Untrue! Her muscles proclaimed it, and Amberdrake’s intuition agreed. The way she had stumbled over the word “lover,” not as if she were ashamed to say it, but because she could hardly bear to give the man that title. Amberdrake remembered Conn Levas, the mage who had come to him in order to shame his lover. That lover, it seems, was Winterhart. She and the mage might trade animal passions, but there was no love in that relationship. She didn’t care that she might be reassigned someplace where he wasn’t, precisely.
There is something deeper going on here. In some way, the man protects her. He must not know he is doing so, because if he did, he’d use it against her.
This was getting more and more complicated all the time.
“Well, I would say you aren’t going to have to worry about that much longer,” he said without thinking.
“What do you mean?” Her alarm was real and very deep; she actually started.
He put a hand in the middle of her back and soothed the jerking muscles. “Only that thanks to Zhaneel, Urtho is already aware of the situation in Sixth Wing. You won’t have to confront anyone now. I suspect he’ll take care of things. He always does.”
“Oh.” She relaxed again.
Now what on earth set her off like that? It has to be something to do with whatever it is that she is afraid of.
What that could be, he had no clue. Perhaps he ought to try probing farther back in her past—so far back that it would not seem like a threat.
“I learned all of my skills at Healing when I was a child,” he said casually. “My parents sent me to a very odd school, one that did not admit the existence of a Healing Gift, nor of Empathy. I did learn quite a bit about Healing without the use of either—everything from massage to anatomy to herbal and mineral medicines. But I was also more or less trapped among very sick people with Empathy too strong to shut them out. I was miserable, and my parents didn’t understand why when I wrote them letters begging to come home. They thought they were doing their best for me, and couldn’t understand why I wasn’t grateful.”
“My parents were like that,” she said, sounding sleepy. “They knew their children were exceptional, and they wouldn’t accept anything leg’s than perfection. They never understood why I wasn’t fawningly grateful for all the opportunities they gave me.”
I thought as much! Well, this is something I can start on, right this moment.
“Like my parents, yours surely thought they had your best interests at heart,” he replied quickly. “Perhaps they were too young for children. Perhaps they simply didn’t understand that a child is not a small copy of one’s own self. Many people think that. They feel the child must have the same needs and interests they do, simply because it sprang from them. They have no notion that a child can be drastically different from its parents.”
“So?” she replied, probably more harshly than she intended. “Does that excuse them?”
He let her think about that for a long time before he answered. “There are no excuses,” he said at last. “But there are reasons. Reasons why we are what we are. Reasons why we do not have to stay that way. Even Ma’ar has reasons for what he does.”
That turned the discussion into one of philosophy, and by the time he sent her away, he had come, grudgingly, not only to feel sorry for her, but even to like her a little.
But she was going to have to change, and she would have a hard time doing so all alone. He was going to have to help her. As she was, she was a danger, not only to herself, but possibly to everyone she came in contact with. No matter how she tried to hide it, she was unbalanced and afraid.
And fear was Ma’ar’s best weapon.
Skandranon cautiously pushed his way into Tarnsin’s work tent with a careful talon, and the tail of a playful breeze followed him inside, teasing his crest feathers. As he had expected, Tamsin and Cinnabar mumbled to each other over their notes, oblivious to anything else going on. They made quite a pretty picture, with their heads so close they just touched, lamplight shining down on them, the table, and the precious stack of paper. Dark hair and bright shone beneath the lantern. They were a vision of peace. But pretty pictures were not precisely what he was after at the moment, and all peace was illusory as long as Ma’ar kept moving. And he knew that, despite his motivations, stealing this secret was a dangerous game to play.
But this secret would at least ensure the survival of his people, no matter what befell Urtho.
“Took you long enough to get here,” Tamsin said without looking up, though Cinnabar gave him a wink and wry grin. He wrote another word or two, then set aside the paper he had been scrawling on and raised his eyes to meet Skan’s. “What did you do, stop to seduce half a dozen gryphons on the way here?”
Skan’s nares flushed, but he managed to keep his voice from betraying him. Half a dozen gryphons? Well—one female, and there certainly wasn’t a seduction involved. And until he had a chance to think out a plan, he’d rather not discuss Kechara with anyone. “Not at all; I just stopped to look at something very interesting in the Tower. So what have you discovered?”
By the gleam in Tamsin’s eyes, it was good news, very good news. “That your so-called ‘spell’ isn’t precisely that,” Tamsin replied. “Enabling fertility in male and female gryphons takes a combination of things, and all of them are the sort of preparation that any gryphon could do without magical help, though a little magic makes it easier. Urtho just shrouds the whole procedure in mysticism, so that you think it’s something powerfully magical. His notes detail what to do to make the most impressive effects for the least expenditure of energy. He’s been bluffing you all, Skan.”
Skan’s head jerked up so quickly that he hit the top of the doorframe with it and blinked. He’d hoped for simple spells; he had not expected anything like this. “What?” he exclaimed.
Tamsin chuckled, and leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. “When he designed you, he wanted to have some automatic controls on your fertility, so he borrowed some things from a number of different beasties. Take the Great White Owl—the females don’t lay fertile eggs unless their mate has stuffed them first with tundra mice. The sudden increase in meat triggers their bodies to permit fertilization of the eggs; and the more meat, the more eggs they lay. Well, Urtho borrowed that for your females. The ‘ritual’ for the female gryphon is to fast for two days, then gorge on fresh meat just before the mating flight. That gorging tells her instincts that there’s food enough to support a’family, just like with the tundra owls, and she becomes fertile.”
“But—” Skan protested weakly. “We don’t lay eggs. How can that—”
Tamsin ignored him. “He borrowed from the snow tigers as well; they would have litters four times a year in a colder climate, but they only have one because the male’s body temperature is so high that his seed is sterile except in the winter. So Urtho designed you males so that your body temperature is normally so high that your seed is dormant, just like theirs. So your half of the ‘ritual’ is that business of sleeping and meditating in the cave for two days while the female fasts. That drops your body temperature enough that your seed becomes active. That, or a very simple spell ensures that the male’s temperature stays lower than normal until after the mating flight is over. And that is the only bit of magic that Urtho performs that actually accomplishes anything. It’s such a minor spell that even an untrained Healer could do it—or there are drugs and infusions we could give you that have that effect, temporarily.”