And to his surprise she smiled again, the curling lines upon her face flexing themselves gracefully.
‘He loved you,’ she said. Her voice was so gentle, so careful of his feelings, that it gave him the will to take a further step.
‘What was it he said to you, by the waterfall? When Varryn was angry. I heard “ra’tyn”, and it seemed important. Did it have something to do with me?’
Her gaze flicked down, and he knew that he had reached too far. She gave no sign of anger, and did not shrink away from him, yet he felt the distance between them suddenly yawn. She was no longer Ess’yr, who he knew a little; she became the Kyrinin, who he knew hardly at all.
‘That is not spoken of,’ she said, and turned away from him, a slight rigidity in the movement the only hint of her injury. That, he knew, ended the conversation.
He stayed there for a little while, wrestling with frustration. She made him feel like a child. He knew she did not mean to do it, but still it cut him. His own shortcomings annoyed him more, though. There was some key, he thought, some turn of phrase or way of being, that he lacked. He could not quite close the gap. And yet, if asked, he could not, or would not, have explained precisely why it mattered to him; why he wanted so much to narrow that distance between himself and Ess’yr.
In the morning, they awoke to find Yvane still wrapped in her bedding, her breathing shallow and fluttering. Rothe, who had taken the last watch, said she had been thus for half an hour or more. She would not wake, not even when Orisian gave her shoulder a tentative shake. They spent long minutes in indecision.
‘We should get some water from a stream . . .’ Rothe was saying when at last Yvane returned to herself, sat up and glared at her audience.
‘What are you all looking at?’ she demanded, sounding a little groggy.
They busied themselves with the packing away of their simple camp and the sharing out of some food. Only after they were on the move, working their way along a sodden stretch of the track where thick rushes had all but overwhelmed the path, did Orisian ease himself to Yvane’s side and ask her what had happened.
‘Visited Koldihrve, as I visited Inurian in Anduran,’ she said. ‘Best to make sure of some kind of welcome. The place has few comforts to offer, but Hammarn will give us a roof over our heads at least. I think I scared him halfway to death. It’s a long time since he saw me like that; I think he’d forgotten. His mind has more holes in it than a mismended net.’
She clearly saw or sensed some doubt in Orisian, for she smiled at him.
‘Don’t worry. Hammarn is just an old, distracted na’kyrim. He can be a bit . . . unusual, but his heart is true enough. He’s a friend, and will be nothing but delighted to have so many visitors. That’s not something you could say for most in Koldihrve.’
Orisian did not relish the prospect of arriving in a town of masterless men. He could guess that there would be no warm welcome waiting there. Against that, though, he could set the thought that he was about to see a place where Huanin and Kyrinin lived peacefully alongside one another. He knew of no other place where such a thing would happen in these days. He had not thought of it before, but it was obvious that there would be na’kyrim here, and that knowledge quickened his pulse a fraction. Inurian and Yvane were the only na’kyrim he had ever known. The only other he had even seen—just for a moment—had been at Kolglas on the night of Winterbirth: Aeglyss.
‘Yvane,’ he asked, ‘do you know ... is Koldihrve where Inurian came from? I know his father was from the Fox clan, but I never knew where he grew up.’
‘No,’ said Yvane softly. ‘Inurian was born in a summer a’an in the Car Anagais. His mother . . .’ she paused and looked at him. ‘Best to leave that,’ she said. ‘It is not the happiest of tales. Don’t you think, in any case, that he would have told you himself, if he wanted you to know?’
Orisian gazed at the muddy ground passing beneath his feet.
‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘Perhaps he meant to tell me many things one day. He meant to take me with him into the forest, I think. Maybe even next summer.’
‘Perhaps he did,’ said Yvane. ‘I don’t think he would have taken any other Huanin, but you... yes, perhaps.’
She fell silent then, and they trudged along. Flakes of snow began to drift down from the flat, endless clouds. A flight of ducks whirred overhead like fat bolts loosed from some crossbow. Up in the forests on the edge of the Car Criagar a stag bellowed. It was a mournful sound. Some stories said that all the creatures of the world wept when the Gods departed, save the Huanin and the Kyrinin who were the cause of it.
Something else has passed away this time, Orisian thought. Let this night be a warm memory; let it be a seed of life. Those were the words his father had spoken on Winterbirth’s eve, as he had done every year for as long as Orisian could remember. But this time the memories of Winterbirth carried nothing of warmth. No seed—at least none with any good in it—had been planted in Castle Kolglas. If spring did come, it would break upon a world changed beyond recognition.
They came to a derelict barn, and rested there for a little while. The snow had turned to desultory sleet. The building’s roof was skeletal, its rotting beams exposed like the ribs of some half-decayed carcass deposited by flood waters.
Yvane dozed, huddled in her cloak. Rothe shared some food with Anyara. The two Kyrinin whispered to one another while Varryn applied a balm to the still raw tattoos on his sister’s face. Orisian could not settle and wandered listlessly around the barn. There was no sign of fire or storm or other damage. Like all the other abandoned farmsteads they had passed on their journey down the valley, it had been killed by neglect, not some sudden catastrophe.
He clambered into a gap in the wall. The stones were overgrown by a carapace of grey-green lichens. Orisian ran his fingers over them, testing their minutely intricate texture. The wind gusted, throwing a scattering of sharp sleet into his face, and he grimaced, turning his head away.
‘Keep under cover,’ called Rothe. ‘We don’t know who might be watching.’
Orisian took a step down from the breach. Something made him look outwards once more. He saw a group of figures standing twenty paces or so away: Kyrinin warriors, staring silently at him. Their faces were thick with the tattoos of the kin’thyn. For a few seconds he and they were motionless as the sleet swept across them. Then Varryn came soundlessly up to his shoulder, and brushed past him. Orisian watched as Varryn conferred with the newcomers.
‘What’s happening?’ Rothe asked from behind Orisian.
He could only shrug in reply.
After a few minutes, the band of warriors drifted away into the surrounding scrub and Varryn came striding back. His gait was purposeful, almost hasty.
‘What news?’ Orisian asked, but the Kyrinin ignored him and went to speak with Ess’yr. The language was incomprehensible, but for once the expressions upon their faces were almost eloquent. An intensity entered their eyes as brother and sister talked. There was urgency in their tones. Yvane had stirred herself, and as she listened to the discussion Orisian saw her begin to frown.
Varryn and Ess’yr came to some conclusion, and began rapidly to prepare themselves to move on.
‘Will we not wait for the weather to improve?’ asked Anyara, contriving a note of innocent enquiry.
‘No,’ Ess’yr said. ‘We go quickly now.’
‘What’s happened?’ said Orisian.
‘The enemy are coming.’
Yvane was thoughtful as they hastened to keep up with the two Kyrinin, who set a hard pace away from the barn.
‘The Inkallim?’ Orisian asked, but Yvane shook her head.
‘It seems there is war in mountains. Not just a raid: hundreds of White Owls have come north, from the sound of it. I’ve never heard of so many coming into Fox lands. It’s not how the Kyrinin fight their battles, not these Kyrinin at least. They prefer sneaking about in little groups.’