Chapter 13

To another, it might have been a tragic moment. To me, it held a quiet beauty. I struggled to see more, desperate to remember the gentle compassion and the way it had moved me, and again the ice trembled, this time allowing someone else's magic to slip through.

Hai.

A thought returned to my drifting mind, that single word:

Hai.

Vaguely, I remembered... that was me...

Hai!

I thrashed as if in a drugged sleep, and again images pressed upon my mind. Salem, poison, pain  -  no, I didn't want that.

Sive, and a friendly stranger holding her.

Gentleness.

Someone was calling to me, and I could not help looking as outside my black palace the beasts groggily pulled themselves to the surface, hissing and snarling at an invader who sullied the darkness.

Echoes of what had been.

A panther leapt, drawing blood from the invader foolish enough to try to walk here. The crimson stain made the ice resonate, and I squeezed my eyes shut and crumpled into a ball, trying to block out the pain.

I had been here before.

"I won't leave you here!" the man shouted, but his voice was fading. Serpents coiled around him, choking away the breath that with every exhalation made the ice near him steam.

I moved to the gates of my tower but was blocked by jagged ice before I could reach the interloper. He lifted his eyes to me, and they were as blue as opals. Nicias's tears fell and the tower fractured allowing me another step.

"Daughter of shm'Ahnmik'la'Darien'jaes'oisna'ona'saniet' mana'heah'shm'Ecl and Anjay Cobriana," he said. "Beautiful dancer Hai." I felt the words wrap around me as tightly as chains, and I moved forward once again.

The serpents shuddered and moved away from Nicias, their bodies contorting as if burned by his blood, red on their black scales. The panther continued to snarl, the sound a silent vibration through the ice. Finally I knelt beside Nicias, and he lifted a hand to touch my cheek.

"You cannot stay here," he told me. "I will not let you." Cold.

I had never felt cold from him before, but the ice seemed to be seeping into Nicias as his blood flowed out. Too late, probably. At this point, it would be far easier to consign him to the void and follow him down.

Rest with me, someone whispered. My own voice, stolen by the darkness.

"Rest," Nicias echoed. He tried to shake his head and trembled. Sive and her silent savior weren't the only ones comforting each other. I tried to draw on the compassion I could feel beneath the fury in Wyvern's Court, but blood was the only color in this land, the only heat, and it was feeding the creatures. They paced closer. What have I done?

I had chosen this exile from reality; I had sought it, to escape the pain of my failures. I was meant to be here, but he was not. Nicias was light, and warmth, not this blackness. I held him against me as the monsters paced around us, and I felt the world quiver. It would be easier to let him fall.

The knowledge tempted me too much.

"Nicias," I whispered. I kissed his forehead, trying to gather his warmth when everything around us was trying to take it away. "Nicias, my light. Please." I shrieked into the darkness:

"You cannot have him!"

My voice faded into nothingness without so much as an echo.

The panther snarled, and I wanted desperately to scramble back into the palace to hide, but I couldn't give up on Nicias. If I fell now, Nicias would fall with me. I knew he would rather be dead than consigned to this void world.

"Please, Nicias," I prayed. "You're the only one who knows the way out of here. Please

I felt a sliver of awareness from him and tried to pull on it, dragging us both gruelingly across the sharp ice. Somehow, painfully, I found my way back to the she. And then we were on a familiar bed  -  Nicias's, in his home in Wyvern's Court. My hands were gripping his so tightly I did not wonder why no one had separated us. His skin writhed with my tarnished magic. Strips of power had lashed his arms, face, chest and back. His lungs barely moved and his heart barely beat, but I could fix that. I gasped, my body going into spasms and my back arching in pain, as I lured the first loop of cutting magic away from him the only way I knew how. My magic preferred its owner. It cut into my body instead of his.

Another loop, and this time I cried out, feeling the skin on my back split. Blood seeped into my clothing. Another line, another slice, another shriek. How many times would I accidentally kill this peregrine?

Nicias stirred, drawing a breath as I removed the bands around his throat. His eyes opened. They held a dazed, lost look that nevertheless was one of the sweetest sights I had ever seen.

Exhausted, I wrapped my arms around Nicias's neck and laid my cheek against his shoulder, breathing deeply and trying to memorize his scent. My body was shaking from the pain it had absorbed and the effort of pulling us both back into this world, but the ache faded as Nicias took over the healing process.

"I couldn't leave you there," I whispered. "Why did you... why did you come for me?"

"I couldn't leave you there," he said.

Hungrily, I lifted my face to his, tasting his lips. Instead of the ashes of nothingness I had found with others, Nicias had a spark that drew me here and now. After a moment of surprise, he returned my kiss, his lips even softer than the feathers I felt at the nape of his neck.

I combed his hair back from his face with my fingers, savoring the silky texture. He started to pull away, and I clung to him desperately.

"Please," I said. "Nicias, you drew me back from the Ecl and gave me the world. If you asked me to dance, I feel like I could fly. How could you ever doubt what you mean to me?" I whispered, addressing his fears before he could speak them. There were tears in my eyes, which had been dry for many years. "Please," I whispered. "Believe me. I love you."

He caressed my cheek; I closed my eyes, leaning toward his hand. "I believe you," he said. "Then stay."

When I opened my eyes, he was shaking his head. "Hai, I left Salem unconscious, possibly dying, to go after you. I can't stay longer, not without knowing how he is." Salem.

After risking so much, and experiencing a kind of hell that only a falcon could ever truly know, how could I possibly have forgotten who we had done it for?

I needed to know what would happen next.

I smiled wryly, realizing that Cjarsa had been wrong about one thing. Apparently a mongrel could understand things such as loyalty and duty... at least well enough to let go of this beautiful peregrine and say, "You're right." Nicias kissed my forehead, lingering a moment longer before we both pulled back, and rose to face the world that Fate had left to us.

I would never be able to replace Nicias's love for his wyvern Oliza or supplant his responsibility to his Diente, Salem. But for now it was enough, for me, to see the reluctance in his movements as we stepped out his front door and into the bustle of the marketplace.

"I think I heard the doctor say she was taking Salem back to his room in the Rookery," Nicias said, leading the way to Wyvern's Court's royal keep.

When we reached the Rookery and ascended the stairs to the top floor, we found guards in front of Salem's door.

They nodded to Nicias in respectful greeting and said to us, "Sive Shardae is inside." Nicias had just lifted his hand to knock when the door opened, revealing the young hawk, who did not manage to keep the sorrow and fatigue from her face.

"Nicias, Hai," she said. Her voice was still musical and calm, but exhaustion had given it a rough edge, and she didn't quite focus on us when she spoke. "We found you with Salem  -  " She drew a breath, trying to compose herself, and then said, "It is good to see you well."

"Thank you," Nicias answered her. "Has he woken yet?" Sive shook her head. "Not yet, and the doctors do not know if he will. They say that by all rights he should be dead. The poison..." Her voice dropped, but resolutely she continued, "Prentice used the strongest poison he could get his hands on." We knew it all too well. Neither of us had the courage to ask the next reasonable question, but Sive must have known what we were wondering.

"Prentice has officially been exiled from my people," she said, "and given over to the serpiente to face judgment. If

Salem survives, he will be the one to judge his attacker. If he dies, Prentice will be executed, in accordance with nest law."

She looked back at the door she had just come through, as if willing the cobra on the other side to wake.

"Oliza has returned," Sive added. "She is Salem's heir, and if he dies, she will need to take the serpiente throne."

Sive's gaze drifted out the window. On the ground below, I saw the image of a now familiar figure.

Keyi darted among merchants, running into this one and that one as she evaded her mother, Oliza.

The child was laughing as Oliza shook her head, smiling fondly. Vere Obsidian sneaked through the crowd and took his daughter by surprise, lifting her around the waist.

I reached for Nicias's hand, needing contact, comfort, anything, because in that moment I wasn't numb. I could feel despair, and hopelessness, and shame. I had seen Keyi time and again. I had seen Salem's death. The visions had unsettled me, and I had stirred myself to speak to the Empress and the falcons, but what had I done to prevent this from happening?

Until the moment when the cobra had been dying in my arms, I had done little more than hope for the best... and now we would all suffer the consequences of my naivete and weakness.

I, who could see quite clearly all our futures, had no excuse for this failure. I should have done something differently. Was it too late, or could I still?

Sive leaned against the wall, whispering, "Salem should be king. Oliza should be allowed to be with the woman she loves. Prentice should  -  " She broke off. "Once Salem named his mate, he secured the title for his generation, and the succession never goes backward while there is a legitimate heir. Besides, an infertile couple can't rule the serpiente, and Irene hasn't had any children in the last twenty years." Sive was rambling. Everyone in the room knew it, but she didn't seem able to help her own words.

Finally her eyes focused, on us. "Please. Is there anything you can do for him? Please."

"We'll try," Nicias promised her.

She reached out and caught my hand. "Hai, I know you and I have never been close. Your prophecies  -  the idea that our destiny might not be of our own design, might be completely out of our hands, terrifies me. But if you can tell me... please, will he wake?

Do you know? Do you know who started those horrible rumors, or if... Is this my fault?"

Nicias gently took her hand off mine. "None of this was your fault," he said.

"I should go," she said to us. "I have obligations. I have to..."

"It's all right." I was not good at giving comfort, but I could try. "You do what you must. I swear to you, we will do everything we can for Salem."

"Th-thank you. I'm sorry, I  -  I should go," she whispered again, as if that one decision was still too difficult.

"Someone should go with her," Nicias said to one of the other guards as Sive started to walk away alone.

I shook my head. "She'll be fine."

"You can't be sure of that," the guard said. He looked from Nicias to me. Nicias turned to me. "Hai, you're certain?"

"Yes, I am." Sive would be queen; she always reigned in the futures I envisioned, except when Oliza's child killed us all. "For now she needs time to be alone. She can't grieve if someone else is there."

But she wouldn't be alone. I could see her already snuggling close to the serpent who had first comforted her. He held her quietly, because someone needed to.

"Then we'll let her be alone."

"Yes, sir," the guard replied before we moved forward to check on Salem. We entered the sickroom with Sive's despair heavy in our hearts, and it only settled deeper when I saw the cobra.

Salem was pale and still. His heartbeat was slow but even, and his breath rose and fell, yet I sensed no life from him. Normally my magic reacted to Anhamirak's fiery power in Kiesha's kin, but in this case I felt nothing.

Salem's body had survived, but that was all.

He would not wake.

He would live until his body starved, but he would never again open his garnet eyes. I knew that as surely as I knew Ecl's damning darkness. And I knew that nothing good would become of this world without him.

Behind me, I heard Keyi cry.

Chapter 14

"No!" the child shouted.

Oliza frowned. "Keyi, you need to  -  "

"Don't wanna!" The child pouted and launched into a tantrum. "No, no, no!"

"Keyi, do I need to  -  Oliza cried out, recoiling from her daughter as golden red bands of magic whipped across her arms, drawing blood. Her eyes widened with sudden terror.

"Calm down, Keyi, please," she said.

Keyi continued to wail and stomp her feet, sending a stream of scalding magic at Oliza. Oliza screamed and fell, and only then did Keyi's tears stop.

"Mommy?"

Keyi hurried to Oliza's side, her eyes wide and afraid. "Mommy?" she wailed.

"Mommy?" Her hands touched the blood as she shook Oliza begging her to wake.

"Mommy, come back! Mommy? Mommy, get up, please. I won't cry anymore. Mommy!"

"I need to talk to Oliza," Nicias was saying. "I  -  she  -  oh, gods."

"Nicias, you can't!" I cried, spinning toward him. "She can't rule. You know that." He shook his head. "It isn't my decision."