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They are not so much younger than I am, thought Liath, but she felt immeasurably older. She had traveled so far that at times she felt as if she had aged one hundred years in the space of a few days. Still, as she stood over the pallet on which Blessing lay, she could not imagine being old enough to be the mother of a child who appeared to be twelve or so years of age.

Nor was she. Blessing was barely four years old; it was only the aetherical link to Jerna that had accelerated her growth. Would her little girl burn brightly and live only a brief span? She might soon be older than her parents, tottering around in her second childhood and losing her memory of what had passed for a life.Advertisement

It was too painful to consider.

“What is your name? What are you?” Liath asked the old man.

He nodded. “I am Gyasi. I am shaman of Kirshat tribe. I owe my life to this one.” He indicated Blessing. “So I serve her.”

“Have you any sorcery that can wake her?”

He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, lifting his chin—a negative response. “This is powerful spell. I know not. I am helpless.”

She stared down at her child, fallen so far away from her. Anna worked a comb through the girl’s thick hair, and Liath wondered idly if it wouldn’t be more practical simply to cut it short. Was her daughter vain of her hair? She did not even know such a small, intimate detail. She knew nothing of her, not really.

Blessing was a stranger.

“Hathui, I pray you,” she said, voice choked with tears. “Tell me the tale of the years I have been gone.”

The sun had reached the zenith by the time she emerged from the tent. Sanglant still slept. The griffin napped beside its mate, content to doze in the noonday sun. The soldiers had moved the skittish horses upwind. As they went about their tasks, the men circled warily around the griffins. They kept their distance from Liath as well.

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They all treat me as though I’m something dangerous.

She called Captain Fulk to her and asked him to have Resuelto saddled. “I will ride back to the centaur camp.”

“How many do you wish to escort you, Your Highness?” he asked.

“No escort. Heribert, you’ll stay with Sanglant?”

“So I have been doing these four years,” he said, but he kept looking over at the griffins. “Is it safe, my lady? Will they attack us once you are gone?”

“I hope not.”

“Are you sure you’ll have no escort, my lady?” asked Captain Fulk. “See there.”

He gestured toward a tent shaped differently than the Wendish campaign tents—a mushroomlike felt shelter lying low to the ground, more a bulge than a tent. Three stocky young Quman men loitered under the angled awning, gazes fixed on the griffins, but after a moment Liath saw that Fulk was pointing toward two men standing in the shadow cast by the tent. They edged forward rather like starving beggar children might creep toward a forgotten crust of bread left lying on the roadside, trying very hard not to draw attention to themselves or the crust. They wore threadbare robes cut differently from those in the west and their red caps came to a curling point.

“What are two Jinna men doing here?”

“They were among the slaves your daughter freed from the ship. We offered them their freedom, but there’s none here who can speak to them. I don’t know if they stay because they don’t know they are free or if they’ve nowhere else to go. They’re good with horses. They do their share of work. We’ve no complaints of their service, even though they’re heathens.”

The two young men dashed forward. Fulk leaped out, drawing his sword.

“Hold, Captain!” It had been a long time since Liath had spoken Jinna; she could read it better than speak it, but the basic words did not elude her. “Honored sirs, it is better if you approach with prudence.”

The two men threw themselves down bellies to the ground and dipped their foreheads three times to the earth before rising to their knees and extending their hands, palms up and open.

“What means this?” asked Fulk, astonished.

Their postures looked uncomfortably like those of slaves offering submission to a master.

“What do you mean by this, honored sirs?” she asked, echoing Fulk’s amazement.

One raised his head. He steepled his fingers and, hiding his eyes behind the “v” made by his hands, replied.

“Do not disdain your servants, Bright One. Let us serve you, who walk on Earth and speak with human speech. We recognize you as one of the holy messengers of Astareos.”

“What are they saying?” asked Fulk as a number of Sanglant’s soldiers gathered at a distance to watch. There was nothing to do in camp except stare at the terrifying griffins; these men welcomed a new source of entertainment. pqdm.com