Midnight hovered with smothering thickness above Omeztli Tower. Hri Sora sat with her children on either side, her quick eyes following every movement of the mortal girl’s hands, reading each variation on that gentle face.
She should be broken! The Dragonwitch licked her lips, burning them with the smoldering coal of her tongue. The girl was mortal and frail. After such an encounter with the wolf, she should be shattered to pieces. The humiliation should in itself have been her undoing! The abandonment, the horror of her weakness put on such prominent display. Dreadful fate, to be so shamed!
Yet the creature’s hands faltered only when they spoke of her sister, her father, or that wretched dog she seemed to value. And, though Hri Sora sought it throughout the long telling of that sorry tale, she could find no hate in Maid Starflower’s eyes.
“On the far end of that narrow stretch of land, I entered the Wood,” the mortal signed. “I thought as I passed into its shadows that it was like the Wood in the gorge where Sun Eagle was lost. If this is so, my heart aches even more at his fate. This is a terrible place, this nightmare into which we have fallen.”
One of the brutes lying at Hri Sora’s side whined. With a hiss, Hri Sora cuffed it into silence. Let the beasts be mute in her presence. She had, for the first many years of their lives, been mute in theirs! She had listened to their squabbles and snarls, unable to raise her voice to bid them cease, powerless even before her own offspring.
Not anymore.
She turned remorseless eyes upon the silent maiden before her. The girl’s hands were still, her gaze fixed upon the cowering Dog. How pitiful she was! Not only bound in the repressions of her people, but bound still more in the repressions of love. Yet Hri Sora felt no pity. Contempt burned like hatred in her breast.
The girl should be broken of such foolishness. She should have learned by now that love was the greatest, the final chain. It had brought her so low, laid her out helpless before the eyes of the worlds.
And yet she dared stand in the Flame at Night’s presence, gazing with compassion on the wretched Black Dog.
Hri Sora spoke aloud, glorying in the freedom of her own voice as she never had before: “So you fell in with Eanrin of Rudiobus and, charmed by the guile of his voice, allowed him to lead you and leave you in my demesne.”
The girl stood motionless a long moment. Then she signed, “I chose to accompany Eanrin. Just as I chose to accompany your children.”
“Chose?” Hri Sora laughed, and the laugh was bitter in her mouth. “You are a woman of the Land. You never have a choice.”
Starflower closed her eyes and bowed her head. Hri Sora smiled at this subservience. This was much more what she would expect from one who had gazed into Amarok’s eyes and seen her own frailty reflected there. Shattered spirit, ruined heart . . . and this mortal, unlike the Flame of Night, had no fire on which to fall back.
Then Starflower signed, “Did you choose, chieftain, to destroy your city?”
Fire poured from Hri Sora’s mouth as she leapt to her feet. It fell from her tongue in a violent stream. The mortal girl should burn! She should suffer the ultimate penalty for her insolence! How dared she speak to the Flame at Night on subjects she could not understand? The Black Dogs scurried into the shadows, their tails tucked, and Lady Gleamdren screamed from within her cage.
When the fire died, the Dragonwitch looked down to find Starflower crouched, her head covered with her hands. The coward! She did not deserve to die so glorious a death as by fire.
Hri Sora spat out ashes and snarled: “Were you worth anything, mortal beast, you would understand the choices of a queen. Act on what wisdom you do possess and ask no questions concerning matters far beyond your comprehension.”
Starflower, though weak from hunger, exhaustion, and terror, gathered her shaking limbs and got to her feet. How she feared she would faint in the presence of such horror! But she had not fainted when faced by the wolf. She would not permit herself to do so now. No, she would die first.
Hri Sora saw the expression on the girl’s face and read every thought therein. It is well, she told herself, though she hated to admit it. If she were broken, how could she do what you require of her?
The Dragonwitch settled back into her low seat, assuming a relaxed pose, though her veins throbbed with the heat of her desire. Desire to see her dearest wish come true—the wish she longed for more than she longed for her wings. She had thought it possible to see that desire fulfilled only if she first recovered those wings. But now . . . now it seemed so close, so possible, she could almost taste the sweetness of satisfaction.
And if she could fulfill her desire without requiring the Dark Father’s assistance, so much the better. It never paid to live in debt to that one.
“Will you return to the Land, mortal?” Hri Sora asked, hoping her voice did not betray her eagerness.
Starflower shook her head.