Talasha took a perch next to her. “So, how was it? Actually, you don’t need to answer. Your grin rather gives it away.” She laughed in that warm, sultry way of hers and handed Saska her waterskin.
Saska drank deep, wiping her mouth with the back of her loose, linen sleeve when she was done. She wore no godsteel armour - it would only weigh the dragon down - and was garbed instead in much lighter fabrics. It felt nice to feel the air on her skin. She had another drink and then handed the waterskin back.
“Thirsty work, isn’t it? There’s something about flying that dries out the throat.” Talasha refreshed herself with a long draught, then hitched the skin back to her belt. “You handled yourself well, I thought. You followed every instruction I gave you.”
Saska was good at following instructions, and they weren’t exactly complicated. The meat and mead of it was simply ‘do what I do’. When Talasha shifted forward in the saddle, Saska was to follow. When she leaned left, go left; right, go right. “Just don’t follow me if I fall,” she had quipped before they set off. “Try to hang on and Neyruu will bring you safely back.”
Sir Ralston hadn’t liked that joke.
“I’m used to it,” Saska said. “Well, not that, exactly. But Joy is pretty acrobatic too when she bounds over rocks and scrambles up cliffs.” It wasn’t the same as descending in a steep vertical plunge or performing a barrel roll - a manoeuvre that Talasha had performed on three occasions, each one quicker than the last - but there were some similarities at least. “When I first rode Joy I used to fall off sometimes, though. Guess the training paid off. Wouldn’t be so good to fall from a dragon.”
Talasha smiled and shook her head. “The word ‘splat’ comes to mind.” Her laugh was musical. Saska found herself staring into her deep brown eyes, flecked with sparkles of red, admiring that luxuriant jet hair that tumbled in waves from her head. Even with the deep cut on her chin, Talasha Taan was about the most beautiful woman she had ever set eyes on. The fact that she had saved Rolly’s life from those sand demons only made her all the more wonderful.
The day was dwindling, the sun speeding its way to the west, though still the air was hot. In the days since Talasha had joined them, there had been a minor easing of the insufferable temperatures, but not much. Certainly not as much as Sunrider Tantario had said when he’d told her the days would grow much cooler north of the Port of Matia.
They had grown cooler, though the word ‘much’ ought to have been omitted. She couldn’t blame Tantario for that, though. From what they’d heard, there had been more sandstorms than ever before in the plains and over in Pisek, more storms at sea than would usually fit into a ten year cycle, and even reports of earth-shattering earthquakes and sinkholes too, sucking settlements down into the voids beneath the earth.
Every day, more tidings reached them when they passed the inns and taverns and met travellers on the road. And of course, so came the requests. ‘My village has been plagued by a pride of night-lions. Please kill them.’ ‘My farm was raided by bandits. They stole my daughters. Please save them.’ ‘I seek help for a band of refugees crossing the plains to the north. We are trying to get to safety, but every day is a new threat. Please protect us.’
They were relentless, a daily barrage of begging, and to each and every one of them, Saska could only say ‘no’. She had to harden her heart to them, she told herself, but every rejection pained her. To see their desperate faces, the hands held together in prayer, grown men dropping to their knees as they wept for the loss of their loved ones. At first it had been Tantario who took their pleas, Tantario who gave the rejections, Tantario who they cursed, but Saska would not let that continue. She made a point now of being there too. “This is my decision, my fault,” she would tell them, in her broken, not-quite-fluent Aramatian. “If you’re going to blame someone, blame me.” And they did.
She had been hissed at, sworn at, heckled and even spat at once too. Sunrider Tantario had barked for that man to be taken and beaten for his insolence, but Saska told him ‘no’. He was venting, afraid, grieving. She could handle a bit of spit. Most just scowled at her though, muttering in their own accents and dialects as they left, never being told the true reason for their rejections. It was wretched work, and more than once Tantario had said she did not need to carry that burden. But to that she said ‘no’ as well. She would stand before every petitioner, every supplicant, hear every plea. Their anguish and their fury and their fear was her fuel. It reminded her of the importance of her task. I will stop this suffering, she would tell herself, as they hissed and swore and spat at her. One day, they’ll see it. They’ll understand, in the end.
The shadows of the hills were lengthening across the plains, stretching all the way toward the Capital Road as it ran northeast up the coast, thin as a strand of silk from here. She could see her host moving in their ragged column, a force further depleted by the terror at the river, trudging in a mournful procession.
Two dozen men, she thought, sighing. Each of them a brother or a friend to one man or another. They had all been affected by it, though none so much as the men under Tantario’s charge. Many of them had complained of the heat during their journey. Now they complained of the dead. Their brothers-in-arms were gone, slain by sand and shadow, and how long until they followed? Tantario continued to assure her they would escort her to the Perch, but perhaps it was time she let them go. She had the sellswords, and Rolly, and Leshie and Del, and now Talasha Taan as well. Perhaps that is enough, she thought. Maybe we should just take ship from here and brave the waves, as Robbert Lukar did.
“You seem distressed, Saska. What is it you’re thinking of?” Talasha smiled sympathetically. “I am sure you have much on your mind.”
A million things, and a million more. “As do you,” she only said. “We’re both being hunted, my lady. That’s a worry we share.”
“A worry, yes. And I understand my presence here is not accepted by all.”
“No,” Saska admitted. Talasha did not ride with them, but soared the skies, circling high above, watching for trouble and often finding places like this where she would rest and let the others catch up. Even at night she would remain apart, owing to Neyruu, who the men did not want around, and the beasts feared. “They wonder….well, some wonder…”
“Whether I should be here at all,” Talasha finished for her. “They fear I am an agent of Eldur, here to bring the doom.”
It was ridiculous, but true. “A few have muttered that concern, Sunrider Tantario says. I haven’t heard it myself, but he is very keen to keep me informed. Most think no such thing, though. They know you’re here to help, as you did at the river, but…”
“But they are concerned my mere presence will attract danger? Yes, I suspected that would be the case. That is why I try to keep my distance, Saska. If Neyruu senses any threat, I will be able to lead it away from you. This will give you time to escape, or go unnoticed.”
Saska breathed out a sigh, wishing she had a better way to thank her for her kindness. Talasha was a princess, and perhaps even a queen, and she should not have to spend her days circling the skies, acting protector like some common guard. That she had to deal with all this doubt and suspicion only made it worse.
“You don’t have to stay, you know,” she told her awkwardly. She turned her eyes to the east, out past the coast and across the darkening sea. Out there, somewhere, the Telleshi Isles sprawled, a thousand drops of land in the ocean, some stark and tall and unwelcoming, others tropical and idyllic, with sandy beaches and quiet palm-fringed coves. “You could find a place to be safe out there, my lady, on the islands. You and Cevi and Neyruu. You could wait out the war in peace. Eldur may never find you.”
“And if the war doesn’t end? If the world only grows worse? No, Saska. I was meant to come here, to help you. King Hadrin saw it in the eye, what happened at the river. My place is with you.”
Saska nodded, looking at her toes, shifting her feet. Talasha was everything a princess should be, beautiful and kind and refined, a singer and a dancer and a linguist and a poet, educated to the highest standards, all that she would never be. Yet here she is, to serve me. It should be the other way around…
Talasha put a hand on her arm. Her touch was as warm as the summer sun. “There is a saying we have in Agarath,” she said. “The translation to the common tongue is not so elegant, but in essence it means ‘when the thrill dies, the path darkens’.” She looked at her. “Do you understand?”
Saska thought about it a moment. She had an idea, but shook her head. She didn’t want to sound foolish or get it wrong, not in front of Talasha.
The princess smiled as if she knew. “Let me explain, then. The thrill sets our hearts soaring. It sharpens the mind and tingles the limb. When in it we feel alive, but once it is done, and we stop, and it leaves us, our thoughts can turn to darker things.” She brushed her cheek with a finger, right by the corner of her mouth. “You were grinning up there, exulting in the flight. But here, beyond the thrill, your mind is growing full of doubts. It is better that we walk, Saska, and keep the blood from stilling.” She stood. “Come. There is a path I saw, down to the plains. You will feel better when you start moving.”
Beautiful and kind and wise, Saska thought. She stood and made to follow as the princess led her on.
The trail was an old goat path, most likely used by the herders when they travelled to Cloaklake and back from their farms among the hills. They took the path down, a narrow winding track that ebbed back and forth along a path of loose scree. Neyruu did not follow, though she unfurled herself and moved to the edge of the ridge, watching as they descended with those keen, intelligent eyes.
Saska felt better at once, less doubtful, more hopeful. A smile moved back to her lips as she reflected on the wonders of dragonflight. “Will you take me up again?” she asked, after a while. “I’d like to get to know the sensation more. I might fly myself one day, so…”
“Might?” Talasha stopped and turned to her. “I didn’t come here to help you for ‘might’, Saska Varin.”
Saska cringed at the name.
“You don’t like it?” Talasha asked. “You are Saska of the House of Varin, are you not?”
“So I’m told.”
“So you are. Again, why else did I come here? Well, to help fortify your sense of worth, for a start. You have to start believing in yourself, sweet girl.” She cupped her cheek and smiled. Talasha was barely more than a decade older than her, but somehow she had a motherly air. Older sisterly, more like, Saska reflected. Or perhaps like a young aunt.
“That comes and goes,” Saska admitted. “Believing in myself. Half the time I feel like I’m just wandering along through a dream I can’t awaken from. Day to day…everything feels real, but when I sit and think about what’s to come…” She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s just…a lot.”
“A lot can be broken down into little bits. That is what you are doing. Each day is like another block of stone, to add to the great fortress that is Saska of House Varin.” She smiled. “One day you’ll be a towering structure, and all will quell to look upon you. And the Windblade will be a part of that. I saw it in use, and that shard alone astonished me. I cannot imagine what you will become when you bear all five at once.”
A god, a part of her thought. It frightened her, the idea of wielding all that power, as it did what she’d be expected to do with it. “It may not come to that,” she decided to say. “There might be another.”
“Another heir? Did your mother have twins?”
