his continued silence. How dare he forbid her to go where she wanted to go on her own time? He had no authority over her, over her freedom!
He hadn't asked her, simply and politely, he'd demanded that she promise, then and there, refusing to answer any questions, either before she reluctantly promised, or after. He refused to explain himself, or even talk about it. Her anger smoldered, hot, and grew hotter with every day that passed.
Following anger had come suspicion, slowly growing over the course of several days; a feeling that he was hiding something, and nothing had alleviated it since.
Her suspicions centered around the Changechild. He was always with the gryphons-he was with them, and with that Changechild. He wouldn't talk about either. It was not unreasonable to suppose that the two were connected-and that there was something about the Changechild that Darkwind didn't want her to know.
He'd never hidden anything from her before. There was no reason why he should want to start now.
Or so she had thought. Until this morning, when an overheard comment told her something very important that Darkwind had somehow left out of his few stories about the Changechild.
'Has Darkwind said anything more about the Changechild?' Iceshadow asked someone. 'Is she ready to leave, yet?' She? This Changechild, neuter in her mind, suddenly took on a different face. 'It' was a she.
Suddenly the senseless questions had sensible answers. And there were plenty of reasons why Darkwind would want her kept in the dark about this female. Especially if she was attractive.
And Dawnfire's imagination painted her as very attractive. Most Changechildren were. And there were the attractions of the exotic, of course...Not that I care if he's enamored with the girl, she told herself, as Kyrr soared a little closer to the gryphons' nest. It's not as if we're lifebonded or something. We haven't even traded bondbird primary feathers. I would if he offered, but we haven't, just coverts. I don't exactly have a hold on him...Excuses, excuses, and none of them meant anything, not really.
Damn him, anyway.
She had given a promise, and she never broke one-no matter what.
Even if the person she had given the promise to turned out to be a worthless sneak.
So she had spent most of the morning trying to think of a way around that promise, so that she could see what Darkwind was really up to when he slipped off to his gryphon friends. She wasn't entirely certain why she was tormenting herself, it was as if she kept biting at a sore tooth.
It hurt, but she just couldn't seem to stop doing it.
Then the answer to her dilemma had occurred to her; she had promised that she wouldn't go near the gryphons, but she hadn't promised that Kyrr would stay away. And what Kyrr saw, she could see. Kyrr could be her way to see just what Darkwind was really up to.
The only problem was that to do that, she would have to hole up in her ekele and go into a full trance. That was something she was secretly ashamed of; that she could not make full contact with Kyrr's mind unless she performed a full bonding. She didn't know why; scouts generally had no trouble using their bird's senses. There were one or two others who had the same trouble, but no more than that. Darkwind had speculated that she found the experience of having her consciousness split to be too traumatic to deal with unless she was in a full trance- since in a full trance, her consciousness wasn't really split.
Normally this wasn't a handicap; her communication with Kyrr was otherwise excellent. The big hawk was one of the most intelligent of all the scouts' bondbirds, and had no trouble with simply telling her what she needed to know. Kyrr could 'speak' in full sentences, she had a sense of humor, and had no trouble in cooperating with her bondmate.
There had never been any rebellion or any real disagreements with Kyrr.
But Kyrr could not read facial expressions; she could not pick up the nuances of behavior that Dawnfire needed to know. She wanted to know how he really felt about this Changechild. Kyrr only understood things as they related to raptor feelings and instincts. And she didn't want Kyrr to misinterpret things that she saw in light of those instincts. After all, it was entirely possible that Darkwind had other reasons for keeping her away, legitimate reasons.
It's entirely possible that pigs will fly, too, she thought sourly.
Darkwind wasn't at the gryphons' nest, and neither were the gryphons.
Surprised, she sent Kyrr ranging out to find them. After a bit of searching, she spotted them, near the edge of the ruins, where the forest began; she must have passed them at a distance when Kyrr flew in.
Darkwind's figure blended into the landscape of tumbled stones and overgrown hillocks, rendering him very difficult to see, but the gryphons stood out against the ruins very clearly. More clearly than she remembered, in fact; their feathers shone with color, gold and red-brown, and they seemed to capture and hold the sunlight, shining
