“All your life?” Hri Sora laughed harshly. “All the long, what—fifteen, sixteen years? You are a breath, a moment! You know nothing of what you speak.”
Starflower drew back her shoulders. “If I am nothing, chieftain, then let me go.”
“Oh, I will! I will, indeed! I will release you from the bindings of my realm. I have no wish to keep you here, no more than you wish to stay.”
And now the bargain, Starflower thought. Now I find out why she did not already slay me.
“But everything has a price, my child,” Hri Sora continued. Her voice was that of the Dark Father. “Everything has a price.”
The cat and the badger ran along the River’s edge, the badger barrelling forward without a thought, the cat jumping and dancing aside to avoid letting his paws touch the water. The River had not forgotten. It would dart out a hand and drag him under in a second if he was to let his guard down. He should know better; he should take himself far from here as fast as possible! Only a fool or a sop would return to Cozamaloti under such circumstances.
“Call me a fool, then,” Eanrin muttered as he ran, head and tail low. “But, Lumé love me, don’t call me a sop!”
Being the faster of the two, he was ahead of the badger. But his pace slowed as he drew near the storming falls. They were bigger than the last time he had been this way. Not only were the falls themselves deeper, but the breadth was so great that he could not see the far end of the bridge, which vanished in heavy mist across the way. Cozamaloti gave such a long, continuous roar that it drowned out even the petulant anger of the River.
Eanrin put his ears back, and his eyes were wide as moons. He thought he might prefer to stand on the brink of the chasm in Etalpalli than look into the face of Cozamaloti again. At least the pit was dry!
“Hurry up, cat,” panted Glomar, drawing up beside him and taking man’s form again. He choked midpant as he got a good glimpse of the falls. “By the sin-black beard of my king! Tell me we’ve come to the wrong place.”
The cat looked up at the guard. “Afraid, Glomar?”
“Not a bit of it!” Glomar’s voice trembled.
With a shake of his whiskers, Eanrin became a man once more, sitting cross-legged at his rival’s feet, gazing out at the crashing white water. He was pale, and his voice was so small that it could not be heard above Cozamaloti. “I am.”
“It wasn’t like this when last I came,” Glomar said. “She must have realized I was trying to enter and opened the gate for me. I . . .” He licked his lips. “This will be much harder.” Then he scowled down at the cat. “What I don’t understand is how you, you of all people, managed to pass through this way! Did Hri Sora unbar the gate for you as well?”
Eanrin shook his head. He thought of Imraldera, snatched by the River’s strong arm, dragged under, hauled toward those falls. The ignorant little mortal maid, lost and far from everything she knew. And yet . . . what a wonder! How brave she had been in the face of what must be utmost terror to her. He couldn’t begin to guess at her story, where she had come from or why. But he remembered how she had bravely squared her shoulders, her eyes blazing, and started off through the Wood with the commanding stride of a queen! Certainly, she had almost walked—several times, in fact—straight to her own doom. But she was no coward.
And despite all the sorrows and curses of her own life, she had followed him to Etalpalli and worked so hard to help him.
“Brave girl,” he whispered so that he could not hear his own voice. There was movement in the mist. His quick cat eyes focused, pupils dilating. Something just beyond his range of vision approached.
Eanrin got to his feet, taking a tentative step or two, ears still listening to the vengeful River, but eyes fixed upon the bridge.
“Ah well,” said Glomar, coming alongside him. He did not like to see the cat show more courage than he. Cats were notorious cowards, while badgers were renowned for their valor. By all the Faerie queens, Glomar wasn’t about to let that slip today! “She is a woman worth jumping for, isn’t she, Eanrin?”
The mist shifted. Eanrin peered intently, telling himself his eyes lied but wanting to believe them. Then, a glimpse of light in the darkness. A gleam of golden-white fur; dark eyes more compelling than suns and moons.
“Lumil Eliasul,” Eanrin whispered.
The mist swirled. The vision was gone.
“Eh?” said Glomar. He gave the poet a sidelong glance. What a strange expression had come over that sardonic face! In that moment, Glomar wondered if he indeed stood beside the Eanrin he knew. Had some phantom imposter taken his place? “Come again?”