Then she was gone. She passed into the forest, and the Midnight trailed behind her as the Black Dogs followed.
“Dragon’s teeth, dragon’s teeth, dragon’s teeth!” Eanrin tore at his hair, took a few running steps after, backed up, darted forward again, and stopped. “Don’t get involved. She means nothing to you! The affairs of mortals are none of your business. What does she matter? Her life is only a moment. She doesn’t concern you! She doesn’t . . .”
He whirled and darted up the incline. He found Glomar and Gleamdren waiting for him there, sheltered by friendly trees. Glomar was speaking to Gleamdren, but her attention was not on the guardsman and his faltering attempts at pretty words.
“There you are!” she cried when Eanrin appeared. “Is this how you intend to demonstrate your devotion? Running off after mortal wenches at the drop of a hat? I thought you a man of high feeling, Eanrin, a man of taste! I thought—”
“What do you know about Imraldera’s arrangement with Hri Sora?” Eanrin demanded.
“Imral-who?”
“The maid, the mortal maid. What bargain did she make with the dragon? You said you overheard a plot or two. Tell me what you know about this.”
“Oh, so you weren’t behind it?” Gleamdren threw up her hands. “I thought at the very least you had concocted this fool arrangement for my release! Am I really to believe that you were so hapless you had to let this mortal do your thinking for you?”
Eanrin was within breaths of taking Gleamdren by the shoulders and giving her a sound shake. His voice became a growl, so low, so full of menace, that even the queen’s cousin must take notice. She gasped and stepped away from him as he spoke:
“Gleamdren, by the golden staff of my order, if you don’t tell me what you know, I’ll retract every poem I ever wrote in your honor.”
“Oh!” Her hands pressed to her heart. “Oh, you don’t mean it, Eanrin!”
“Every rhyming couplet.”
Her mouth opened and closed several times. Then, in a tiny chirp, she said, “Hri Sora wants her old enemy, Amarok, destroyed. The mortal agreed to help. The Black Dogs are escorting her back to her homeland, and there she is to do the Dragonwitch’s work. All on the condition that I was to go free and you two were to be released from the city.”
Eanrin stared at Gleamdren. None of it made sense! His mind sifted through the information, struggling to find pieces that might fit together. Who was Amarok? Why would Hri Sora send Imraldera back to the Near World, and why with the Black Dogs as escort? How could the gentle maid possibly be an instrument for the Flame at Night’s vengeance?
And why, in the midst of all these horrors, would Imraldera concern herself with his, Glomar’s, and Gleamdren’s safety?
It was too much. Too much! For a mind as old as memory and a life lived longer than the mountains and rivers of a hundred worlds . . . it was more than Eanrin could bear.
“Curse that Hound! Curse that lantern!” Eanrin snarled, grinding his teeth. “I shall never be the same.”
“What?” Gleamdren demanded. “What are you muttering, Eanrin? The girl is gone, thank Hymlumé’s grace, and we are free of that wretched, wretched city. You certainly have done nothing of which to write epics, but at least you can escort me home. And here I thought I would return in company with a score of suitors, not two sorry little— Eanrin! Where are you going?”
The poet, running back down the incline, did not pause but called over his shoulder, “I’m going after her! I’m going to help!”
“Eanrin! Lumé love me, cat, if you take one more step after that creature, I will never speak to you again! Eanrin, do you hear me?”
But it was too late. Whether the poet had heard or not, he was gone, vanished into the Wood and pursuing the trail of Midnight. Gleamdren stood aghast, her hands on her hips.
Glomar crept to her side. “If I may be so bold, my lady, I should like to offer you my—”
“Be still!” Gleamdren turned eyes full of sparks on the captain. “I don’t know who you are, nor do I care. Take me home at once, do you hear? I’ve had enough of this adventuring to last me a lifetime!”
So it was that Lady Gleamdrené Gormlaith, on the arm of a single escort, was returned to the welcoming bosom of Rudiobus. And wherever she went for generations after, she could hear the women giggling behind her back, “A hundred suitors, Lady Gleamdren? Have you bothered to count them recently?”
Omeztli stood empty. The black corridors echoed nothing but silence; the bustling life of Etalpalli was forever stilled. The queen’s tower looked out upon a ghost city. It was barren and forlorn save for its last inhabitant.
She sat on the tower’s roof. And she was as empty as Omeztli.
Her hand pressed to her chest, feeling that place where her heart had once pulsed. Usually it was warm with the blaze of her inner furnace. But now even that was dulled to almost nothing. She felt as hollow as a dead tree.