throat knotted, and a bitterness welled in her mouth. She had not wanted to think of the bandit queen again so soon. Other voices murmured. At Irrylath's word, the two guards uncrossed their spears and stood aside. Erin entered. Through the dark girl's eyes, Aeriel glimpsed the Lady Syllva and her Istern sons, her own brother Roshka and Talb the Mage—even the lyon Pendarlon.
They clustered about a folding camp table on which rested a map weighted with odd objects: a sheathed dagger, a flagon, a stone. Someone moved through the others from the table's far side. Walking the Wasteland, absorbed in her vision, Aeriel stumbled. Dismay glanced through her. She scarcely recognized the man. She felt Erin's start of surprise echo her own.
"Oh, husband," Aeriel murmured. "Irrylath."
He was so thin, he looked weadiered to the bone. The broad, high planes of his cheeks stuck sharply out, the cheek beneath hollow and shadowed. His sark hung loose from the shoulders, the sash at the waist cinched tight. He looked like a whippet, like a desert racing cat, like a man in whom some guilty inner fire burned, consuming him.
"He won't live to reach the Witch's Mere!" Aeriel found herself whispering in terror, and the image came to her again, unbidden, of Irrylath falling toward stormtossed emptiness. Desperately, she thrust the fearful thought away. She stood halted in the middle of the flat, grey expanse of Wasteland now, staring at nothing, seeing only what was happening in Syllva's camp leagues upon leagues away, watching through Erin's eyes.
"You are much changed, Prince," the dark girl said. A gap of several paces separated them.
"And you," the one before her answered, "late companion to my wife, you who deserted us so abruptly—in secret, so soon after she was taken— that many wondered what your part in her abduction might have been." His words were quiet, keen and hard. "I, too, had a trusted companion once," the prince continued, "one who betrayed me to the Witch."
Miles distant, Aeriel flinched at the barely veiled accusation. Before him, Erin snorted, refuing to be baited.
"I left because my errand was urgent," she snapped. "Now I have returned, having lately been with Aeriel."
The others in the tent stirred, murmuring. Syllva, the Lady of Esternesse, took a step forward as though to speak, but her son the prince of Avaric spoke first.
"Have you?" he scoffed. "Then you have been to the Witch's palace and back." His voice held such a brittle edge that Aeriel shuddered.
"I have been to the City of Crystalglass," the dark girl replied, her own voice angry but controlled.
The prince's very presence grated on her. Aeriel had never before this moment realized the extent of their antipathy. " That is where Aeriel had gone."
"You lie!" His vehemence surprised even Erin. "Either way, you lie! If you have been to the City, you have not been with Aeriel. If you have been with her and are now returned, you belong to the Witch."
Irrylath's brothers shifted, shaking their heads. Hadin, the youngest, murmured, "Brother, hold…"
But Irrylath ignored them all, his eyes locked on Erin's.
"I have been with Aeriel," the dark girl told him quietly, firmly, "at Crystalglass—"
"And is she well?" the prince exclaimed, almost calm again suddenly. "Then tell me what the Witch had made of her: is it a lorelei like herself that devours men's souls—or perhaps a female darkangel, an icare? She needs another to replace me, you know. She's only got six now. Or a harridan, perchance, such as we met at Orm—or even a wraith? Is that it? Has she made my wife into a wraith? Tell me."
Aeriel stood, fists doubled at her breasts, able to perceive it all so vividly across the miles, yet powerless to intervene. Rather than stand helpless, she almost wished that she could break the link between the dark girl and herself: tear the pearl from her own brow, or the sword from Erin's hand. But she dared not lose sight of Irrylath, even for a moment.
"She was well when last we spoke, earlier this fortnight," Erin replied, outwardly implacable now. Yet Aeriel felt how hot the dark girl's anger burned just beneath the skin.
"Then why has she not returned with you?" Irrylath's cry was not so wild this time, but full of anguish and a fury to match and overmatch the dark girl's ire. Aeriel stood dismayed.
"She is on her way to face the Witch," Erin replied evenly.
"Alone?" The prince of Avaric shook his head. A weak, unsteady laugh escaped