The Betrayal (18 page)

Heléri sipped her tea, then spoke gently. “Little better than you or I.”

Eliani slumped back in her chair, disappointed. “Then it is a myth that we each have spirits watching over us.”

“No. That is true.”

“What help can they give us if they know no more than we?”

“I did not say that was the case.” Heléri set her cup on her worktable, then leaned a little closer to Eliani. “Each soul makes a plan for its life before entering
flesh. Those in spirit know of these plans and are their guardians, for when we come into flesh, we forget them. I do not perfectly understand all the ways in which spirit helps us, but I can tell you this much: when all seems dark and fearsome, they are beside us, lending us their strength.”

Eliani looked into the fire, wishing for the comfort these words should have given her. Did her mother watch over her? She often had wondered but never sensed anything. She shook her head, half whispering.

“Why can we not tell?”

“We do not listen very well, and we have many distractions. Spirits do not often speak in words—those are a fleshly tool and require considerable effort for them to shape. Have you never had a sense of danger when contemplating some action of which you were uncertain?”

Eliani gazed back at her. “Yes.”

“Often such feelings are from our friends in spirit. It is the easiest way they have to communicate to us.”

“So my fears are not my own? They come from spirit?”

Heléri shook her head. “It is not so simple. Your fears are your own. It is when there is an extra sense of dread—a certainty—oh, I am not explaining it well.”

Heléri rose and carried the ewer to the shelf by her larger table, where stood a basin. Eliani watched her, thinking she should be silent now. She should go. She had troubled her eldermother with enough questions.

After a moment Heléri returned to the hearth. She poked Eliani's log, which fell into two pieces. Sparks spat upward, then settled. Heléri leaned toward Eliani.

“We cannot easily discern when spirit is speaking to us. It feels much the same as our own thoughts. I can
only urge you to listen carefully to your heart's guidance, for if you can hear the advice of your friends in spirit, you will hear it there.”

Eliani rested her chin on her hands, staring glumly at the coals that were all that remained of her log. “I have never been a good listener. You are far better than I.”

Heléri laughed softly. “I have had centuries of practice.”

Eliani straightened in her chair, stretching tight muscles in her shoulders. “Well, thank you for listening to me to night. Now I will leave you to your rest.”

“Eliani.”

She looked up. Heléri was watching her, the dark blue of her eyes close to black in the firelight.

“Davharin wishes me to tell you that you were correct. The shade's appearance was intended to bring you to me.”

Eliani drew a breath. “The shades—are they spirits?”

“No. They are only shades. Echoes. There is a vast difference. Someday I will tell you about them, but now I have one question for you.”

Heléri held out a hand. Eliani slowly placed her own in it, feeling the warm intensity of Heléri's khi.

“Do you want, with all your soul, to be handfasted with Turisan? For if you are considering it only because you think it right and not because you desire it, you are courting grief.”

Swallowing, Eliani looked at the embers. “Turisan wants it in that way. I am afraid my feelings will be overwhelmed by his desire. He is—oh, he is like a flame! One of Fireshore's volcanoes! I am afraid he will consume me and there will be nothing left!”

“Ah.”

“I am afraid I will lose myself like—like—”

Eliani's throat closed, and she caught back a sob. Heléri sighed and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“My poor child. Kelevon was very wrong for you. I was glad to see him go.”

Eliani looked up, marveling at hearing even such mild censure from Heléri, who seemed never to speak ill of anyone. Her eldermother continued.

“I have always felt that it was he who failed you, Eliani. Do not fault yourself. It is time to let him go.”

Eliani swallowed, trying to regain her composure. She sat up, straightening her shoulders.

“I let him go years ago.”

“Not entirely. He haunts you like a shade; his shadow is in your eyes. You use your past pain as a shield, child, but you cannot shield yourself forever. You have a long life before you. Do not live it in fear. That is a lonesome road, and it is needless.”

Eliani stared at Heléri, feeling utterly discomfited. She could form no answer, could not even rouse herself to anger, for Heléri's love was writ plainly in her gentle gaze and in the warmth of her khi.

“Enough.” Heléri leaned forward to touch Eliani's face. “You are exhausted. Go and rest. You have time yet to consider all this. No need for haste.”

Eliani nodded and slowly stood. She bent to kiss her eldermother's cheek, then fetched her cloak. Daylight was glowing softly through the windows. Bidding Heléri farewell, she walked out to face the dawn.

She felt close to tears, broken. She had thought herself recovered from her wretched bond with Kelevon, but the panic rising in her throat belied it. She did not see how she could ever be fit for a bond that would last a lifetime—and beyond.

Handfasting was the most solemn vow an ælven could make. For those who broke it, the customary
atonement was to yield up their flesh and return to spirit, there to hope for better wisdom.

If she undertook this bond and failed again, she would make needful her own death. Would she cause Turisan's death as well? She tried to listen to her heart, to seek the whisper of some spirit friend, but all she sensed was her own dread.

 Hunt's Eve 

Shalár's pack reached Hunt's Eve at the end of the fifth night. A wide, dark grove deep within a forest of tall evergreens, Hunt's Eve lay at the feet of the Ebon Mountains, just south of the gap between the foothills and Blackheart. Beyond it the ground sloped gently down to the southern expanse of the high plains, the hunting grounds.

When Shalár had led her first small, desperate pack on their first hunt for kobalen centuries before, she had stopped here to shelter for a day and the next night had made her first catch. Ever since, she had made it her custom to rest here before embarking on a grand hunt.

A stream ran through the grove, and the dense woods, along with a shallow overhang of rock to the east, provided safe shelter from the sun's merciless rays. A short distance downstream was a copse of bitterthorn that Shalár and her folk had encouraged to spread into a large, nearly complete circle. It made an ideal holding place for the hunters' catch, for no creature could force its way through the vicious, stinging bitterthorn, not even the cunning kobalen.

Shalár halted her catamount beside the stream and dismounted, kneeling to drink the crisp cold water. Though the air held a chill of the coming winter, they
would light no fires that might be seen or smelled by kobalen. Hunt's Eve was always dark save for the final night of the hunt.

The pack rested through the day. Just after dark, the hunt commenced. Shalár rode the catamount, its great paws padding softly on the forest earth, the fury in its mind contained by her will. Her hunters gathered behind her, silent, eyes sparking with eagerness. Through a screen of trees she could see the open plain, long grasses trembling in a light breeze, blue-white under starlight.

No kobalen were in sight. She raised her head, scenting the wind, seeking a whisper of heavy khi. She extended her awareness through the catamount's flesh to the ground and quested there for the weight of kobalen feet. None were close, but she thought she sensed that some were within a night's travel. She reached out farther, knowing that the cost to her strength would soon be relieved by fresh blood.

There. To the west, a small band moving slowly toward the ocean.

Shalár raised a hand. A moment's tense stillness, then she waved the pack forward and made the catamount leap out onto the plain. Like shadows, the hunters emerged behind her, flowing out of the trees and across the plain with no more sound than that of a breeze sighing in the grass.

Long legs ran swiftly over sand and rock, over grass and earth. The pack hungered; they would not rest now until they had caught their prey.

At length the taste of kobalen khi was palpable on the air. Shalár sensed a rising excitement in the hunters at her back. She led them on silently, swiftly.

A stream meandered across the plain, and a cluster of dark shapes farther down its path drew Shalár's attention. The kobalen, camped for the night. She sent a
tiny tendril of khi toward them, delicately tasting their presence.

Two kobalen stood awake, watching. The others slept. It was the need for sleep that classed the kobalen among lesser creatures. Shalár's folk required rest but did not sink into unconsciousness each day.

She summoned her captains and gave them swift instructions. The hunters fanned out into a long line on either side of the stream, a thin shadow crossing the plain toward their prey. With a tendril of khi, Shalár took hold over the two kobalen guards, making them lie down and close their eyes. Her hunger sharpened with the effort.

When the center of the line came within a few rods of the camp, Shalár halted it, then signaled Yaras and Welir to lead the ends of the line forward to make a circle around the camp. Stealthily the hunters drew in around the place where their prey lay sprawled beside dying fires, closing ranks until they were shoulder to shoulder.

Eyes bright with hunger glinted starlight. Hands moved to the hilts of weapons, ready if needed, but it was not blades or arrows that would make this capture. Khi rose from the hunting pack like heat rippling up from a fire. Khi would be their chief weapon here.

In the kobalen camp, a youngling fussed. Its mother woke, reached out to bat at it with a heavy palm.

Shalár raised a hand. All the hunters paused, still and silent, waiting.

The kobalen female rolled over, grunting softly. She was still for a moment, then lifted her head, sniffing at the night air.

Stealth was at an end. Shalár clenched her fist, the signal for the capture.

The night air was suddenly awash with khi. The kobalen woke and voiced startled dismay as the hunters
bore down upon them, overpowering their wills, seizing control of their feeble spirits. One or two had the strength to resist at first, to rise up and scramble through the camp, but there was nowhere to run, and the pack's khi quickly overwhelmed them.

They sank down again, defeated. Small whimpers were the only sounds left among the kobalen.

Shalár was near the limit of her strength. Hunger gnawed at her, threatening reason, threatening all. She must feed, but there was one thing she must do first or it would not be done at all.

She forced the catamount down and kept it there, dismounting carefully, dizzy with hunger. Walking among the kobalen who cowered at her feet, she sought among their minds for flickers of greater spirit, the possibility of understanding the worth of what she could offer them.

She found one: a large female cowering with its arms over its head. Shalár nudged it with a toe, and the creature leapt up, wielding an ebonglass knife in a desperate attack.

A roar of anger rose from the hunters even as Shalár seized the kobalen with her mind and its wrist with her hand. With her free hand she summoned Ciris, who hastened to her side and took control of the kobalen female.

“That one is to be reserved. None shall touch it.”

Ciris raised an eyebrow. “As you will, Bright Lady.”

She watched him lead the creature out of the circle. She was nearly spent. She looked over the kobalen on the ground before her. Difficult to see beyond the hunger, to see them as anything but food.

There! She turned to her right and stepped over a cowering creature, then had to steady herself. A few paces brought her to a male kobalen lying on its side, facing away from her. Not the largest in the band, not
a dominant male, but his khi held the spark she sought.

She signaled to Ciris, who had followed close behind her. “This one as well. Set it aside with the other.”