Firebrand

SOLITUDE

Ghallos led Karigan and Enver from the valley. Before they parted, Ghallos told Karigan, “I keep expecting you to, I don’t know, change into a bird or something incredible. You are Mirare, but all I see is an ordinary woman, or, at least, as ordinary as one with only two legs can be.”

She smiled, pleased, for once, to be considered ordinary.

He then took her aside and bent down to whisper, “Just a warning about Eletians. You may think you know them, but they are not always what they seem. This one smells of . . . danger.”

She glanced at Enver, who watched them without expression. She did not doubt his keen hearing had picked up all that Ghallos said.

“In what way?”

“I am not sure,” Ghallos replied, “but be wary, and keep in mind that though they may have only two legs like you, they are very different creatures and, in some ways, much less civilized.”

Karigan smiled weakly and bade Ghallos farewell. Because he helped show them the path out of the valley, the use of her ability was not required. She had considered asking him about Odessa before they left, the p’ehdrose who, she’d learned in the future time, was his mate, but she decided that if he wasn’t yet chieftain of the p’ehdrose as she had believed, perhaps Odessa was not yet his mate, and she did not wish to disrupt the natural course of whatever might lie between the two.

• • •

It was a pleasant day for a ride in the sunshine, and Karigan was feeling much better thanks to the deep sleep she’d gotten after the long exposure of her mirror eye the previous night. She had succeeded in reforging the alliance with the p’ehdrose, even if by unconventional means, and had in her satchel a document of agreement marked by Yannuf’s bloody thumbprint to represent his signature. She and Enver had not been killed or forced to live in the valley. She considered the endeavor to have been a great success.

As they rode, however, she was already thinking about the journey home, about what Nyssa had done to her confidence, and about Enver. She gave him a quick sideways glance. His gaze was fixed on the terrain ahead, but too often she’d felt that gaze fixed on her, and that his regard of her had intensified. She could not pinpoint exactly when it had happened, but he seemed to have need of being near her constantly, always having to have some physical contact with her. No matter how harmless the touch, it had begun to feel proprietary, as though he held some claim to her that others were not permitted. It had gotten to the point where, not only had she declined having him tend her wounds, but she had refused to let him help her mount Condor. Then there was the exchange they had had in the hut of the p’ehdrose when he’d expressed his “interest” and had seemed jealous of Zachary. It all made her feel uneasy and she kept what distance she could.

When they halted for a break, she dismounted and paced to relax her back, and she came to a decision. When she saw Enver following her every move, she knew it was the right one.

“Enver,” she said, “back in the valley you asked me what I was going to do when I returned home.”

“I did.”

“Well, what are you going to do?”

“I will ride with you to Sacor City,” he replied.

“What then? You must need to get word back to Prince Jametari about the p’ehdrose.”

“Word will reach the Alluvium.”

He’d grown stolid. She collected herself before she spoke again. She just needed to say it. “I don’t want you to go to Sacor City with me.”

A wildness filled his eyes. “Why?” He took a step toward her, and she felt his aggression as a physical thing.

She remained warily by Condor’s side, patted his shoulder. “I have not been very strong since Nyssa hurt me,” she said. “I mean, inside me, not just the outside. I need to go it alone from here, for my own sake, and try to find my confidence again. Face the world on my own. Do you understand?”

Such an expression of . . . anger? Desperation? Despair? fell over his face that she was not sure what he intended to do.

“You don’t want me?” he asked.

“It’s not about wanting you,” she said, “or not wanting you. I just need to be on my own now.”

“But me,” he said, that wildness flaring in his eyes. “Your spirit sings to me, calls to me. Does mine not call to you?”

She tensed. This was not a conversation she wanted to have. “We are friends.”

“No,” he snarled. “I do not mean just friends. Does my spirit call to you?”

There was no gentle way of saying it, so she didn’t even try. “No.”

He turned away, shaking.

“Enver?” She took a step after him.

“Do not approach,” he warned her. “Do not come near. It is not safe. You should go.”

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Do not speak!”

Had her answer meant so much to him? Matters of the heart could cause anguish, and she had sensed for a time he’d been attracted to her more than just a little, though it wasn’t always easy to tell with an Eletian. And of late, there’d been that intensification of his regard of her.

He struggled with himself, she saw, quaking, and clenching and unclenching his hands. He writhed as if in pain and she wished to help him, but he’d ordered her not to.

“Do you not see?” he demanded of her. “I am a danger to you. Go.”

“What—”