by Sharon Shinn
“We’ll come help you look,” Ahio said.
Susannah hesitated. “Unless—unless she is still here and I just haven’t found her,” she began.
Zibiah nodded. “I’ll stay here and look for her. You two go down to Velora.”
Within minutes, Susannah and Ahio were on their way. It had been cold enough on the somewhat sheltered plateau; the short airborne trip was almost unendurable. Susannah was shivering when Ahio set her down.
“Where do you want to look?” he asked.
She spread her hands. “She likes the sweets and pastries, so maybe down by the food stalls? I guess we should split up.”
“I’ll head down toward the shops. You take the market,” he said. “Shall we meet back here in an hour?”
Susannah thought it might take longer, but she wasn’t thinking too clearly. She was having trouble putting together sentences. “An hour—do you think—I guess so. I’ll see you then.”
She set off through the open market, blundering against people and making constant apologies as she craned her neck to see into as many stalls and alleyways as she could. Many of these vendors knew her and her entourage from the Eyrie, of course, so she asked them, “Have you seen Kaski? She’s missing.”
“That little girl? Sure haven’t. I’ll keep my eyes open, though.”
One matronly vendor said she thought she’d seen someone who looked like Kaski, but then the girl had turned around and she wasn’t even Jansai. “Funny how people look alike,” the woman said.
Susannah didn’t think it was funny at all. “Yes—well—thank you,” she said and moved on, feeling even more desperate.
It was more than an hour later, and she’d forgotten all about the promised rendezvous with Ahio, when she spotted a small, heavily veiled little girl a few rows ahead of her in the crowded market. She had been beside herself with worry, for she had almost reached the last row of stalls—beyond were only a few blocks of dreary commercial buildings and then the rocky plains and hillocks that spilled away from the mountain. Nowhere else to look, unless Ahio had found her.
Or Susannah had. “Kaski!” she called, waving her arms and trying to find the best route through the close-packed stalls. “Kaski! Come over here.”
The small figure turned, suspicion in every line of its draped and hooded body. Kaski, all right. “Kaski!” Susannah called again.
But Kaski took off running.
Susannah tore after her, bumping into people and knocking merchandise off of tables in her haste. “Kaski! Kaski, wait! Kaski, please let me talk to you!” But the little girl did not slow down, just ran with a demon speed through the staring buyers and the pointing sellers, slipping out of the last row of stalls and into the gray business district of the city.
Susannah ran behind her, calling her name, and feeling more frightened and helpless with each step she took. Kaski was not just hurt and angry, she was inconsolable. Susannah did not see how she would be able to calm the little girl, even if she caught up with her. “Kaski! Please, please, let me talk to you!” she cried, but there was no answer. Just a few blocks ahead of her, a small scurrying figure breaking free of the overhung shadows of the buildings and racing out into the untracked land surrounding the city.
Once out into the open, Kaski’s pace slowed a little, into a fast, determined walk that could cover the miles with efficiency. Kaski was Jansai, used to hard travel and punishing wear on the feet and body. But Susannah was Edori, and she could walk all day, two heavy sacks over her back and a rock in her hand. She could keep up; she would not wear down before this little girl.
Accordingly, Susannah, too, fell into a familiar long-legged stride, her eyes fixed on the small figure before her, her hands tucked under her arms to keep them warm. Sweet Yovah singing, but it was cold. The clouds bunched together, arguing and angry; the sky grew blacker with irritation. The wind sheering straight down from the north slapped against her face like wet linen, leaving her cheeks streaked with red.
After she had been following Kaski for an hour, it began to rain.
“Kaski!” Susannah called out again as the first big, cold drops began to fall. She was beginning to tire—all those months of soft allali living were making it harder than she had expected to chase after Kaski this way—and it was an effort to gather enough breath to shout out. “Kaski, come back! Let’s find shelter!”
In response, Kaski began to run.
Awkwardly, painfully, Susannah began to run behind her. Now the rain was lashing down in wicked, wind-driven sheets. The ground was turning swampy and treacherous; it was hard to find footing, it was hard to see. Plus it was so cold. The icy rain had completely soaked through Susannah’s heavy jacket and her woolen clothes beneath. She was wet to the skin. How would she and Kaski even make it back to Velora? She panted for air, and her breath made a foggy exhalation against the wet wind.
“Kaski! Please come back!” she called, but her voice was drowned out by the ill-tempered snarl of thunder. The god protect them, this storm was about to get worse. “Kaski!”
Ahead, the terrain altered, swelling into a series of low foothills, still rocky and inhospitable this close to the mountain range. Another grumble of thunder and Kaski seemed to slow down, throwing her head up as if to track the source of the noise. Then the little girl looked around rather wildly, as if wondering where to seek refuge. Susannah, who had not slacked her pace, almost caught up with her.
“Kaski! Over there! By the hill—”
Either Kaski heard her, or she had drawn her own conclusions, for she veered to the left and an unpromising little mound of rocky earth. Cold, soaked, gasping for air, Susannah arrived beside her, skidding to a halt in the clotted dirt. “Kaski—oh baby, you had me so worried . . .”
Now, finally, miles from the city and equally as far from any hope of succor, Kaski turned to her, panicked and sobbing. Susannah crouched down against the small hill, wrapping the shaking, hysterical body in her arms, and trying to take the brunt of the rain and the wind on her back. “It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right,” she crooned into the buried hair.
Though it was not all right. The wind picked up force, screeching like a child in a tantrum, and the rain fell with a sudden fierce fury. Lightning cracked across the sky like a welt of fire, causing both of them to cry out, and the ominous crash of thunder that followed sounded like the world splitting in half.
When the lightning flashed again, Susannah saw the great silhouette of doom stretched above her, the terrifying shadow of winged death. She shrieked and hugged Kaski closer.
When the lightning sparked again, the shadow was beside her, and it was Gaaron.
“Gaaron!” she cried, but the roar of wind and rain was too strong; she could not even hear her own voice. His mouth opened as if he, too, was shouting a greeting, but she could not understand him over the flash and rattle of the heavens. The rain came down even harder, seeded with pods of hail, and Susannah crouched lower over Kaski, trying to shield the small shoulders with her own body.
And then, though the storm still raged about them, the rain stopped.
Susannah lifted her head, but she could not see. It was too dark, she was encased in darkness. Lightning flared and gave her a quick glimpse of a white, quilled tent stretched above her; then blind darkness again. Another pulse of lightning—another dreamlike vision of a broad, feathered canopy spread from over Susannah’s head straight to the ground. One shadow at the center, like a tent pole made of oak.
Gaaron had made a shelter of his own body, his own wings, and braced himself against the onslaught of the storm to protect them.
“Gaaron!” Susannah cried again, but he could not have heard her. He had not ducked his face beneath the laced mesh of his wings. He had, no doubt, lifted his head to the oath and pummel of the storm, gauging its strength and rage. Or—she didn’t know—perhaps he was even now trying to tame it, meeting fury with calm, beating back the wild violence of weather with a steely lullaby. Just bec
ause Susannah couldn’t hear him singing didn’t mean the god could not.
But he might not be singing. He might be merely enduring, knowing the storm would wear itself out and that even he did not have the strength to challenge it. They were not safe here—any venomous slash of lighting could strike them at random—but neither would they be safe attempting to take off for the Eyrie in such weather.
Kaski turned in Susannah’s arms with a little mewling cry, and Susannah hugged her closer. “I know, baby, I know,” she murmured into the child’s hair, not sure if Kaski could hear her, could hear anything, over the anger of the storm. Another streak of lightning and Gaaron’s wing looked like nothing but tendon and bone above them, skeletal and insubstantial. Another nasty yowl of thunder. Kaski cried out again. “I know, mikala, I know.”
The storm lasted another half an hour, Susannah judged, and even when the worst of the battle moved on, the rain still fell steadily. Not only were Susannah and Kaski thoroughly soaked, their clothing was covered with the mud that had formed under them as the rain poured down. Yovah’s tears, how far was it back to the Eyrie? Would they hold together that long? Susannah was so tired and so cold and so wet that she felt herself shivering with an uncontrollable ague, and Kaski merely lay in her wet lap and cried.
The white curtain above them parted and Gaaron peered down. There was enough milky light overhead to allow her to see his face through the ghostly aura of his spread wings. “Is she all right? Are you?” he called over the lingering rumble of thunder.
“I don’t know! I think she’ll recover once we get her to shelter. Gaaron, how did you find us? We would have died out here without you.”
Rain ran down his jawline and dripped onto Susannah’s upturned cheeks. “Ahio told me what had happened. I circled the whole area a couple of times. You’d gotten farther than I expected.”
“I was never so glad to see anyone in my life.”
A faint smile crossed his face, hard to see in the pale light. “You looked frightened when you saw me.”
“You looked frightening,” she retorted. “Oh, but Gaaron, if you had not come along—and sheltered us—I was so afraid—”
He nodded once and withdrew his head, as if glancing up to check the clouds again. Perhaps he did not want to be thanked; perhaps he did not want his expression to reveal how frightened he, too, had been. He poked his face back through the overlapping weave of feathers.
“I think we can risk taking off now,” he said. “It’s still raining but the wind isn’t as strong. You’ll get wet.”
She couldn’t help a laugh. “We’re already wet. And miserable and cold.”
He folded back his feathers, and she was instantly covered with a light, chilly rain. “Can you stand?” he asked.
He reached down as if to take Kaski from her arms, but the little girl, who had seemed almost comatose for the past few minutes, shrieked and writhed away. Gaaron straightened, a look of deep displeasure on his face.
Susannah stared up at him. “Perhaps you should go back and get Zibiah,” she said hesitantly. “We’ll be all right here a little while, now that the rain’s stopped. I don’t think Kaski will let you take her in your arms.”
His expression tightened still more. It took Susannah a moment to realize that he was furious, probably had been furious this whole time, and not at Susannah. “She damn well will let me take her in my arms and fly both of you back to the Eyrie,” he said deliberately. “You can hold her so that she is not—contaminated—by my touch, but I am done indulging her at your expense. I will not leave you here another minute to freeze or be swept away. Can you stand with her in your arms, or shall I help you?”
“I can stand,” Susannah said softly. It was a struggle to come to her feet and then gather the shaking, weeping child in her arms, but she managed it, somewhat gracelessly. Gaaron bent and, with one quick movement, picked them both up and cradled them against him. Kaski cried out once more and buried her head in Susannah’s chest, but she did not fight to get free.
“Gaaron,” Susannah exclaimed involuntarily. “You’re so warm.” For the heat of his body radiated through her wet clothes and his own, unbelievably powerful and comforting.
A smiled flickered across his face. “Angel blood,” he said. “Nothing cools it.”
“Can you carry us both all that way?” she said.
Now he actually laughed. The falling rain looked misty around his face. The drenching had left his hair plastered against his skull, so that the bones of his head and his cheeks and his jaws stood out, stubborn and unrelieved. He looked intransigent as a mountain, as impossible to destroy. No wonder the storm had battered itself uselessly against his body and then moved on.
“I could carry the two of you from here to Luminaux and not notice the burden,” he said lightly. “Do not be concerned for me.”
If she had not had to hold on to the miserable bundle of Kaski, she would have thrown her arms around his neck. “Oh, Gaaron,” she said, “I am only so grateful that you have been concerned for me.”
At that, he smiled again but made no reply. His arms tightened around her but that was no lover’s signal; he was preparing for flight. His great wings clawed through the air, seeking a purchase, as he ran forward, light as a deer through the sucking mud of the field. Susannah gasped as his forward motion flung them all into the air—they were too heavy, even his wings were not strong enough, there was no way they would not pitch forward again, back to the dull, heavy earth. And yet they were flying, gaining altitude with every wingbeat, pushing through the soggy air with nothing but brute determination. Back to the Eyrie. Back to safety and home.
Susannah wrapped her arms more closely around Kaski, murmuring endearments into the wet veil. She was glad of her own clothes, soaked and uncomfortable as they were—glad especially of the heavy jacket, made of dark material so dense that nothing would show through it. She knew that the sharp, steady pain on her arm was the result of no injury sustained from that mad dash through the treacherous terrain. She had tripped and fallen once or twice, but she had not landed in such a way as to bruise that arm. No, if she were to strip off the jacket, she would find no wound, just a pulsating, insistent light in the opal depths of her Kiss.
It would look much like the Kiss glittering and exulting on Gaaron’s arm, naked to the world for all to see. He did not act as if he noticed either the color or the pain, and she thought it was very likely that he did not. No one had told her that rage could set sparks in the heart of a Kiss, but perhaps it was so; that was the only emotion he had shown this afternoon, and even that he had kept banked down. She did not understand him—she was only beginning to understand herself—and in any case, she was too exhausted to think about it now. She rested her head against the welcome warmth of his chest, and closed her eyes.
Two days later, Gaaron informed Susannah that he had made arrangements for Kaski.
“Arrangements?” she said blankly. “What do you mean?”
He had been gone for most of these two days, and she had missed him. When he had sent for her, late on that second night, she had been a little fluttery and excited at the thought of seeing him again. Stupid and girlish! she thought, but she had changed her shirt so she could wear the vest with red accents, and she had combed her hair out again before hurrying down the hall.
To learn that he wanted to talk about Kaski.
“She can’t stay here,” he said. He had offered Susannah a chair and then failed to sit down himself, so that she sat, small and stationary, while he paced the floor. He smelled like winter starlight; he must have just this minute landed on the plateau after a long flight. “She is too disruptive. She takes too much of your time, and Esther’s and Chloe’s and Zibiah’s—she cannot be trusted—and she is not happy. For everyone, it seems better if she were placed elsewhere.”
“But—where?” Susannah demanded. “The Jansai won’t take her and she is afraid of every man she sees—”
He turned to face her, but
his attention seemed elsewhere. “There is a place where only women live,” he said. “At Mount Sinai, with the oracle and her acolytes. It is true that men visit there from time to time, but the compound is big, and the visitors stay mostly in one small part. I think she would feel safe there, among people she could trust. And Mahalah has kindly consented to take her in.”
“Mahalah?” Susannah repeated, because at the moment she could not think who belonged to the name.
“The oracle. It is time you met her, anyway. I would like you to come with me tomorrow when I take Kaski to her. It will ease Kaski’s transition to have you present, and it will give you some time to meet one of the most gracious women of all Samaria.”
Susannah shook her head and came to her feet, feeling outmaneuvered and a little angry. “But Gaaron, I am not convinced that this is the right thing to do! It is true that Kaski is troublesome, but she is a lonely, frightened child—”
“Who needs special care that you cannot provide.”
“But I want to provide it! I am very fond of her! You cannot just—you cannot just take her from me like an ill-mannered pet—or treat me like a child who does not have the sense to take care of her own playthings.”
He stopped in his pacing to look at her seriously. “Is that what you think? This is not about any failure on your part. You could take in any Jansai or Edori in the three provinces, and have them run wild at the Eyrie, and let them tear the place down to the floorboards every night, and I would not complain. But this girl has put you at risk, and because you allow yourself to love her, she will continue to put you at risk, and I will not have you endangered. I won’t. End of discussion. I have found a place for her that I think is safe, that you can get to without much trouble, so that you can keep her in your life if you so choose. But she is going to Mount Sinai tomorrow. I hope you will come with us, but even if you don’t, that is where she is going.”
Susannah stared at him, not knowing how to answer. All she could think was that he was still angry—even angrier than she had realized as they huddled against the hillock—and that reason never won any skirmish with rage. She remembered arguments between Tirza and Eleazar, arguments over trivial matters, sometimes, and how Tirza would simply walk away, saying, “No.” Whatever it was that Tirza refused to do would not ever get done. In some situations there were no compromises, and Susannah recognized such a situation now.
