A stronger pulse reached out from the orb, sending light to wash through the room. Curious. The Eye was a soft blue, veined in gold, yet that light, it was blue and silver. She frowned, sat up, peering through the darkness. “Hadrin. Are you all right?”
The king was on his knees, staring up at the eye with bulging eyes, shot with blood. His parched lips opened and closed, incoherent. Talasha had seen this a hundred times before. Sometimes she could divine detail from his inane ramblings, sometimes she could not, and even when she heard what he said, she didn’t always understand.
“The girl…” he said. She heard that clear enough.
“Which girl?” she asked. She stood, stepping over, feet whispering on stone. “Which girl, sweet king?”
He looked up at her, seeing nothing, then back at the Eye, seeing it all. For a long moment he just stared.
“Which girl?” she asked again.
“Silver…blue…” The words were whispers, stirring the long brittle strands of hair that hung off his top lip. “A city of eagles. A…a pyramid. There is a dragon…descending…”
The princess frowned. “Who is the girl, Hadrin?”
“Silver…blue…”
She asked again, and got the same answer.
“The dragon? It is ridden?”
He stared up at the Eye, the swirling shapes and colours. The pupil, a dark slit, opening to a world of prophesy. Through it he peered, searching, searching. “A chasm…barren plains…a silver…a silver scar…” He leaned in, chest rising and falling, fingers trembling, lips murmuring. “Shadows and death. Creatures…in the night. No…no, that won’t work,” he said. “Steel does nothing…nothing…nothing. Fire…burn them….burn them…burn them!” His neck twisted, bug eyes staring up at her, wide and unblinking. Two words hissed off his lips. “Burn them,” he said.
Talasha opened her eyes.
Her heart was thumping at her ribs, the hairs standing up on the back of her neck. A cold sweat dappled her brow. She took a deep breath, steadying, wondering why that moment had come back to her, in particular, that memory. Hadrin had babbled on about a hundred things, a hundred things that had not made sense to her. That had been just another of them.
Why that one? Why did I dream of that one?
She put it from her mind, standing, stretching. The moon had moved along its course, another hour passing by. It had felt like only moments. It was time to go, to return to Cevi. I’ve been gone too long as it is.
She turned to the riverbank and froze.
A man stood right before her, atop the muddy slope. A shadow in the dark, cloaked and cowled. The sight of him made her gasp and stumble back. “Who are you?” she blurted. “What do you want?”
There were more behind him, emerging from the woods. Two, three, four of them. One was a woman, by her size and shape, the rest men, all in ragged clothes, bits of armour and mail, tattered cloaks hanging at their backs. They looked hungry, lean, desperate. Hollow eyes caught the moonlight, gleaming.
“Who are you?” she asked again, heart thrashing. She had her spear in her grasp, though dare not raise it, lest she provoke them. “Speak.”
“You know us,” the lead man said. There was something in his voice she recognised. “We know you.”
She peered at him as he pulled back his hood, saw beyond the fleshless cheeks and matted beard. “Tarran? Is…that you?”
A nod. “What are you doing here, Princess?”
The others stalked in behind him, glaring with hungry eyes. She recognised them as well, though had never known all their names.
“She never left,” the woman said. Her voice was a rake over rock, unpleasant, a scratchy lowborn thing. She had been a washerwoman in her cousin Tethian’s camp. The others were soldiers, cultists, followers. Few of Tethian’s band of outlaws were half as fervent as him. They were men without a cause, suckling at the power teat. Almost no one had truly believed that Eldur would be found.
But Tarran. He had been a respected soldier, once before, Talasha remembered. He joined Tethian for his cause. He was a man of faith.
“Is that true, my lady?” the man in question asked her. His beard had gone to grey in patches, his hair dark as pitch, salted with strands of silver. His eyes were severe, humourless, mouth a puckered scowl. “Have you been in these wilds all along?”
“Does she look like she has,” another man said, taller than the others. “Seems well fed to me.”
Tarran looked her over, nodding.
“She was with that Varin Knight,” said a third man, shorter, more squat, leaning on a spear at the top of the bank. “He still here with you now?” He looked around into the woods, squinting. “The Knight of Mists.”
Talasha shook her head. “We left together, with…some others.” She did not know what else to say. So much had happened since then. “I returned, only days ago. But I won’t be staying long.”
“Oh? That’s a shame,” cackled the washerwoman. “Be nice to have another woman around.”
“Nice for us too,” laughed the tall man. “You’re ugly as muck, Santhra. But the princess here…”
“Quiet,” Tarran said. His voice was rough, worn down by years of shouting. He let a silence settle, looking at Talasha’s spear. “Did you make that yourself, my lady?”
“I did. For fishing the river.”
“Have you caught anything?”
“A trout.” She saw the hungry eyes and added. “We have eaten it already. I came down in the hope of catching another. And to fetch water.”
Tarran’s eyes ran up the slope, through the trees, behind him. “We? You’re not alone, then?” Another silence. “We saw a finger of smoke, earlier. Is that your campsite?”
She stayed silent.
“Will you lead us there?”
