“Have you heard from StarHeaven, Axis? It has been a week, surely, since she left.”
“Just occasional reports as she and her companions flew south. They should be in the area
of the Salamaan Pass now.” Axis paused, shifting a little uneasily on his feet. “I should hear from
her soon.”
“Let me know once you do, Axis. I do not like this silence from the south.”
Axis nodded. “Do you need me anymore tonight?”
Maximilian smiled. “No. Go back to your Lealfast lover. Her wing…?”
“Is healing, but we still do not know if she”ll be able to fly again.”
Maximilian nodded. “Good night then, Axis.”
CHAPTER THREE
Serpent’s Nest
Inardle stood at the balustrading on the balcony of the chamber she”d acquired for herself
and Axis. It was very high up the mountain, and she stared below her, mesmerized by the space,
the fall, the lift of the wind as it rose into the twilight. She shifted closer to the railing, sitting down on it, leaning out a little, spreading her wings, wondering if she dared heal herself for long
enough so that she could snatch a few moments” flight into the—
Suddenly someone grabbed her arm and hauled her back to safety.
“Stars, Inardle! What were you doing? ”
She pulled her arm from Axis” grasp. “I was safe. I wouldn”t have fallen.”
Axis was still staring at her, and Inardle realized how frightened he”d been. “I”m sorry.”
“Your wing isn”t stable enough to support you, Inardle.”
“I know, Axis.” The guilt was biting even deeper now. How could she tell Axis that she
would have been fine, that it would have taken only a fraction of her power to heal her wing then
and there so she could take to the skies? Inardle was very much afraid that she might have to
allow herself to remain crippled, just to keep Axis at her side.
“Stars,” he muttered, and turned away a little.
Inardle didn”t know what to say. She was sorry he was angry with her, but she was also a
little flattered that he had been that frightened. “I”ll be more careful, Axis.”
He took a deep breath, letting go his fear-driven anger, and nodded. “Has Garth seen your
shoulder and wing since we”ve arrived?”
“Yes. He was here about an hour ago. He gave me a massage.”
“Good for him. What did he say about the wing?”
“That neither he nor I would know for a week or more if it would heal enough for flight.
How is Maximilian?”
Axis gave a little shrug. “He is well enough. He says he will raise Elcho Falling within
two or thee days.”
Something in his face softened as he regarded her. “Come to bed,” he said, and Inardle
smiled, relieved they had moved past the subject of her wing.
“How well you have made your new bed, sister.”
Inardle gave a soft cry, waking from her light sleep with a jerk, trying to disentangle
herself from an equally disoriented Axis.
“Shit!” she heard Axis mutter.
Eleanon, she said to her brother, keeping the communication blocked from Axis, you
have returned.
We have a part to play here, sister, he said. Remember it.
Axis managed to sit up, swing his legs over the side of the bed, and draw the sheet over
Inardle”s nakedness all in the one smooth movement.
“Eleanon,” he said, “do you take every open balcony door as an invitation?”
“I could sense my sister in here,” Eleanon said. He was standing just inside the doorway,
outlined in moonlight, and now he made his slow way inside as Axis rose and pulled on a pair of
trousers. “I had no idea in what company I would find her.” He paused. “Nor that I would find
her so injured.”
Axis had found a taper and used it to light a lamp, and he picked it up and moved closer
to Eleanon. “Have you seen Maximilian?” he said.
“Not yet,” said Eleanon. “I thought to greet my sister first. Inardle, what has happened to
your wing? And your shoulder…it moves stiffly…who has beaten you? Axis?”
Stop it, Eleanon, Inardle said to him. Don’t toy with either me or him.
“Eleanon,” Inardle said. “You need to see Maximilian—”
“Has Axis got you so firmly under his command that now you echo his every word,
sister?” Eleanon said. “Have you forgotten that you are Lealfast, and not Icarii, to fawn so at his
feet?”
“That is enough, Eleanon,” Axis snapped. “What the hell do you think you”re doing? You
are under Maximilian”s ultimate command, and beneath that, under mine. And under me, had you thought to make some enquiries before you started to make yet a further fool of yourself,
you would find yourself under Inardle”s command as my lieutenant.”
“My, my,” Eleanon said softly, his eyes sliding to Inardle. “She has done well for herself,
has she not.”
Inardle met his eyes without a flinch.
Axis stopped himself from hitting Eleanon only by reminding himself that Inardle was
present. “Get out of here, Eleanon. You need to see Maximilian. He is expecting you.”
“As you and my sister were not,” Eleanon said, now edging toward the balcony door.
“In the morning, you can report back to me,” Axis said. “Now get out!”
Eleanon paused in the doorway. “Do you think the StarMan actually cares for you,
Inardle? Do you think you are anything but a slight diversion before he reunites with his only
lover, Azhure? He will break your heart.”
With that, he was gone.
Axis turned back to Inardle. “I”m sorry.”
Inardle was not sure what he was apologizing for. She gave a slight shrug. “It doesn”t
matter.”
Axis sat down on the bed, studying her carefully. “What he said at the end about Azhure,
does matter.”
Inardle did not look at him. She didn”t want to talk about Azhure. All she wanted to do
now was think about Eleanon, and what his arrival meant.
Choices.
“We”ve become very good at making love,” Axis said softly, “but not so good at talking.
You asked me once, that night you first came to my bed, if you were a novelty to me. I meant it
when I said no. Neither are you a replacement for a lost love, nor are you someone with whom I
am merely marking time until, as Eleanon put it, I reunite with the only woman I have ever
loved.”
He gave a short laugh. “Azhure hasn”t ever been the only woman I have loved, Inardle,
and I wasn”t always true to her. And she is dead, now, and I no longer so. We live in different
worlds. I do not yearn for her, and—”
“Does she yearn for you, do you think?”
“Perhaps,” Axis said, “but I cannot live my life here wondering what Azhure is thinking
or doing. What I do here makes no difference to her, or to what she is feeling.”
Inardle remembered all the stories she had heard of Axis. How he”d justified hurting both
Faraday and Azhure by thinking he could have both. She thought of what Ishbel had told her
about Salome a few days ago, when they”d broken their day”s ride to share a meal of bread and
cheese at noon, how Salome”s grandmother had been a former and discarded lover of Axis” and
StarDrifter”s who had come to a terrible death because of their lack of care.
Axis, Inardle fully realized, could justify anything to himself at any point, if he wanted it
badly enough.
As can I.
“I don”t care about Azhure,” she said, still not looking at Axis.
He slid over the bed to her, running soft fingers over her face, smoothing her tousled hair
back over her forehead. “Yes, you do,” he said. “And you shouldn”t, Inardle, you shouldn”t.”
He kissed her jaw, running his mouth down to her neck.
Inardle shuddered, wishing that, just sometimes, she could control her reaction to him.
“I love the taste of your frost,” he whispered, one of his hands now pushing the sheet
away from her breasts.
So much for talking about Azhure, Inardle thought, or about what we feel for each other,
or mean each to the other.
“Axis…” she said, trying to find the strength to push him away and the courage to finally
speak some truth to him, but suddenly he sprang back from her anyway, and stared into the night.
“My brother has decided he wants to be born,” he said.
There was no sleeping after that, nor lovemaking, nor talk of how they felt for each other,
nor any revelations of truth. Axis pulled on his shirt and boots, and paced restlessly about the
chamber before finally slumping into a chair.
Inardle sighed, as softly as she could, and rose, and washed and dressed as well.
“You don”t want to go to StarDrifter?” she asked Axis finally as they sat in their
respective chairs in opposite corners of the dimly lit chamber.