The griffin made a strange rasping noise deep in his throat. It took Ky a minute to realize that the beast was chuckling. “Subtlety is not your strong suit, youngling. The signs have been there for the past several days for those who cared to see them—questioning the Saari, setting aside your enmity with the loud one, establishing a system for your tribe that could continue even in your absence. Clearly you were planning to leave. Perhaps a better question would be why you did not see it earlier.”
Ky just shrugged.
But Gundhrold was apparently not one to let matters rest. Those great golden eyes of his narrowed with an intensity that suddenly made Ky understand that bit about the hearts of dune rabbits bursting out of their rib cages. “Do you intend to give your tribe up to her?”
“I . . . Slack . . . What?” He grasped for something to say. “What’s that got to do with anything? And what would you care in any case?”
“Because it would seem the young Songkeeper intends to throw her lot in with you and your crew—grimy, untrained, bedraggled bunch that they may be. It is my duty to see that the Songkeeper is protected. Young Slack”—He gave a rumble of disgust—“is unpredictable. Like a primed packet of ryree powder waiting to go off. You should take care in your dealings with her.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.” Ky scuffed a bare toe through the leaves. “The Underground isn’t Slack’s responsibility. It’s mine. I won’t leave them behind.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “But I also can’t abandon one of my crew to the Khelari’s slavekeepers.”
Something in the griffin’s face softened. “I know.”
“Doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”
“No, I suppose it does not.”
And no further information seemed forthcoming. Well, then. “Look.” Ky gestured at the woods. “I’ve got a long walk ahead of me, so—”
“Ah, but what if you did not?” A crafty gleam lit up the griffin’s eyes.
“I don’t understand.”
Gundhrold regarded him critically. “Once I could have borne you into the sky with no more effort than it takes to steal a dune rabbit from its den. Alas, that day is long since passed, and many dark dawns and endless night lie between it and this. My wings no longer have the strength, but it is said that a means is never distant for those with the will to seek it.”
“Are you . . . offering to help?” Ky shook his head, a useless attempt to clear his muddled thoughts. He did manage to latch onto the one thing that had been puzzling him since the griffin’s sudden appearance. “What about Birdie? She’s not hidden somewhere around here, is she? Wouldn’t have thought hailstorms or raging fires could have dragged you from her side.”
“She sleeps with the others. If we are canny and swift, we shall return with the sunrise. I welcome the chance to strike a blow against the Takhran’s cursed brood.”
Sounded like something Cade would say. “Look, I’m just trying to sneak in and slip out quietly, so if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather be on my own.” He turned to leave, but the griffin’s voice stopped him in his tracks.
“The greatest danger to the Songkeeper lies with you, youngling.” Gundhrold’s voice had become a deep, rumbling growl of such rabid ferocity that Ky’s stomach clenched and he had to fight the urge to break and run. “It may have escaped you, but it has not escaped me. You know her whereabouts. The Khelari would pay a pretty price to learn such information. Or force you to pay an unthinkable price as they extract it from your bloodless tongue.”
Ky involuntarily backed away, but the griffin’s forepaw shot out faster than he would have thought possible and hooked a claw through the front of his jacket. The beast dragged him closer until its murderous beak rested against his forehead and he could envision the daggerlike tip slicing through his skin. Heated breath flooded his senses, stinking faintly of animal guts and dead fish. “I shall protect the Songkeeper, youngling, even from you. I shall not let you go with them willingly or be taken alive.”
The beast released him then and shoved him back. It was all he could do to keep standing, his limbs were trembling so. Mechanically, he rubbed at the sting of the cut on his chest.
“Ri-ight. So you’re coming, then. Let’s be off?” He reeled away, unsteady on his feet and made it a couple of steps before realizing that the griffin hadn’t moved but was staring after him with the corners of his beak twisted into a smirk.
“There are quicker ways than walking, youngling.” The griffin spread his wings and arched his back like a cat. The movement made the taut lines of muscle stand out on his chest and haunches like cords. “Climb up. We shall run, you and I.” The fierce pleasure of the hunt flooded his voice. “Run with the night winds beneath our feet.”
11
Birdie chased a thin, wailing melody through the night. There was something unbearably familiar about its haunting and beautiful strains, but she could not recall what it was. It brought a shivering of goosebumps to her arms, and she curled in on herself beneath the borrowed cloak, pressing her cheek to the cold stone of the cave floor. Cold. Stone. She found a sense of balance there, of being grounded and secured by those physical sensations and the knowledge of that steady foundation beneath her.
Still, the high, cold melody called to her, and she pursued it through the sea of melodies that made up the vast symphony of the night. It led her a merry chase through sleeping fields, beside moonlit waters, and down long-silent passages beneath the earth. Until the melodies of the runners sleeping around her gradually faded into the background. She had begun making a habit of searching nearby songs as she drifted to sleep each night. Some might consider it paranoid, but if there was one thing Amos had managed to hammer into her skull with all his brashness and bluster and bull-headed kindness, it was never to simply trust anyone.
Perhaps it was thought of the peddler, perhaps it was just the ache of missing him, but she could have sworn she caught an echo of his deep, bluff melody. Instantly, she swung toward it, reaching for him. She had not intended to release the metallic thread of music that she had been following but found herself snapped away from it and plunged beneath a roiling tide of memory. Once again she heard the peddler’s agonized cry. Once again she watched him fall.
And was suddenly falling with him. Tumbling into the depths of the Pit, while the sheer rock walls rushed past and the dry streambed rushed toward her. Only to be jerked to a painful stop by the tendril of music and left hanging suspended in midair.
A steady drip drip fell on her ears.
Ropes creaked against wood. Restraints bit into her wrists and ankles. She forced her eyes open to see the black dome of rock at the far end of the Pit swaying below her—or rather, she was swaying above it. This, she realized with horror, was the vantage point of the slain Songkeeper, Artair.
“It is not long now.” A soft voice spoke from the depths of the Pit, words shivering and bouncing off the opposing cliff faces. Birdie gasped at the sound and tried to jerk away, but the restraints and the metallic strand of melody held her fast. “What are a few more days in the space of eternity? Soon the stronghold will fall.” The voice rang with the strength of an oath. “Soon.”
Little Songkeeper.
The words pieced her chest like a barbed knife, and the humorless chuckle of the Takhran tore through her bones, severing limbs from restraints and leaving her to plummet to earth. The tendril of the high, cold melody zipped after her, and she seized it, dragging herself along its shimmering silver length back to the solid floor of the cave and the warm weight of her cloak.
A weight that was suddenly stifling. She cast it aside, reached for her axe, and ducked out of the cave, noting in passing that Ky’s usual place near the entrance was empty. Once outside, she drew in several deep breaths. Eyes closed. Face turned to the stars. The fear stirred by the Takhran’s voice hung about her still. She could practically taste its sourness seeping down the back of her throat.
On impulse, more for her own peace than anything el
se, she searched the surrounding woods for any strange melodies or hints of the dark music. Nothing. Except for . . . there. She honed in on the five-noted melody and instantly recognized the flighty, quivering voice of the petra, Khittri.
“Come tonight. Come by moonlight.”
Khittri had promised to show her the way of the Songkeeper. Gnawing on her lip, Birdie glanced back at the cave and the runners sleeping within and then turned her face resolutely toward the woods. Sleep would not find her now. It rarely did after such dreams.
She scanned for Gundhrold but did not see him. Lately, he had been spending most nights prowling beneath the stars, returning with the rising sun bearing the spoil of the hunt. A quiver of uncertainty stirred in her gut. It felt wrong to simply leave without giving him warning, even if it was only for a short while. And yet, he frequently left without so much as a word to her.
With a determined nod, Birdie swung the axe up onto her shoulder and strode into the woods. She listened for the melodies of the lookouts—Slack and another younger boy whose name she didn’t know. Once she heard them, it was an easy matter to slip past the lookouts without being seen. She followed the trail of the petra’s tune along the side of the slope, moving at an easy, unrushed pace, allowing her mind time to still from the terror of the dream. High above, the stars’ song rang out clear and untarnished, hundreds of incandescently sweet and beautiful voices singing the five notes of their melody in perfect harmony. It was strange, was it not, how one could find moments of peace even though the whole world seemed at war?
Between the peddler and the griffin, she had been trained too well to dare relax her guard fully, but she allowed the melody to hum through her veins and reveled in the sense of comfort—of the Master Singer’s presence—that it brought. As she neared the petra, a second melody came to the forefront of the symphony. A male voice. Soft as a lamb’s fleece, gentle as a misting rain, cool and sweet as a morning breeze in the mountains, the sound of it alone was enough to bring a smile to her lips and banish the last shades of the Pit from her mind.
Ahead, the trees came to an abrupt end. Through low-hanging branches of gnarled hallorm and long-fingered zylph, she saw the two singers, standing on a moss-crowned hillock covered with moondrop flowers that glowed white with Mindolyn’s reflected beams. The petra, Khittri, seemed even less capable of sitting still now than when Birdie had seen her last. She darted back and forth, chittering to herself.
But it was the second singer that caught Birdie’s eyes and finally convinced her to forsake the shelter of the trees and step out—out into the open, out into the moonglow. Ever gracious, Mindolyn cast a softer, gentler light than her harsh consort, Tauros. But here neither softness nor gentleness was needed. Birdie could not imagine a lovelier creature. A downy gray beast with the head and build of a horse, though slim legged and sleek like the stags that wandered the Midland hills. Cloven footed instead of hooved. Antlers rose from the downy thatch of his forelock, and beneath his whiskered chin sprouted a beard like that of a goat. A short flyaway mane rose in wispy white hairs from the crest of his neck.
But the eyes—oh, the eyes—were the most entrancing things. Birdie couldn’t tear herself away. The dark bluish-brown of a woodland pool, lit by the moondrops below and half concealed beneath soft, white lashes like a dusting of snow. Birdie let the beast’s eyes draw her forward. With each step her feet sank into the moss—so light and springy underfoot—until she stood at his side, head level with his chin. And she felt not the slightest tremor of fear—not with the pure innocence of the creature’s melody sighing upon the wind and aligning itself with the vast array of notes in her head.
Clawed feet scampered across her toes. Birdie instinctively drew back. “You came. You came!” the petra shrilled, twisting between Birdie’s legs in a tight figure-eight weave that would have made any other creature dizzy. “Good. It’s good. We must be off, we must.” Her voice fell into a strange, crooning sing-song. “We must away, away, away with Frey, away to seek the Songkeeper’s—”
Khittri froze midword and suddenly dashed off into the woods, leaving Birdie alone with the strange creature. He dipped his head at her, and though there was nothing but welcome in his gaze, she felt painfully aware of her ragged clothes and the filthy bandage around her injured wrist.
“Welcome, Songkeeper, and well met. I am called Frey.”
Yes, but what are you?
The blunt question rose to her tongue, but she couldn’t bring herself to utter it. In all the travelers’ tales and fireside stories told before the hearth at the Sylvan Swan, she had never heard of such a beast. But the world, she was learning, was a wider, wilder place than she had imagined. “Are you what Khittri wanted to show me?”
His smile deepened. “I think not, Songkeeper.”
Khittri’s sudden reappearance kept Frey from saying anything more. She darted from the woods to Birdie’s side and sat back on her haunches, whiskers twitching, peering inquisitively up at them. “Well, then, it is settled, is it not? Shall we be off? Won’t get any closer standing here, no, we won’t!”
“What do you mean, ‘closer’?” Birdie scanned for signs of other singers. If it was a trap, Khittri could have gone into the woods to summon reinforcements. They could even now be closing in—
Her palms stung, and she realized she had started to tighten her grip around the axe haft without realizing it.
Khittri started to rattle off an answer, but Frey’s gentle voice cut over her chattering. “Only if you wish it, of course. There is one you should meet. But we must wander a ways to see him, and four legs go faster than two.” As if his words needed clarifying, he tipped his antler-clad head toward his back.
Offering a ride.
Birdie’s first impulse was to walk away—no, to dash away at full speed back into the shelter of the woods. Her heart beat a restless, uneven pulse in her chest as she looked from Frey to Khittri and back again. What did she know about these two save their melodies? It was true they bore no sign of the talav, but the Takhran was cunning. Who knew what deceptions he could concoct?
And yet she was the Songkeeper.
Within, a tendril of the Song stirred as if awakened by the thought and whispered peace into her soul. Strangely, she heard her own voice speaking as if it belonged to another. “I must return to the camp before dawn. I will be missed.”
Frey dipped his head. “Before dawn.” Then he sank down on one bent foreleg with his other foreleg outstretched, bringing his back within reach. Still hesitant, she started forward, but his voice stopped her. “You can leave that behind.”
Startled, she followed his glance to the axe still clutched in her hand.
“Or not, as it pleases you,” he amended. “But you shall not require it where we go.”
For all that the axe was an odd weapon for her, she had grown attached to it. Venturing forth without any sort of protection seemed utter foolishness and worse than foolishness. And yet there was a sense of aversion in the beast’s expression that made Birdie reconsider the weapon. With chipped blade and scarred haft, it bore the marks of many battles and—soaked so deeply into the wood that it seemed a part of the grain—the blood of its former owner. It was a tool of destruction, an instrument of death.
It was a reminder. Of the cost of this war into which she had blundered. Or been impelled, really. Thrust by her own blood, by the force of the melody in her veins and the Song that had called her.
Birdie did not reply, just cradled the axe in the crook of her injured arm and, seizing the beast’s mane with her good hand, swung up and onto his back. He rocked up to his feet, and her legs instinctively squeezed his sides. The antlered head twisted back toward her, and she caught sight again of those dark eyes veiled beneath white lashes. “You are ready?”
“Yes.” It came out a bit breathless, because honestly she had no idea what she was doing. But if nothing else, at least she had courage, so she repeated it again. Louder. Stronger. “Yes, I am ready.”
Frey gave a humming sound of assent, tossed his head so that his mane rippled along his neck, and then broke into a gentle, rocking lope. Khittri scampered alongside, progressing over the ground in gliding leaps that enabled her to keep up with Frey’s longer limbs. At first his cloven hooves made little noise in the moss, but then they swept down the side of the hillock and onto the wooded slope beyond, and the moss gave way to harder earth peppered with rocks and tree roots, and Frey’s hooves marked their passage with a sharper ring.
The melody of the night swallowed them, a chaotic symphony of star song, tree voices, grass whispers, and the sighing of the wind. Still gripping Frey’s mane, Birdie closed her eyes and gave herself up to the tune and to the cadence of her steed. There was a sort of an echo of the melody in that too. It felt all pervasive. All encompassing. As much to be heard in the stolid immovability of the mountains as in the rhythmic fall of Frey’s hooves and the faint huff of his breath, the muted grunting in his throat as he sped up a slope and the swish swish of his short, downy tail. To a Songkeeper, breath was melody, and melody was breathing.
•••
“We are here, Songkeeper.” Frey’s voice roused her from a sort of half slumber. She blinked away the fog of weariness and slid down from his back—nearly treading on Khittri by accident, but the petra scuttled out of the way just in time. Only after she landed did she take stock of her surroundings. They had come down a narrow defile between two offshoots of the mountain, angled in such a way that Mindolyn’s beams kept the shadows at bay and a line of moondrop flowers lighted the path before their feet. The flowers grew regularly enough so as to seem intentional and yet not so regular as to appear unnatural. The defile twisted away behind them, cutting the entrance off from view. Steep slopes rose on either side, coated with masses of dragon’s tongue vines sporting a new spring growth of pale-green leaves with pink centers not yet darkened to their usual blood red. It was a damp, green place, with moss-covered rocks underfoot and small rivulets of water trickling through them.
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