four of the senators had pegasi; several of the blood courtiers present did also.
And all these pegasi had stayed well back as the humans greeted the returning human princess; they had, when necessary, bowed, letting their long forelocks sweep forward and not meeting her eyes. She did not try to speak to any of them—she did not think about choosing not to try to speak to them....
She did not dare reach out to Ebon, standing almost beside her, only a little behind her, which is what she wanted to do. But when her father came up to stand beside her again, she reached out for his hand and squeezed it almost desperately. The clouds she had seen in the distance during the flight home seemed to be racing toward her, grey and cold.
When Ebon left the next morning she could hardly bear it.
She knew it was coming; they had said their real good-byes the night before, but she and her father and a few of the courtiers went out in the cool wet dawn to watch the pegasi spread their wings and leap into the air. Usually there was no formal leave-taking, but this time, her father said, was special, and so the humans would see the pegasi off; but he looked at his daughter with worry in his eyes.
It’s only a week, said Ebon. I’ll be back. He sounded subdued, not at all like his usual self.
I know, she said. It’s only a week.
He said, At least you get to sleep in one of your great human beds again.
She’d missed being outdoors under the sky the night before. Her bedroom had felt small and cramped, although the ceiling was better than twice her height above her. She’d leaned on the balustrade that had in a way started it all, the balustrade Ebon had flown in over and landed, skittering, on her bedroom floor, the night of her twelfth birthday, four years and several centuries ago.
She had leaned out as far as she could over it, till the rain ran down her face and made her sneeze, trying to breathe air that wasn’t in a room, thinking that the palace was so huge that even the air around it felt like house air, wondering if she could take a blanket out and sleep in one of the pavilions, knowing that she couldn’t, for the same reasons that Ebon was going home tomorrow. She had to appear completely normal, completely untouched by the last three weeks, completely as she had been when the king had allowed her to leave her human home and visit her bondmate at his home in the pegasi lands. Bondmate, she’d thought. Bondmate or bondfriend—that’s what the pegasi always call it. It’s much better than the silly formal human Excellent Friend.
The Caves had never felt as stifling as the palace did now.
She wondered where Ebon was, if he was asleep. She knew that despite the openness of their annex the pegasi often wandered out into the parkland and on rainy nights might sleep in one of the pavilions. Which was why she could not. It would not matter if she chose an empty pavilion; the humans who had not liked her journey would not like her sleeping as the pegasi slept after she returned. I would not be sleeping as the pegasi sleep, she thought. I don’t have wings to keep me warm; and my neck is too short to let my head be comfortable without a pillow.
She’d grow used to sleeping in a bedroom again—she thought, as the rain ran down her neck and wetted her nightgown—but some of the change in her was permanent, even if she did not know herself which part of it that was. Would she still be able to talk to other pegasi ? Could she risk trying? What if what made the pegasus shamans ill now made her ill? Was there the tiniest, most minuscule, invisible reason for Fthoom’s aversion to any closeness between human and pegasus ? She remembered Dorogin’s eyes....
She did not want to remember Dorogin’s eyes.
She thought of Redfora, and Oraan. For a moment she could taste Redfora’s honey-syrup on her tongue. She had gone back to bed and curled round that taste, that memory, and fell asleep, her wet hair soaking into the pillow.
Now she wanted to ask Ebon which pavilion they’d slept in, the night before, but she didn’t ask. She told herself, if I knew, I would go visit it, and he would not