And fury for her near-death, thanks to another falcon.

"Why Kel?"

"Does that woman seem like someone who maliciously planned to attack her king and pregnant queen?" I asked. My voice was calm, frosty calm  -  shocked calm. Too much was becoming clear, and all of it was combining to form a shell of ice on my mind. "I suspect Syfka was her mysterious avian coconspirator, and Kel is the only person I know in these lands who might be able to confirm that."

"Zane, she admitted it herself; she held the bow," Danica argued. "Syfka wasn't even there."

Was I overestimating the falcon's ability? I didn't know how far her magic could stretch. If Erica could shape flesh and blood to draw a deadly poison from me and save my queen's and child's lives, not to mention knock out trained soldiers without lifting a finger, how much more might a royal falcon be capable of? Ahnmik had once been worshipped by those seeking power. Could a falcon of Syfka's strength control others to the point of making them think that something they would never have considered seemed reasonable?

Did that make any less sense than what I had just seen? Perhaps anyone facing a traitor's death might weep, but terror had not been on that woman's face. She had worn the mask of guilt, grief and gratitude when she saw her Tuuli Thea alive and well. She had made no excuses, only tried to explain something she hardly seemed to understand. If she was lying, the ruse was pointless; as Danica had said, she had admitted her guilt. I shook my head. "At this point, I'm not willing to say whether Syfka could or couldn't have somehow controlled the six who attacked us... but even if she didn't give them the idea, I'm willing to bet she messed with their minds a little. The whole group needed indifference to their own lives and callousness toward our child's life to do what they did, and the woman we just spoke to had none of that."

Syfka, I suspected, was more than capable of planning this crime. She had made clear her thoughts about our efforts toward peace, and I believed what Valene had said: Syfka would spare no concern for an avian-serpiente child.

Shortly the guard I had sent returned with Kel. The falcon still looked pale and exhausted, but she had recovered enough of her poise that she did not seem like death walking. Andreios accompanied her. His earlier absence was explained by a bandage on his shoulder; the skin surrounding it had the dark blush caused by poison. He was lucky it hadn't been stronger.

"You want to know about Syfka's relation to our attackers," Kel predicted before Danica or I had a chance to speak. She shrugged and added, "I assume? After all, I'm the only falcon expert you have on hand, and there was falcon magic all over that group." She frowned a little. "I should have reported that earlier. I'm sorry." I shook my head, dismissing the apology. "You had other things on your mind. What can you tell us?"

"I don't know the exact Drawing  -  spell," she clarified. "The royals work their magic differently than the lower ranks. But that alone means it had to be Syfka's  -  unless someone else in the royal house has decided to visit, which I doubt. The last time any of the other three left was  -  " She broke off, averting her eyes before she said softly,

"Back when Alasdair and Kiesha still lived."

Before the avian-serpiente war, then, before a time remembered by any living creature aside from the royal falcons.

"Rationally," Danica pressed, "could she have influenced six of our people so they would be willing to attack us?"

"It would be nearly impossible to influence someone who never had the thought. You needn't worry about Andreios turning against you, for example, no matter what Syfka tried. But if they had considered the act, it wouldn't be too difficult to remove whatever moral or practical inhibitions were stopping them."

"So she could make them bolder, but only if they might have done it anyway?" I asked. Kel shook her head. "If I took away your love for your mate, your respect for life, your fear for your own life, and your desire for peace, maybe you would kill Nacola Shardae. Not because you would ever rationally do it, but because you would have no reason not to when she next baited you."

I frowned. "So you're saying these six... were essentially innocent?" said Danica. Kel nodded. "By falcon law they would be guilty  -  guilty of succumbing to another's magic if nothing else, and beyond that, guilty of disapproving of the actions of their royal house. But by your laws, they're innocent."

"And five of them are dead now," Danica sighed.

Every one of us was thinking the same thing, but Kel was the first with the courage to say, "We need to give Syfka what she is looking for, and send her away from these lands. If I had imagined for a moment that she would go this far to find me, I would have  -  "

Rei interrupted. "You can't be the one she's looking for." Kel turned toward him, eyes wide. "Is there someone else you know of..." She trailed off, shaking her head. "Selfish, idiot hopes."

"You can't be important enough to  -  "

"Yes, I am," Kel answered bitterly. She took a deep breath and said to me, "You should know. The Empress Cjarsa and her heir, Araceli, command a group known as the Mercy. Before I fled, I was part of that group  -  specifically, one of Empress Cjarsa's four personal guards. The only people who outranked us were the four members of the royal house. I, along with my working partner and one of Araceli's guards, discovered something the Empress wanted to be kept secret. Araceli wanted me executed just for knowing, but Cjarsa protected me."

She looked away and took a deep breath before she continued her story.

"The Mercy works in pairs. My working partner was like a very close, dear sister. We had known each other since we were seven. She decided that the rest of the Empress's people should know..." She shook her head. "The Empress called it treason. When one of the Mercy falters, her partner delivers the punishment. I refused to bring her in to the Empress. I fled so I would not have to torture to death the woman I cherished most in the world."

Kel continued, "In the Empress's eyes, I am the worst kind of traitor. She had given me her trust and her protection, and I betrayed her to protect someone who had turned against her."

"You can't be the one she's looking for, believe me," Rei implored. "You said so yourself, the Mercy deals with the Mercy's faults. The Empress would not have sent Syfka for you. Turning yourself in would be useless."

As I watched the argument progress, rising in emotion on each side, I could not help feeling Rei's desperation.

Kel could have run when Syfka first appeared. She could have left Danica to die, and stayed hidden. Torture and death  -  that was what she once had fled. That was what she was willing to turn herself over to now  -  and I didn't know of any way to help her. I could not protect her at the expense of the safety of my people, my queen and my child. Kel explained, "My partner  -  the one who would have been sent to bring me home  -  is only a step away from death, bound by her own magic in a madness that Cjarsa's wrath forced her into. Even if she was not, do you think they would send any of the Mercy for me, knowing that I left when I refused to turn in another member?" Rei took a deep breath, trying to regain his composure, and then said very clearly, "If Syfka tries to take you, I will fight her."

Danica began to raise her voice in protest, but Kel was faster. "She'll kill you!" the falcon nearly shouted. "And then she will take me anyway."

"I am your commander," Rei pointed out. "I'm sworn to defend you."

"Not from my own people," Kel argued. "Not when you can't win. You are sworn to defend first your Tuuli Thea and her alistair  -  and you cannot do that if you are dead." The argument was interrupted as Gerard, one of the Royal Flight who normally stayed in the Keep as part of Na-cola's personal guard, landed among us. "Sir, Syfka is here. She is demanding her falcon."

Kel took a breath and looked at Rei with a cool, sad gaze. "Don't fight for me." Then she knelt, taking Danica's hand. "You are my queen, and I have been honored to serve you. If that makes me a traitor in the Empress's eyes... I will accept that charge and trust myself to her mercy."

Chapter 12

LEAVING DANICA SAFELY BEHIND, I returned to the courtyard to greet our villainous falcon with Kel, Rei and the rest of the Royal Flight to back me. Rei had agreed not to fight, but he had insisted that if they needed to turn one of their own over to the falcons, they would all be there to witness.

The instant Kel had reached the courtyard, she had closed her eyes and her figure had rippled. Erica had faded away, replaced by a woman a few years older, with dusky blond hair, deep blue-violet eyes and the Demi wings of a peregrine falcon. Syfka landed and returned to her half form with her usual hauteur, rustling her falcon wings as if she was shaking off some miasma from the Keep. The skin between her brows tensed as she scanned the guards and noticed Kel behind me. She seemed to deliberate for a moment and then said, "With such a welcome, you would think I came to take a royal hawk away, not a traitor."

"She is no traitor to us," Rei answered, voice softly dangerous. Kel put a hand on his arm, urging him to hold his peace, as she stepped forward. "Lady falcon, I would be careful who you call a traitor. The Empress is a just woman. I doubt she would be pleased to know the lengths to which you went to find me." Syfka tossed her head. "I doubt she will care," she replied. "And as you are no longer among her favored, you will have neither the chance to tell her about it nor the power to level an accusation."

"Are you sure?" Kel asked. "Lady aplomado, you of all people know how precious children are to the royal house. My crimes may seem trivial, if the white lady learns you deliberately  -  "

"Enough," Syfka snapped. "The child you accuse me of harming is even more of a mongrel than the one your partner bore, and it will suffer the same fate." I saw Syfka raise her arms in an ineffective defense as Kel lashed out not with steel but with magic. Syfka stumbled, dropping to one knee as indigo bands appeared across her arms and around her throat.

Kel snarled, "Do you think I will stand here and allow you to malign that child? Did you think I would allow you to threaten my king and queen's daughter?" Syfka had been caught off guard, but now she peeled Kel's magic from her skin. Kel winced as each band shattered, but she let no sound of pain escape from her lips.

"You dare attack  -  "

"I am already accused of treason," Kel whispered, her breath scarce after whatever Syfka had done to remove the magic. "The sentence is death, and not an easy one. I am prepared for that. I will answer to my Empress when I return to the island, but until then I will not grovel to you at the expense of my Tuuli Thea and her alistair." The royal falcon's expression shifted from enraged to amused. "You are too willing to be a martyr, Kel."

"I am, as always, what my Empress made of me."

She said the words as if by rote.

When Syfka answered, her voice was cutting. "Then know this: Cjarsa never cared that you left her city. She has not spoken of you since your foolish rebellion. She has forgotten you already."

Kel recoiled, looking more stricken than she had when she had agreed to turn herself over.

Syfka continued, "Did you think a stolen form was capable of hiding you from my eyes? I recognized you the moment I saw you  -  I simply did not care. You are not the falcon I was sent to retrieve. The Empress has more important matters to deal with. If you are what Cjarsa made of you, then you are nothing anymore.

"Stay here if you like. Stay in this backward land, never again to set eyes upon the white city, never again to hear the magic sing. Stay with your rat snakes and sparrows, always remembering you are not one of them, can never truly be one of them. Stay with your Diente and Tuuli Thea until fate catches up to them and the bloodshed begins again. Live among strangers and die alone."

She spat the words like a curse, and Kel reacted to them as such, crumpling to the ground as Syfka finished her speech. "Should you return to the city, I will see that you are turned over to my Empress's Mercy and treated as any outsider would be. And of course you know that any child you bear with these savages would be put to death for its mixed blood." Kel nodded.

Finally, Syfka looked at me coldly. "I leave this criminal with you, but be assured, someone will come for the one I have sought. The white lady will not give up just because I have lost my patience for this search."

The falcon's wings nearly struck me in the face as she departed. She shrieked as she took to the skies, and I heard Kel gasp. When I looked back at the exiled woman, I saw new marks across her shoulders, as if something had clawed through her shirt to draw blood from her skin.

Kel's head was down, her face buried in her hands, and her shoulders trembled as if she was weeping. The Royal Flight retreated, giving her privacy. Rei looked shocked, as if he did not know whether to leave her alone or kneel beside her. Before either of us had made the decision, the sound changed, and I realized that Kel was not crying. She was laughing, a brittle, hysterical kind of laugh of one who has had a narrow escape.

"Kel..." Rei knelt beside her, and finally she lifted her head.

"I should be dead  -  for what I did, for what I said to her." Her voice held shocked wonder. "I should have been dragged back to Ahnmik. Never... Why would she leave me here?"

Rei answered, "Because she is a falcon, and cannot imagine anyone being happy, exiled from the city."