“Stand down,luinar,”he says.
I bare my teeth in a snarl. “I am yourluinarno more, Kildorath. You have broken faith with me, with every vow you ever swore.”
He looks stricken, but his sword does not waver. “I do what I do for the sake of all Licorna.”
I open my mouth to respond, but warriors—my comrades, my friends, my brothers and sisters—close in on every side. Unarmed, I turn to face them. Roaring with rage, with heartbreak, I lunge forward, intending to die upon their swords.
Someone strikes the back of my head, and I know no more.
23
ILSEVEL
“Gods-damn you, Elydark!” I shriek into the wind as the red licorneir carries me beyond the city limits and plunges into the surrounding forest. “Gods-damn, damn, damn! Go back!” The words emerge between gasps of pain. Each fall of his hooves seems to jostle the arrow protruding from my shoulder and damn me, but you’d think, after being gutted with a sword, something like this wouldn’t bother me much. Not so. My body shudders with shock. I struggle to keep from passing out, both hands gripping the pommel of Elydark’s saddle.
“Elydark!”I scream again.
He bursts out from the forest and into the open country below Elanlein. The very country where I used to ride with Diira, practicing warlike forms and striking at dummies witha borrowed sword. It’s so familiar and yet so nightmarish, my pain-dazed mind hardly knows what to make of it.
But I do know Elydark is carrying me away. Away from Taar, away from danger. Taar must have given him orders in advance, fearful for my safety should this meeting go awry. But I didn’t come all this way only to abandon my husband now.
“No!”I scream, and struggle to send a bolt of song-command into the red licorneir’s head. But it doesn’t work. I don’t understand—I was able to command all of those other licorneir. Why not Elydark? Why not now? I try again, my physical voice compromised with sobbing, but my spirit song as strong as ever. Still to no effect. Is it the pain from this gods-damned wound? Or fear weakening my gift? Perhaps I simply cannot influence my husband’s licorneir as I can all others, due to the bond I share with Taar himself.
All I know is that my song is in vain. And the distance between me and Taar is growing wider, wider, every moment wider.
I turn to look back, crying out at even that slight twist of my shoulder. There are no soulfire sparks behind us, no swift pursuit. The Licornyn are holding back, afraid of my voice, afraid I will overtake their mounts’ minds once more. Good. They should be afraid of me. I’m going to make them much more afraid before I’m through.
“Go back, Elydark!” I scream again to his pinned-down ears. “I can save him still! I can command the licorneir!”
He doesn’t pause. It’s as though he doesn’t hear me. Damn him, and damn Taar, and damn this skewering arrow! I grip the shaft with one hand, thinking to pull it out, but hesitate. If I remove it, I might start to bleed, and then I’ll run out of strength and won’t be able to sing. My gods-gifted voice is the only weapon I have, though it’s proven all but useless tonight.
“Elydark,” I shout one more time. “This is your last chance!”
No answer, no change in pace. Well, fine then. I’ve dismounted from a galloping licorneir before! Granted, it was from Diira, who was nowhere near as enormous as Elydark. And it wasn’t in the dead of night, with no idea what sort of landing to expect. And I didn’t have an arrow shaft protruding from my body. Still, if this is what it’s come to, so be it. Only . . . only . . .
Oh my gods.
Taar has bound me to the saddle. Using one of the very cords he once used to secure my wrists when he took me captive in the Temple of Lamruil. He’s secured it around my waist, tied me to the saddle, so tight I cannot move even enough to swing my leg over. I don’t know when he did it or how I managed to be so distracted as not to notice. But it’s done.
Screaming with rage, my fingers fumble with the ties. I cannot work the knots—one arm is too numb with throbbing pain, the other simply refuses to work. The knot is well tied, and I cannot budge it. That wretched, damnable husband of mine! If he survives the night, and I ever see him again, I swear, I willwring his thick neck!
“Please, Elydark,” I plead again, my voice weaker than before. “Please, turn back. We can’t just leave him.”
But the red licorneir gallops on into the night. Clouds roll overhead, covering the moon, plunging the world into pitch darkness that feels like the descending hand of hell.
24
TAAR
I wake slowly, a radiating ache spreading from the back of my head, down my neck and shoulders. Someone seems to be calling my name, and the voice is familiar, but strangely echoing, hollow: “Taar? Taar!Shakhing-damn you, Taar, wake up! Oh gods, Halamar, is he dead?”
“He’s not dead,” a second voice replies, very dark and dull. “They would not dare kill him. Not yet.”
“Some comfort you are.” There follows a shuffle and a rough expulsion of air through lips, like a wordless curse. “How did I let this happen? I should have stood up to the elders. But when Kildorath said she was—”
“What she was does not matter.” The second voice speaks more firmly now, full of conviction. “All that matters is what she has become. She is ourmaelar,chosen wife of ourluinar.”
I recognize that voice, even through the throb in my head: Halamar. My old friend and battle companion. Still loyal to me, it would seem. Or, at the very least, loyal to my wife. Bless the hearttorn bastard! Though he was strangely absent last night, when I could have used someone on my side.
