“But here we are now,” she said.
“Yes,” Axis said, looking at her fully, “here we are now.”
She raised her face and looked him in the eye. “I have changed, Axis. If I’d been brought back to life anywhere other than the water I would have been who I once was . . . but that didn’t happen. I regained life in the water. I have changed.”
“I know,” he said. “The River Angel runs deeper in you than previously.”
Ravenna waited until Salome lay down to sleep, her husband beside her.
Neither of them — nor the child this time — realised her presence.
She waited until they were asleep and the baby asleep in the cot beside their bed.
She walked calmly forward and picked up StarDancer.
He looked at her, blinking in confusion as he woke, then his eyes widened.
I am sorry, StarDancer, Ravenna said to him. I have come to kill you.
Then before StarDancer could react, Ravenna clutched him close and ran from the chamber as fast as she dared.
Elcho Falling erupted into pandemonium.
Chapter 26
The Central Outlands
The Skraelings knew that Inardle had changed. The knowledge rippled through the entire congregation in a painful shockwave of realisation.
While they had been sitting here debating and complaining and remaining utterly, utterly indecisive, Inardle, a Lealfast, had changed.
Inardle was now a River Angel.
“How could she have done that!” a Skraeling cried. “How?”
“What if all the other Lealfast choose to change?” another said.
“What if we miss out?” said yet another, getting right to the crux of the matter.
“We have not yet made a decision!” Ozll shouted into the confusion. “We have not decided whether or not we want to —”
“We think we do!” came back a roar of tens of thousands of Skraeling voices.
“Why,” Ozll shouted, far louder this time, trying to get control of the situation, “don’t we talk to Inardle and see what she has made of herself. Then we can decide if we, too, want to go the same way. She can be our guide. If we like what she is, then we, too, shall . . . take the plunge.”
It was an unfortunate metaphor, reminding the Skraelings that the only way to return to their River Angel forms was to drown themselves.
“At least we know Isaiah wasn’t lying,” Ozll said, his voice milder now the hubbub had died down. “At least we know the return to River Angel form is possible.”
This statement reassured the Skraelings and they nodded their heads, prepared to listen once more to Ozll’s guidance.
“I suggest,” Ozll said, “that we find Inardle. We examine her and we make our decision on what she has become.”
“Good idea,” Graq said, and Ozll smiled at her and thought it strange he’d never truly noticed her before.
As the Skraeling herd rose and began drifting northward, Ozll gravitated to Graq’s side.
She risked a small smile at him, although with her great jaws and fangs it displayed more as a snarl than anything else.
“Do you think,” she said, “drowning would hurt?”
Chapter 27
Elcho Falling and Surrounds
Eleanon and the five Lealfast with him circled high above the reed beds. It was just on dawn, and they could easily make out Axis and Inardle lying together by the dish of coals in the midst of the reed bed.
Eleanon thought they must have come back from the dead minus their wits.
“He is the StarMan,” one the Lealfast said. “We should be careful.”
“We will be careful,” Eleanon said, “but remember also that we are at one with Infinity as well as controlling the Star Dance. He has nothing — look, a mere dagger. He may try and hide . . . but he cannot harm us.”
“And Inardle?”
Eleanon made a dismissive gesture. “She has always been weak. Come, it is time.”
Axis woke slowly, using these early waking moments to remember the night and to smile as he stretched along Inardle’s body.
Then he opened his eyes, and saw Eleanon and five other Lealfast standing on the other side of the fire, and adrenalin rushed through his system. He gave Inardle a shake, then rose to his feet, glancing at the pile of his and Inardle’s jumbled clothes lying a few paces away.
Eleanon gave a cold smile, moved his hand, and the clothing burst into flames.
“How did you get Inardle out?” Eleanon said.
She was on her feet, too, standing close to Axis.
“He dragged me out through sheer force of love,” she said. “You wouldn’t understand it.”
“Oh, what trite words you spout these days, Inardle!” Eleanon said. “I was always wary of sending you to Axis’ side, but, oh no, you said you were strong enough. Well, you weren’t, Inardle. You were weak. So tell me, and this time I demand it, how did you get her out alive, Axis?”
“I didn’t,” Axis said. “I got her out dead. It was what happened after that was the interesting bit.”
Eleanon frowned. Neither of them appeared particularly worried. Both stood, relaxed, confident. “And that was . . . ?”
Axis waggled a hand. “A little bit of water, a little bit of heart, a little bit of eagle, and a little bit of —”
“Take them,” Eleanon snapped, gesturing to his five companions as he lost patience.
The five fanned out, moving around the fire on both sides toward Axis and Inardle.
“Stand back,” she murmured, and Axis felt a frisson of excitement in his belly as he took two steps back.
The moment he moved, so the five rushed them, but Inardle was faster.
She changed in an instant, losing her form of a winged woman to become what Axis could only describe later as a column of water with a vague humanoid shape.
I could see a head, he was later to say to Isaiah, and I could see shoulders and two appendages that must have been arms, but there were no other features. Just a thick winding column of blue-white water the height of a woman.
Axis took a moment to glance at Eleanon’s face. The Lealfast man was astounded.
As well he might be, for he would have no idea of his own River Angel heritage.
The five Lealfast had been very close when Inardle changed. Before they could stand back, or lift into the air, she leaned forward and the two arm-like appendages swept out before her, lengthening until they were three or four times their original length.
First one, then two, then all five were swept up. Axis, watching, didn’t know quite what happened, but one moment they were taken and the next moment they were lying dismembered in the nearby water.
Inardle took a step toward Eleanon, but he was already gone, lifting high into the sky.
“Later,” Inardle said, returning to her fleshed form. Then she looked at their pile of smouldering clothes. “I can see I need to make us both some new attire.”
Axis just stood, looking at her. He almost could not believe what he had just witnessed.
Inardle smiled, her eyes cold.
The guard assigned to keep an eye on Axis and Inardle was standing, staring open-mouthed at the scene.
He, too, could not believe his eyes.
He turned to the balcony doorway which led to a short corridor off a main passageway, trying to catch the attention of one of the soldiers hurrying to and fro.
Isaiah needed to know about what he’d just seen!
It took the guard long minutes to attract anyone’s attention with his calls — unable to desert his post lest anything else noteworthy occurred on the reed bank — and when someone finally did appear, it was a flustered sergeant-at-arms who was none too pleased that a more lowly ranked guard wanted him to take a message to Isaiah.
“I have better things to do than run messages to the damned Tyrant,” the sergeant said.
“It is important!” the balcony guard said.
“You want me to tell him that the woman Inardle turned into a murderous column of water and slaughtered five Lealfast?”
The guard nodded.
“For the love of the gods!” the sergeant said. “We have a full-blown crisis happening inside and you want me to tell the Tyrant that —”
He stopped, looking at the guard’s face. “Oh, very well. But I am going to have your balls if the Tyrant snaps at me for wasting his time.”
The guard thanked him, then turned to look at the reed bank.
Axis and Inardle had vanished.
Chapter 28
Elcho Falling
Elcho Falling was in total panic. StarDrifter, Salome and every other Icarii within the citadel were searching high and low for StarDancer. No one knew what had happened — the baby had been there one moment and gone the next. The Icarii Enchanters, and most particularly his two powerful parents, could sense him, and occasionally hear his cries, but they could not locate him.