in your—your world, because of my friendship with Ebon—because I can talk to Ebon. Because—and now I can talk to all of you, all you pegasi. I went there— she gestured at the stony Alliance—I went there. I walked into that scene. I saw them breathing. I smelled horses and campfires and human food cooking and human sweat. Did you send me because you could not send him?
There was a little pause, but Sylvi was too angry and shaken to think about how she was addressing the king and his shaman.
We cannot send you or anyone—we cannot send ourselves, or each other, said Hibeehea. But we can recognise those who may be able to go themselves. It is an unusual talent. Most of those who have it become shamans. I am one of them. We don’t know what that talent would look like in a human—we have never seen a human who has made us wonder if they might carry that talent.
But we have wondered about you a great deal since Lrrianay came back from your binding to say that you and Ebon could speak to each other.
And then Ebon came to us with his mad idea of bringing you here as what he called a birthday present, said Lrrianay, smiling, but he held his head low and worried.
What is it you humans say? That we backed into their hands? said Ebon.
Played into their hands, said Sylvi, and curled her fingers into fists. She turned around quickly and looked again at the signing: and she was sure—except that she knew it was nonsense—that Dorogin’s eyes moved to meet hers and his mouth turned up in a gloating sneer, a sneer that said, There’s nothing you can do.
I don’t know what I can do, she said, because silent-speech had become her ordinary way of speech; and then she added aloud, as if for Dorogin’s benefit, “But I will do something.” The vibration of her larynx felt strange to her, and she uncurled one of her fists, and put her long nimble fingers on her throat.
CHAPTER 15
Usually there were other pegasi with them, or nearby; in all the big chambers they entered there were sculptors working, with their tiny knives and brushes and picks and whisks and rubbing cloths, and they were in some of the smaller rooms and alcoves too, and occasionally in the corridors. She was told she might watch them, if she wished, so long as she did not speak to them or touch them or their tools or otherwise disturb them. But once one spoke to her.
Welcome, small human child, daughter of the bond-friend of our king, and bond-friend of our king’s son.
Oh—I’m sorry—I’m not supposed to—
You did not disturb me, said the pegasus. I disturbed myself, that I might speak to you. So it is true—you can speak to us, and he laid his brush down and turned fully round to look at her. She had to stop herself from blinking or fidgeting under that steady regard, but there was nothing hostile in his look or his posture. His neck was gently arched, his body relaxed, tail lying flat, and when he laid his brush down, he folded his wings only loosely. He nodded his head in an acknowledgement not unlike the similar human one and then held it down longer in an almost-bow and said, I am honoured to meet you, little girl, king’s daughter.
She didn’t mean to, but thoughts and silent-speech still got confused, and she said so that he could hear her, I am not little.
His laugh started with the nose-wrinkle smile and ran in ripples all the way to his hindquarters. He was a dappled brown, and his dapples twinkled as he laughed. He was smaller than Ebon or Lrrianay, but not so small as Hibeehea. I beg pardon, he said. When I was younger, I went several times to your palace, and I have seen a few humans, and they were great clumsy creatures. You are not. You are smaller than I was expecting. Smaller and neater.
For an awful, heart-stopping moment she thought—He’s guessed about Ebon and me, he knows about the flying!—and she clutched that thought to her as she might clutch an escaping puppy, all legs and wriggle, that the sculptor should not hear it too. I am sorry, she said. I have always been . . . among humans I am too small. She thought—and pushed that thought forward, toward the dangerous speech boundary—of the years she had spent