Текст книги "Hastur Lord"

Автор книги: Marion Zimmer Bradley

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Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

28

Taken Ariel?

Javanne took one deep breath after another, but managed to keep from bursting into renewed tears. Over her head, Regis met his wife’s eyes. Linnea’s bone-deep fear shivered through him. His first coherent thought was that Valdir Ridenow was up to his old schemes, and what could he want with Gabriel and Javanne—

No, Valdir tried to warn me.

“What do you mean, taken?” Linnea prompted Javanne.

“I left her alone—with her governess—in our quarters. Only for an hour, while I tended to—there’s so much to do, and Bettany’s useless! When I got back, Ariel was gone—the governess half out of her mind—a note—”

Javanne fumbled in a pocket and drew out a paper. Hand trembling, she held it out to Regis.

“Dear sister,”he read the scholarly script aloud for Linnea’s sake.

“Be at ease concerning the welfare of my niece. She is well, and her spiritual development is now properly—”with each phrase, his heart sank lower “– in the care of Lady Luminosa. Every means will be taken to ensure her continued safety, but it would be imprudent to interrupt her religious education.

“Rinaldo Felix-Valentine, Lord of Hastur”

“May all the demons in Zandru’s Seven Hells curse him!” Javanne cried. “Oh, my poor little girl!”

“It seems,” Linnea said, filling the brief pause, “that Rinaldo has learned his lessons from Valdir Ridenow all too well. I cannot think why he would want to set aside such a capable and loyal Guards Commander as Gabriel—”

“Because my husband isloyal, that’s why! Loyal to the Comyn,” Javanne muttered.

“—except to prevent Gabriel from stopping him,” Linnea finished.

Memories flooded Regis of the sickening fear when Danilo and Mikhail had been held prisoner. He would have done anything, given anything—even his own life—to save them. Danilo was an adult and Mikhail almost so, but Ariel was just a child . . .

Blessed Cassilda, what kind of monster would do this to a little girl?

“He won’t harm her. He still needs your cooperation,” Linnea was saying to Javanne in that cool, rational tone of hers. “Until we can find a way to release her, you must pretend to go along.”

Javanne gave Linnea a glassy-eyed stare of incomprehension. Her desolation shocked Regis into action. When he had developed near– fatal threshold sickness, she had reached him with her mind. She had talked him through the worst of it until his life was no longer in danger.

Regis grasped Javanne’s shoulders and forced her to look at him. She flinched at the first contact, but she did not resist. Her eyes reflected things that were not there.

Breda.Gently he opened his mind to hers, inviting her permission to make contact. She lowered her barriers.

He moved through the brittle flare of her terror, the confusion and grief—not only the loss of her daughter but the festering resentment over Mikhail, the son taken from her years ago to be the Hastur heir Regis needed. He sensed love twisting into bitterness and blame, at herself, at Mikhail for deserting the family– running away to Ardais to save his own cowardly skin—n o longer a son of mine!—

I must do something to ease her hurt,he thought, but had no time for it now.

At least Mikhail is beyond Rinaldo’s reach.For the moment.

Regis turned his attention back to the churning morass of his sister’s emotions. You are Hastur, and Comynara, grand– daughter of the greatest statesman of our time.

The crazed light in her eyes shifted, now a clear blue mirror. He conjured images of a woman whose sense of honor and duty had made her a credit to her Domain, one who had taken on responsibilities far beyond her age. A competent, resourceful wife and mother . . .

Regis startled at Linnea’s light touch on his arm. He had lost all sense of passing time. Javanne slumped beside him, pale and drained but calmer. Merilys entered with a tray bearing a pitcher of jaco,a tureen of soup, a plate of cheeses, and a basket of nut– studded rolls. At first hesitantly and then with ravenous speed, Javanne devoured the meal.

“I will speak with Rinaldo,” Regis assured her. “He still respects my counsel. I will make him see reason.”

“We must think carefully on how to proceed,” Linnea said.

Javanne got to her feet. “I had best return to the Castle, so messages can reach me without delay.” She looked a little unsteady as she took her cloak from the servant.

Regis asked one of servants to order a litter for Javanne’s comfort. When it came, she paused at the door, gave Regis a hard look, and then departed.

“If you were anyone else, I doubt she would trust you.” Linnea dropped into a chair and closed her eyes. The skin around her mouth had gone white.

Regis took one of her hands in his, feeling the chill in her slender fingers. “I must go to my brother. I cannot allow my sister to suffer like this.”

“You must not go.” Linnea shook her head. “Not yet.”

He knelt beside her, peering into her drawn face. Her eyes burned against the paleness of her skin. “There is no one else he will listen to.”

“Ah, my love, for a man who has grown up in a hotbed of Comyn politics, you are an incurable idealist. Don’t you see? He’ll come after ourchildren next if you dare breathe a word against him. Your plan to guide him has failed.”

Our children. Baby Dani—a nd Kierestelli.

His muscles went soft with horror. He wanted to contradict her, but in the pit of his belly, he knew she was right.

Regis could not accept that Rinaldo was beyond persuasion. He must give his brother a chance. What else could he do, he who had placed Rinaldo in a position of such power?

Something red and hot, implacable, surged up behind his throat.

Never again will I bend to the will of one who would make hostages of those I love!

“We must get the children beyond his reach,” Regis said. “You’ll have to go, too.”

She lifted her chin, and he saw the negation in her eyes. “That would set the hunt on us for certain. I must remain here, visible. But you must take Stelli to safety.”

“Leave you—at the mercy of kidnappers?”

“I am not helpless.” She drew herself up, and an invisible mantle of power shimmered around her shoulders. “I was a Keeper, and no man touches me without leave. I will be able to keep Dani close to me and protect him, but I cannot see to both children. Stelli is more vulnerable, for she is at the right age for Rinaldo’s school. Regis, promise to take her to those who will understand her—not the Terrans!”

Regis clambered to his feet. He could not afford the luxury of deliberation. The situation called for speed.

Where would his daughter be safely beyond the reach of even a Hastur Lord? And who would nurture her spirit?

Regis summoned a servant and ordered a horse to be made ready immediately. The Armida black was too old, so it must be the dun gelding. He would travel as he had before, in plain clothes, with his face and hair hidden.

“I’ll be but a moment.” He paused at the door to look back at Linnea. “See that she’s warmly dressed.”

Linnea did not ask where he was going. They both understood that no one, not even she herself, must have that knowledge.

Regis never knew what Linnea told the little girl. When, a quarter of an hour later, he swung her up on the saddle in front of him, Kierestelli looked at him gravely and said nothing. Linnea had bundled her in a servant’s cloak. She was so light, like a bird. With a pang, he thought how easily those winged creatures could be broken.

Linnea had packed a set of saddlebags such as any man out for a casual ride might carry. She handed Regis a leather belt, heavy with hidden coins. Kierestelli reached out a hand to her mother; Linnea touched the girl’s fingertips, and Regis felt the connection between them.

Be brave, my treasure. I do not know when I will see you again, but you will always be in my heart.

The dun pulled at the bit, snorting in excitement. Regis stroked the heavy neck; the beast would need all its strength for the road ahead. Linnea swung the gate open.

A hundred phrases rose to his tongue and died there.

If I don’t come back—

Aloud, he said, “Do what you can to hide my absence. I may be a tenday or more.”

She nodded, a quick decisive dip of her chin, a pulse of warmth caressing his mind, and then the dun surged through the opening and the gate closed behind them.

The most difficult part would be getting out of the city. Too many of the Guards knew him, but most recognized only the trappings of a Hastur Lord, not his features or posture. They would expect him to have an escort, for he rarely left his own walls without Danilo or a Guardsman.

No alarm had yet been raised. Unless Rinaldo meant to seize hostages from all his family members—a thing Regis could not contemplate even now—there would be no reason to forbid Regis from leaving the city. If questioned, Regis would simply have to bluff his way through as he’d done in his younger days.

As luck would have it, as Regis neared the Traders Gate, a procession approached from outside, some in costumes resembling monk’s robes, others in rags.

“Lord of Worlds,

Remove our sin.

Let the cleansing

Now begin.”

Mingled with the ringing of bells, the chanting grew louder. Farmers drew their carts aside, worsening the congestion at the gate. Until that moment, Regis had never thought any good might come from Rinaldo’s pilgrimages.

The Guardsmen rushed to tackle the disorder, leaving a space wide enough for a single horse. Regis touched his heels to the dun, and it surged through the opening. Once beyond, Regis maneuvered through the milling pilgrims, farmers, wagons, and laden pack animals. A white-bearded fellow in a shepherd’s coat pulled his chervineteam to a halt to let him pass. “The lass looks ill.”

Regis nodded his thanks. These simple people saw him not as a Comyn lord but as a father with a child in his arms.

In a surprisingly short time, the open road lay before them. There was still no sign of alarm or pursuit. Regis lifted the reins, and the dun shifted into an easy, ground-covering jog.

Kierestelli huddled against his chest, enduring the jarring gait without complaint. As they climbed the long slope into the Venza Hills, Regis drew the horse to a walk, letting it breathe. Near the top of the pass, he halted.

“Let’s rest here. Would you like to walk a bit?”

She jumped lightly to the ground. Regis was glad to stretch his legs. He’d been too long in the city and too little in the saddle. Joints and muscles unaccustomed to long riding would be sore tomorrow.

The child looked back on the city. “I’m not coming back, am I, Papa?”

What did Linnea tell her? Or what had Stelli herself guessed?

“Of course you are,” he hastened to reply. “I will come for you when the trouble is past.”

She seemed all at once bewildered and wise, terrified and unshaken. He did not want to frighten her with tales of men who would threaten children. He would have given anything to reassure her that the world was a safe place and everyone wished her well.

It would be a lie, as he himself had learned at an early age. When this crisis had passed, there would be other threats. No child of his could ever be carefree, not until the four moons fell from the sky. There would always be a compelling cause and a man willing to use violence to advance it.

This was why the Comyn had adopted the Compact, to limit violence to weapons that placed the user at equal risk. No clingfirewould rain destruction from the skies, no bonewater dust would poison generations to come. No laran-fueled inferno would turn cities to ashes and spaceships to crumpled wreckage.

Was Rinaldo guilty of another violation of the Compact by seizing little Ariel, who had no means to defend herself? Regis thrust the thought aside. He would deal with his brother once this precious daughter was safe.

While these thoughts jumbled in his mind, Kierestelli had been studying him. In her silvery gaze, he read trust but also a growing wariness. She understood, in a deep, wordless fashion, that she was being taken away from those who wished her harm . . . because the adults she depended upon could protect her in no other way. He wanted to deny it, to weep with helpless anguish.

“If . . . anything happens, no one must know who you are,” he said as they mounted up again. Thendara’s towers disappeared behind the curve of the sharply rising hills.

“Am I to have a new name? Am I to forget you and Mama?”

Such questions from so young a child.His heart ached.

“I hope you will never forget us as we will never forget you. But a new name is a good idea, don’t you think? A temporary name for the time you are away. Would you like to choose it?”

“I will think of one.”

Days passed, falling into a rhythm of travel. Skills Regis had not used in years came back to him: how to set a pace that both rider and horse could maintain, when to rest, where to find water and food. At first, they came upon an inn or small village at the end of each day’s travel. Here they found stabling for the horse, hot meals for themselves, and sometimes a bath. As the lands grew wilder, human dwellings became scarce. Regis was leery of using the public travel-shelters for fear of being remarked and remembered. They might also encounter bandits who, caring nothing for shelter-truce, would see him as one man to be easily overpowered, his goods and horse seized. In the end, he took the risk. If he had been alone, he might have chanced finding what shelter he could. The nights were still cold and wet with freezing rain turning into snow, and he decided the greater danger was to Kierestelli’s health. Fortunately, they never met other travelers. Some god—Aldones himself—watched over them.

They reached the River Kadarin on a sullen gray afternoon. The water was turbulent with its own storms. Froth laced the slate-dark water. The far shore was rocky, the trees leafless and stark as a thicket of thorns. A bitter wind whipped down from the Hellers. The dun tossed its head, tail clamped against rump. It didn’t like this place.

Me, either.Regis remembered stories of wolves ravening through the wild lands beyond the Kadarin. Human wolves roamed there as well.

The bank curved into a natural cove where a ferry boat was tied up at a wharf. A hut and outbuildings stood nearby, and a thread of smoke curled upward from a crude stone chimney.

Regis called out a greeting. An old man emerged from the hut in response. His beard was a wisp of river foam, his back bent, and his movements spare and nimble. He halted a few paces from the horse and swung his head from side to side in an odd searching gesture. Cataracts whitened his eyes.

“We seek river passage, friend. Is the ferryman about?”

“He stands here before you.”

Before Regis could stop her, Kierestelli jumped to the ground. She showed no fear, only curiosity. Awe lighted the ferryman’s weathered features.

“Forgive me, Child of Grace! I never thought to behold one of the beautiful folk!”

Kierestelli turned back to Regis with puzzlement in her eyes. “Papa, what does he mean?”

Blessed Cassilda, he thinks she’s achieri!

“We must cross the Kadarin as soon as possible,” Regis said.

“Aye, and on to the Yellow Forest.” The ferryman nodded, as much to himself as to anyone else. “Long have I searched for them, back in the days when I still burned with dreaming. But they would not be found. Not by me, oh, no, not by the likes of me. But you, you with this child I mistook for a moment . . .” He tilted his head, and Regis had the uncanny feeling that the old man saw far more in him than a tall man in a hooded cloak, that the ferryman saw through the Hastur beauty to the very heart of his cells and the chierilineage of the Comyn.

“. . . I think theywill find you.”

Uneasy, Regis glanced at the river. The ferryman was not only half blind, but half crazy as well. Still, who could tell about anyone who lived here, on the border of the wild lands? And who was the greater fool, the old man with his dreams of searching for a lost, ancient race in the trackless forest, or Regis for believing him?

Regis hesitated as the boatman shuffled off toward the ferry, gesturing for them to follow. Then Kierestelli pulled at his hand. She appeared to have no doubts. He decided to trust her instinct. In the end, what choice did he have? They could not cross the Kadarin on their own.

The boatman made the ferry ready and gestured for them to board. He turned his face toward the river, although how even a sighted man could make out anything in the shifting currents, Regis did not know. Kierestelli jumped, light and nimble, onto the ferry’s flat surface.

The dun snorted and balked at the edge of the wharf. Regis took hold of the reins and brought the horse’s head down. Speaking soothingly, he stroked the tense neck. As far as he knew, he had no trace of the Ridenow Gift of empathy with animals, but he had handled horses all his life. The terror in the dun’s eyes faded. Its muscles relaxed, and it dipped its nose. It moved forward, lifting each foot high. Its hooves made a hollow sound on the wooden deck

The boatman cast off the mooring lines and poled the ferry away from the shore. Seized by the currents, the craft rocked and tilted. The gelding tensed but held steady. Kierestelli positioned herself at the rail and peered over the purling waves.

At first, it seemed the currents were shoving and pulling the little craft and that all the boatman’s efforts had no effect. They would surely be carried downstream or overturned to drown. The old man showed no fear. His expression, eyes half closed, nostrils flaring as if to catch the river’s scent, resembled that of a hunter closing on his prey . . . or a lover wooing his lady.

The motion of the ferry changed. The sounds of water and wind blended like music. They glided across the river, slipping through the waves like dancers moving through the figures of a set. Kierestelli clapped her hands and the boatman grinned.

When the ferry reached the wharf on the far side, Regis almost felt sorry the crossing was over. He paid the boatman more than the usual fee. The dun leaped free of the boat and clattered across the wood-plank wharf, eager for solid land.

Before them lay tangled thickets and broken rocks rising to hills covered by twisted, leafless trees. The air was less chill than over the water but also less welcoming. It seemed to Regis that winter had never lifted from this forest.

Regis lifted Kierestelli to the horse’s back and then mounted behind her. She stared at the ferryman for a long moment, but he was already turning the boat.

“He thought I was one of the Beautiful Folk of the Forest,” she said in her piping child’s voice. When Regis made no immediate answer, she went on, “That’s where you’re taking me, isn’t it?”

Even before it came into view, Regis scented the Yellow Forest. They had been traveling for days, camping cold and rough at night, forcing their way through narrow openings and up jagged trails. Regis had begun to wonder if he had made a terrible mistake, if he had risked both their lives on a panic– born impulse. More than once, he thought they were lost. Under the overcast sky, the hills looked the same in every direction. Each time his courage wavered, however, the ghost of a trail would beckon and the horse would step forward, as if on the way to its own stable.

On the fourth afternoon, the air, which had previously carried only the smell of cold wet earth, grew warmer. They had been following a path along the side of a hill, dipping and then laboriously climbing again. Gnarled black-barked trees and underbrush had blocked their view. As they came around the next curve, the vegetation thinned. The path widened, dry and gravelly, as it led upward.

They crested the rise. Regis drew the horse to a halt and breathed in astonishment. The entrance to a wooded valley stretched before them. The trees shimmered, their trunks gray, their leaves pale yellow. A breeze turned the foliage into a rippling carpet of gold.

The Yellow Forest.

The next moment, the light shifted and the forest was no longer a jewel-bright garden but only a patch of trees clinging to last autumn’s leaves. They looked old, withered. Soon they would fall, from the battering of winter storms or the simple erosion of time. New growth would take their place, according to the natural cycle. There might be a dozen, a hundred such valleys through these mountains.

Regis felt his heart sink within his chest. The air, which had seemed so sweet, turned ashen. Hope had illuminated the scene below, but only for a moment.

They were almost out of food and probably lost. Kierestelli had not complained, but he could see in the gray tinge around her mouth that she was near the end of her strength.

Regis nudged the dun with his legs, and the horse started downhill, tucking its hindquarters. Knowing better than to hurry the beast, he let it set its own pace.

The bottom of the slope led to an apron of gravel and wind– twisted weeds. The gelding’s hooves rang on the loose stones. The place felt empty, without even the cry of a far-off raptor or the skitter of insect or rodent. The forest seemed to be holding its breath. As Regis halted the gelding a few paces before the edge of the trees, he sensed a flicker of—vitality? awareness? or simple wariness of any encounter in such a remote and lawless place?

“Halloo, the forest!” He raised himself in the stirrups. “I am Regis Hastur, and I seek the Folk of the Yellow Forest!”

He paused, not sure if he truly wanted an answer. Then a notion came to him that whether or not the last of the chierilived here, he ought to request permission before entering.

“I ask your leave to search for them here.”

He waited for a long moment, and then another. There was no response. Of course not. What had he expected, that the trees would part and open a path for him? That one of the Beautiful Folk would step forward, hands raised in welcome? Keral himself?

Keral . . .

The chierihad come down from these mountains to seek Regis, to offer help during the crisis of the World Wreckers. At first meeting, Keral had seemed a tall boyish figure with the exquisite beauty that marked Regis and all his kin. The chieriwas deceptively strong and yet possessed an endearing uncertainty. How much courage it must have taken to leave everything safe and familiar, to journey into a land of strangers and their machines.

Keral, no longer in neuter phase but fully female, dancing in ecstasy, silken hair rippling around the slender body . . .

Keral’s radiant smile as he gazed down upon his own baby, the firstchieri to be born in so many years . . .

After the departure of the World Wreckers, Keral and his child had gone back to the Yellow Forest, or so it was supposed. His mate, a Terran doctor, had disappeared about the same time. Keral’s child would be the same age as Kierestelli . . .

The dun had started moving forward of its own accord, neck arched, each foot placed with ceremonial precision. Regis sat, hands quiet on the reins, trusting the animal’s instinct.

They passed the edge of the forest, moving through dappled shade. Dry leaves crackled under the horse’s tread. A breeze ruffled branches overhead. Again came that hint of sweetness in the air, that stirring of life . . .

With it came a faint mental touch, so delicate that Regis could not be sure he had sensed it. Kierestelli shifted her weight, pressing against him. She took the reins from his hands. In trust, he closed his eyes, lowered his mental barriers—reached out with his laran.

Regis? Is it you, my friend?

Keral!

As quickly as it had come, the contact vanished. Regis shuddered with the recoil. No easy fading this, but a severing, brutal in its finality. Only a moment ago, his mind had been filled with the alivenessof the forest and the presence of Keral. Now he felt only an aching absence.

He would have given up in utter desolation, would have surrendered to a loss too great to bear, had the horse not kept going. The beast never paused in its careful stride.

How long they continued like this, Regis could not have said. He lost all awareness of the swollen Bloody Sun creeping across the sky beyond the canopy of wind-kissed leaves. Unshed tears left him half-blind. After a time, he became conscious of someone singing. He could not make out words, only a melody compounded of hope and regret, of joy remembered and echoed.

The singer sat in the saddle before him, his own daughter.

The horse came to a halt in a clearing. Slanting light touched the grasses and the low brush that, against the order of the season, bore a profusion of star-bright flowers. Regis breathed deeply, inhaling their perfume.

Kierestelli gestured that she wished to get down. Regis dismounted and helped her to the ground. She walked to the center of the clearing and halted. He hesitated, unsure if he should follow. Beside him, the gelding stood as if rooted in the layers of fallen leaves, head up, ears pricked, nostrils flaring.

Suddenly Kierestelli laughed and glanced back at Regis, her face alight. The next moment, something flickered in the forest directly ahead, a shift of light-filled shadow.

A chieristepped into the clearing. Regis caught his breath, but it was not Keral. This creature was far older, more ancient even than the trees behind him. Like Keral, he was tall, willowy thin, and seemed to dance rather than walk across the grass. He wore a flowing garment of the same opalescent silver as his hair. Bones arched, delicate and strong, beneath milky skin. The eyes that watched Regis with wary regard were likewise pale, almost colorless. And cool, neither welcoming nor hostile. Measuring.

“Child of Grace . . .” Without conscious intent, Regis formed the traditional greeting. He wanted to rush forward, to fall on his knees before this being of a race that had traveled the far reaches of space before his own kind had learned to walk upright.

Keral had been a child, lost and overwhelmed in the land of men. This chieriwas old, experienced, and in his own territory.

But Regis was Comyn, and Hastur. Whether his own lineage descended from the first Hastur, son of Aldones who was Lord of Light, or whether from the interbreeding of lost Terran colonists with this ancient race, his heritage was still a proud and honorable one. Respect he would offer, for respect was certainly due, but not groveling.

He came forward and bowed. “ S’dei shaya,Noble One.” You lend us grace.

“What seek ye here?” The voice was light and clear, the words an ancient form of casta.

“I am Regis Hastur, friend to the one of you known as Keral, and I seek protection for my child.”

For a long moment, the chieristared at Regis. Meeting that gaze was like looking into the heart of a living starstone.

“Keral has told us of your people, who kill their own young.”

Regis held himself erect, although he wanted to cover his face in shame that humans could threaten children, even babes in their cradles. His throat closed around the cry —“No, not all of us!”—but it was true. Whether by direct assault, by abuse or neglect, his kind did not always cherish their children or protect them from those who meant harm. He had lost enough of his own nedestrooffspring, had seen the horrendous damage done to those who survived, even Lew’s daughter Marja, even Lew himself . . . even he, Regis . . .

The truth, then.

Regis opened his mind to the slender, gray-eyed creature before him. Chieriwere telepathic. Let this one look into his heart and see the good and the ill, the honor kept and betrayed, the hopes cherished, all his failures revealed. Under that uncompromising regard, he had little confidence in his own worthiness, but he had every faith in Kierestelli’s.

Not for my sake, but for hers, I ask this.

He offered the image of his own brother, learning the ways of power from the likes of Valdir Ridenow . . . allowedthat power by Regis himself.

The time for making excuses for Rinaldo, for rationalizing and temporizing, had passed. No matter how much Regis wanted to think well of his brother—and there wasgoodness in Rinaldo, albeit colored by fanaticism—Regis could no longer stand by, tacitly cooperating with the abuse of power.

If you will keep my child safe so that I may act without fear of retaliation upon an innocent, then I will stop him.

Silence, waiting. Then: How?

In that question, Regis sensed the chieri’sabhorrence of violence. Chieridid not kill, Keral had insisted; they did not even eat meat.

Truth,came from the chieri’smind. Truth, not fine words.

“I do not know,” Regis said aloud, “I will find a way.”

The chierishifted his gaze from Regis to Kierestelli. A gust of air, warm with the scent of flowers, ruffled the silver-gilt hair. Kierestelli took a step and then another, and then she burst into a run. The chieriscooped her up in his arms. With a smile of heartbreaking radiance, he glanced once at Regis, then faded into the forest.

“Wait!”Regis had anticipated time to say his farewells, to reassure Kierestelli that he would come for her once the danger was passed.

To tell her that he loved her.

The chierihad disappeared, leaving a rustle of dead leaves and a sudden chill in the air. With a shiver, Regis wondered if he would be able to find this place and its inhabitants again. He envisioned himself riding through these hills, straining to catch a hint of gold in the trees, each time returning with a heart filled with ashes. He saw Kierestelli grow more and more apart from the human world, cherished but always an outsider. He felt the bitterness festering within her spirit as if it were his own.

He said he would come for me, but he never did.Is that how she would become a woman, how she would think of her father?

Memory nudged him, offering comfort: What had the ferryman said?

“They will findyou.”