The Infinity Gate: Darkglass Mountain: Book Three - By Sara Douglass Page 0,143

would have felt uncomfortable doing so. Now, however, he felt no qualms and instead felt a great ease in talking of her to this woman.

“It was strange for me,” he said, “when first Isaiah pulled me back into life. Azhure was in the Otherworld, but here I was, with a brand new life. We’d been lovers and companions for, what? Fifty or so years. To suddenly be without her . . . it was strange and unsettling.

“But even more unsettling and strange was how quickly I readjusted to the lack of her company. I still loved her, I still do love her, but . . . I don’t miss her. Life caught me up in its embrace. There were more adventures to be had.” His eyes twinkled. “More women to meet.”

“Ah, so there was a stream of women before me.”

“No. None before you. I’d met Ishbel and was attracted to her, but the idea of seducing her was merely an intellectual exercise. I never for a moment thought I’d actually carry it out.”

“Besides, you’d need to have competed with Isaiah and Maximilian and you must have feared failure.”

Axis laughed. “You have a sharp tongue on you, Inardle.”

She gave a little shrug.

“So,” Axis went on, “there was no one before you.”

“And what I did to you,” she said, “how I betrayed you, must therefore have stung doubly.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’d wanted to love again, but didn’t know how. And then there you were, and I was losing myself in you, and then .”

They sat in silence, looking at the flames of the fire rather than at each other.

“I also understand,” Axis eventually said, softly, “how difficult it must have been for you. How torn you must have been. How difficult it might have been to have approached me. I did not allow you an easy path to confidence.”

“But here we are now,” she said.

“Yes,” Axis said, looking at her fully, “here we are now.”

She raised her face and looked him in the eye. “I have changed, Axis. If I’d been brought back to life anywhere other than the water I would have been who I once was . . . but that didn’t happen. I regained life in the water. I have changed.”

“I know,” he said. “The River Angel runs deeper in you than previously.”

Ravenna waited until Salome lay down to sleep, her husband beside her.

Neither of them — nor the child this time — realised her presence.

She waited until they were asleep and the baby asleep in the cot beside their bed.

She walked calmly forward and picked up StarDancer.

He looked at her, blinking in confusion as he woke, then his eyes widened.

I am sorry, StarDancer, Ravenna said to him. I have come to kill you.

Then before StarDancer could react, Ravenna clutched him close and ran from the chamber as fast as she dared.

Elcho Falling erupted into pandemonium.

Chapter 26

The Central Outlands

The Skraelings knew that Inardle had changed. The knowledge rippled through the entire congregation in a painful shockwave of realisation.

While they had been sitting here debating and complaining and remaining utterly, utterly indecisive, Inardle, a Lealfast, had changed.

Inardle was now a River Angel.

“How could she have done that!” a Skraeling cried. “How?”

“What if all the other Lealfast choose to change?” another said.

“What if we miss out?” said yet another, getting right to the crux of the matter.

“We have not yet made a decision!” Ozll shouted into the confusion. “We have not decided whether or not we want to —”

“We think we do!” came back a roar of tens of thousands of Skraeling voices.

“Why,” Ozll shouted, far louder this time, trying to get control of the situation, “don’t we talk to Inardle and see what she has made of herself. Then we can decide if we, too, want to go the same way. She can be our guide. If we like what she is, then we, too, shall . . . take the plunge.”

It was an unfortunate metaphor, reminding the Skraelings that the only way to return to their River Angel forms was to drown themselves.

“At least we know Isaiah wasn’t lying,” Ozll said, his voice milder now the hubbub had died down. “At least we know the return to River Angel form is possible.”

This statement reassured the Skraelings and they nodded their heads, prepared to listen once more to Ozll’s guidance.

“I suggest,” Ozll said, “that we find Inardle. We examine her and we make our decision on what she has become.”

“Good idea,” Graq said, and Ozll smiled at her and thought