books at the citadel, did they let you inside?” Raettonus asked as they glided over the plains.
“Huh? Oh, no,” said Brecan. “I didn’t think to ask. A couple centaurs came out and took them from me, and the general thanked me. I didn’t ask to go inside. Why?”
“Nothing. I was just wondering how many men were there,” Raettonus answered, turning his attention downward. He could see the patchwork fields of the farmlands off in the distance. To the east of the farms and soft, weeded hills, he could see the icy wastelands called Noa Kurok, which stretched on clear to the ocean. The Dragon’s Teeth Mountains rose up before them to the south—a jagged, purple blemish against the blue horizon.
“It’s right beside the ocean,” Brecan said. “Well, no—I don’t mean right beside, because it’s up on a cliff, carved into a mountain. But the ocean’s down beneath it. You can see it from the citadel.”
Raettonus rolled his eyes. “Oh, the ocean. How nice,” he said. “Yes, I’m sure I’ll be very glad that we’re right beside the ocean when the waves crashing on the cliff are keeping me awake. Or maybe when a storm kicks up and batters the citadel for a few days.”
Brecan lowered his head and mumbled, “Well, I thought it was pretty…”
With a heavy sigh, Raettonus leaned back. Miles below them he could see workers moving through the fields, looking so much like ants. This is how God must view us, he thought, not for the first time. To Him we must all be little specks moving about so far below Him that He can’t tell one from another. That’s why He doesn’t care.
“I should’ve stayed in Ti Tunfa,” he said. “This is stupid. God knows how long I’m going to be stuck down there now.”
“But, Raet, it’ll be fun,” said Brecan. “You’ll have something to do! You need something to do, Raet. When you don’t have anything to do, all you do is sleep and drink and play chess, and you yell a lot. You’ve got a short temper when you’re bored, Raet.”
“I’ve got a short temper all the time.”
“Yeah, I guess,” the unicorn allowed. “But it’s even shorter when you’re bored. Besides, it’s only going to be a few years. Ten at most. Ten years isn’t anything, is it, Raet?”
Raettonus sighed again. “No,” he admitted. “Ten years isn’t anything at all. I can put up with some centaur’s snot-nosed whelps for ten years. I’ve put up with you for several times as long, after all.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Brecan cheerfully. Raettonus scowled, irritated that he hadn’t understood the dig.
A gryphon cried somewhere in the distance, and Raettonus turned his face in that direction, toward the blood-colored burn that was the Koa Kurok desert. The beast’s sad call echoed over the empty landscape, and Raettonus found himself thinking of Slade’s coat of arms—a gryphon rampant over a field of red checkered with black. Close on the heels of that thought came the memory that had been with him as he had awoken. He needed only to close his eyes to see it all over again, and he did. Slade’s room, with the drapes blowing wildly, the rain coming down outside in hard sheets, the shutters clacking against stone, sounding like a heart beating out of control, the blood soaking into the sheets…
When all was said and done, the blood had soaked all the way through and had begun to fall onto the stone beneath the bed in great, coalescing drops by the time he’d finally gone to clean it.
“Please don’t hate me,” Slade had said to him, taking his hand. “Please don’t hate me for this.”
Raettonus couldn’t hate him. Not him. No matter what.
Slowly, he opened his eyes and wondered why it had to always be that memory. There were other things he might have thought about; there were better times with Slade. Slade had taught him how to ride, and how to hold a sword, and how to read. There had been good days, back then. Why did it always have to be that memory that was so ingrained in his mind that he only needed to close his eyes and he was there in that cold room, reeking of blood?
All at once, he noticed that they were rather closer to the mountains. Brecan was singing a song about a maiden who had killed herself and her lover who, seeing this, had flung himself into the ocean. Raettonus pinched one of Brecan’s ears and the