I squeeze his arm in gratitude before turning to Kildorath. “I submit to your demands,” I say, taking care to infuse some of Diira’s song with my voice. “Bind my hands and mouth. Then take us to your elders.”
4
TAAR
They make her dismount. Kildorath stuffs a rag in my wife’s mouth before binding her jaw with a strip ofleokasleather. This accomplished, they tie her hands before her, securing the knots tight enough that she winces.
“Enough,” I growl, one hand resting on the hilt of my weapon.
Kildorath flashes me a short look, wondering, perhaps, if he should have required my binding as well. But while he may have lost all esteem for me over these last few days, I am still hisluinar; he cannot wholly disrespect my position. Without a word, he takes hold of Ilsevel’s bent elbow and turns her toward Miramenor, his licorneir.
“What are you doing?” I demand, my voice sharper than before.
Kildorath looks back at me, but my gaze fixes on Ilsevel’s face, on her dark eyes so wide above that awful gag. “She will ride with me,” Kildorath says.
Wrath boils in my veins. “Let her ride her own mount.”
His face, already grim, sinks into darker, sterner lines. “It is blasphemy for a human to touch one of our licorneir.”
“Do you not see?” Elydark stirs beneath me, his powerful hooves shifting on the ground. “Do you not understand what has happened?” I wave a hand to indicate the slender, blue-black licorneir, who stands watching Kildorath through flame-ringed eyes. “This is Nyathri, renewed. She has given her name to this woman, and their bond is true.”
Kildorath shoots the beast a terrible look.“Drothlar,”he snarls, his grip around my wife’s elbow tightening enough to make her wince. Red light seems to explode in my head, and my sword is partially drawn, my intent unthought but entirely bloody, when something stirs along the golden thread between me and Ilsevel.
Taar, no.
It’s akin to the song-connection shared with my licorneir. No words needed, only music, complex and vibrant with meaning, shared from soul-to-soul.
Please, Taar.
I blink through the red haze, pulse throbbing like thunder in my ears. Diira shakes her head. Fire coils around her horn as she stamps and half-rears. I suspect she had similar ideas of violence and, like me, is even now checked by that voice, that song. She snorts fire, but settles back on all four hooves, obedient to her mistress’s wishes. I cannot quite bring myself to the same submission.
Kildorath eyes me, his mouth twisted in an expression ofdisgust. “Does myluinarmean to strike me down where I stand?”
My lip curls, teeth flashing. “If you harm my wife—”
“Wife!” Kildorath spits the word like a curse and shakes his head furiously. “How can you be so blind, Taar? She has overcome you with her sorcery.Shakh,man, I never thought it of you.”
Please, Taar.
Her voice again in my head, a mere thread holding me back from the brink over which I long to hurl myself. It occurs to me suddenly how useless that binding on her mouth truly is. Her power, her song, is not channeled merely through throat and tongue and lips. The connection she shares with both Diira and myself is far more profound. Only Kildorath doesn’t know it . . . and that ignorance might be the only advantage we have in the present moment.
I look into her eyes, so earnest with entreaty. Does she not believe I could slaughter these three and wrench her from their hands? Perhaps she does. And she fears that is exactly what I will do, destroying forever any chance of reconciliation with my own people. I am vulnerable here, not wholly lucid under the intensity of my feeling for her, exasperated, perhaps, by the quickening of ourvelrabond last night. But deep down, underneath that instinct to defend her against all foes, I am not ready to foreswear all other oaths and loyalties. Not yet at least.
Shaking my head, I shove my sword back into its sheath. “Take us to the elders,” I say grimly. “Let Halaema and the others bestow their judgment.”
“I will honor our agreement,” Kildorath growls. “But I will not let this woman desecrate one of our licorneir, however convincing you may find her spellwork.”
I release a tight breath through my teeth. “I will give up my weapons if you will let her ride with me.”
Kildorath considers me closely, his gaze flicking to my sheathed sword.
“I will dismount Elydark,” I persist, sweetening the deal, “and ride Diira instead.”
His brow tightens. “Diira?”
“Nyathri.” I nod my head to indicate the blue-black licorneir. “And Elydark . . .” I hesitate, not liking the shape of the words even now forming on my tongue. “Elydark will submit to being bound with chaeora rope.”
A snarl of angry song reverberates along my connection to Elydark. But though he rages at the indignity of what I have proposed, he does not protest. He understands what I am doing.
