One of the tribe, a powerfully muscled man, stepped forward. Though ageless like the others, streaks of white marked his coppery beard and long hair, and instead of gray, his eyes were the color of old honey. He spoke in a voice as rich and wild as the wind. “Do you truly mean to do this thing, Skyleth?”
After a long moment Skyleth nodded, tightening his grip on the aurochs hide. “I love her, Tevarrek.”
“It is a perilous love, and one that will sunder your path from ours forever.”
“I know.”
Tevarrek shook his head, his expression one of confusion and anger. “Many of the People seem to understand you, Skyleth. I think some of them even envy you your love. I cannot say that I do. I think that you’re a fool. But then, I’ve always been the odd one here, haven’t I?” His voice became a sneer. “Is she so beautiful then, this creature of the valley tribe?”
A fleeting smile touched Skyleth’s lips. “She is beautiful, yes. But it is not for that I would go. I know as well as you how fleeting a thing is human beauty.”
The two locked gazes. At last Tevarrek let out a deep breath. “Once you descend beneath the Barrier, you will never be able to return. Do you accept this fate, Skyleth?”
Skyleth hesitated only a fraction of a heartbeat before speaking the words. “I do.”
Tevarrek reached out and snatched the aurochs hide from Skyleth’s shoulders, hurling it upon the ground. “Then go! Go, and never return to this place again!”
Though he had chosen this fate for himself, the harsh words struck Skyleth like a blow. With one last glance at the faces of the People-his people no longer-he turned and ran along the shore of the lake. The cold bit at his naked flesh like a wolf, and sharp rocks sliced his bare feet.
At the far side of the lake, a stream poured forth to rush down a rocky defile and begin its long descent over moss and stone to the hazy green valley far below. Skyleth started picking his way down the steep defile. In moments the lake and those standing beside it were lost to sight. He blinked the stinging tears from his eyes and did his best to focus on the treacherous path before him.
After perhaps an hour he skidded down a slope of loose scree, then came to a halt. Tendrils of fog drifted over the stones before him, coiling around his legs. A bank of dense gray fog clung to the mountainside, stretching without break or gap in either direction. He had reached the first misty edges of the Barrier.
Skyleth did not understand the magic that had created the Barrier. It had been conjured centuries ago, in order to hide the People from the world after the Dark Time, when the rest of their kindred had been either slain or banished from the land. After the Dark Time, those scant few of the People who had remained had ascended to the Dragonmere, and they had forged the Barrier so that none could climb up from the valley below to discover them. Only so long as the world did not know they dwelled here, among these lofty heights, were the last of the People of the Dragon safe.
Skyleth did not allow himself to glance back before he braced his shoulders and stepped into the Barrier. At once the chill fog closed around him, transforming the world to swirling silver. Shivering, he stumbled downward, making his way by touch only. Time and again he slipped, skidding down the rocky slope. Once he fell, cutting his hands on sharp stones. At last the fog brightened. Dim shapes appeared around him: a dead tree, a jagged spur of granite. Yes. This was the place where he had first glimpsed her, like a lithe shadow in the fog. Ulanya.
What fate, he wondered, had caused them to dare venture into the preternatural fog on that same spring morning, she from below, he from above? He did not know. All he knew was that when he glimpsed her slender shape in the mist, he had known at once that he loved her. That day they had parted at the meeting of fog and light, beyond which he had dared not tread. Thrice more they had managed to come upon each other in the mists. And at the last parting, they had agreed it would be their final one.