Something that resembled a grin crossed the prince's face. 'It was not your wings that caught my eye.' Escanor left the pavilion tent, not coming to her so much as emerging out of the shadows at her side. 'You are growing more comfortable with them?' 'Not comfortable enough to sleep in.' Vala turned her back to the prince, placing the wings more or less in his hands. She let the shadowsilk straps slide through the slots in the back of her tunic, then began to roll her weary shoulders. 'We are going to sleep before the assault, aren't we?'
'That will be up to you.' Escanor waited for Vala to put herself in order again. When she had, he said, 'I have some news.'
Vala's heart sank. Her thoughts flew at once to Galaeron and Aris, but when she turned, she asked, 'Something has happened at the Granite Tower?'
It was impossible to say whether Escanor meant his fang-filled smile to be reassuring or mocking. 'Not at all. I am speaking of Galaeron.'
'Galaeron?' Vala said, feigning disappointment. She had been considering this moment since they departed the enclave and had come to the conclusion that there was only one way to play it 'He actually left?' The prince's eyes flared red. 'You knew of his plans?'
'Knew?' Vala shook her head. 'I thought it was just shadow talk. He started it after you asked me to come along on this assault. You made him jealous, I think.' 'And you didn't tell the Most High?'
'Why would I tell my personal business to the Most High?'
'It is not only your business,' Escanor said. 'The knowledge he carries belongs to Shade Enclave.'
Vala smiled and patted him on the cheek. 'I guess you should have thought of that before you invited me on this trip.' She picked up her wings and started for her tent. 'I've got to go wash. When's dinner?'
Escanor walked alongside her. 'You're not worried about him?'
'Should I be?' Vala did not stop walking. In this, above all things, she had to appear indifferent. If Escanor knew how she really felt, he would conceal his knowledge and play on her emotions to make her reveal what she knew. 'The Most High had turned him against me. You saw.' 'Then you can't tell me where he is?'
Vala almost smiled. If the Shadovar didn't know where Galaeron was, he was still free. 'I'd watch for him at Evereska, were I you.'
'That is the obvious choice, of course,' Escanor said, 'but he knows we have an army there. We were thinking he might have intended to go to Waterdeep, instead.'
'Might have,' Vala said. From the little she had overheard after leaving the dinner, that had in fact been Galaeron's plan. 'It's going to be hell finding him. Anauroch’s a big desert.'
'Particularly on foot. We found their veserab and flying disk, with all of their water-but no sign of them.' Escanor took Vala's arm and stopped her. 'If you know where they're going, you must tell me-for their own sakes. Without their waterskins, they won't last a tenday, even if they can find the oases.' 'Then they won't last a tenday,' Vala said.
Though Escanor was right about their chances of surviving Anauroch-at least about Aris's-the Shadovar had already guessed the little she knew, so there was nothing to be gained by admitting her own small involvement.
She glared at the dark hand grasping her arm expectantly and said, 'At least it will save me the trouble of hunting Galaeron down after he is completely lost to his shadow.'
Escanor released her arm. 'You truly don't know where they are?' 'Isn't that what I said?' 'And you are not in love with Galaeron?'
'I have more self-respect than that.' As she told this lie, Vala made a point of staring directly into the prince's eyes. 'All I am to him is a promise.'
Escanor surprised her with an obviously sincere smile. 'Just as I told the Most High.' He waved her toward his tent. 'Please, you will stay here tonight. It will be more comfortable.'
'Comfortable?' Though Vala was cringing inside, she forced a playful half-smirk. 'Don't you think we need our sleep tonight?'
'When we are done, you will sleep like a lioness after her kill,' Escanor replied, showing his fangs. 'In truth, I had thought your flirtations no more than a low attempt to mask your betrayal behind a veneer of desire, but I see now that Melegaunt's reports about the women of Vaasa were not exaggerated.' 'Reports?' Vala demanded.
'That you are always in season,' Escanor said. He took her hand affectionately between his. 'Bodvar's daughter was a favorite of his.'
'Bodvar's daughter?' Vala pondered this for a moment, then gasped, 'Granna?'
'Have no fear. Even if Melegaunt is your grandfather, we are many generations apart. Our blood is hardly the same at all.' He pulled her toward his pavilion. 'Clear my tent!' Vala stopped cold. 'Wait!' Escanor's eyes flared red. 'You are not sincere?'
'I'm always sincere,' Vala said, grimacing inwardly at the distasteful looks the Shadovar cast her way as they streamed from the pavilion tent, 'but we've been on the wing for four days and pulling shadow all day for a fifth. I've got to wash.'
'I have water in my tent,' Escanor said. 'You can wash here.'
' Wash' is a figure of speech,' Vala said. While hardly above sharing a man's bed for her own reasons, she was not in the practice of allowing herself to be ordered into one. The prince was pushing too hard, too fast. He was up to something, and she had to buy time to puzzle out what. 'What I really have to do is-'
'You can do that in the garderobe behind my tent,' Escanor interrupted. 'It opens into the Gray Wastes.'
'All right,' Vala said, feigning surrender, 'but we've got to eat first. I'm famished, and with the day we have tomorrow-'
'That will be no concern to you,' Escanor said, leading her into the empty pavilion. 'A prince's consort is not expected to fight.'
'What?' Finally seeing her opening, Vala stopped. 'Consort?'
'Of course,' Escanor said. 'We Shadovar are not barbarians. We do not cast a woman aside after we have used her.' 'And I have to stop fighting?'
Escanor shook his head. 'Not at all. A consort may fight at her own pleasure-but it is not expected.' He waved her toward depths at the back of the tent. 'If you please. I will have food brought later.'
Vala refused to cross the threshold. 'What about Sheldon?'
'Your son?' Escanor asked. 'He will be brought to the enclave and raised in my house as a High Lord. Will that not please you?'
Vala needed to consider this only a moment before she shook her head. 'No, he is Vaasan.'
'Very well, he will remain in Vaasa,' Escanor replied. 'Whatever you wish, Vala.' Vala turned to look at him. 'Whatever I wish?' 'For a consort of the First Prince, anything,' Escanor said. 'You could even return to Vaasa yourself-with Bodvar's debt repaid in full.'
It was nearly enough to make Vala step into the tent. She had been gone from the Granite Tower for more than a year and longed for nothing more than to return to raise her son and see her aging parents-and that was what made the prince's offer too good to be true. He wanted more from her than to share the fur. There were a thousand courtesans in the Palace Most High that he could have for a smile, and most were-though it stung her pride to admit it-far more desirable than she.
She stepped away from the tent and narrowed her eyes at Escanor. 'What does all this generosity cost me? My life? My will?'
Escanor spread his hands. 'Nothing, if your desire is true.' 'Let's say it isn't.'
'Then there is a much easier way to secure the same privileges,' Escanor said, dodging the question. 'Just tell me what you know about Galaeron's disappearance.'
'I already have,' Vala said. 'Beyond that, I don't know anything that would help you.'
'Allow me to be the judge of that,' Escanor said. 'You cannot know what might help us.'
Vala was tempted. She was almost telling the truth anyway. If Galaeron wasn't going to Waterdeep-and apparently he wasn't, since the Shadovar couldn't find him-then she was at a loss. Escanor was right, though, in that she couldn't know what might help them find the fleeing elf-or implicate those who had stayed behind. However she looked at it, she would be betraying her companions at least in spirit, if not in fact.
'Let's try this,' Vala said. 'Tell me what you know, and I'll tell you if anything I know can help.'
