Just dreams. He tried to force conviction into the thought, casting a reluctant gaze at his tent. Just the stain of her company, the stink of her in my mind. Just dreams. She does not see me. He finally surrendered when his fatigued hands left him with a bleeding thumb, returning the arrows to his quiver and walking to the tent on weak legs. Just dreams.
• • •
She stands atop a tall tower, Volar spread out beneath her in all its ancient glory, street after street of tenements, marble mansions, gardens of wondrous construction and myriad towers rising from every quarter, though none so tall as this one: the Council Tower.
She raises her gaze to the sky seeking a target. The day is clear, the sky mostly unbroken blue, but she spies a small cloud some miles above, thin and wispy but sufficient for her purposes. She searches inside herself for the gift, finding she has to suppress her song to call it forth, but when it does the power of it staggers her, making her reach for the parapet as she sways. She feels a familiar trickle from her nose and understands the price for this one will be harder to bear even than the wonderful fire she stole from Revek, his words returning now with precise irony: Always the way with stolen gifts, don’t you find?
What did he know? she thinks, though the scorn is forced and hollow. He knew enough not to be blinded by love.
She forces unwelcome thoughts from her head and focuses on the cloud, the gift surging, more blood flowing from her nose as she releases it, the small cloud swirling into a tight vortex before flying apart, tendrils fading in the clear blue sky.
“Impressive.”
She turns to see a tall man in a red robe emerge from the stairway onto the tower roof. Two Kuritai follow him into the light, hands resting on their swords. She has yet to test the skill offered by this new shell and has to resist the urge to do so now. Hide an advantage and you double its value. One of her father’s axioms, though she suspects he may have stolen it from a long dead philosopher.
“Arklev,” she greets the tall man as he moves to her side. She can see a change in him, a new weariness around his eyes, an expression she knows well. He grieves.
“The Messenger did not linger,” he tells her. “Save to say that the Ally’s guidance will now be spoken only by you.”
The Ally’s guidance . . . As if he could comprehend the true meaning of those words, what it means to a soul in the Void to hear the Ally’s voice. She almost laughs at the ignorance of this ancient little man. Centuries of life and still he knows nothing.
