“You believe the probabilities you mention may be shifting in our favor?” asked Prince Ruan, bringing his horse abreast of theirs. “In favor of all who serve my grandfather and the alliance?”
“Perhaps. But it may also be that there is no safety for anyone, anywhere. You remember the conversation we had long ago on the Balaquendor, before the sea dragon attacked us?”
“You said that Ouriána had been tampering with things she had better have left alone. You said that she was unleashing forces she would ultimately be unable to control.”
“Yes,” said Sindérian. They turned the horses’ heads away from the river toward higher ground. The ground below was growing muddy; there were trickles of water and a smell of marshes was in the air.
“And I also said there are things—like sea dragons—that are friends to no one. And when we were nearly drowned in the Necke on our way to Skyrra, I saw things under the water….” She hesitated, for there were parts of that experience she did not choose to share with anybody.
“Tell us plainly what you fear,” Ruan prompted her.
“It may be as you say,” she replied. And because Kivik and Aell had drawn closer, too, in order to hear what was being said, she raised her voice to include them in the conversation. “Or it may be that we are all of us—Phaôrax, Thäerie, Leal, Skyrra, everyone—heading toward some world-altering disaster. Like Alluinn and Otöi before us, we might be on the verge of mutual destruction.”
“How would we know?” asked Aell in a subdued voice.
“We can’t know, not until it overtakes us,” she said wearily. “That is, we can’t know it all, the doom of the entire world or its salvation. But we may know the answers to more immediate questions very soon.”
Days earlier, just after the battle with the skinchangers, Winloki had been numb and heart-bruised, staring at the cairn of stones the other men had piled over the bodies of Adfhail and Rivanon.
She felt Camhóinhann’s presence beside her at the gravesite, even before she turned to face him. “This was my fault,” she said, blinking back tears.
He did not attempt to deny it. “Why should that grieve you? You were kidnapped, snatched away from the people you call your own. Our land is not your land; you have made it quite clear that you do not and will not consider Phaôrax your home.”
Winloki could not find the words to answer him. But he seemed to know what she would have said.
“Your abilities as an empath are growing very rapidly, along with your other gifts. It is a dangerous time—for you as much as others.”
“Teach me what I need to know,” she said passionately. “Teach me how to prevent something like this from happening again.”
Camhóinhann shook his head. “That I cannot promise. The world is full of many hazards. It may even be that you are not responsible for attracting this one.”
“But the men who died in the catacombs,” she insisted, “I must bear some responsibility for that.”
“No more than I,” he said. “If I had known the ancient power slumbering there was already awake, I would never have brought you there. At least not as you are now. There are many things that I might teach you, but…”
She bit her lip. “Perhaps you don’t trust me enough?”
For the first time in all their long journey she saw the ghost of a smile cross his face, and she suddenly felt a fool for thinking she could possibly threaten him. “I will teach you to use your power not as a weapon but as a shield—and how to shield it in turn. But I caution you to think very carefully before you agree to this. Some decisions, once made, are irrevocable.”
“To do nothing, that is a choice, too,” she said fiercely. “And the deaths of these men, that is irrevocable too.”
They moved away from the cairn, toward the campsite. Already, the tents and other supplies had been packed away and men were saddling the horses. “Then if you are not already tired from the healings you have performed, we will begin your lessons as we ride.”
“Now?” she said breathlessly. “We can begin…so soon?”
His face had resumed its usual austere expression. “Are you, after all, having second thoughts?”
“I was merely surprised,” said Winloki. “I am ready to begin whenever you wish.”
A short while later they were in the saddle, following along the course of the river.
“I should start by telling you something of your own gifts and of those from whom you have inherited them.” A slight breeze lifted Camhóinhann’s long white hair as he rode. Afoot or on horseback, he was more than a head taller than any of the other men; yet it was more than his imposing stature that always made the Princess feel dwarfed beside him.
“Your mother,” he went on, “had great gifts for healing and warding, though her other talents were impressive, too. Your father, on the other hand, had no such abilities, though he came of a line that had produced many wizards and minor magicians over the centuries. Queen Elüari, who wore the ring of bone before your mother did, had a deeper knowledge of elemental magic than anyone I have ever met.”
“You knew these people?” Again Winloki tried to remember, if she had ever known, how long Thäerie and Phaôrax had been at war. She tried to calculate how old he might be, but the effort defeated her.
“I knew them,” he said. “Like yourself, I was born on Thäerie. In truth, we are distantly related, you and I.”
Startled, she turned to look up at him. “You never told me this before. Not even when you explained to me about my mother and my father.”
“It seemed irrelevant,” he said, “And I did not think the information would be welcome.”
Winloki tried to think whether it was welcome or not. She dearly loved her adopted relations in the north, yet there had always been a sense that she was…somehow alien to them. Oh, not in their behavior to her; it was merely something she felt in herself. At the same time, her recently discovered tie to Ouriána terrified her.
And now this, so unexpected—and yet, in some deep part of her soul, had she not known it all along?
Blood called to blood. Had it not been some instinct of kinship that drew her to him, albeit reluctantly, from the very beginning? “I know so little about you,” she said, staring straight ahead between the ears of her horse—because suddenly she was afraid to look at him again.
“My own history would make unpleasant telling,” he answered. “I do not think you are ready to hear it just yet.”
27
Leaves were falling in the woodlands and gusting across the road in clouds on the autumn winds. Now the great peaks of the Cadmin Aernan reared skyward far to the west, their upper slopes crowned with silvery snows. In the evenings, Sindérian brewed a bittersweet green tea from among the packets the dwarves had put into her saddlebags. When the stars came out, the sky was alive with fiery signs. There were times when she could feel the world shifting around her, currents of change more potent than the winds; but of these she spoke to no one but her father.
Many nights she sat up late staring into the fire, searching for portents until her eyes ached. You are trying too hard, said Faolein. Yet along with much that was distant and obscure she had seen what she was looking for: runes brighter than the flames, burning in the heart of the fire. Caet—battle. Eirëo—destiny.
And the rune she both hoped and feared to see: the dark rune, the nameless rune.
One morning, before they broke camp, she sketched a map in a patch of soft earth. “This is the Fenéille Galadan, this the Cadmin Aernan,” she said, drawing two lines with the point of her knife. She drew a curving line representing the Glasillient. “This, I believe, is where we are just now. You seem to know more of this country than any of us, Prince Ruan. Can you tell us what lies ahead of us?”