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She kicked the pallet he had lain on. It felt good to have something to hit.

“We’ll have to go after him,” she said, gathering up her weapons, which she had left on the ground between Blessing’s pallet and the tent wall.Advertisement

“Why must you go?” asked Li’at’dano as Liath came outside. The centaur shaman seemed honestly puzzled. “We are allies, you and I. There is much to be done if we are to combat these Seven Sleepers. We have a long journey ahead of us, unless you can weave the crowns.”

“I’m going after my husband,” said Liath as she adjusted the weight of her sword and the angle of her quiver.

“He is only a male. You can find another mate when it is time for you to breed again.”

“Not one like him!” The comment gave her pause. She swept her gaze over the encampment. “Why are there no male centaurs among you? There are both men and women among your Kerayit allies, but I see no males among your kind at all.”

Li’at’dano blinked. For a moment Liath feared she had insulted the shaman. Although her features looked very like those worn by humankind, there was a subtle difference in the way expressions played across her face that betrayed her essential otherness.

She is like me but not like me, thought Liath. I cannot assume that she thinks as I do, or that our goals match exactly. We are allies, not sisters.

“I pray you,” she said aloud, wishing she had asked Sorgatani more questions about the centaurs. With Sorgatani, she had felt so entirely comfortable; she had felt that no comment might be misconstrued, only explained or expanded on. She had felt understood, in harmony. “I pray you, I mean no insult if I have spoken of something that you consider taboo.”

“We are as we are, and as you see,” said Li’at’dano finally. “That you are otherwise is a mystery to us. It is the great weakness of humankind.”

“I don’t understand you, but I ask you, forgive me if I behave in any manner that goes against your ways. I must go after my husband. If there are any who will accompany me, I would appreciate an escort. I do not know where his camp lies.”

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“You have an escort already.” Li’at’dano pointed toward the western slope. “The beast fears and desires your heart of fire.”

The griffin paced on the grassy hillside, keeping well out of range of the centaur bows. The rising sun gilded her feathers and she shone, her wing feathers shimmering as the light played across them, her beauty all the more striking because she was so huge and so dangerous and wild. Her tail lashed the grass; she was disturbed and anxious.

“God help me,” murmured Liath. Yet there was no way but to go past her, not if she wanted to follow Sanglant.

“West and north,” added Li’at’dano helpfully. “You can see the smoke of their campfires. Do not make us wait long. We must move quickly. The wheel of the heaven turns no matter what we do here on Earth.”

“I know.” She turned back to meet the shaman’s gaze, which appeared to her cold and steady but not hostile, simply quite another thing from the look of humankind. “I could have remained with my kinfolk, beyond the heavens,” she said at last. “I could have turned my back on humankind entirely, but I did not. These are the chains that bind me to Earth. I cannot escape them now, nor do I wish to.”

Li’at’dano nodded, an acknowledgment but not, precisely, comprehension. “It is not our way. I will not interfere with your customs, because you are not mine to command. Go quickly.”

Go quickly.

Suddenly the fear that something awful had happened to Sanglant and her daughter overwhelmed her. She had journeyed so far; what if she lost him now?

As soon as the griffin saw Liath coming, she padded away, tail beating the grass like a whip. Liath followed her; no question that the beast knew where she was going, and Liath saw traces of a trail—not an actual path cut through the landscape but the evidence left by the passage of a small party some time earlier: broken stems of grass, beads of blood dried on glossy leaves; a spot where someone had lain down to rest. These minute signs reassured her, but they made her wonder.

“Why do you lead me?” she asked aloud. “Why does this path interest you? What do you seek?”

The griffin swung its huge head around to stare at her, its amber gaze unwinking. It ducked its head down and with a shudder unfolded its wings to flash in the sun like a host of swords before furling them along its body. They moved on at a brisk pace. Liath had to run to keep up with the griffin’s strides.

She began to suspect the worst when, soon after, they reached a place where the ground was churned up by the trampling of many feet, where the soil had been ripped up by the force of claws digging into the ground. pqdm.com