Witch remarked, as though not greatly interested. "After all these years, what could my mother possibly have to say to me?"
Aeriel shook her head. How to explain? Where to begin? She found her tongue growing thick and awkward in her mouth. Touching the pearl still, she could only manage, "Ravenna bade me bring it to you."
Oriencor shrugged. "How charming. But you keep it awhile, little sorceress, lest the cold kill you too soon. Time enough for me to savor my mother's dying breath after the battle." She smiled her wolfish smile. "After I've slaughtered all your people and devoured their souls."
Aeriel's knees grew weak. The other's voice was at once lovely and terrible, seductive to listen to.
Aeriel felt the moment—her chance to confront and persuade the Witch—slipping away. She drew breath to make some desperate last appeal—but a soft, inner voice intervened. Let it go, the voice murmured, already fading. Now is not the time. Not yet, but soon.
"Come," the lorelei said. "Watch the battle with me. It is about to be joined."
She beckoned Aeriel to a window. The sill there dripped with water in the sunlight's blaze.
"See them below us," Oriencor murmured. "Your forces and mine. All assembled. All arrayed. The victory will be mine, of course. It will be a pleasure to watch. I know so few pleasures these days. Watch with me."
Aeriel saw armies on the strand below. The small chamber in which she and Oriencor stood was indeed at a great height. The Witch's brood were massed upon the shore: jackals and weaselhounds and black birds; great, hunched creatures of vaguely human shape; and thin, wraithlike figures—rank upon rank of them, so many she could not count. The black waters of the Mere behind them teemed with more. Aeriel spotted the mudlick, bobbing near shore, and deeper out, circling the palace, the two enormous wakes of the Witch's water dragons.
Syllva's forces faced the Mere, fanned out in a crescent. Aeriel's heart lifted at the sight of them
—only to tighten suddenly as, for the first time, she perceived how pitifully small their numbers were in comparison to the Witch's vast horde. Above the allied warhost, a long yellow banner turned and fluttered on the breeze. The Lady stood foremost, surrounded by her bowwomen. Irrylath rode nearby, astride the winged Avarclon. Marelon, the Lithe Serpent of the Sea-of-Dust, undulated huge and vermilion, her vast coils lost among the throng. Erin stood farther back, the lyon Pendarlon pacing beside her. Aeriel saw the dark girl touch his mane. Beside her at the windowsill, Oriencor stirred.
"You have all been such a trial to me these last few dozen daymonths," she sighed, "resisting my conquest, refusing to acquiesce. I suppose I must be grateful, though: you assuaged my boredom."
Aeriel turned to see her gazing down hungrily at the prince of Avaric very far below. The White Witch smiled.
"Irrylath was the best. He was never boring. All of six years old when I procured him—too old, really, to ever come completely to heel. But that is why I loved him so. So independent! So surprising. It took me years to tame him."
A hot flame of anger rose in Aeriel. For a moment, it rivaled the warmth of the pearl. She remembered the brief glimpse the pearl had shown her: Oriencor, one fist in the young Irrylath's hair, commanding him ever so quietly, Yes, love. You will. Recklessly, Aeriel drew breath again to speak, but the other's merciless eyes turned and fixed her like a hawk's.
"I will never forgive you for taking him from me," the White Witch breathed, "even for a little time.
And I will have him back again. Before I drink his soul away, he will be mine."
Aeriel's skin flushed. "He will never belong to you again," she gasped. "He's mine. He loathes you."
Oriencor laughed. "He loves me. And I him."
"You don't," spat Aeriel. "You only want to rule him!" Memory of the lorelei's black birds tormenting her prisoners came back to Aeriel. She shuddered, sickened, and shoved the thought away. "You and your kind don't love anything. I don't think you can."
The Witch's smile soured. Her voice grew petulant, annoyed. "I loved the Ancients once," she murmured, "when I was young. I was capable of love then. But they left me."
Leaning back against the sill, studying Aeriel, Oriencor toyed with the low collar of her gown, stroking her own breastbone. Slowly, Aeriel realized what it was she fingered: a little seam running down, sewn up with silver, just like the