The Black Gryphon

trying for weeks to avoid the Lady’s presence, ever since the moment she’d thought she’d seen a flicker of recognition in Cinnabar’s face.

Who would ever have thought that a song would give me away? She’d been humming, on her way back from a session with Amberdrake; her back felt normal for the first time in ages, Conn was still in the field and not in her bed, and she’d actually been cheerful enough to hum under her breath.

But she hadn’t thought about what she was humming, until she passed Lady Cinnabar (hurriedly, and with her face a little averted), and the Lady turned to give her a penetrating stare.

Only then did she realize that she had been humming a song that had been all the rage at High King Leodhan’s Court—for the single week just before Ma’ar had challenged the King to defend his land. Like the nobles who had fled the challenge in terror, or simply melted away in abject fear, the song had vanished into obscurity. Only someone like Lady Cinnabar, who had been at the High King’s Court at that time, would recognize it.

Only someone else who had been part of the Court for that brief period of time would have known it well enough to hum it.

Winterhart had seen Cinnabar’s eyes narrow in speculation, just before she hurried away, hoping against hope that Cinnabar would decide that she was mistaken in what she thought she had heard.

But the Lady was more persistent than that. More than once, Winterhart had caught Cinnabar studying her at a distance. And she knew, because this was the one thing she had dreaded, that Cinnabar was the kind of person who knew enough about the woman she had once been, that the Lady would uncover her secret simply by catching her in habitual things no amount of control could change or eliminate.

And now—here the Lady was, staring into Winterhart’s eyes, with the look on her face of one who has finally solved a perplexing little puzzle.

“You are a good channel, and you worked today to better effect than I have ever seen you work before,” Cinnabar said mildly. “And your ability and encouragement kept this feathered one clinging to life. You are a better Trondi’irn and Healer than you were a few weeks ago.”

“Thank you,” Winterhart said faintly, trying to look away from Cinnabar’s strange reddish-brown eyes, and failing.

“Altogether you are much improved; get rid of that Conn Levas creature, and stand upon your own worth, and you will be outstanding.” Cinnabar’s crisp words came to Winterhart as from a great distance. “He is not worthy of you, and you do not need him, Reanna.”

And with that, she turned and moved on to the next patient, leaving Winterhart standing there, stunned. Not just by the blunt advice, but by Cinnabar’s last word.

Reanna.

Winterhart went on to her next patient in a daze; fortunately her hands knew what to do without needing any direction from her mind. Her mind ran in circles, like a mouse in a barrel.

Lady Cinnabar knew. Winterhart had been unmasked.

How long before the Lady told her kinsman Urtho that Reanna Laury—missing and presumed fled—was working in the ranks as a simple Trondi’irn? How long before everyone knew? How long before her shame was revealed to the entire army?

But before Winterhart could free herself from her paralysis, Cinnabar was back. “You and the rest can handle everything else from here on,” the Healer said quietly. “I’m needed back up on the Hill. The gryphons are not the only injured. And Reanna—”

Winterhart started at the sound of her old name.

Cinnabar laid one cool hand on Winterhart’s arm. “No one will know what I have just spoken, if you do not tell,” the Healer said quietly. “If you choose to be only Winterhart, then Winterhart is all anyone will know. But I believe you should tell Amberdrake. He has some information that you should hear.”

The Lady smiled her famous, dazzling smile.

“Sometimes being in the middle of a situation gives one a very skewed notion of what is actually going on. If I were a minnow in the middle of a school, I would not know why the school moved this way and that. I would only see that the rest of the school was in flight, and not what they fled. I would never know when they ran from a pike, or a shadow.”

And with that rather obscure bit of observation, the Lady turned and was gone.

Winterhart sat in her own austere tent, braiding and rebraiding a bit of leather; her nerves had completely eroded. In another few moments, she was scheduled for a treatment for her back—treatments she had come to look forward to. The kestra’chern Amberdrake was the easiest person to talk to that she had ever known, although