeding . . .
“Damned if I know if it’s done right. Looks wretched. Fifty colors of purple. I’ve never sewn flesh . . . and so deep a wound . . .”
The winged figure began to turn so I would see his face, but I buried my eyes. No! No! Please. Oh, gods of the universe, let it not be me. Blood dripped from my hands . . . cries of torment . . . death everywhere . . .
“We’ll just have to wait and see. The trouble is we can’t move him far enough . . . and he’s so weak . . .”
“The young Warden yet lives, but Searchers have sensed the demon. They’re coming fast . . .”
The young Warden . . . Drych, don’t die on me . . . oh, sweet Verdonne, let him live. One life, however brief . . . let there be one life not held to my account.
I was bound again . . . no, just held tight, my shoulders burning, my chest on fire. It was only determined hands holding me still. I could not breathe for my despair. Could not think. “Tell me the story, Fiona. Tell me something of life.”
“Come, Seyonne . . . we’ve got to move. The Queen is coming to retrieve you.” Fiona’s face took blurry shape in front of me, and behind her a line of white lights, strewn through the darkness like a string of glowing pearls.
A small, bulky figure was huffing and puffing as he stuffed pots and cups in a pack and kicked the fire to ashes. Balthar. “Sorry I couldn’t give you more warning. Just couldn’t move these old bones fast enough. They had scouts out and about moments after you got away. I thought you were going farther.”
Fiona stuck her arm beneath my shoulders. “We didn’t have time. It took too long to get through the guards. Curse it all, what are we to do?”
“No more than a quarter hour ’til she’s here.”
Stunning clarity at last penetrated my clouded mind. As Fiona eased me to sitting, I stared at the young woman in disbelieving wonder. “Fiona, what have you done?”
“Stop babbling. Save your strength to move. Balthar, help me get him up the rocks.”
“Up there? Woman, are you mad?”
“He needs to be where his friends can find him. Come on, old man. He doesn’t weigh anything. He has no blood in him.”
Before I could blink away the rest of my confusion, Fiona had her bony shoulders under one of my arms, and Balthar had his soft, round ones under the other. For someone who didn’t weigh anything, I gave them a great deal of trouble. I could scarcely see the ground, much less place my feet on it to any purpose. They half carried, half dragged me up a steep, gravel-strewn path that led to the top of the little rock prominence that sheltered the niche and the spring. Then, as the world spun drunkenly, they lowered me to the ground in an untidy heap.
“Stay quiet and stay low. Balthar, don’t let him fall off the cliff.” Light footsteps scrambled back down the path.
For a while I had my head bent over my knees, dizzy and nauseous, unable to speak for the pain in my side and the weakness of my head—unable to ask the thousand questions to which Fiona’s actions gave birth. The old man mumbled sympathetically, but soon crept away from me toward the edge of the rocks.
“Kafydda!” Ysanne’s command rang out through the night. “What do you imagine you’re doing?”
“I’m going to prevent my Queen from murdering her husband, lady.” The strong young voice showed no signs of the speedy climb and descent.
“Seyonne is already dead.”
“He has more of life in him than the entire Ezzarian race, my lady. More of grace. More of honor. I will not let him die.”
Foolish Fiona. Never argue with your Queen.
I mustered a scrap of strength and lifted my head enough to see the line of sorcerers emerging from the grove. Their white lights burned steady like small droplets of moonlight. I could not see Fiona, who must have been standing just below me at the base of the rocks.
“Do you understand the consequences of your actions, Fiona? All your preparation . . . your testing . . . your skills . . . wasted. To let a demon corrupt you . . . You were to be Queen of Ezzaria.”
“Everything we live is a lie, lady. I believed that if I came and told you the story as this man has revealed it to me, you would see the truth. I thought that anyone he loved so deeply must be capable of hearing his message, and that anyone privileged to know him so intimately must certainly trust it. But you persist in your blindness . . . even to the most precious thing you possess.”
“How dare you speak of these things to me?”
“Keep your throne, madam. Keep your war. I’m done with all of it.”
“Corruption!” Talar called the verdict, and in that moment Fiona disappeared from the sight of the Ezzarians. Their eyes went out of focus, denying her existence, and their minds shut out all memory of her, and their tongues forgot her name. I well knew the devastating loneliness that would sweep through the young Aife as the Ezzarians turned and walked away. But I did not doubt her strength. Her straight back would not bend under the weight of their shunning.
“Find the demon,” commanded Ysanne angrily. “He can’t be far. Bleed him until he’s dead.”
No one could mistake the finality of Ysanne’s words. No matter if I were transformed into Valdis himself in front of her . . . my life with Ysanne was done with. A tomb of ice could be no colder an ending. Such pain would take a lifetime to ease, assuming a man had a lifetime to spend on it. And yet Fiona had done what I had begged for her to do. I rested my head in my hot, damp palm and smiled. Someone knew the truth and would find a way to carry on. How had I ever doubted her?
“Curse the everlasting pomposity of Ezzarians,” growled Balthar from above me. “They’re on their way up here. What am I to do with you?”
“Leave,” I whispered. “You’ve no friends among the Ezzarians. You’ll be dead before morning.” The night was not going to hide me. The Searchers had sensed my demon presence all the way from Dasiet Homol. The small matter of a steep hillside was not going to slow them down. “After all this is over, find Fiona and help her.”
“But—”
“Go, Balthar. Hurry. And my thanks and Verdonne’s care go with you.”
“The gods preserve you, Warden. You are in their hands.” He touched my shoulder kindly, then hefted the pack onto his back and ran.
I could hear the drumming of hooves from my left, the easiest way up for horses. They would find me long before Fiona could climb the hill again . . . and even if I had the strength to move, there was nowhere to go. I would have transformed, but could not remember how. And so I stayed on my knees and wrapped my arms around my middle, trying to hold myself together and my head upright. I did not want to shame Fiona.
The shouts came quickly. “There at the cliff edge!”
“Careful! Keep your distance!”
They needn’t have worried. Waves of shivering nausea swept over me, and my heart was racing faster than the Ezzarian hooves.
Three different loops of rope fell over my shoulders and pulled tight, straightening my back and tearing at the inexpert stitches in my side. I closed my eyes and buried my cry. I had not screamed for the Gastai. I would not scream for Ysanne.
I expected to be dragged away, or bound and drugged and cut again right there at the top of the hill. But things quickly became very confusing. In an instant’s blur of noise and darkness and strong enchantment, there came harsh screeching from above my head, then shouts and curses and a brief clash of steel. Abruptly the cruel ropes fell slack, and I would have toppled over save for a man who slid gracefully from his horse and caught me in his arms before I fell. “By Athos’s head, you’d best not be dead, my guardian. It’s one thing to miss an appointment with a prince, but it’s a damned impertinence to die without his leave.”
“We’d best hurry if you wish to keep your identity secret, my lord.” The softly accented voice came from above me. “The Ezzarians are getting their nerve back and will be on us in moments.”
As my mind still grappled with the whimsical belief that it was Aleksander who was lifting me from the ground, my eyes took in another wonder. Swimming into view alongside the red-haired prince was a second worried face—a lean Ezzarian face with an arched nose and dark angled eyes and a healthy peace that I could only guess was that of Kir’Navarrin. Blaise.
The two of them lifted me to Aleksander’s saddle, the Prince threw himself on behind me, and Blaise leaped onto another beast where Fiona was already perched. In a moment’s magic we were gone from that place . . . traveling . . . a few steps, fifty, a hundred leagues, I could not have said, for the world went spinning off its axis and took my head along with it.
CHAPTER 40
Ezzarian stories would likely have little to say about the demon-led villains who snatched away the Abomination before he could be properly executed. How would they explain it? A huge brown and white bird had threatened to tear out their eyes; then an unknown Ezzarian and a red-haired Derzhi warrior appeared out of nowhere and fought like wild men to release the vile traitor that had just been recaptured. And then the three—for of course they could not mention the woman who no longer existed—rode off in the moonlit night, vanishing as they took a path no human man could discover.
Two days went by before I could verify my own view of what had happened, that indeed it was Blaise, Fiona, and Aleksander who had contrived to save my life. They took me to a stone hut Blaise knew of, high in the mountains bordering Ezzaria, and there swathed me in dry blankets and plied me with all the food and drink and medicines that Aleksander could command and Blaise could transport through his hidden pathways. They stayed close by my side until a confused Derzhi physician, similarly transported to and fro, persuaded them that all I needed was rest and nourishment. Even then I was forced to come to my senses, just to avoid drowning in their care.
Only bit by bit did I learn the full story. Fiona was ferocious about keeping me undisturbed, though in my muddled, mumbling way I tried to tell her how desperately I needed to know. She told me that she had managed to “get Blaise to the gateway,” where he had let go of his struggle and transformed. She had watched him fly off into the strange land beyond the pillared gate, knowing nothing of his prospects or his fate. But because I had kept Ysanne occupied with the struggles beyond the portal, Fiona herself had a chance to “suborn the Ezzarian blockade.” In essence she had made sure the massive Ezzarian enchantment could not possibly work. The demons could pass easily—indeed Aleksander confirmed that the demon disturbances in the Derzhi camps had ended with the dawn as I had rashly promised. And instead, Fiona had devised a Weaver’s block aimed directly at Merryt, frustrating his attempts to pass through the gateway. As the blockade was Merryt’s own working, the rest of the Ezzarians could only think it was his own mistake. But Fiona had not been able to come up with any way to get me out of my predicament until the miracle of Blaise’s return after only a few hours in Kir’Navarrin. Together the two of them snatched me from Ysanne’s guards. As Blaise had heard my commands to Kyor and was determined to make my rendezvous with Aleksander, he had no time to take me too far from the Ezzarians. And so it had been a long afternoon for Fiona, waiting for Blaise to return and trying to keep me alive when I wouldn’t stop bleeding. The rest I mostly remembered for myself.
Fiona tended me kindly, feeding me, washing me, poking the physician’s remedies down my throat or smearing them on the ugly wound in my side. She even helped me with more private necessities when Blaise or Aleksander was not available, showing much less embarrassment than I felt at such an extension of our partnership. The three of them took turns watching when a mild fever sent me very low, and laughed in satisfaction when I mumbled that I was feeling much better, if they would but stop breathing in my face.
I should have been content. From what we could tell, the demons had passed safely into Kir’Navarrin, the Ezzarians had returned to the forests beyond the mountains, and the Derzhi had not killed each other or anyone else. Though I had no evidence but visions, I believed that Vyx had accomplished what he set out to do . . . at the ultimate cost to himself. I slept like the earth. It was only when I was awake that I dreamed, and therein lay the problem. The disturbance of my death visions lingered like the taste of musty wine, like the telltale cough that signals the disease yet lurks within the lungs. I was not done with the dark fortress in Kir’Navarrin. Someday I would have to confront the fearful questions Tyrrad Nor presented, if for nothing but to sort out the relationship of legend and truth and destiny. But first I had to find some way to live each day with what I had done, and I could not see how that would ever be possible.
On the morning of the fifth day, Aleksander came to take his turn sitting with me and also to say good-bye. He needed to get his warriors back to Zhagad before new trouble broke out. It was my first day sitting up, and Fiona kindly left us alone for a while with the door of the hut propped open to let in the warm air. The Prince sat on the floor beside my pallet, his long arms propped on his knees, the angled sunbeams from the window lying across his knee-high boots and glinting off his golden arm rings.