Too late, though. “Where are you taking me?” Now they were flying over forests—heading northeast, Nora guessed from the sun.
“It’s going to be a lovely surpri—oh!” The air darkened around them; something whizzed past. A sound like rain hitting a metal roof. Raclin bellowed. The feathered shaft of an arrow was caught in the edge of his wing. Ilissa began speaking very fast in Faitoren, sounding angry.
A flock of birds—they looked like starlings—wheeled innocently nearby. Then suddenly each bird slung itself again at Raclin, lean, sharp, faster than any starling could fly. The cloud of arrows hissed through the air, glinting in the sunlight. Steel tips, Nora thought—thank you, Aruendiel! She remembered how his sword had once bounced harmlessly off Raclin’s reptile hide, just as most of the arrows were doing now. But the creature’s skin must be thinner on the wings. A couple of hits in the right place could bring him down.
A mixed blessing for me, Nora reflected, as another arrow punctured Raclin’s right wing, near the tip. They were at least a hundred feet in the air.
The starlings were gathering again. Ilissa said something urgently to Raclin, who did a half twist in the air. He thrust Nora forward, holding her body between himself and the birds, and dived toward them. The arrows flashed, coming straight on, aiming so true that Nora saw them only as a sort of vibration in the air. Raclin, you coward, hiding behind me, she thought disjointedly, then closed her eyes.
Something brushed her cheek, a feather’s kiss. She opened her eyes to find that the air was full of birds, flapping and swooping in a rather aimless fashion. Behind her, Ilissa laughed—a little shakily, Nora thought. “Ah, you see? I thought so. Aruendiel’s ready to spill Faitoren blood, but not yours, Nora darling. So lucky we brought you with us today!”
They flew for several hours. Nora had a faint hope that Raclin would burn up in a blue blaze—he kept screeching as though he might be in pain—but Ilissa kept crooning in Faitoren, and eventually the blue flames died away. By then, the light was fading. Below them, Raclin’s shadow stretched out huge and ominous against the reddening snow.
But he’ll be human again as soon as the sun sets, Nora thought. I mean, Faitoren. And what happens to us then? Will we just fall out of the sky? It might be an opportunity to escape. But where would I go? The landscape below seemed to be empty of everything but an occasional bare tree.
Suddenly, Raclin changed course slightly. After a minute, she saw that what she had taken for a tree’s long shadow was actually a framework of some kind. An Avaguri’s mount. Raclin landed next to it with a jolt. Nora staggered a little, her legs twitchy and numb after dangling unsupported for so long. A stout figure in a long fur cloak came toward them, stamping through the snow. There was just enough light left for Nora to see his face.
She looked hard to make sure she was not mistaken. “Dorneng?” she said, disbelief tipping into anger.
Dorneng gave a nervous laugh and stepped past Nora, evidently with the aim of helping Ilissa off Raclin’s back. But Ilissa was already picking her way past Raclin’s outstretched wing, her slender hands emerging from a froth of white fur to seize Nora’s.
“Nora, you did wonderfully well,” she said warmly. “Dorneng, she came just like a lamb, almost no trouble at all, and on the way here, she saved us from one of Aruendiel’s spiteful little tricks.” Nora basked in a sudden glow of pride; then, horrified, she tried to slide her hand out of Ilissa’s clasp. Ilissa smiled beautifully at her and tightened her grip.
Dorneng was looking worried. “So some of his defenses were still active? I thought I’d found ways to block all of them.”
“Some of them, darling. Poor Raclin bore the brunt.” Ilissa cast sorrowful eyes at Raclin, who gave an explosive hiss, like the door of a subway train releasing. “But Dorneng, you did very well. I’m so grateful.”
Ilissa’s smile was luminous in the twilight. Releasing Nora, she kissed Dorneng lightly on the lips, then shifted backward as he reached for her. If it was an evasive maneuver, she made it appear to be part of the lovely, continual dance of being Ilissa.
“I must talk to you—privately,” Dorneng said to Ilissa, jerking his head toward Nora. “I have news.”
“Good news?” Ilissa said invitingly.
“It might be.” He took Ilissa by the arm. After what looked to Nora like a fractional second’s hesitation, she let him lead her away into the dimness, until all Nora could make out was the blue-white sheen of Ilissa’s fur robe and the low, somewhat urgent murmur of their voices.
“Eeew,” Nora said aloud. Dorneng and Ilissa, that was a pairing she had never contemplated. And that Ilissa did not quite like to contemplate either, judging from appearances. Poor Ilissa, she thought with some glee, quite a comedown after Aruendiel.
At her side, a man laughed. Nora spun around. “My mother’s paramour, you mean? It’s no worse than what I had to put up with in
It was too dark to see him clearly, and Nora was rather thankful for that. Because his voice, even when he was insulting her, was rich, confident, caressing, and she remembered now how much she used to love listening to it. “Sorry about that,” Nora said through clenched teeth. “Terrible misunderstanding on both sides. So why go to all this trouble to bring me back? I mean, look, you got rid of me once. You’re free.”
“Oh, that’s not the point,” he said. “The point is, you shouldn’t have done what you did.”
“You mean, run away because you tried to kill me?”
“I didn’t try to kill you,” he said reasonably. “It was an accident, and you made it worse by panicking and falling down those stairs. So that was stupid, but what you did afterward—leaving, taking up with that man—that was unforgivable. Ilissa was beside herself.” Raclin laughed again, a little bitterly. “It would have been all right if you’d died,” he added, with the air of trying to find something agreeable to say. “My mother loves planning funerals almost as much as weddings.”
“Is that why you kidnapped me?” Nora hated the way her voice shook. “So you can have my funeral?”
Raclin made a tut-tutting sound, elaborately soothing. “I’m not going to hurt you. Unlike some men, I don’t murder my wives.”
“Turning me into a marble statue—that wouldn’t count as murder?”
“Ah, well, it was very wrong of you to try to take off my ring. It’s a symbol of your fidelity, your purity.” He went on, ignoring the rude noise that Nora had just made. “And the cripple—he should have known better than to turn
“I liked you better that way,” Nora said, as Dorneng came crunching through the snow. He held a coil of rope in his gloved hand.
“Your mother wants to talk to you,” he said shortly.
“It’s a great pleasure to see you again, my dear,” Raclin said to Nora. He leaned down casually and put his lips on her mouth. For a moment, she had a maddening sense of deja vu, a vivid recovery of those deep, endless kisses of Raclin’s that used to make her feel as though she might melt away down to her bones. She could taste the old sweetness. Pulling back, he laughed and said something in Faitoren—a joke, from the tone—and crunched away through the snow. Too late, Nora spat after him, trying to get the tang of something burned out of her mouth.
Dorneng came closer, pushed her down into the snow. He began to wrap rope around her ankles. “I’m cold,” Nora said, but he did not answer. He conjured a silvery light—starlight, Nora guessed—and laboriously tied a knot. His bulldog jaw was clenched, giving him an obstinate, dissatisfied look. “Why are you helping her?” she whispered. “She’s only using you.”
He gave a contemptuous grunt and went to work on binding her arms. He could have perfectly well tied the rope with magic—but then, Nora reflected, he would not have been able to grope her breasts. Sucking in her breath, she felt his fingers map her chest. “Has Ilissa actually slept with you?” she asked softly, “or is she just stringing you along?”
“Shut your mouth,” Dorneng said. His free hand slapped her face, just hard enough to remind her who was
