“Let me have a look at her,” she said.
With the Elven Hunter kneeling and Arling resting in his arms, Aphen searched through her sister’s clothing, checking pockets and even the folds of her tunic, trying to find the seed.
But it wasn’t there.
She exchanged a worried glance with Cymrian. “She couldn’t have lost it. Not after all this.”
“She was in shock, disoriented,” he reminded her.
“But she mentioned the Bloodfire just before she passed out. She was aware enough to do that much.”
Cymrian shook his head. “Wake her. Ask her.”
Aphen was loath to do this, but she couldn’t continue on without knowing. Too much was at stake. Using a healing magic with which she was intimately familiar, she brought her sister awake. Arling’s eyes fluttered open, and her scarlet gaze slowly came into focus.
Aphen forced a reassuring smile. “Arling, where is the seed? Do you still have it?”
Her sister gave a small nod. “Safe inside.” She lifted her hand and placed it over her heart. “She knew what was needed. She was right to tell me to come.”
“Don’t talk. I just needed to be sure. I was afraid you might have lost it.”
“I lost other things. Not that.” She rose to a sitting position. “Aphen, we have to go. We have to get back to Arborlon.” Her voice was urgent. “Now, Aphen! We have to hurry! There’s no time!”
She seemed to be getting stronger suddenly, her words carrying a certain force as she spoke them. Then, all at once, she was struggling to break free, trying to squirm out of Cymrian’s arms and get back to her feet.
“No, Arling, don’t!” Aphen cried out, trying to help Cymrian hold her down. “Stop it. You aren’t ready!”
But Arlingfant Elessedil was more than ready. Stronger than both of them combined, she wrenched free of their hands, flushed and wild-eyed, a different person entirely. In seconds she was standing clear of them. “You don’t know!” she screamed.
Aphen took a step back. Her sister seemed transformed. She didn’t even look as if she recognized her. “Arling, it’s me!”
Arling stared at her, then nodded. “I can walk by myself,” she said.
Her companions exchanged a worried glance. “All right,” Aphenglow agreed, holding up her hands in a placating gesture. “If that’s what you want.”
There was a tension between them that hadn’t been there two minutes before, and it had resulted in a full-blown confrontation that Aphen didn’t understand. Something had happened to Arling. She wasn’t the same person. This new Arling was hard and determined in ways that the old had never been.
Aphen didn’t know what to do.
They started down the passageway, moving through the darkness, following the beams of their smokeless torches, heading for the opening into the other cavern. They passed into it without another word being spoken, Cymrian in the lead again, Arling and Aphen right on his heels, almost side by side, the latter giving the former frequent sideways glances that were not returned. The stone columns rose all around them like giants frozen in place, sentinels against dangers long since forgotten, but perhaps right around the corner. The gloom absorbed the light cast by the torches so that it felt as if they were traversing a massive space in which walls had been cast down and darkness ran on forever.
They were almost to the far wall and could see its stone block surface behind soaring columns spread out before them in staggered rows when there was a flash of movement off to one side.
Cymrian wheeled toward it, and Aphen quickly moved to place herself in front of Arlingfant. But then she heard a sudden gasp, and she wheeled around to find her sister firmly clutched in the arms of Edinja Orle with a slender blade set just below Arling’s chin.
Aphen, her sister mouthed silently.
Ahead, the moor cat Cinla materialized out of the darkness, long and sleek and dangerous as she advanced on Cymrian.
“Don’t do anything foolish,” Edinja said softly.
She emphasized her words by pressing the knife she held a little more tightly against the skin of Arling Elessedil’s exposed throat.
“Why don’t we take a few minutes to talk things over,” she said, and gave them a satisfied smile.
Twenty-five