“As long as is required,” said the raven as it took wing and flew away. “And not one day more.”
“Wait!” Athan yelled but no further response came as the raven’s form disappeared into shadow. He looked down to see his hands were no longer empty, for they held the reins tied to his brother’s bridle. With not else to do, they put the fire filled horizon behind them and left that place, waiting for the raven’s return, together.
Tales of the Raven,
Collected Fables of Ellium, Vol. 3
28
Melakatezra finished her story, starting from its beginning but not detailing the end. Exactly when the raven had returned to the two brothers wasn’t important, and what had been requested of Athan had already been made clear. The price for his brother’s freedom had been the freedom of someone else, a price he seemed no longer willing to pay.
Dnara looked to him, but the forester could not meet her eyes. He’d bargained with magic and lost. She looked then to Treven, and his gaze on her did not waver. She saw guilt etched on the mule’s features, but also acceptance of the fate he’d been dealt by the choice he’d made. So young, both of them, to have been tricked into the raven’s- into Melakatezra’s game.
Dnara’s grip on the Elvan lantern tightened and she turned to face the raven feathered mage. “Thank you for telling me the story,” she said, because now she knew the truth of it. “And for revealing to me your deceitful trickery.”
Melakatezra’s aloof expression fell into a glower. “Deceitful trickery? No, dear child, I gave them a choice. They chose to depend on the promise of magic fixing everything instead of facing the truth of their situation.”
“They were children!” Dnara sucked in a tight breath to calm her rising anger. “They had lost everything, and you took advantage of that.”
Melakatezra’s eyes narrowed into black slits, then she smiled with a small shrug of her feather laden shoulders. “Fine. They were children. You, however, claim to not be a child, so I will make an offer to you.”
“I want no part of your magic,” Dnara said.
“That, I’m afraid, is too late a request,” Melakatezra replied as her detached demeanor returned. “But, in this matter, I urge you to at least hear my offer before making your choice.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Athan warned. “Get onto Treven’s saddle. He’ll take you to the Thorngrove as fast as possible. Please, Dnara. I am here to face my choices, but I want you and Treven to be safe.”
“None are safe as long as she is without tether,” Melakatezra said in a prophetic voice that caused the ravens to caw and shake the trees.
Dnara didn’t know what her words meant, except that a tether sounded like another type of collar. She also didn’t want to run. She was so very tired of running.
“Make your offer,” she dared to command of the raven mage, with head held high and voice kept steady.
She had endured worse in her life than standing face to face with a mage, even one who seemed as powerful as Melakatezra. Magic had rules; rules that could be bent but never broken. ‘The trick to magic,’ Keeper Ishkar had once told her while nursing a cup of honeyed tea during one of his less tumultuous moods, ‘is to read the fine print.’ Dnara had not fully understood his words until hearing the story of Athan and Treven. And with a mage like Melakatezra, Dnara assumed there would be a great deal of fine print.
“Very well,” Melakatezra said with a slight smile, and Dnara prepared herself to unwind the threads of half-truths the mage was sure to spin. But, instead of weaving a tale of allegory, Melakatezra simply said, “Come with me, and I will spare the rest.”
Dnara’s confidence sputtered and dwindled. “What?”
“That is my offer,” Melakatezra answered. “Come with me and I will reawaken the blackrope, I will return Treven to his former two-legged self, and I will consider my deal with Athan completed as promised.”
“Don’t,” Athan said, taking a step closer to Dnara and his brother. “Her offers are never that simple.”
“All you must do is take my hand,” Melakatezra said, her focus intent on Dnara and ignoring Athan’s efforts to interfere. She extended her thinly fingered hand, palm upturned and empty, to Dnara. “Just take my hand, child, and everything will be made right again.”
Dnara could feel Athan stepping closer and the uneasy way in which Treven shook his head while pawing at the earth with front hoof, but her attention centered on the open, waiting hand in front of her. She could set Athan free from his deal, returning Treven back to human form. Her mind tried to fathom all the two had endured, how Treven had lived for so long as a beast of burden, and the guilt Athan must have carried all these years as heavy as any load upon Treven’s saddle. Would she have acted any different if it had been her sister now a mule? Side glancing to Athan’s pleading eyes, she could not say with certainty she would have put the freedom of a stranger over that of someone she cared for.
“Dnara,” Athan said as he caught her gaze. “Please, leave this place. My brother and I have already decided to live with our choice. Neither of us wants you to go with her.”
Dnara looked back to the mage who stood unmoving, allowing Athan to have his say. Melakatezra’s placid expression gave nothing of her motives away, but neither did she attempt to persuade Dnara from Athan’s words. By the rules of the magic used, the offer had been made and now Dnara alone could make the choice.
Treven lightly tugged on
