closely the elf was watching him. And likely wouldn’t care either.
He had sat for the longest time alone, undisturbed, aware of nothing but a sense of her…somewhere in the east. Closer and closer.
Now Irian was at his side, lowering himself to his haunches, his rough-hewn features puzzled, curious, almost too afraid to hope. His voice, when rarely he spoke in a voice for somebody other than Aryn alone to hear, had a deep, rippling quality, like a stone cast into a well.
“I sense something…Tyriel…but not her. I know not what.” Irian glanced over as the elf rose to his feet in one smooth graceful movement, his muscled body gleaming in the firelight. “It sensed me. Doesn’t know me. Mayhap you, brother mine. Come.”
Aryn was already mounting Bel bareback.
Irian disappeared into the night, inside Aryn, guiding him to the source of what he had sensed.
When Aryn slid from his mount sometime later, what he saw pacing in the moonlight was the last thing he had ever expected.
The elvish stallion was taller, broader than Bel, with larger eyes that had the uncanny, unsettling ability of glowing. It resembled a horse, the way a tame house cat resembled a wild mountain lion some faerie minx had tamed.
But this elvish steed looked very unlike the mount Aryn had seen just months earlier. His neatly groomed coat had grown long and shabby, his eyes no longer had that ‘settled’ look in them. He looked vaguely lost as he turned considering eyes Aryn’s way.
He looked…wild.
But he kept cocking his head at Aryn as the swordsman slid one leg over Bel’s head and circled the clearing, his intelligent eyes trained on the swordsman’s face, rapt and fascinated. Curious. Hungry.
And then Jaren charged in, lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl as he launched himself in a low tumble at the elvish stallion that ended with him underneath the beast, a long wicked blade drawn and ready.
His own mount went nearly wild, pawing at the air, her screams filling the night.
Aryn kicked Jaren’s wrist, hard enough, he hoped, to numb it and grabbed the elf’s ankle, hauling him out from under the stallion.
“He betrayed his mistress,” Jaren snarled, flipping to his feet, snarling at Aryn and whirling back to the stallion.
“He looks rather lost to me.” Aryn turned back to the stallion, rubbing the beast’s black face, his cheeks and neck with gentle hands, staring into the dazed, helpless eyes.
“Pretty mistress…good hands…she never came…”
The voice filled the air, echoing in their minds...and around them, clear as day.
Even Jaren stumbled back in shock from it.
Aryn recovered first, and brought the stallion’s attention back to him. “Tyriel. She was coming to you that morning. She never came, did she?”
“The elvish mounts are fantastic creatures, but none can comprehend that well.” Jaren moved again in Kilidare’s direction. “’Tis like a guard dog. And he sorely failed at his job.”
“Nevernevernevernever.”
Aryn ran his hand again down Kilidare’s cheek and slid Jaren a look. “We go to find her. The lady. The pretty lady with the good hands, your mistress.”
“Evil man, evil dark take…I scent…not see…bad taste. Bad taste—we know.”
“Evil man?” Jaren asked, stopping in his tracks. “How do you know his scent?”
“Town, demon mark…all over her. His scent, all over. He take, I feel, then pretty mistress gone.”
Jaren’s face was blank, simply stunned.
Aryn smothered a smile as he continued to stroke Kilidare, soothing the bewildered stallion.
“We will find her,” Aryn murmured soothingly as the great beast rested his head over the human’s shoulder, a huge shudder wracking him.
* * * * *
Tyriel knew the end was finally nearing.
Her heart was failing her and the thought brought her peace.
She lay wearily on the cold floor. It was cold in the dungeon, but she’d long grown used to that. If she were to feel warmth again…well, that might shock her weakening heart into stopping altogether. Not that she’d mind dying warm.
Not that she’d mind dying. At all.
“It won’t be long now,” she said to herself, her voice raspy from weeks of disuse.
Tainan might have finally forgotten her.
She hoped he had. She was tired of looking at him and remembering what life had been…before.
His guards still remembered her, but their cruelties were nothing like their master’s. She could no longer block them out as easily, but her strength was so far gone from her, it took little for her to black out.
While she shuddered to think of what they did to her in those periods of darkness, she was grateful for that escape.
Soon, she