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Sobering, Erin touched her companion's hand lightly, once. "Take heart. Everything of which the rime speaks so far has come to pass. The Witch must know this. Perhaps she has grown so afraid of you now that she has withdrawn into her palace of cold white stone and will not show herself. " The dark girl shrugged. "In all events, it's no use worrying. I am certain that soon you will discover the last of the rime. "
Aeriel could not help smiling, just a little. Erin always cheered her. But her mood quickly darkened.
She fidgeted, biting her lip.
"It's Irrylath I am most uneasy for. He is still within her reach—and the dreams she sends him are dire.
I fear for him. "
"I don't," said Erin sourly. "He is so full of his army and this war—he spends more time in the company of Avarclon and that Sabr than he does in yours. He never speaks to you; he does not send for you. Is he not your husband?"
"Peace, Erin," Aeriel said wearily. "There will be time for all that, after the war. "
But the dark girl shook her head.
"I have heard the rumors flying all over camp, all about this enchantment the White Witch still holds on him," she exclaimed, "that he may not lie with you or anyone while the White Witch lives—but I tell you from experience that that is very little of what makes a man, and though he may not lie with you, he might touch you, or talk to you, or even look at you when you are in his company—but no, it is ever 'my troops," and 'the warhost," and 'My steed calls me away!" Sabr, that bedaggered bandit, dotes on him. "
Aeriel tensed. "She is his cousin. "
"So are you. And which of you is his wife?"
Aeriel felt the knot beneath her breastbone tighten. She gripped a handful of desiccated sand suddenly as though she meant to hurl it at Erin. The near tents sighed in the wind. Aeriel opened her fingers and let the sand trickle away. "I'll not speak of this. "
"No, you never will," snapped Erin. She gazed off across the camp, between the airy pavilions in pale, pale green, ghost blue, and mauve. The set of her jaw told Aeriel that her own refusal to speak had hurt her friend.
"It is not…" she began, groping. "It is only that we hardly know one another, Irrylath and I. "
Erin looked back at her sidelong. "I have known you far less time than he," she said softly, "and already I love you well. "
A stone rose in Aeriel's throat. She put her arms around the dark girl. For a moment, Erin's cheek rested against her breast. "I am so glad you did not go back to your people after Orm," she whispered.
"You are my strength. You came on to Esternesse for my sake, didn't you?"
Looking up, Erin shook her head and patted Aeriel's cheek. Her palm was cool and dry. "No, dear one," she said. "For mine. I never had a friend before. "
She rose.
"But I will leave you now," she said, "for I see you want to be alone. I will be at the campfires of my folk, trying to remember their— our—tongue. "
Aeriel mustered a smile and let her go. No less confounded than before by the White Witch and by Irrylath, she nonetheless felt easier now for having spoken with Erin. The dark girl bent and kissed her brow.
"But you will forgive me if I think your prince of Avaric a great fool for not loving you," Erin said very gently. "And you an even greater one for wanting him to. "
6
Black Bird
Aeriel arose and wandered through the close-staked pavilions, encountering no one. Those who glimpsed her in the distance gave her a wide berth: all seemed in awe of her. She sighed, lonely suddenly for someone who did not know her, someone who would not recognize her instantly and draw away.
She was sorry now to have let Erin leave her, and was just turning to find her way out of the jumble of tentbacks and supply pavilions that surrounded her when a snatch of conversation reached her ear. She paused, frowning, seeing no one else about.
A great green silk tent loomed before her, billowing in the light desert breeze. She felt the air's coolness against her cheek and the touch of the sandy grit it bore. The slapping of the open tent flap only deepened the stillness. Puzzled, she found herself listening, straining, but for long moments, she heard only wind and silk. Then it came again, a low muffle of voices—one of them unmistakably Irrylath's.
"If you positioned your horse-troops like so, my mother's bowwomen could be stationed here…"
Aeriel froze, hearing the faint rasp of metal against metal. Another spoke.
"Then our foot could be divided here and here. "
Sabr's voice. She recognized it now, imagined the bandit queen unsheathing and pointing with her dagger. The rasp of metal again: the dagger sheathed.
"You never did tell me what happened to that fine Bernean blade I once gave you. "
A teasing tone had stolen into Sabr's voice. Aeriel blinked. Banter from the bandit queen was rare. A rattling of parchment.
"I broke it," came Irrylath's short reply.
Their voices did not come from within, Aeriel realized suddenly, drawing nearer the dark pavilion. Its back stood close behind the backs of a rose and a saffron tent, cutting off a kind of courtyard from the open space around.
"How, pray?" the prince's cousin was asking. "The blade was Bernean steel. "
Aeriel stood very still beside the green pavilion, listening. Silence from Irrylath. Cautiously, she peered around the green silk edge. Sabr and Irrylath stood in the courtyard beyond. They were alone, without the usual swarm of aides and attendants. Half-turned from his cousin, the prince of Avaric bent over a scroll. Sabr toyed with her own Bernean blade.
"I'll give you another," she told him softly.
"Don't," he said abruptly, straightening and rolling the parchment up.
He moved away from Sabr, but only a step. She followed, and boldly laid one hand—just so—across the scars that threaded his cheek. Astonishment gripped Aeriel. She clenched her teeth to keep from crying out. She expected Irrylath to pull instantly away from Sabr, but instead he turned, slowly, as if unwilling, to look at her.
"Can't you love me, cousin," she asked him, "even a little?"
Aeriel felt a surge of outrage, then blinding jealousy. Irrylath would never have permitted her such a touch. She bit her tongue, half hoping he would strike Sabr, push her roughly aside, revile her, but he only shook his head, and the look in his eyes was a desperate sadness, not anger.
"I can love no woman while the Witch's enchantment is on me," he answered. "I have told you that. "
He had told her! Incomprehension filled Aeriel. Her fingers on the pole beneath the pavilion silk tightened. She had thought only she and perhaps the Lady Syllva privy to that secret. All Erin and the camp could know were rumors. Yet he had told Sabr. Why? She whom many still called the queen of Avaric dropped her hand from him, her face falling.
"Yes," she said quietly. "And the only satisfaction it gives me is that you cannot love her either. "
"Don't speak of her so," whispered Irrylath. Sabr turned abruptly away.
"She frightens you, doesn't she?" the prince's cousin snapped. "Almost as much as the Witch. You fear her sorcerous green eyes see everything. " Sabr snorted. "Do they? Do they see us now?"
Only half hidden by the corner of the tent, Aeriel stood riveted, too stunned to move. She felt powerless, exposed, standing in plain view. Yet neither her husband nor the so-called queen of Avaric took note of her, their eyes on one another.
"She stood in the temple fire at Orm," continued Sabr bitterly. "It has burned her shadow away. She wears a pearl on her breast that is full of light. What sort of mortal creature is that?"
The bandit queen turned back to Irrylath, seizing his arm. This time he did not move away.
"I tell you, she is no mortal woman! She is some unworldly thing, Ravenna's sorceress. How could you love her? Surely the Witch's spell is simply what you have told her to keep her at bay. "
The prince shook hi
s head. His voice was hoarse. "Would that it were. "
His cousin did not seem to be listening. Her knuckles were pale where she clenched his arm. "But I am a mortal woman. I would be content with just your heart. Truly—"
At last, at last he pulled free of her. Watching, Aeriel held her breath. Her knees felt shaky, weak.
She clung to the pavilion pole.
"I am not free to give it," said Irrylath. "My heart is not my own. "
" She took it, didn't she?" Sabr snapped.
The prince bowed his head, looking away from her. He touched his breast. "And gilded it with lead. "
"I wasn't speaking of the Witch," the bandit queen replied. "When she rescued you and took the Witch's gilding off, she didn't give you back your own heart, did she? She kept that for herself. "
Sabr strode around to face him and laid her hand upon his breast.
"The heart that beats here is not yours, is it?" she pressed. He would not look at her. "How then can you say," Sabr insisted lowly, "that she did not seek to make you hers, exactly as did the Witch?"
Aeriel felt rage surge in her again, dangerously. Not true, not true! She had only wanted to save him, by putting her own living heart in his breast. It had been Talb the Mage who had taken the enchanted darkangel's heart, purged it of the Witch's lead, and placed it into the dying Aeriel's breast.
"I love you," said Sabr.
"Don't say it. "" The prince's voice was ragged.
Sabr's hand remained upon his heart. She answered, "I don't care whether you can lie with me or not.
I only want you to love me in return. "
He looked up, then hard away. Aeriel saw the despair in his eyes. "I can't," he whispered to Sabr. "I don't know how. The Witch has got her talons in me still. I can't love you, or her, or anyone while the White Witch lives. "
The sky seemed to spin over Aeriel. There, he had used it, Sabr's word, that nameless her. Sabr reached to cup the prince's face in her hands, but Aeriel hardly saw.