daylight, and it was still nearing twilight when a huge double spiral of torches began to light up below them. There was a wide space at the centre of the spiral, and Sylvi knew they were going to land there when the pegasi tightened the ropes of her drai again—and this time, although she had not heard anything earlier, she heard all six of them say the holding-words, one right after another, a singing sort of noise on a falling scale, almost like a very short round in six parts: and then once, twice, more, as the shamans flanking them spoke. She saw the air shimmer with the ooffhaloah—or perhaps that was just her eyes, tired after a long windy day, staring at torchlight through the fast-dropping twilight—felt it settle around her, felt both the drai and the ropes stiffen with it—and her drai bobbed up till she was riding even with the straining necks of Ebon and Sorlalea on her either side, their inner wings brushing the edge of her drai.
They had set down and flown out again from their three rest stops with the great heave they’d made in the Outer Court—and counter-heave on landing, with the vast wings arched and scooping the air like bells to slow them as quickly as possible—and each time she found herself worrying about fragile pegasus legs . . . this final time, audibly enough, apparently, for Ebon to hear her, because he said, Stop it, you baggage, we know what we’re doing. She was distracted by the slight breathlessness of his remark, since they didn’t have to breathe for their sort of talking. And then they were down.
They set down with astonishing gentleness—the more astonishing for how exhausted they must all be. But her six bearers were galloping before she knew they had landed—she could see her father’s bearers galloping ahead of her and only then realised that she was hearing the faint soft tap of pegasus hoofs to either side of her as well; her drai glided as smoothly as a boat on a still lake. They galloped on through the path made by the spiral, emerging as the last torches were lit: It’s another dance, she thought, like the dance of the harnessing.
Lrrianay came forward first to greet her father—the back pair of his doorathbaa were still holding the ropes tightly while the front ropes had been gently let slacken so that he stepped, standing, out of his drai—and he put his hands on either side of the pegasus king’s eyes as the pegasus king put his feather-hands on the human king’s temples. His wings met behind Corone’s back, like an embrace.
Sylvi had belatedly stripped her gloves off and was fumbling for the ends of the lacing that held her in her drai.
Hey. Move before I strangle.
She wanted to say something appropriately rude—the harnesses were made so beautifully they didn’t move a finger’s breadth, or a feather-hand finger’s breadth, as the draia swung up or down—but she was too occupied. And then she realised they had stopped, and she was standing too. She let the last lace-end drop, and stepped forward, and her pegasi all moved lightly toward her, so the last ropes fell slack and her drai fell to the ground. She half heard a kind of exhale—not the pegasi—no, as if the magic were sighing in relief—and there was a faint twinkle on the ground, as if the magic had coalesced, and fallen, as a kind of shining sand.
Oh, thank you, she said. Thank you, thank you.
Lady, your closed-wing servant, said Ebon drily.
Remembering her manners she said aloud,“Genfwa, esshfwa,” which was the best all-purpose thank you she knew—the pegasi had rather an abundance of different thank yous for different occasions. There was probably a better one for now, but Sylvi’s memory refused to provide one. She turned where she stood, and all six of her bearers nodded, and five of them smiled—she couldn’t see whether black Ebon did or not, in the torch-flickering dark. But by then she was facing forward again, and the knots were let loose and rope-loops lifted off her bearers, and here was the pegasus queen herself to welcome her. Sylvi took a deep breath and bowed.
“Welhum, fwooth shile off humaa hing an swaah bohn-bluah uff ouu deeahss Ebon,” Aliaalia said, or almost sang: Welcome, fourth child of the human king and sworn bond-blood of our dearest Ebon. Ebon sounded like a verse in the song: Ehhboohn, and she swept her wings out