"Over_9780307446138_oeb_c32_r1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jeffrey Overstreet - Cynderes Midnight)

Cyndere’SMidnight

 

32

THE BREAKING
OF THE BROTHERS

Setting the wooden cover over the well, Jordam turned to see Mordafey snatch one of the tetherwings out of the air, crush it, and cast its crumpled form to the side of the glen.

“Now,” said Mordafey, “Jordam learns not to keep secrets.”

Jordam met Mordafey’s burning gaze. “Older Brother,” he said, surprised at how much he sounded like Goreth.

“No brother at all.” Mordafey raised a broken Bel Amican trap by the pin, wires hanging down like a scourge. “You talk in your sleep. Your secrets aren’t so secret. And look, you have no weapon to defend yourself.”

“Jordam has something else.” Jordam seized hold of the well. “rrBetter than Essence. Tried to tell you. You wouldn’t listen.”

Mordafey slung the trap wires about in the air and advanced. Jordam thought of tearing loose a wellstone, but here in this place he felt a hesitation. It was not just Mordafey charging toward him. It was the Essence that controlled him. In the midst of the fear, he felt a pang of sadness.

“I know your plan,” said Jordam. “You don’t care about brothers. You’ll finish all of us when you take Skell Wra’s throne. Until then you need us…because you’re weak. Weak without help. Weak without Essence.”

Mordafey struck. The wires striped Jordam’s side. His head hit the wellstones and rang loud as a bell. “rrLook at me, Mordafey.” Tasting blood, he laughed and pushed himself back up. “I’m stronger. I walk away from Essence.” The lash struck again, carving lines from his face to his chest. The scene melted into clouds and shadows, save for the burning tree, lit like a pillar.

Mordafey tossed the snare aside and kicked Jordam in the belly. Jordam’s knees buckled, and he fell, crushing the tetherwing basket beneath him. When he glanced up, Mordafey stood over him, gloating.

“Be afraid, rrMordafey,” he gasped.

“You should be afraid. You should have obeyed. Mordafey will be chieftain.”

“Not mine.” Leaning against the well, Jordam closed his eyes. “rrMy chieftain…told me to stop you.”

Mordafey stood up straight, sniffed the air. “Your…chieftain?”

The glen was quiet, save for the snapping of the cloudgrasper and the mournful hoots of the tetherwings. The remnant of Deuneroi’s cloak suddenly fluttered like wings on the intensifying heat, rose up on escalating flames, billowing and dancing in the open space, higher and higher. The rustle of its cloth turned Mordafey’s head.

Jordam looked around, but his vision was fading. He could see only the grass before his face and a glint of golden glass that had tumbled out of the crushed tetherwing basket. He crawled forward, closed his hands around it.

Mordafey turned, seized the wooden well-cover, and opened it so that the fog wisped into the air around him. He leaned over and looked inside. “Ssssecrets,” he muttered, tossing the cover into the grass and grasping the rope. Jordam listened for cries of dismay. Bel had clung to the rope, her feet on the bucket, and he had let her down into the well. But now Mordafey was drawing the bucket up easily.

Jordam felt gravity’s pull, felt his thoughts dimming like dying stars. He could feel tremors. Footfalls. “Keeper,” he whispered as O-raya had done so many times. “Keeper.” He opened his eyes and strained to see in the direction of the commotion. Then he pulled his closed fist to his mouth.

Mordafey gathered in all of the rope, sniffed the empty bucket in his hands. He shoved his muzzle into the bucket, and Jordam could hear him lapping up the warm well water. Mordafey held the bucket before him, staring inside as if to puzzle over his reflection. “Strange,” he muttered. He eyed Jordam with suspicion. “This,” he asked, “your…secret?”

Jordam felt a wild surge of hope. “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes.”

Mordafey stared at him as if suddenly unsure how to conclude the confrontation. Then he turned and cast the bucket back into the well. The taste of the water had slowed him with a question.

But then a sharp cry echoed within the well. Bel. The bucket had struck her, and Mordafey leapt up with a snarl of pleasure. “Can’t fool Mordafey,” he roared into the well. He clawed at the wellstones, breaking O-raya’s painted boulders apart and shoving them into the hole. Jordam heard them splashing deep underground. He did not hear Bel’s voice again.

Then Mordafey stalked up close to him. Jordam could see only the shadow and the gleam of his teeth. Mordafey leaned in close, gloating, and grabbed him by the beard. “Jordam’s secret belongs to Mordafey now. Mordafey will make her a slave.”

Slave. Jordam felt Mordafey’s hot breath on the one side of his face that still had feeling.

He bit down on the small glass vial he had tucked into his cheek. The glass splintered, slicing the roof of his mouth. With his last flicker of strength, as an explosion of pungent perfume filled his head, he spewed splinters of glass and slumberseed oil into Mordafey’s sneering face.

Mordafey fell away, clutching at his eyes and nose, trying to spit the oil from his tongue. He staggered about, fell onto his knees. “Goreth!” he howled. “Jorn! Help me!” He crawled out of the clearing, already half-asleep. After the bushes stopped rustling, the tetherwings stopped crying.

Jordam looked up into the rain. “Slave,” he spluttered, hearing the ale boy’s delighted cry in that snowbound shelter. “Slave. Partayn’s a slave.” And then the slumberseed oil drew him down into the dark.

image

Mordafey’s mind fell asleep, but the Essence had a life of its own within him, and to preserve its host, it carried him forward until the scent of blood brought his senses surging to life.

Ahead, just beyond three trees that seemed to have fought, broken each other, and collapsed in death, he could see Jorn, blood streaking his muzzle, dancing about in celebration.

Mordafey clambered over the massive, splintered trunks, slipping in the soft, melting snow. He tried to bring himself to his feet but fell forward, claws splayed into the slush.

“Look!” Jorn shouted, holding up Goreth’s sword. “Look look look what I done, Mordafey. Jordam try t’get away. But I run up behind ’im. Got ’im!”

Mordafey saw the carnage, the bloodied black mane framing a devastated face. He saw the browbone, unbroken. “Jorn,” he groaned. “Jorn. Where is Goreth?”

“Goreth? Hel hel hel!” Jorn scampered about in the ferns. “Must show Goreth!” He stood between two trees, grabbed them, and shook them so that snow crashed down on his head.

“This.” Mordafey crawled into the cold spread of dark blood and lifted the limp, hairy tail from the gore. “This is Goreth.”

Jorn looked back at him, pink tongue wagging. Then his grin closed. He blinked. He whined through his teeth. “But…urg!”

He jerked, hit from behind, and clutched at his chest where a wooden shaft tipped with a sharp, wet metal point protruded. He reached for the trees again to catch himself as his legs gave way beneath him. He fell on all fours. “No. Jorn can’t finish,” he spluttered, crawling toward Mordafey.

The Bel Amican soldier standing behind Jorn notched another arrow to his bowstring. “One!” the man shouted, marching forward.

Mordafey stood up. The Bel Amican’s second arrow grazed his side. He felt the sting, smelled the poison. Already dizzy from the slumberseed oil, he knew he had only moments left to escape. He ran.

“Just…an arrow,” he heard Jorn groan. “Jorn is strong.”

The Essence carried Mordafey in a frantic flight. He did not see the trees. He saw instead a familiar silhouette, a mountainous shape, advancing not far away, watching with crimson eyes and laughing through fiery teeth, raising wings that spread to blot out the sky.

He heard Jorn’s howl and heard it interrupted.

“I’ll have two today!” the soldier was shouting after him. “You cannot escape me! I am Bauris!”

Arrows buzzed past Mordafey’s head, thudding deep into tree trunks. He broke out of the wood, dove into the sea of whitegrass. Blind with fear, he set his mind on his destination, the core of the world he understood.

He did not get far. Someone was waiting for him at the edge of the Cragavar.

image

Cyndere tightened her grip until blood trickled from her fingers down her wrists and arms.

Her father to the sea. Her brother to the beastmen. Deuneroi to Jordam’s own brother. And herself…never to be found, swallowed up by the earth.

The stone walls of the well shaft were rough, and they ripped skin from Cyndere’s hands as she clutched the lowest ring. Her body hung down into a large tunnel, legs trailing in the slow, warm glide of a subterranean river. If her grip failed, she would sink into the flow and be carried away on the current into darkness.

A silhouette blocked the distant spot of light above, a vague shadow through thick, rising vapor. An unfamiliar voice had echoed down the dark shaft. The bucket had suddenly been lifted from the water beside her. She let it go, too worried to risk rising into a predator’s clutches.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please.”

If her mother were listening, she’d rejoice and announce with satisfaction that the heiress had finally acknowledged her moon-spirit and called out for help. The thought made Cyndere cringe. Still, she called out again, unable to resist what seemed an instinctive compulsion. “Take me out of here. Whoever you are. Moon-spirit. Anything. If you can hear me, get me out of here. I know what you want me to do.”

She stared into the darkness, and it might have been delirium, but she sensed the darkness staring back at her.

A beastly voice echoed down the well shaft. Then it was quiet except for the rippling hush. Something faint touched her face as she looked up. Rain.

A shadow appeared, falling fast. The bucket. It struck her shoulder, and she fell. The water welcomed her easily, and the beginning of her cry was erased by the river. She fought. Swallowing that strange, pure water, she felt strangely empowered. Her arms embraced the bucket. She drew herself up, gasping, and clung to the rope.

The river flowed. The fog swirled in the faint ray of light from the well shaft.

“Please,” she said again. “Please. I have so much work to do.”

Heavy wellstones plunged into the water beside her, and she clung to the bucket, bracing for the moment when the stone that anchored the rope would fall. But it did not fall. The river flowed, the well shaft quieted, and she clung for what seemed an hour.

Then the bucket jerked again. The rope began to rise.

“My lady?” came a familiar voice. “Cyndere?”

“Bauris!” she cried, incredulous. With all her might, she pulled herself up the rope to brace her feet against the bucket as it came out of the water, and she ascended into the light.

In the glen the air was full of rain. Bauris, his tears spilling into his grey mustache, took her hand. “My lady.”

She stepped down into the grass and found that her feet were whole and unscratched. The slack of the rope coiled on the ground in a bundle beside a bloodied beastman who lay on his side in the grass, the half crown of feathers still clinging to his mane.

“It spoke,” Bauris said, voice trembling in disbelief. “It said, ‘Cyndere.’ And it pointed to the well. Then it collapsed. I saw it, my lady. It fought for you.”

Cyndere took the bucket and quickly began to pour the water over Jordam’s mane and face. “Jordam, wake up. Wake up.”

The beastman groaned, but he did not open his eyes. The grass gleamed bright green where the water melted the last traces of snow.

“My lady, you should step away—”

“Bauris.” She put down the bucket and embraced him. “Bauris, you know how much I love you. But you have to trust me. This beastman is a friend. He saved me. From so many things. Please, do as I tell you. Protect this place awhile. At least until I can help him escape.”

He thrust out his jaw, biting at his mustache. “We…we thought you were dead. Your sisterly, she’s been pulling out her hair. We haven’t been able to drag her away from your window in the tower.”

“Bauris, he told me there are others. Beastmen. Here in the trees. They’re not like him. They’ll kill us if they can. Find Mordafey. And drive him away. You’ll have a medal, I assure you.”

“Not for medals, my lady,” he said. “For you.” He picked up his bow and fixed her with a stern glare. “But you don’t have long. Soldiers are coming. And they won’t trust you about…about this.” With that he quickly climbed the slope past the coil tree.

Cyndere knelt beside Jordam and wept, wet hair falling across his face, her arms about his neck. When she could find her voice, she spoke softly into his ear. “Jordam, can you hear me?”

His eyelids flickered, but he could not see her. He groaned, and then his pink tongue licked blood from his lips. “Bel,” he said, reaching toward the crumbling remnant of the well. “rrMordafey. Broke…O-raya’s well.”

“Listen, Jordam. You have to get away. Hide in Auralia’s caves. Do you hear me? Wait in the caves, and stay hidden. Wait for summer. Then come back to Tilianpurth. Watch for a white flag over Tilianpurth’s tower.” Cyndere gestured to the monolith beyond the trees. “A white flag, Jordam. When you see it, you will know that I have prepared a place for you in House Bel Amica. Do you understand? Summertime. The white flag. Come to Bel Amica’s front gate. I’ll have guards watching for you. They’ll know what to do. You’ll be a guest in our house. But you must wait for the white flag. Do you understand?”

His hand reached up and held her shoulder, shaking. “Ffflag,” he said. “rrSummer.”

She released him and moved to stand up. But his hand tightened around her shoulder.

“No,” she said. “You can’t come with me. Not yet. You have to be strong on your own. Hold to the colors with all your heart.” She helped him rise. He leaned against the well, breathing in the vapors.

The glen quieted. The sun burnt a hole in the rain cloud. Starflowers began to glow. The cloudgrasper stood tall in its new green skin. The heiress picked up the broken basket, then reluctantly lifted Jordam’s half crown of feathers, for hers had been lost in the well. She whistled for the birds. Like small puffs of smoke, they returned to their center, chirping uneasily and keeping wary eyes on Jordam.

“rrBel,” he said in a sad, faraway sigh. “You’re going away.” He looked up toward the coil tree. “There,” he said. “I watched you. Was that me?”

“Trust me, Jordam. I’ll summon you. I’ll need your help. Be ready.” She turned away, stepping forward as if into a harsh wind. “Distance,” she said to herself, “is an illusion.”

Finding no way into the shambles of their basket, the tetherwings hovered about the feathery crown in Cyndere’s hair and circled her, bound by invisible strings.

Cyndere’SMidnight

 

32

THE BREAKING
OF THE BROTHERS

Setting the wooden cover over the well, Jordam turned to see Mordafey snatch one of the tetherwings out of the air, crush it, and cast its crumpled form to the side of the glen.

“Now,” said Mordafey, “Jordam learns not to keep secrets.”

Jordam met Mordafey’s burning gaze. “Older Brother,” he said, surprised at how much he sounded like Goreth.

“No brother at all.” Mordafey raised a broken Bel Amican trap by the pin, wires hanging down like a scourge. “You talk in your sleep. Your secrets aren’t so secret. And look, you have no weapon to defend yourself.”

“Jordam has something else.” Jordam seized hold of the well. “rrBetter than Essence. Tried to tell you. You wouldn’t listen.”

Mordafey slung the trap wires about in the air and advanced. Jordam thought of tearing loose a wellstone, but here in this place he felt a hesitation. It was not just Mordafey charging toward him. It was the Essence that controlled him. In the midst of the fear, he felt a pang of sadness.

“I know your plan,” said Jordam. “You don’t care about brothers. You’ll finish all of us when you take Skell Wra’s throne. Until then you need us…because you’re weak. Weak without help. Weak without Essence.”

Mordafey struck. The wires striped Jordam’s side. His head hit the wellstones and rang loud as a bell. “rrLook at me, Mordafey.” Tasting blood, he laughed and pushed himself back up. “I’m stronger. I walk away from Essence.” The lash struck again, carving lines from his face to his chest. The scene melted into clouds and shadows, save for the burning tree, lit like a pillar.

Mordafey tossed the snare aside and kicked Jordam in the belly. Jordam’s knees buckled, and he fell, crushing the tetherwing basket beneath him. When he glanced up, Mordafey stood over him, gloating.

“Be afraid, rrMordafey,” he gasped.

“You should be afraid. You should have obeyed. Mordafey will be chieftain.”

“Not mine.” Leaning against the well, Jordam closed his eyes. “rrMy chieftain…told me to stop you.”

Mordafey stood up straight, sniffed the air. “Your…chieftain?”

The glen was quiet, save for the snapping of the cloudgrasper and the mournful hoots of the tetherwings. The remnant of Deuneroi’s cloak suddenly fluttered like wings on the intensifying heat, rose up on escalating flames, billowing and dancing in the open space, higher and higher. The rustle of its cloth turned Mordafey’s head.

Jordam looked around, but his vision was fading. He could see only the grass before his face and a glint of golden glass that had tumbled out of the crushed tetherwing basket. He crawled forward, closed his hands around it.

Mordafey turned, seized the wooden well-cover, and opened it so that the fog wisped into the air around him. He leaned over and looked inside. “Ssssecrets,” he muttered, tossing the cover into the grass and grasping the rope. Jordam listened for cries of dismay. Bel had clung to the rope, her feet on the bucket, and he had let her down into the well. But now Mordafey was drawing the bucket up easily.

Jordam felt gravity’s pull, felt his thoughts dimming like dying stars. He could feel tremors. Footfalls. “Keeper,” he whispered as O-raya had done so many times. “Keeper.” He opened his eyes and strained to see in the direction of the commotion. Then he pulled his closed fist to his mouth.

Mordafey gathered in all of the rope, sniffed the empty bucket in his hands. He shoved his muzzle into the bucket, and Jordam could hear him lapping up the warm well water. Mordafey held the bucket before him, staring inside as if to puzzle over his reflection. “Strange,” he muttered. He eyed Jordam with suspicion. “This,” he asked, “your…secret?”

Jordam felt a wild surge of hope. “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes.”

Mordafey stared at him as if suddenly unsure how to conclude the confrontation. Then he turned and cast the bucket back into the well. The taste of the water had slowed him with a question.

But then a sharp cry echoed within the well. Bel. The bucket had struck her, and Mordafey leapt up with a snarl of pleasure. “Can’t fool Mordafey,” he roared into the well. He clawed at the wellstones, breaking O-raya’s painted boulders apart and shoving them into the hole. Jordam heard them splashing deep underground. He did not hear Bel’s voice again.

Then Mordafey stalked up close to him. Jordam could see only the shadow and the gleam of his teeth. Mordafey leaned in close, gloating, and grabbed him by the beard. “Jordam’s secret belongs to Mordafey now. Mordafey will make her a slave.”

Slave. Jordam felt Mordafey’s hot breath on the one side of his face that still had feeling.

He bit down on the small glass vial he had tucked into his cheek. The glass splintered, slicing the roof of his mouth. With his last flicker of strength, as an explosion of pungent perfume filled his head, he spewed splinters of glass and slumberseed oil into Mordafey’s sneering face.

Mordafey fell away, clutching at his eyes and nose, trying to spit the oil from his tongue. He staggered about, fell onto his knees. “Goreth!” he howled. “Jorn! Help me!” He crawled out of the clearing, already half-asleep. After the bushes stopped rustling, the tetherwings stopped crying.

Jordam looked up into the rain. “Slave,” he spluttered, hearing the ale boy’s delighted cry in that snowbound shelter. “Slave. Partayn’s a slave.” And then the slumberseed oil drew him down into the dark.

image

Mordafey’s mind fell asleep, but the Essence had a life of its own within him, and to preserve its host, it carried him forward until the scent of blood brought his senses surging to life.

Ahead, just beyond three trees that seemed to have fought, broken each other, and collapsed in death, he could see Jorn, blood streaking his muzzle, dancing about in celebration.

Mordafey clambered over the massive, splintered trunks, slipping in the soft, melting snow. He tried to bring himself to his feet but fell forward, claws splayed into the slush.

“Look!” Jorn shouted, holding up Goreth’s sword. “Look look look what I done, Mordafey. Jordam try t’get away. But I run up behind ’im. Got ’im!”

Mordafey saw the carnage, the bloodied black mane framing a devastated face. He saw the browbone, unbroken. “Jorn,” he groaned. “Jorn. Where is Goreth?”

“Goreth? Hel hel hel!” Jorn scampered about in the ferns. “Must show Goreth!” He stood between two trees, grabbed them, and shook them so that snow crashed down on his head.

“This.” Mordafey crawled into the cold spread of dark blood and lifted the limp, hairy tail from the gore. “This is Goreth.”

Jorn looked back at him, pink tongue wagging. Then his grin closed. He blinked. He whined through his teeth. “But…urg!”

He jerked, hit from behind, and clutched at his chest where a wooden shaft tipped with a sharp, wet metal point protruded. He reached for the trees again to catch himself as his legs gave way beneath him. He fell on all fours. “No. Jorn can’t finish,” he spluttered, crawling toward Mordafey.

The Bel Amican soldier standing behind Jorn notched another arrow to his bowstring. “One!” the man shouted, marching forward.

Mordafey stood up. The Bel Amican’s second arrow grazed his side. He felt the sting, smelled the poison. Already dizzy from the slumberseed oil, he knew he had only moments left to escape. He ran.

“Just…an arrow,” he heard Jorn groan. “Jorn is strong.”

The Essence carried Mordafey in a frantic flight. He did not see the trees. He saw instead a familiar silhouette, a mountainous shape, advancing not far away, watching with crimson eyes and laughing through fiery teeth, raising wings that spread to blot out the sky.

He heard Jorn’s howl and heard it interrupted.

“I’ll have two today!” the soldier was shouting after him. “You cannot escape me! I am Bauris!”

Arrows buzzed past Mordafey’s head, thudding deep into tree trunks. He broke out of the wood, dove into the sea of whitegrass. Blind with fear, he set his mind on his destination, the core of the world he understood.

He did not get far. Someone was waiting for him at the edge of the Cragavar.

image

Cyndere tightened her grip until blood trickled from her fingers down her wrists and arms.

Her father to the sea. Her brother to the beastmen. Deuneroi to Jordam’s own brother. And herself…never to be found, swallowed up by the earth.

The stone walls of the well shaft were rough, and they ripped skin from Cyndere’s hands as she clutched the lowest ring. Her body hung down into a large tunnel, legs trailing in the slow, warm glide of a subterranean river. If her grip failed, she would sink into the flow and be carried away on the current into darkness.

A silhouette blocked the distant spot of light above, a vague shadow through thick, rising vapor. An unfamiliar voice had echoed down the dark shaft. The bucket had suddenly been lifted from the water beside her. She let it go, too worried to risk rising into a predator’s clutches.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please.”

If her mother were listening, she’d rejoice and announce with satisfaction that the heiress had finally acknowledged her moon-spirit and called out for help. The thought made Cyndere cringe. Still, she called out again, unable to resist what seemed an instinctive compulsion. “Take me out of here. Whoever you are. Moon-spirit. Anything. If you can hear me, get me out of here. I know what you want me to do.”

She stared into the darkness, and it might have been delirium, but she sensed the darkness staring back at her.

A beastly voice echoed down the well shaft. Then it was quiet except for the rippling hush. Something faint touched her face as she looked up. Rain.

A shadow appeared, falling fast. The bucket. It struck her shoulder, and she fell. The water welcomed her easily, and the beginning of her cry was erased by the river. She fought. Swallowing that strange, pure water, she felt strangely empowered. Her arms embraced the bucket. She drew herself up, gasping, and clung to the rope.

The river flowed. The fog swirled in the faint ray of light from the well shaft.

“Please,” she said again. “Please. I have so much work to do.”

Heavy wellstones plunged into the water beside her, and she clung to the bucket, bracing for the moment when the stone that anchored the rope would fall. But it did not fall. The river flowed, the well shaft quieted, and she clung for what seemed an hour.

Then the bucket jerked again. The rope began to rise.

“My lady?” came a familiar voice. “Cyndere?”

“Bauris!” she cried, incredulous. With all her might, she pulled herself up the rope to brace her feet against the bucket as it came out of the water, and she ascended into the light.

In the glen the air was full of rain. Bauris, his tears spilling into his grey mustache, took her hand. “My lady.”

She stepped down into the grass and found that her feet were whole and unscratched. The slack of the rope coiled on the ground in a bundle beside a bloodied beastman who lay on his side in the grass, the half crown of feathers still clinging to his mane.

“It spoke,” Bauris said, voice trembling in disbelief. “It said, ‘Cyndere.’ And it pointed to the well. Then it collapsed. I saw it, my lady. It fought for you.”

Cyndere took the bucket and quickly began to pour the water over Jordam’s mane and face. “Jordam, wake up. Wake up.”

The beastman groaned, but he did not open his eyes. The grass gleamed bright green where the water melted the last traces of snow.

“My lady, you should step away—”

“Bauris.” She put down the bucket and embraced him. “Bauris, you know how much I love you. But you have to trust me. This beastman is a friend. He saved me. From so many things. Please, do as I tell you. Protect this place awhile. At least until I can help him escape.”

He thrust out his jaw, biting at his mustache. “We…we thought you were dead. Your sisterly, she’s been pulling out her hair. We haven’t been able to drag her away from your window in the tower.”

“Bauris, he told me there are others. Beastmen. Here in the trees. They’re not like him. They’ll kill us if they can. Find Mordafey. And drive him away. You’ll have a medal, I assure you.”

“Not for medals, my lady,” he said. “For you.” He picked up his bow and fixed her with a stern glare. “But you don’t have long. Soldiers are coming. And they won’t trust you about…about this.” With that he quickly climbed the slope past the coil tree.

Cyndere knelt beside Jordam and wept, wet hair falling across his face, her arms about his neck. When she could find her voice, she spoke softly into his ear. “Jordam, can you hear me?”

His eyelids flickered, but he could not see her. He groaned, and then his pink tongue licked blood from his lips. “Bel,” he said, reaching toward the crumbling remnant of the well. “rrMordafey. Broke…O-raya’s well.”

“Listen, Jordam. You have to get away. Hide in Auralia’s caves. Do you hear me? Wait in the caves, and stay hidden. Wait for summer. Then come back to Tilianpurth. Watch for a white flag over Tilianpurth’s tower.” Cyndere gestured to the monolith beyond the trees. “A white flag, Jordam. When you see it, you will know that I have prepared a place for you in House Bel Amica. Do you understand? Summertime. The white flag. Come to Bel Amica’s front gate. I’ll have guards watching for you. They’ll know what to do. You’ll be a guest in our house. But you must wait for the white flag. Do you understand?”

His hand reached up and held her shoulder, shaking. “Ffflag,” he said. “rrSummer.”

She released him and moved to stand up. But his hand tightened around her shoulder.

“No,” she said. “You can’t come with me. Not yet. You have to be strong on your own. Hold to the colors with all your heart.” She helped him rise. He leaned against the well, breathing in the vapors.

The glen quieted. The sun burnt a hole in the rain cloud. Starflowers began to glow. The cloudgrasper stood tall in its new green skin. The heiress picked up the broken basket, then reluctantly lifted Jordam’s half crown of feathers, for hers had been lost in the well. She whistled for the birds. Like small puffs of smoke, they returned to their center, chirping uneasily and keeping wary eyes on Jordam.

“rrBel,” he said in a sad, faraway sigh. “You’re going away.” He looked up toward the coil tree. “There,” he said. “I watched you. Was that me?”

“Trust me, Jordam. I’ll summon you. I’ll need your help. Be ready.” She turned away, stepping forward as if into a harsh wind. “Distance,” she said to herself, “is an illusion.”

Finding no way into the shambles of their basket, the tetherwings hovered about the feathery crown in Cyndere’s hair and circled her, bound by invisible strings.