“Stop calling him ‘mine,’” she growled. “It’s beneath you to be so spiteful.”
“Spiteful? When was I ever spiteful?” said he. But his voice was no longer the cheerful tease Imraldera had come to know so well. It was more like a cat’s than ever, but like a wild cat’s, full of suspicion. “Look, I haven’t felt right about this all along. Not since I first found him and carried him back. I don’t deny that part was right, but the rest of this? Tell me, have you heard even a whisper of leading from the Lumil Eliasul?”
Imraldera stared hard at his hand holding her arm, as though to burn his fingers with her gaze. She drew a deep breath and scowled up at him. “No. I haven’t. But that does not mean we are doing wrong. We’ve been given our mission: to protect, to guard. And we’ve our own good sense and experience from which to draw, as well as what we know of our Lord’s will. I believe this is the right course.”
He let her go and she turned to face him, crossing her arms over her chest in a mirror image of the stance he also assumed. Sun Eagle marched on ahead as they glared at each other, and the Wood watched, both frightened and amused.
“Do you want to know what I think?” Eanrin said.
“Not especially, no.”
“Isn’t that a shame, then? Because I’m going to tell you what I think, and you’re going to listen, and if you can’t give me a fair answer, it’ll be dragon fire to pay, you mark my words.”
“We don’t have time for this.”
“We always have time. We’re in the Between. And it’s about time someone took time to stop and think before rushing off into the unknown at a word from some savage mortal!”
“Savage?” Imraldera snarled out the word. Her face was flushed and she felt the heat of mounting battle inside her. Reasonably, she knew she should back down and step away from this fight that could accomplish nothing. Yet there she stood, rising to the bait, her mouth filling with words like weapons to hurl at her companion’s head. “You keep saying savage, Eanrin. Is this what you think of me, then? Am I nothing more than a savage to you? Because I am what he is.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I am! I am of the Hidden Land Behind the Mountains! I was born of mortal earth and mortal blood! I was raised by mortal hands the same as he, breathing the air he breathed, living the life he lived.”
“The life he lived, eh?” The cat-man’s voice was smooth as butter. “If my memory serves, you were poisoned and cursed to lose your voice, while he and all the menfolk of your precious Hidden Land beat you down at their convenience—when they could be bothered to acknowledge your existence at all.”
“They are my people!”
“Your people? Your enslavers, rather!” He took another step forward, towering over her. For the first time in all the long ages she had known him, Imraldera saw Eanrin for the dangerous creature he was; a creature older than she could imagine, a creature as much animal as he was man, and all otherness and wild fey menace. His golden eyes snapped with anger, and his teeth looked sharp as a cat’s in that near darkness under the trees.
“This is what I think, Imraldera,” he said. “I think you’ve lost your head over this man who once had a hold on your affection. Don’t deny it, and don’t tell me it was too long ago! I think you’ve forgotten all that good sense you claim. I think a few pretty words from him, and you’d drop everything you’ve worked for since you saw to the Wolf Lord’s death, everything you’ve striven for since you accepted the knighthood. You—”
“Stop now, Eanrin,” she said, and the muscles in her cheeks tensed with the grinding of her teeth.
But Eanrin rushed on, his words an angry torrent now. “You think you can’t put a foot wrong? You think because the Prince has seen fit to use you for his good purpose that you can now start deciding what that good purpose is? Look at this Path we walk! It’s not one of our own, and you don’t know where it will lead, yet because he walks it, you’re willing to go tripping along, sweet as you please!”
“You don’t even know Sun Eagle, and yet you distrust him. You’ve given him no opportunity to prove himself.”
“You don’t know him either! You know only what you’ve stored up in that mortal memory of yours, and I’m here to tell you it’s not so trustworthy as you seem to think.”
Her eyes blazed. She would have struck him in that moment had she not caught at the last shreds of her self-control. Instead, she said coldly, “I see no reason for you to continue with us, then. I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions and walking what Paths I choose. I will do as I have purposed, and I’ll do it alone.”
“Alone? Ha!” The cat-man tossed back his head in a mirthless laugh. “That’s a fine joke, that is! So you really believe I’m going to just let you go marching off to certain doom and folly?”
“If you’re so certain it’s doom and folly, you can turn around and wash your hands of it!”
“That I won’t.”