When at last she was gone, a heavy silence descended. Still, the Seer’s words echoed in my brain: There are . . . rumors.
Rumors that she’d believed.
More dairnes. More dairnes. More dairnes.
I told myself to focus. We were still in danger. Hope, even just the possibility of hope, had to wait.
The silence stretched on and at last Khara took charge.
“If I may speak, Your Majesty?”
He nodded.
“Your Majesty, Luca”—she pointed to Luca, who narrowed his eyes—“told you some of the truth, but not all. He knows but did not tell you that I am of the family Donati.”
That got the Murdano’s attention. “A Donati?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. My father, having no use for a daughter when he had two sons, sent me out into the world to pass as a boy and search for opportunities to reverse our disgrace. When I came upon this creature”—she indicated me—“I knew that I’d found a rare opportunity. From that moment I have endured great pains, rigors, and risks to bring this dairne before Your Majesty.”
“Is this true?” the Murdano asked, turning to me.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. I’d been practicing for this moment.
“Yes,” I lied.
Khara had no brothers. Nor had she labored to bring me to the Murdano.
The Murdano turned to Luca. “You have seriously harmed your family’s prospects with this . . . oversight.”
“Your Majesty, allow me to—”
“Take him away,” the Murdano interrupted, with a jerk of his chin.
Whimpering and muttering, Luca was led away by two soldiers.
Khara glanced Luca’s way, expressionless, then continued. “The Seer tried to stop me. She even sent a Knight of the Fire after me, and I only survived by virtue of the courage and ferocity of the felivet in our company.”
The Murdano cocked an eyebrow. “You fought a Knight of the Fire and survived?” he asked incredulously.
“The scars are still clear on the felivet’s body,” she said.
“And what would you have from me, Kharassande of the Donatis?”
“Only the opportunity to deliver any other surviving dairnes into your hands,” Khara said, hardening her voice. “To find them, seize them, and deliver them as servants of Your Majesty. If I succeed, I mean to beg your forgiveness for my family so that we may once again be in your favor, and prove our loyalty by forming a small part of your army of conquest.”
The Murdano didn’t even ask me if this was true. Without meaning to, he had completely accepted that I would speak up in the presence of a lie.
The Murdano tilted his head. “If Araktik could not locate these rumored dairnes, how would you?”
Khara turned to me and said, “Show His Majesty!”
“It’s my own private—” I protested.
Khara slapped me hard across the face.
Truly hard. Hard enough to look real.
It certainly felt real.
“Show His Majesty, dairne!”
Slowly, reluctantly, I drew my childish drawing from my pouch. A soldier jumped to take it from me, bowed, and handed it to the Murdano. He unfolded it and frowned.
“What is this?”
“A foolish drawing I made as a child,” I said. But then, as if reluctantly compelled to speak truth, I added, “It was based on a tale we tell . . . told.”
I brushed at a tear, easily summoned when I thought back on the bodies of everyone I had ever known. “It was a tale we told of a lost colony of dairnes on a sentient island in the north.”
“Fables and tales are usually nonsense,” the Murdano said thoughtfully. “But often there’s a vein of truth in even the most ancient of myths.”
Khara said nothing. I said nothing.
It all hinged on this moment.
“It would have to be kept secret,” the Murdano mused, thinking aloud. “The whole of Nedarra believes that dairnes are no more.” He looked up sharply, focusing on me. “But would your kind submit? And would you, young Donati spawn, lead them into slavery? To serve only me? To keep their very existence secret?”
Khara nodded.
I looked down, as if heartbroken. I shot an angry look at Khara. My voice heavy, I said, “A servant’s life is better than no life at all.”
“You would serve me?” the Murdano asked.
I nodded slowly. “Dairnes do not lie, Your Majesty. If I swear to serve you, I will. I would have no choice.”
This in itself was a lie.
“And do you now swear by your own life, by the lives of all your kind, to serve me and only me?”
Slowly, heavily, as if I were signing my life away, I said, “I do, Your Majesty.”
The Murdano sat back, clearly pleased with himself. He turned to the gruff general whose loyalty, if not honesty, I had vouched for.
“Release this Donati, the dairne, and the rest. Give them horses and provisions. And send an escort with them. Handpicked men. Silent and discreet men.” He flashed a sudden smile. “If they find more dairnes, kill all but, oh, let us say five. That should be more than enough. Kill the rest.” He tapped a finger to his chin. “Yes, five. Perhaps six. Any more than that, and I risk losing control of them.”
With that, we were dismissed.
Within hours we were riding north from Saguria, with Khara and Tobble on Vallino, me on a horse of my own, and three packhorses for food and tents.
Gambler raced around us in graceful arcs, moving just for the sheer joy of it, his feet barely touching the ground.
Khara’s sword was returned to her, its true nature still undiscovered. I wondered what punishment the Murdano would inflict on Luca. Would Luca reveal the truth of the sword? Not if he could help it, I realized, not so long as he hoped to gain possession of it for his own family’s use.
Riding behind us was a dark shadow in the shape of six members of the Pale Guard.
We were out of Saguria. On a mission to find, betray, and enslave whatever remained of my kind.
Khara, Tobble, and I exchanged a look as we rode, and when we were certain that the Pale Guard soldiers were far enough behind us not to hear, she asked, “Why do you think the Murdano risked letting you go? Why not just send me?”
“Perhaps he realizes that any dairnes who remain—assuming there are some—will welcome seeing one of their own. It’s efficient. Without me there, they will be difficult, if not impossible, to find. Besides, he knows the Pale Guard will keep track of me.”
Khara nodded. “You know, for a famously honest species, you dairnes make good liars when you need to be.”
“It’s a new skill for me,” I said. “I’m not proud of it.”
“And yet it worked.”
I grinned at her. “Yes, it did,” I replied. “It did indeed.”
Part Five
The Beginning Ends
51.
Something in the Air
It wasn’t so long ago that I used to wake from the nightmares of a typical pup: dreams of hungry felivets, evil poachers, or getting lost in the dark recesses of the Forest of Null.
Now it seemed I had more immediate and realistic concerns. There are few things more worrying than a squad of the Pale Guard following you at a distance of a few hundred yards.
We had not exactly figured out what to do about them.
And we strongly suspected that trailing behind them were warriors loyal to Luca’s family.
On the other hand, the burdens of traveling had lessened. At night we had excellent tents and plenty of dried food. The rain had passed, and we were even able to collect enough wood to keep a fire going.
Not only that, with the Pale Guard nearby, we weren’t worried at all about bandits or random patrols of soldiers. Still, Khara kept her sword beside her and slept near Gambler. No one sneaks up on a felivet.
Each day’s travel brought us farther north to a tumbled land, a world of sparse topsoil, exposed rocks, and deep gullies that blocke
d our view. We often couldn’t see the Pale Guard, but Gambler, Vallino, and I all smelled them.
The road was barely a trail. We passed villages, each poorer and more desperate than the one before. The farther we went from Saguria, the less we saw of soldiers, farmers’ carts, or traveling tradesmen.
Sometimes, as much from kindness as need, we would buy supplies from these locals. But even the bare necessities were in short supply. A young hunter sold us a pair of rabbits, but aside from that, we found very little on offer.
On our third night out of Saguria I drew Gambler aside. “Friend felivet,” I began, “have you not quite smelled, perhaps, but sensed . . .” I didn’t have an ending to the question.
Gambler’s eyes widened. “You too?”
I shrugged and shook my head side to side as if I didn’t quite believe what I was saying. Which was the truth. “I . . . It’s nothing. Just a feeling.”
“Like a breeze has moved a branch, and now a twig is scratching ever so gently against the back of your mind?”
I smiled. “Yes, just like that. But I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“No, Byx. You hope it’s nothing, but you are not sure. If you were sure, you would not have mentioned it.”
I nodded toward Vallino. He was munching from a bag of oats while Khara and Tobble kept the fire going. But every now and then, Vallino raised his head. His ears swiveled. His nostrils flared.
His ears weren’t pointed back down the road to the spot where smoke rose from the Pale Guard’s own fire, but rather to the side. It was the same direction from which I felt that “twig” scraping.
“I will make a patrol,” Gambler said. “When everyone is asleep.”
“May I go with you?”
“You may,” Gambler replied. “But you will most likely regret it.”
It wasn’t long before I found myself riding atop Gambler’s back as he ran, then walked, then finally slunk through the night. I had to take care not to rub against any of his still-painful burns.
The breeze was erratic, frustrating our attempts to navigate by scent. Sometimes we stopped and simply breathed, drawing in the aromas of the land: moss and lichen, grass, granite, dying flowers, the droppings of a dozen different species. All that, and something more.
Something neither of us could be sure of.
“You have rescued me twice,” Gambler said. “If I were to follow Wobbyk Code, I would have to save your life six times to compensate.”
I laughed. “You’ve already done that, more than once.”
“Tobble’s not wrong,” Gambler said thoughtfully. “Not about the lifesaving code. And he’s right about wobbyks being treated as inferior. They are small and look silly, but that is no reason to treat them as disposable.”
“That’s an ancient unfairness,” I said.
“Not to Tobble,” Gambler replied.
A sound disturbed the quiet. We both froze.
“A human cry?” Gambler asked.
I nodded. We trotted toward the sound, slowing as we heard a second cry, this one closer and more piercing.
Our eyes began to piece together the story: ahead we saw the glow of fire.
“Wait here,” Gambler whispered.
“I think I’d be safer with you.”
Gamble crept forward as only a big cat can. Even perched on his back with my excellent hearing, I could scarcely make out the sound of his pads on the ground. He seemed to pass through tall grass without rustling it, even to leap gullies and land with less noise than a pillow dropped to the floor.
The wind changed, and what we smelled was disturbing. Fire. Smoke. Charred flesh.
My mind told me that perhaps it was just a hunter cooking his prey.
But my heart knew it was something much worse.
52.
The Living Fire
We crept over the next boulder and saw a sullen fire burning the last of what must have been a very small village. Three crude human dwellings were smoldering. One human still lived. He was stretched between four strong saplings, rope running from ankles and wrists, suspended in midair above coals that glowed red in the night.
Standing nearby was a tall man, his back to us, his armor reflecting the firelight.
“The Knight of the Fire?” I whispered.
I felt Gambler’s muscles tense.
I drew breath in through my nose and held it, searching for clues. Some faint but knowable tendril caught my attention, a human smell, before evaporating. And was that awful odor wafting through the air the stench of dog?
I definitely recognized the smell of the knight, the same terrifying threat that had attacked us south of Saguria. I wondered if he was still in Araktik’s employ. Didn’t he know that the Seer had been exposed and disgraced? Was he now on some other master’s errand?
As if reading my thoughts, Gambler said, “He pursues us out of revenge.”
“Revenge?”
“We escaped him, and a knight who allows such insults to go unanswered does not remain a knight for long.”
The suspended human cried out in pain and anger. “You can roast me till I’m cooked through. I don’t know where they are!”
The voice was oddly familiar, though it was hard to place, what with all the screaming.
“I believe you,” a voice said.
“Then let me go!”
The knight laughed. He walked a short distance away out of the firelight and came back dragging a bare branch. He tossed it onto the fire. The few clinging, dry leaves flared immediately. I knew, with sickening certainty, that the man above the flames would die. Perhaps death would be a relief to him.
The knight began to chant:
“Roast and toast
But do not burn,
Make him scream
And make him yearn
For sweet relief
He’ll never earn.”
The fire, which had flared instantly, subsided, content to slowly consume its fresh fuel.
The chant was an instruction to the sentient fire. The knight meant death to come slowly to his human prisoner.
I climbed down off Gambler. We looked at each other, silently considering. Wordlessly debating.
We both knew it would be foolish to interfere.
We both knew we nevertheless had to.
I watched Gambler extend his claws, ready to take his chances with the knight. No doubt he was also interested in revenge: this was the knight who had seared patches of fur from Gambler’s flanks.
I put a hand on Gambler’s shoulder and shook my head.
“We mustn’t harm the knight,” I said. I kept my voice to a whisper, even though I felt certain the knight was out of earshot.
“What?”
“I think we have a use for him. I have a plan. I think.”
For what seemed like forever we listened to the bellowing human. He was not yet seriously burned, fortunately. His clothing was singed but not yet on fire, and his golden hair, though curled and crisped, was still there. Mostly.
While we waited for the knight to go to sleep, I continued to study the scents wafting my way when the wind cooperated. This person was not unknown to me. But the fire masked his real odor. Perhaps someone I’d encountered on the isle?
At last the knight threw a blanket on the ground and himself on the blanket. I listened intently to the sounds of his breathing. When I was certain he was asleep, I said, “Now.”
Gambler crept forward and I moved in his footsteps as soundlessly as I could. My sword was in my hand, but I had no illusions that I could fight the knight. Even Gambler knew the odds were slim that he could defeat someone wielding sentient fire.
At least the knight’s great charger was tied up upwind from us. The horse’s senses would be far superior to the knight’s.
Inch by inch we moved, our few missteps covered by the curses and cries of what I now know to be a human boy of approximately Khara’s age.
He was suspended, facedown, his face and hands black with smoke. But as w
e neared, he turned his head and caught sight of us. His mouth opened, as if to yell, but I held up a hand in what I hoped he would understand as a signal to remain still.
The boy closed his mouth.
I opened mine.
It was Renzo. The boy we’d encountered at the cave.
“I know this boy,” I told Gambler.
“He is a friend?”
“No. Not exactly.” I scanned the area. “When last I saw him, he had a dog.”
“I see no dog,” Gambler replied. “Although there’s a trace of one in the air.”
We moved closer. Renzo grinned, in spite of his predicament. “Hello . . . dog,” he whispered. “We meet again.”
I put a finger to my lips in answer.
It was a complicated question, how to cut Renzo down, as he would inevitably fall into the fire. I cut a rope holding one leg, but held it taut until Gambler could seize hold of the leg in his jaw.
Next I released one arm, then the other leg, leaving him suspended above the coals, stretched by one arm and the leg Gambler still held.
“Ready?” I whispered.
“No, I’m enjoying the warmth,” Renzo muttered.
I hesitated, confused.
“Sorry,” he said. “I forget that not every species understands sarcasm.”
I cut the last rope. Gambler sprang away as the boy fell. Gambler’s speed pulled him free—barely—but the boy hit the ground with a loud whumpf!, followed instantly by the sound of the knight rolling over.
“Can you run?” I asked.
“Not without Dog,” he replied. He let out an earsplitting whistle and was rewarded with a ridiculously happy bark.
Renzo then demonstrated his impressive running ability by dashing away, leaving Gambler and me to follow.
Behind us the knight roared in fury. A second later, he shrieked, as if in pain.
“Keep moving!” Gambler yelled, speeding away from us, then circling back.
Briefly I worried that he might try to kill the knight, but I felt certain Gambler had understood my plan. He needed to go for the horse, which was tethered to a sparse bush, not the knight.