Though her lips moved, Imladrik heard the words in his mind as though they were standing side by side in a quiet room and not aloft and far apart in a turbulent sky.
He calmed Draukhain, for the depth of the beast’s greeting cries would build to the point where the dwarfs below could hear them and think they were under attack.
Liandra frowned. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Flying.’ Imladrik was in no mood for an inquisition. ‘Why did you follow me?’
Beyond his dragonsong, which was potent, Imladrik had no magical craft to draw upon. He had to shout, but Liandra heard him easily enough.
‘You can speak normally,’ she told him. ‘The enchantment works both ways.’ She reined Vranesh in a little, for the dragon could smell the dwarfs far below them and wanted to better taste their scent. Like its mistress, the beast neither liked nor trusted the dwarfs. But also like his mistress, he had even less love for dark elves.
Imladrik would not be distracted and asked again, ‘Why did you follow me, Liandra?’
‘If I said it was to make sure you weren’t going to do anything reckless, like try and talk to the dwarfs, would you have believed me?’
‘No.’
‘Then I did it to find out what you were doing. You entire household leaves the dwarf lands, headed for Oeragor, and yet you, their prince and master, go west after a trail of rangers. I wanted to know why you would do that, Imladrik.’
‘And do you?’
‘You don’t believe that asur did this.’
‘No elf of Ulthuan I know uses the Dark Wind. Those that do are rounded up as traitors by the warriors of the White Tower and executed.’
A darkness flashed across Liandra’s face at a bitter memory.
‘You think it was druchii?’
‘You do not?’
They circled one another, the wings of their mounts flapping lazily but their nostrils flaring as the wind grew steadily more vigorous. It was buffeting Liandra’s hair, releasing her gilded locks into the air like flecks of brilliant sunshine.
‘Storm is coming,’ she said, gazing into the heart of a thunderhead growing on the horizon.
Imladrik maintained a neutral expression. ‘You didn’t answer my question again.’
‘I do not think it matters whether the druchii are involved or not. But I can taste Dhar like ashes in my mouth. Whatever was unleashed down there in that gorge left a mark.’
‘A powerful sorceress then,’ said Imladrik, partly to himself. ‘It is worse than I first thought.’
Liandra nodded. ‘And something else too, something I cannot quite see.’
Imladrik was keen of sight. He looked through a patch of thinning cloud and saw that the dwarfs had collected their dead and were moving on.
‘Would a closer look make it any clearer?’
‘I would rather not descend into the gorge,’ she told him, and there was a note of fear in her voice.
‘The dwarfs are leaving. If we land at the ridge on either side and climb down into the gorge, they would not see us.’
Despite the prince’s reasoning, she looked far from certain.
‘I would have thought of all people, you would be the most keen to find out if there are druchii abroad in the Old World. It might have a bearing on whatever happens next. You are no friend to the dwarfs but I also know you do not want another war for our people.’
She peered down through the clouds for a few seconds before conceding. ‘We must be swift.’
The dragons dived a moment later, Draukhain in the lead with Vranesh a few feet behind. In keeping with Imladrik’s plan, they perched on the ridges of the gorge on either side. The elves then dismounted and climbed down. They met in the middle in a scrum of scattered, broken blades and patches of churned earth.
‘It was a brutal fight,’ said Liandra. She was crouching down, running the earth between her fingers.
‘That is plain even to my mundane sight,’ said Imladrik. ‘What else do you feel?’
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
‘Dhar saturates this place. It has been tainted by it. Three sorcerers, one much more potent than the others…’
Imladrik kept his voice low, but his gaze was intense. ‘How can you tell?’
‘Each crafts the wind of magic subtly differently. Such a thing leaves a trail of essence behind it if you know how to look for it.’
‘And what of the other thing, the enigma you spoke of?’
She screwed her eyes tighter. Her fists were clenched at her sides. Liandra’s already pale skin drained further, leaving her cold and corpse-like. She shuddered, wracked by a sudden convulsion that threw her off her feet and onto the ground where she spasmed.
‘Liandra!’ It was as if Imladrik’s voice was lost through the veil of a waterfall, distant and muffled.
Reaching her side, he shook her hard, pulling her up onto her knees again.
‘Liandra!’ Rubbing her arms, trying to beat some warmth back into her, Imladrik didn’t know what else to do. ‘Come back to me,’ he urged and was about to strike her when Liandra’s eyes snapped open again.
She flushed at the look of concern on Imladrik’s face. When the prince recognised it too he backed off.
‘Are you hurt?’
She struggled to her feet but refused any help.
‘We cannot linger here. It’s not safe.’
‘Liandra?’
She was already climbing back up to the ridge, finding trails no dwarf ever could and moving with a grace and swiftness that would seem impossible over such rugged terrain. Equally as nimble, Imladrik gave chase.
‘Liandra…’ He grabbed at her arm, and she snapped it away with a muttered curse.
‘Even with a dragon to protect me, I do not want to feel a crossbow bolt in my back,’ she said.
‘The dwarfs are gone, and I doubt they would shoot us without cause.’
‘Did you not see as I did in the dwarf hall? They want retribution for this. Even if their king is wise, they are not. They are a vengeful and greedy people, Imladrik. It is time you realised
