the botanical structures of loomberries when another king’s messenger trotted past, looking grim and intent; he did not seem to notice them standing in the shrubbery with their notebooks. Without knowing she was going to say anything, Sylvi said: “Ebon says our dads are very alike.”
After a pause Ahathin said, “Yes. They are.”
Sylvi turned to look at him. He looked mild and rumpled, as he always looked. “Is that good or bad?”
“What do you think?”
“Oh, good, of course. But . . .”
“ There are always ‘buts.’ ”
“I heard Lord Kanf say that we should make an alliance with Swarl, which has a strong king and a large standing army who would know what to do with our taralians. And norindours. And whatever else keeps coming out of the wild lands.”
“And your father said he didn’t want someone else’s large standing army underfoot.”
“And Lord Kanf said, Better allies than taralians.”
Ahathin said nothing.
“And then my father said, This is the taralians’ country too,” said Sylvi, “and Lord Kanf said, My lord and king, you are human, not pegasus.”
But Sylvi could still put everything out of her mind when she and Ebon flew. She never grew weary of flying: after four years the sky-wind in her face delighted her as much as it had on the night of her twelfth birthday.
The baffling thing to Sylvi was the way the thought of the Caves grew on her—the Caves which, the first time she had asked Ebon about them, he had told her were not a human sort of thing. The Caves where Ebon would some day sculpt some sky view of the landscape around the palace, despite some of the pegasi protesting that the Caves were not for human things. The Caves where the pegasi ssshasssha was held. The Caves where no human had ever set foot.
She could forget taralians and norindours and their night flights’ newly restricted scope; she could forget how often her mother wasn’t home, and the deepening shadow on her father’s face. She could—sometimes—even forget Fthoom. But lying along Ebon’s back with the great sweep of his wings framing her, peering through the lash of his mane, the one thought that could take her away from the present moment was the thought of the Caves. She longed to see them—she didn’t know why. She guessed perhaps it had begun with listening to him humming his lessons, listening to his stories about the histories on the Cave walls. She thought it might also have to do with his feather-hands on her temples saying the polishing-chant, and the vision that had bloomed behind her eyelids: a curiosity—no, a longing—to try and comprehend ssshasssha.
Ebon had described his favourite bits of the Caves to her till she felt she could almost see them herself—but only almost. She wanted to stretch out her own hand and stroke the silky surfaces which generations of tiny alula-hands and their light tools had smoothed to a perfection that rougher, stronger human hands could not emulate. But the Caves were far more than half a night’s flight away; nor would it have been possible to enter the Caves without being discovered. There was always someone at the various entrances—
Oh! said Sylvi. You have guards? Who would want to damage your Caves? They are far inside your country, are they not? Where no one goes but you? And you’ve said taralians and norindours don’t like the mountains—
Ebon stared at her. Damage? There’s a rite-fire kept burning at the three main entrances, and anyone who isn’t familiar with the Caves needs a guide, even near the entrances. And unless you’re a sculptor, you have to go with a shaman.
No guards. Sylvi thought—briefly—of a life, of a location, without guards. It made her longing for the Caves even greater.
At certain seasons, for certain ceremonies, most of the pegasi come there, over a few days or weeks at a time, mostly, the main entrance has a monster hall just inside but it’s still not big enough for all of us at once. But at any time of the day or year—there are always a few pegasi, sculptors and visitors. You can go for hours without seeing anybody, or sometimes there’s someone in every room, round every corner, shaping every bump in every wall, Ebon said.
Sylvi dreamed about the Caves sometimes, and sometimes, on dark nights with no moon or stars, she imagined that they were flying through huge Caves. It was on those nights that the wind most seemed to whisper words in