After a time they brought her food: the half-cooked carcass of some prairie rodent. When she shook her head in mute refusal, they laughed.
Later they did tie her, tearing her blouse in the process. A few of them began pinching and playing with her body, but some leader made them stop. She hardly registered it. A far corner of her mind, it seemed to be as remote as her life, said that she was in shock, and that it was probably a blessing.
When morning came, they would bind her to the swan again and Avaia would fly all that third day, angling northwest now so the still-smoldering mountain gradually slid around towards the east. Then, toward sunset, in a region of great cold, Jennifer would see Starkadh, like a giant ziggurat of hell among the ice, and she would begin to understand.
For the second time, Kimberly came to in her bed in the cottage. This time, though, there was no Ysanne to watch over her. Instead, the eyes gazing at her were the dark ones, deepset, of the servant, Tyrth.
As awareness returned she became conscious of a pain on her wrist. Looking, she saw a scoring of black where the vellin bracelet had twisted into her skin. That she remembered. She shook her head.
“I think I would have died without this.” She made a small movement of her hand to show him.
He didn’t reply but a great tension seemed to dissolve from his compact, muscled frame as he heard her speak. She looked around; by the shadows it was late afternoon.
“That’s twice now you’ve had to carry me here,” she said.
“You must not let that bother you, my lady,” he said in his rough, shy voice.
“Well, I’m not in the habit of fainting.”
“I would never think that.” He cast his eyes down.
“What happened with the Mountain?” she asked, almost unwilling to know.
“It is over,” he replied. “Just before you woke.” She nodded. That made sense.
“Have you been watching me all day?”
He looked apologetic. “Not always, my lady. I am sorry, but the animals were frightened and. . . .”
At that she smiled inwardly. He was pushing it a bit.
“There is boiling water,” Tyrth said after a short silence. “Could I make you a drink?”
“Please.”
She watched as he limped to the fire. With neat, economical motions he prepared a pot of some herbal infusion and carried it back to the table by the bed.
It was, she decided, time.
“You don’t have to fake the limp anymore,” she said.
He was very cool, you had to give him credit. Only the briefest flicker of uncertainty had touched the dark eyes, and his hands pouring her drink were absolutely steady. Only when he finished did he sit down for the first time and regard her for a long time in silence.
“Did she tell you?” he asked finally, and she heard his true voice for the first time.
“No. She lied, actually. Said it wasn’t her secret to tell.” She hesitated. “I learned from Eilathen by the lake.”
“I watched that. I wondered.”
Kim could feel her forehead creasing with its incongruous vertical line.
“Ysanne is gone, you know.” She said it as calmly as she could.
He nodded. “That much I know, but I don’t understand what has happened. Your hair. . . .”
“She had Lokdal down below,” Kim said bluntly. Almost, she wanted to hurt him with it. “She used it on herself.”
He did react, and she was sorry for the thought behind her words. A hand came up to cover his mouth, a curious gesture in such a man. “No,” he breathed. “Oh, Ysanne, no!” She could hear the loss.
“You understand what she has done?” she asked. There was a catch in her voice; she controlled it. There was so much pain.
“I know what the dagger does, yes. I didn’t know she had it here. She must have come to love you very much.”
“Not just me. All of us.” She hesitated. “She dreamt me twenty-five years ago. Before I was born.” Did that make it easier? Did anything?