scary—and very, very full. And then the tears came—she hadn’t known she was going to cry—but once she started she couldn’t stop. Oh, why am I crying? I don’t want to cry!
Niahi trotted forward from what Sylvi dimly realised must be an official welcoming party. The queen followed her daughter, and the two of them stood near Sylvi as if protecting her from a cold wind, or even an attack from an enemy. Lrrianay joined them, and Sylvi was the hub of a little wheel of pegasi. She dug both her hands into Ebon’s mane and tried to stop crying, tried to stop her legs from trembling and her back—where no wings grew—from aching, aching, as if when she left the Caves she had again taken up a burden too heavy for her—or as if she were leaving her wings behind.
Hibeehea appeared between Lrrianay and Ebon, who made room for him, but Sylvi stumbled as Ebon moved, trying to press herself away from the pegasus shaman, whom she was suddenly afraid of as she had been at the beginning, poor human thing that she was, wailing like a baby, her nose running and her tears dripping off her chin.
No, child, youngling, you have nothing to fear of me.
And she couldn’t even keep her thoughts to herself.
With something she recognised as amusement, Hibeehea continued, Speech is a skill like any other. Do not your babies shout when they learn new words? Fall down when they are learning to walk? I believe human and pegasus children have these things in common. And our children often weep when they visit the Caves for the first time.
But I’m falling to pieces, she thought, but she knew he heard her.
You are not. Five days is a long time to be in the Caves for anyone but a sculptor or a shaman; no one is expected to remain in the Caves five days on their first visit. But we did not have time to be gradual. We wanted you to see.... Child, may I touch you?
She had entirely forgotten the human ban on touching pegasi; the silk of Ebon’s mane and the velvet of his shoulder were as familiar to her as his words in her head, and since she had been here in their country, especially since she had first heard Niahi, she had fallen in with the pegasus habit of touching each other as they spoke—of touching as part of communication.
Except the shamans. She learnt, without realising she had learnt it, to recognise the shamans partly by the fact that no one touched them, except formally, and with permission first formally granted. She had been presented to several other shamans after her dramatic first meeting with Hibeehea, but she had known, before she had been told, that they were shamans; she had thought it was the slightly aloof, rather regal austerity they all seemed to bear that gave them away; it took her a little while to realise that an important clue was that no one touched them. And they did not touch you. She thought now that she could still feel the spot where Hibeehea had touched her—so lightly and briefly—with the tips of his pinions, at the end of that first meeting, so long ago. She hadn’t thought about it at the time; only that she’d needed to prevent herself from flinching.
Ye-es, she said now, hiccupping through her tears even in her mind-speech. I—I would be honoured.
He unfolded his wings with a tiny, curiously silvery noise like the faintest distant sound of ringing bells, and reached his feather-hands toward her, and touched her temples. It was not a quick brush of blessing, this time. He touched her, and left his fingers pressing gently against her skin.
It was like . . . the warmth of summer with the endless skies of a cold winter day; the bursting greens of spring and the rich russet-gold of autumn. It brought her back into time, into her body; her feet were on the earth, her hands were tangled in Ebon’s mane, and Hibeehea’s feather-hands were touching her temples. Some thing, some energy, passed between them, real as his hands on her face, something . . . slow, liquid, viscous . . . something tawny or golden, like barley syrup or honey. Without meaning to, she let go of Ebon’s mane with one hand and held it out, cupped, as if the syrup-honey were a real liquid being poured.... She looked down, and something translucent pale gold