His hands dropped away from her. She watched his face, the color running again beneath her skin. “My Tam,” she said finally, “what did he die of?”
He drew a breath and looked at her. “Sybel, I know you did not kill that wizard. I do not know how he died, but I think—I think what killed him killed Drede.”
She shivered. “So,” she whispered, “it walked that night in more places than Coren’s house.”
“Who? Sybel, did you see it, too?” She did not answer; he shifted, his hands curved taut around his knees. His voice broke. “Sybel, please! I have to ask you. Drede lay on the floor and there was not a wound on him anywhere, but I saw the look on his face before they hid him from me. They said his heart failed, but I think he died of terror.”
A murmur came from her. She shifted, let her head fall on one raised knee. “My Tam, I am sorry.”
“Sybel, what did he see before he died? What killed him?”
She sighed. “Tam, that wizard, and that King, and I all saw the same thing. Those two are dead, but I am alive, though I have been so far from myself I did not think anything would bring me back. I have been beyond the rim of my mind. It is a kind of running away. I cannot tell you what that Thing is; I only know that when Drede looked at it, he saw what was in himself and that destroyed him. I know that because I nearly destroyed myself.”
He was silent a moment, struggling. He said finally, “But you had a right to be angry.”
“Yes. But not to hurt those I love, or myself.” She reached out, touched his face gently. “It is so good to hear you say my name again. I thought—I was certain you would be angry with me for what I have done to you.”
“You did nothing.”
“I put you like a defenseless pawn in the hands of Sirle. That my running could not stop.”
He shook his head slightly, bewilderedly. “Sybel, I am not in Rok’s hands. I have a few advisers, but there is no regent. Drede’s cousin Margor was to rule until I turned sixteen if Drede died, but he disappeared. So did my father’s warlords. So did Horst of Hilt, Derth of Niccon, his brother and their warlords. So did the six of Sirle and their warlords—”
She reached out to him, her lips parted. “Tam, what happened to them? Were they killed in battle?”
“Sybel, you know what happened. You must know. In the camp above Mondor where my father would have been, it was Gules who came and the few that saw him who did not follow him came back without words in them to describe the gold of him and his mane like thread upon thread of silk and his eyes that flashed like the sun. There was a harpist-warrior who made a song already of the sight of Gules bounding before twenty unarmed warlords across the Slinoon River, just as the dawn sun rose—and I have heard a song of Moriah who came to my Uncle Sehan’s camp in West Hilt, and how a song came from her sweeter than a woman’s singing from a velvet-curtained window—Sybel, you knew!”
“No. No, I did not know.” She rose suddenly, her hands against her mouth. “I set them free that night.”
He stared up at her incredulously. “Why?”
“Because—I had betrayed them. And what song has come out of Sirle? One of Cyrin?”
He nodded. “They say the six brothers of Sirle and their warlords went boar hunting in Mirkon Forest instead of to battle. And Gyld—he terrified everyone. Some battles started between Horst’s men and my uncle’s in Hilt, and Gyld swept through them and there were men with broken backs and others burned. And everyone ran. I never saw Gyld breathe fire before. He flew over Mondor, and the boats that were coming into the city—there were only a handful that came without orders, wanting to loot Drede’s house, and Gyld set fire to their boats and they swam ashore—those who had no heavy armor. And the people in the city stayed indoors for fear of Gyld, and I stayed guarded until I whispered to Ter that I wanted to go out and he drove the guards away for me. So I saw Gyld flying gold-green above Mondor, and then Ter flew away and my Aunt Illa sent people to get me. And in Niccon, the Lord of Niccon laid down his sword and so did his friend Thone of Perl, and his warlords in council with him and they followed the song of a Swan that the Niccon harpists say was like the murmur of love on a warm summer day when the bees are singing… Sybel, you did not—you did not tell them to do that?”
“I set them free to do as they willed… My Tam, I would have played a terrible game with you; making a shadow king of you ruled by Sirle…” She drew her hands wearily over her face. “I do not know what you have brought me back to. My animals are gone, I have lost Coren, I have lost myself—but still, the sound of your voice and your smile are good to know again…”
Tam rose. He put his arms around her tightly, his cheek against her hair. “Sybel, I need you still. I need to know you are here. I have many people who know my name, but only one or two or three that know who it belongs to. You did not do any terrible thing to me—and even if you had, I would still have loved you because I need to love you.”
“My Tam, you are a child—” she whispered. He drew back, and she took his face between her hands. He smiled a little, quiet smile that touched his gray eyes like sun through a mist.
“Yes. So do not go away again. I lost Drede, and I do not want to lose you, too. I am a child because I did not care what either of you did, only that I loved you.”
He loosed her. The late sun spilled through the dome, turned the white fur fiery at their feet. “Sybel, you are so thin. I think you should eat something.”
“You are thin, too, my Tam. You have been troubled.”
“Yes. But also, I am growing.” He led her out of the domed room to the hearth. She sat down in a chair before the empty grate; he balanced on the arm of the other chair, looking down at her. “Does Maelga know you are here?”
“I do not know. If she came, I did not hear her.”
“You locked yourself in. But anyone who really wanted to could get in. Sybel, I think we should go to Maelga’s house and let her fix us some supper.”
A smile touched her face, smoothing the sharp lines of it. “I think you are wise, my Tam. I have lost everything, and you are a young King in a perilous position, whose valuable advisers and counselors are running in circles after wondrous animals in dark forests, and I do not know what tomorrow will bring either one of us, but today I am hungry and I think we must be fed.”
They went, the silvery-haired wizard woman and the boy king, through the tall whispering trees and above them as they walked, the mists rolled again over the white face of Eld Mountain, hiding its bare, terrible peak. Maelga welcomed them, laughing and crying over them, and twisting her curls into wild tufts on her head, and they stayed late with her until the dusk drifted like smoke between the trees and the moon moved through the stars above Eldwold like a silver ship without a mast.
Tam went home finally with his weary guards, and Sybel sat quietly at Maelga’s hearth, a cup of hot wine in her hand, her eyes still, looking inward. Maelga rocked in her chair, the rings on her hands catching light from seven candles as they moved back and forth on the arms of the chair. She said finally,