asked Ebon a question, or whose child or grandchild or niece or nephew Ebon had given a pony ride. She had forgotten the petition—she had wanted to forget the petition—but she could not forget the look on Fthoom’s face the day after her twelfth birthday, after she’d climbed down from her chair and said No. “Has anyone ever been—unbound?” Sylvi said.
Her mother looked at her in surprise and distress. “I don’t think so. There’s a paragraph in the treaty somewhere about it, but I don’t think it’s ever been used.”
But there’s never been a bond like mine with Ebon, thought Sylvi. “Have you ever heard of Redfora and Oraan?”
“No-o,” said her mother slowly. “Who are they?”
“ They’re a story the pegasi tell,” Sylvi said, who had decided beforehand what she would say in answer to this question. “They’re supposed to be bondmates who could talk to each other.”
“I’d’ve heard if such a story had been unearthed,” said the queen.“It hasn’t. What a pity. It’s just what we want, isn’t it? It’s interesting that the pegasi have such a story and we do not.” She gave her daughter a long look.“Try not to worry. I’m not looking forward to what Fthoom has to say either, because there will probably be something in it we will have to take into account, but those of us who are bound now will stay as we were bound.”
Sylvi’s heart, which had begun to slow down to its normal pace, heard the tone of her mother’s voice and speeded up again. “What about Fthoom?”
“He has asked for an appointment with the king.”
“And you already know what he’s going to say.”
“We know your father’s gamble hasn’t worked, yes. Did any of us ever really think it would?” she added, almost as if speaking to herself. She sighed, and after a moment went on: “Which bears on what you and I need to talk about. Your birthday party is in nine days—two days after Ebon’s return. And you must not only appear utterly, completely normal for the next seven days—exactly as you were before you visited the peg—Rhiandomeer, you must not change by the flicker of an eyelash when you have Ebon with you again, and at your party. And I think perhaps you should not wear your inspiring new robe for all of that time.”
Sylvi smiled at her mother’s return joke. “You said ‘appear,’ ” she said slowly.
“You’ve changed,” said her mother.“You’re not just lost in your own home, you’re not just missing your best friend, you’ve changed. What we need to do is make it appear merely that you are growing up—which you are—and that it has nothing to do with three weeks spent alone with the pegasi. Listening to subversive tales of bondmates who could talk to each other.”
Sylvi was silent.
“What were they like, the Caves?” said her mother hesitantly.
The question had not been asked before. There was—to Sylvi’s ears—an unhappy little silence around it now. Sylvi had been home two days, and no one, not even her father and mother, had asked her anything about her journey. With Hibeehea’s words still in the front of her mind, and dismayed and disoriented about her sense of strangeness in her own home, she had not tried to talk about it. When she came back from her cousins’ she couldn’t stop talking—although Powring and Orthumber and Nearenough and Shirrand, where her various aunts and uncles lived, were very well known to both her parents, and she could just talk, she didn’t have to explain anything. Or avoid explaining anything.
Since she’d been back, this was the first time she’d been alone with either parent. She left her window-sill and sat on her bed next to her mother. She thought about how you weren’t supposed to touch the pegasi, and yet the pegasi touch each other constantly—and her too, while she was with them. She reached out and took her mother’s hand.
Her mother squeezed it and said, “I just said that sometimes you can show when you can’t say the words. The one occasion I’ve ever felt that Hirishy and I were—were in contact somehow, was about the Caves. I’d had difficulty understanding how important they are, and your father was trying to tell me. This was long ago—Danny was a baby. Cory was explaining that the Caves are thousands of years of pegasus art and culture, and more than that: the heart of themselves as a people. I was wrestling with this, trying to imagine it, I suppose,