Zenith looked at him, but did not speak.
WolfStar, busy rearranging his breeches, did not notice. “I have tried to scry him out, but I cannot find him. I must find him, for I cannot allow him to live through this crime.”
He paused, his face puzzled. “But I cannot scry him out. Has he refound his power? Has he?”
And he swivelled to look Zenith direct in the eye.
She managed to find her voice. “How can I know? I have not seen him for many days.”
He frowned. “And why are you running, my lovely? Why? Where?”
She smiled for him, although it cost her dearly to do so. “I have been struggling to come to terms with what you told me, WolfStar. I… I thought to go south… south to…”
“Ah, the Island of Mist and Memory,” WolfStar said. “Yes, that would indeed be best for you.”
He rose. “I will see you there, Niah. Wait for me.”
And he shimmered and vanished.
Drago got to the lip of the gully just in time to see WolfStar lift himself from Zenith’s side and then disappear.
“Zenith!” he cried, and started to clamber down the side of the gully.
She lay curled on her side, naked, bruised and bloodied, her hands over her belly.
Her eyes were wide open, staring.
“Zenith?” Drago hesitantly touched her shoulder. “Zenith?”
She didn’t move, or even acknowledge his presence.
“Zenith… come.” He pulled gently on one arm, and finally managed to get her to sit up.
She blinked, as if seeing him for the first time, then she burst into tears and hugged him tight.
“Oh gods, Drago,” she sobbed, “you’re alive!”
He carried her back to their makeshift camp, wrapped her in her cloak, and sat her by the fire. He had no idea what to say to her, what she wanted to hear.
She kept her face averted, her eyes on the fire, apparently lost in thought.
She hardly blinked.
But when the sun rose, so too did Zenith, wrapping the cloak more closely about her nakedness.
“The ferry is only a few hours away,” she said, and walked off.
Stunned, Drago stared after her, then after a minute snatched at his sack and got to his feet.
They had to wait over an hour for the ferry to come back to their side of the shore, and when the ramp had been dropped, they stepped as silently onto the ferry as they had walked the last three hours.
“Fare,” grunted the ferryman, a man as thin and insipid as the waterweed he plied his craft through.
“Zenith,” Drago murmured. “Zenith, you need to do something. I have no coin.”
Zenith lifted her head and stared at Drago, then she shifted her eyes back to the waters of the river disinterestedly.
Drago opened his mouth, then closed it again. He thought frantically – what could he do? He fumbled with the sack, sliding his hand in as if he was going to withdraw money.
“No fare and I don’t move this craft,” the ferryman said, and now there was a gleam of malice in his eyes. At the other end of the ferry two muscular assistants picked up short, thick poles and hefted them menacingly.
Drago groped about in the sack, pretending to search for a sack. Maybe he could hit the ferryman with it and jump off. Maybe he could… his eyes widened, and he slowly withdrew his hand. In his palm lay a newly minted silver piece.
The ferryman leaned forward and snatched it.
“That’s more than the fare,” Drago said.
“Aye, but I’ve had to wait for it,” the ferryman said. “Want to argue the matter with my sons?”
The two assistants stepped yet closer.
Drago retreated. “Just get us to the other side as fast as you can.”
“Aye, my lord,” and the ferryman gave a mock bow.
Drago waited until he had moved away, then whispered to Zenith. “Thank you. I did not know how I was going to pay him.”
She looked at him, frowning. “It was not my doing,” she said, and turned back to the water.
She stood at the railing, where Drago could not see her, and wept. She felt so alone, and yet she felt more crowded than ever before. Trapped.
WolfStar was so good! You enjoyed it, I know you did. Accept it, Zenith. You are me and I am you, and WolfStar is our future. There can be no other way.
No. There must be another way.
,’ have been reborn SunSoar so that WolfStar will never leave me. Our blood will sing to each other through an eternity of nights. Accept.
No. No, I will not allow it.
You have no choice.
Worse still than that insistent voice was the distinct feeling of fire eating into the lining of her womb. New life. A magical daughter. Who? Who? Another Azhure? No. Another Azhure to birth another daughter to live out this hell all over again? No, no, no!
What could she do? Zenith tried to keep her thoughts private, tried to think what to do, but it was no use. All she could see was WolfStar leering into her face, and all she could feel was the thrust of his body.
They stumbled towards the forest, Drago with one arm about Zenith, now constantly mumbling to herself, the other wrapped about his sack.
Drago didn’t know what to do. Zenith obviously couldn’t go much further – but where could he leave her? Who could he leave her with? Drago loved his sister, and was terrified for her, but he also knew that he was no help to her. She needed more powerful magic than his concern to evict this Niah creature.
Besides, there was a compulsion growing within him. Get south. Get south fast.
Where? Where? The Island of Mist and Memory? No. That didn’t feel right.
“Where? Where?” he muttered, tense with frustration and worry.
“What?” Zenith whispered, rousing slightly. “What did you say?”
“Nothing. Look, the forest is not far away. A few more minutes only.”
“The forest?” she said. “What forest?”
Drago stopped and wrapped his arm more securely about her. “Minstrelsea. Remember? You wanted to come here.”
“I did?” She struggled a little against his arm, but did not have the strength to break free.
“I’ll find help,” he said. But help against what? Niah? Or the shock of Wolf Star’s rape?
“No, no,” Zenith whispered, again struggling feebly. “Not Minstrelsea. Not here… no… no… no…”
“It won’t hurt you, Zenith! Be still now, I can hardly hold you!”
Here is where Niah died! Zenith wanted to scream at him, but her voice was no longer her own. Here is where she is strongest! Not here! Not –
Yes, here, Zenith. Here is where you die, at last.
She choked, and Drago stopped in alarm. “Zenith? Zenith?”
But she was no longer responding, and Drago, sure now that the only way to help her was to somehow get her deep into the forest, hauled her onward.
Minstrelsea loomed before them. There was no thin scattering of brush and seedling trees to blur the demarcation between plain and forest. Behind them and to the west lay leagues of rolling grass and grain land, while before them reared a wall of trees. The trees hummed, singing softly to themselves, and between their trunks peered the curious eyes of the strange, fey creatures that populated the forest.
Drago could not help a shiver of apprehension as the trees loomed above him. He’d been in Minstrelsea only once or twice previously, although Zenith and Caelum had visited regularly.
And Isfrael, of course, had come with Axis to meet with his mother Faraday.
No wonder Isfrael was so strange, Drago thought feverishly, to have a doe as a mother.
But even if Drago had hardly ever been here, and even if he no longer had the use of his Icarü powers, he knew those trees were far more than they appeared. Each one was a living entity capable of anger or of love. Combined as the forest, the trees could wipe out an army if they wished, or midwife the birth of a butterfly.
He paused just before committing himself and his sister to the forest. Then, because he had nothing left to do, and nowhere else to go, he plunged into the trees as if he were running into a burning building.
As so many others had before him, Drago stopped in utter amazement within five or six paces.
Despite its forbidding aura, Minstrelsea was a pool of light and music. The trunks of the trees grew far apart, and sunlight filtered down through the green canopy at least a hundred paces above. Birds – strange birds – sang from the branches of the immense trees, and even stranger creatures gambolled about the glades, paths and in the rivulets that wound their way through the trees.
Peaceful. It was peaceful. Drago dared to take a deep breath and let his shoulders relax for the first time in days.