the air I breathe in Balsinland is heavy in a way the air in Rhiandomeer is not? That I agree with the pegasi that what is wrong between us is something about our magicians—our magic? That I think so because I met Dorogin in the pegasi Caves? Dorogin, who has been dead for seven hundred years?
That I am allying myself with the pegasi against my own people? Isn’t that exactly what Fthoom would want, so he could exile me?
She put her hand to her throat, as if she could not breathe, as if she could not speak. I wish I might have had one more flight with Ebon. I wish we might have had one more afternoon lying on the grass in the sunlight, even knowing the end is coming. I wish....
They had not gone flying since she had returned from Rhiandomeer. They had not been flying, therefore, just the two of them as they had once done whenever Ebon was at the palace, since before her journey to his homeland—a time that now seemed so long ago she could barely remember it.
Perhaps they had never been flying, just the two of them, with Ebon’s mane tangling her own hair, and the world framed by his wings. Perhaps she had imagined it. Perhaps she had imagined that she could talk to the pegasi.
She wished she had imagined it.
She had said to her mother, How can everything change in three weeks? Three little weeks. Her mother had smiled and answered, Sometimes they change in a moment.
Her father continued, “I have given Fthoom a conference for the day after tomorrow. You and Ebon will attend, of course.” He stood up. “I must talk to Lrrianay.” As he looked around for his bondmate, Lrrianay turned his head as if he had heard his name spoken, and Fazuur materialised at the king’s elbow. The king turned back to his daughter for a moment and put his hands on her shoulders and stared at her as if she held some answer to an important question.
“Dad—” she began, nerving herself to ask him for a moment of private speech, to tell him what she had to tell him, but as she said it her voice cracked, and he didn’t hear her.
The same look she had seen in Danacor’s eyes the last evening came into her father’s. “You’re growing!” he said.
She bit her lip. But she replied, “Yes. I know. I am.”
CHAPTER 19
There were many more people present for Fthoom’s report than there had been on the day, four years ago, when the king had plucked the magician’s spiral from Fthoom’s head and sent him away. Sylvi had been surprised when Glarfin had reported that the meeting would occur in the Little Hall—which was little only in comparison to the Great Hall—rather than the king’s private receiving room. That meant that this was not only a semipublic occasion but that many people were expected to attend. Glarfin would be there again, as he had been four years ago; but this only made her remember his leaping in front of her, to protect her from Fthoom.
Ebon knew the business was serious, but he refused to admit that he took it as seriously as Sylvi had to. His response to Fthoom’s prospective return from exile was, Pity. Any day you see that great rolling barrel in the corridor is a blighted day. And then, sadly, in a tone that sounded eerily like his father, I don’t understand why your magicians grow so—so—umblumbulum, which was a pegasus word that meant, roughly, out of order. Pegasi did not use words like “belligerent” and “aggressive” about their friends and allies, and—she guessed—would hesitate to use such words about any human. Even “powerful” implied the misuse of that power, because why did you possess so much of it? Power existed to be given away. She had seen over and over again how his people approached Lrrianay, had seen how different it was from how his people approached her father—her father who was the kindest and quietest of men—far more like Lrrianay than Fthoom.
She thought again—as she often, involuntarily thought—of Dorogin’s stony eyes in his stony face, staring out at her from the Cave wall, and his stony smile, all saying, Too late.
And Gandam’s, saying, Try.
Sylvi said sadly, I don’t know either. But magic was a power as her father’s sovereignty was a power, which was why no magician was allowed to accept as a student any member of the nobility or of royalty—except