“But I am going on a dragon’s errand! My way has become dark as this Midnight.”
“Yes,” said he. “Your errand is one of wickedness and will leave you broken.” How gentle were his tones, and yet his was a voice that could destroy nations. “But trust me, my child, and I will make yours a mission of freedom, not of vengeance. I will make you the liberator, not the murderer.”
“How can I be anything other than a murderer?” Imraldera signed. “I would give my life for Fairbird, but must I give his death instead? He is loathsome and he is dreadful, but . . . but what makes me any different if I go through with this pact?”
“It is a dark path, Starflower,” spoke the Lumil Eliasul. “But I will see you come to no harm. And when you emerge victorious, the worlds will know you are mine. And they will wonder at the works you perform in my name.
“But you must see the truth. You must see who this Beast is. Look at him with your heart, Starflower. You must see his true name, the name which no one has ever known. And when you know his name, you must speak it.”
“The Dragonwitch told me his name.”
“See the truth, Starflower.”
“I do not know how to see!”
“When you see, you must speak.”
“I have no voice!”
“Imraldera. Wake up, my dear.”
The girl startled upright, blinking hard in her efforts to drive off the darkness. It would not lift, and she remembered with a sickening rush the Midnight and the Dogs. But there had been more, hadn’t there? A voice she knew, a promise given . . .
“I don’t know how you can sleep in this murk. You mortals are a strange lot, I tell you.”
Shaking herself, she forced her eyes to focus. To her surprise, she found Eanrin sat beside her, cross-legged. He grinned wanly and held out his hand. “Hungry?”
He offered her fruit she did not recognize. She snatched it up and, little caring if it be enchanted or poisoned, devoured it so fast she scarcely tasted it. The cat-man chuckled as he watched her, then produced more. The second piece went down more quickly than the first. By the third piece, she began to notice the flavor, sweet but with a sour hint. It was larger than a fig, more crisp than a mango, with a thin outer peel and an inner pulp of odd texture but full of juice that eased her thirst as well as hunger. Her stomach growled in gratitude and, embarrassed, she placed a hand over it.
Eanrin shook his head and produced a fourth fruit. “One would think you had never seen an apple before. Or have you?” he added as an afterthought and raised his eyebrows musingly as he considered this point. Imraldera ignored him and ate, thinking even then that she would never be satisfied.
“Strange company you have chosen to keep,” Eanrin said, glancing about. The Black Dogs remained hidden, but he knew they were aware of his presence. They had been given no command concerning him, however, not since they had chased him through Etalpalli. He hoped they would leave him be. “Gleamdren told me of your bargain with Hri Sora. Brave girl. Foolish too, absolutely! But brave. So we’re returning to your homeland, are we?”
Imraldera, her hunger ebbed somewhat, stopped chewing a moment. She frowned at the poet. He shouldn’t be here, she realized. He should be on his way back home, his lady in hand, triumphant and carefree. But here he was, sitting under the gaze of Hri Sora’s deadly children, slicking back his hair with his hand. His shirt was more muddy and tattered than ever. He was stained and disheveled, yet he sat like a dandy and smiled as though the worlds must be blessed by his very existence.
Behind that smile lay a tremulous hesitance she almost overlooked. Was he afraid she would turn him away?
“I can see you thinking,” Eanrin said, shifting a little uncomfortably. “You’re probably wondering what the blazes I am doing shadowing after you like some love-struck kitten.”
She blinked, and her hand holding the apple core dropped to her lap.
“I assure you,” the poet hastened on, “that I mean to accompany you purely out of a sense of obligation. You freed my lady Gleamdren. You danced right into Etalpalli the Unassailable, stood before the dreaded Flame at Night to make your demands, and danced right back out again. The conquering heroine, freer of prisoners and warrior maiden of great renown. I should like to write an epic in your honor . . . but alas! Such is not the work my audience has come to expect of me. No. I shall have to pay my obligation through practical rather than artistic means. That is, if it’s all the same to you?”
Who would have thought a cat’s face, even in human form, could look so pleading?
Imraldera reached out and took one of his hands. She squeezed gently, filling her eyes with gratitude. If there was one thing she needed out here in the Between, it was a friend.