“I could never harm her,” he went on dully. “She raised me… cared for me. If she bore me no affection, that still does not lessen the debt I owe her for that. And remembering that I had planned to kill her makes me—” He broke off, and the songsmith could see more memories surface. The Adept drew a hard, sharp breath. “Eydryth—! I tried to kill Monso!”
“You did not harm him,” she made swift reply.
He sat up with a lurch, his eyes wide with horror. She saw him begin to shake, as though with an ague. “But the Amber Lady, Eydryth, it all comes back… I did my best to kill you!”
“I am fine,” she said, smiling, but she could not meet his gaze, suddenly afraid of the intensity she knew would be there. “As you can plainly see. Alon…” She swallowed, her throat tight. “Alon, you were not yourself. Neither of us remained untouched, but you— Working that spell to open the Dark Gate meant that you were more affected than I. If it were not for the Fane, we would both have been lost to ourselves.”
His hands came up, closed on her shoulders with a grip that made her gasp. “Eydryth… look at me. Look at me.” He waited, and after a moment she managed to raise her eyes to his, color rising hot into her cheeks at what she read there. “If anything happened to you…” He struggled for words, his voice grown thick and unsteady. “I would not… could not… without you… there is nothing…” He drew a deep, ragged breath. “Nothing, do you understand?”
She could summon no words of her own, could only stare at him, wide-eyed, feeling his breath touch her face, so close were they now.
Was it Alon who first leaned forward? Was it she? Or had they both moved at the same moment? Eydryth was never sure. She only knew that his hands had moved from her shoulders to gently cup her face; she only knew that their mouths met.
It was a gentle, tentative caress, a mere brushing of lips. Even though she had almost no experience at this herself, the songsmith realized immediately, instinctively, that Alon was no more lessoned in such matters than she—and found that knowledge pleased her, though why, she could not have told.
After a moment, he drew away, eyes searching her face, his fingers softly, hesitantly tracing her cheekbones, threading through the tumbled curls over her temples, pushing them back from her eyes. Eydryth struggled to speak, but Alon shook his head sternly, his fingers brushing her lips, halting any words.
Rising to his feet, he reached out a hand. As if spellbound (though this was a different magic from any she had yet encountered, if no less strong) she reached up, laid her fingers in his. He pulled her up to her feet, then into his arms, holding her tightly.
There was nothing tentative about this second kiss. Eydryth clung to him, shaken, as new feelings, desires, awoke within her, making her face honestly for the first time the knowledge that had been growing inside her ever since they had met. Until now she had pushed away her own longings, refused to acknowledge them, buried them as deeply as she could. But that was over now. Now there could be no denying, no going back… nor did she wish to.
Finally, he drew away slightly, stared down at her wordlessly. Eydryth rested her forehead against his shoulder, leaning against him as he stroked her tangled hair. The silence stretched between them, until finally he broke it. “Oh, my,” she heard him whisper. She smiled, shaking her head, repressing a sudden urge to laugh.
“Is that all you can think of to say?” she murmured, gently mocking.
“I can think of a thousand things to say,” he told her, his lips moving against her temple, her cheekbone. “But what I cannot decide is which of them to say first.” He chuckled softly. “Perhaps you should start.”
She shook her head, smiling slightly, wistfully. “I cannot. There is too much to say.” Eydryth raised her head, gazed at him, then laid her cheek against his, feeling the faint prickle of unshaven cheek against the softness of her own skin. “To even make a good beginning at saying what I want to say to you, would require the rest of the day… at least.”
“You may have the day. I will take the night,” he said, his tone still light, but the grey eyes held such intensity that her breath caught in her throat. Her heart was pounding so hard she wondered whether he could hear it. Confused, yet feeling such joy as she had never known, Eydryth glanced away from him, then froze.
The sun was already far to the west. The night that he spoke of would be here only too soon. Memory of the reason they were here rushed back, filling her, and, when Alon followed her gaze, she saw the same realization in his eyes.
“I wish…” she said slowly. “Oh, Alon… I wish! But, my dear heart… we cannot linger here. Kerovan’s life depends upon us.”
His expression hardened; then he nodded. “Yachne must be stopped. I will think of a way to restrain her without harming her. Right now”—his glance turned tender for one final moment—“I feel strong enough to accomplish anything.”
He sighed; then his arms tightened around her, and she returned the embrace. Then, slowly, formally, they both stepped back a pace, deliberately leaving the words unsaid, the caresses unmade.
As she heard a grunt from behind her, Eydryth glanced over her shoulder to see Monso, legs flailing the air as the stallion rolled. Alon went over to his mount, felt his chest and shoulders, then examined the healing wound on his leg.
“He can have water, now,” he said, then, catching the Keplian’s rein, led him toward the entrance, heading for the spring.
But as they neared that gap in the trees marking the entrance to the Fane, the half-bred halted, eyes rolling wildly, then backed away, ears flattened.
“What ails him?” Alon demanded, staring at the frightened creature. “Cannot beasts enter this place?”
Eydryth glanced inside the Fane, saw Steel Talon sitting perched on one of the rocks. “I think I know,” she said. “Steel Talon can enter this place because he is a natural creature. Monso is a half-bred, created by sorcery, and no natural being. Nothing of the Shadow can exist within the Fane of Neave, which is where I believe we are.”
“And Monso is part… part demon-horse,” Alon said slowly. “But… how then did he know where to bring us, so that we could be cleansed… healed?”
“I do not know,” Eydryth said, with equal gravity. She glanced thoughtfully at the falcon. “Unless Steel Talon told him…”
They both fell silent, remembering the way the falcon’s cries had seemingly triggered the Keplian’s actions. Finally, Alon shook his head. “Even if poor Monso cannot enter this Fane,” he said, “surely he can drink from the water?”
“He can,” she assured him. “I gave him some earlier.” Once again they rigged a makeshift trough from Alon’s jerkin; then, flask by flask, the Adept allowed the horse to drink, slowly letting him swallow his fill.
Finally, the Keplian’s thirst was satisfied. Alon fed him a measure of grain, and while he munched, both humans ministered to him, brushing him until the black coat shone once more in the red-tinged light of the westering sun.
Steel Talon winged over to sit on the cantle of the saddle, and, as he worked, Alon glanced frequently at the falcon, as if the bird were reporting to him. Having seen him do such before, Eydryth was not surprised to see Alon’s expression darken with concern. “What is it?” she asked softly.
“Steel Talon has seen the witch. She is still heading southeast, toward a place that my winged friend thinks of as ‘the dead place, the sick trees place, the Power-cage place,’ which I take to mean that Yachne has discovered a place that is the opposite of this one.” He nodded at the Fane. “It is my guess that she will use this evil place to focus her magic as she seeks to entrap Kerovan.”
“How far away?”
“Several hours from here, on foot.” He stared east, obviously thinking hard. “How far away is Kar Garudwyn, by your best estimate?”