with fear, a victim of that fear-staff of the perverse gods, and he did not care
to look her in the eyes. It was she who had rescued him and led him, a tremulous
mouse helpless against the power turned on him, back to her mother.
And now here she came, bearing some colorful bundle. Small and dark and yet not
at all a creature of night and shadows as he was. Mignureal was a creature of
day and this day in her bright yellow skirt she wore a strange look, as if she
was drugged.
If she is, Hanse thought fiercely, I will beat her and take her home and curse
Moonflower for allowing it to happen to this… this dear maiden.
But then he stopped thinking. She was before him, stopping and forcing him to
stop. And when she spoke her voice was odd and flat as her eyes, emotionless as
her face. She spoke as if she said words she had only learned-the words, not
their meaning-like a girl who had leamt her part for some temple rite on a god
day.
Dark brown eyes like garnets and just as lacking in softness, she said, “You are
invited to dinner tomorrow night. You will be in no danger. Wear this clothing.
The place is known to you. It is long unpeopled, but its water is a silver pool.
The silver is your own, Son of the Shadow, Chosen ofllsig. Come, tomorrow even
as the sun sets, .to the aerie of the great ruler of the air.”
Without blinking, she pressed into his hands that which she carried, and turned
and ran in a butterfly flurry of yellow skirts and streaming blue-black hair.
Hanse stood, stupidly staring after her until she rounded a corner and was gone