She was jolted awake by the landing, by the thud of the Varveh's hooves as it hit the earth. Her mind echoed with fragments of a dream - or rather, a nightmare.

Theodan knelt in the centre of a wide dais in front of a group of women dressed in plain white gowns. Behind them more Leothine stood; a jury of scowling faces she recognised as the Council. Surrounding Theodan stood a row of guard dressed in black - The Menodice. From the centre of the row one guard stepped forward and raised a gleaming black sword above his head and brought it down.

Her heart hammered in her chest as her cold clammy hands gripped hard to Elyon of Lethane's tunic. A nightmare, nothing more. He lived still, she felt it.

When she lifted her head she saw they were in some dusty, flattened valley where peaks of solid earth stretched out around them on all sides. A shallow stream cut through the centre of it, the cool rushing blue journeying downward and around the curve of a grassy rise. Her mouth ached thirstily at the sight of it.

Elyon brought the Varveh to a gentle halt and turned his head over his shoulder to check if she was awake.

'We will stop here,' he told her as he slid down from the saddle, moving to unloosen the straps of her harness. He didn't look at her while he worked, but lifted his eyes to hers when he'd finished and offered out his hands and lifted her down.  The base of her spine ached, the inside of her thighs, her upper back, and she had a burning knot in the crease of her neck owing to her awkward sleeping position. But it was the dull ache in her chest that groaned louder than any other complaint. Loss and fear, dread and regret. It emptied and filled her at the same time. 

As she raised her arms to stretch out her aches she watched Elyon lead his Varveh to water. While the beast drank he removed the bag affixed to the saddle and moved to take a seat in the grass, his back pushed up against a large boulder and his long legs pulled up at the knees. The saddlebag between his legs, he first pulled out a lump of something wrapped in thin grey cloth. Then a leather-bound skin of something which he held out to her.

Her mouth lurching with thirst, she crossed to where he sat and reached out to take the jug from him. The water was cool and refreshing and she let it rush down her throat in several long gulps. When she held it back out to Elyon, he shook his head, indicating to his belt where a slightly smaller leather flask hung. Next, he handed her one half of the chunk of dark bread he had unwrapped. Fara glanced at it and shook her head. She wasn't hungry.  Her appetite replaced instead by something thick and nauseating, churning loudly. Dread and fear.

'You must eat,' Elyon said. It was not a command, not like Theodan might have commanded her. It sounded more like a helpful suggestion. He held it out to her a moment longer before wrapping it back up in the cloth with a soft sigh of impatience. His chunk he tore with his teeth and chewed at happily. Not wanting to sit again, she moved instead to stand by the large boulder and leaned her back against it.  Words rose and fell on her tongue like waves upon the shore. 

'What will happen to him?' She asked finally. 

Elyon looked up at her, a question in his eyes.

'The Visier will know what he's done,' she said. 'She will know and he will be brought before them.' 

Elyon raised an eyebrow. 'Then you speak of Theo, not your brother?'

Guilt flared. She had of course considered Panos's fate may well be the same as Theodan's, it was only that she had far more readily accepted the idea that she would never see her brother again. He was a soldier of an enemy army. Leoth would have no cause to spare him, she had to accept it. It was Theodan she worried for now; it was his death she feared more than any other.  

She nodded.

'He intends to go to her and confess,' Elyon said. 'Ask for clemency.'

'The council would never support such a thing,' she frowned. She had not seen much of the Leoth council, but she knew they were not minded towards leniency where Theodan was concerned.

Elyon's eyes narrowed, impressed by her assumption. He nodded once. 'You are right. But he hopes that those he has petitioned will stand with him now.'

'Petitioned?'

Elyon nodded. 'For the last four moons, he visited all those he considered his allies.'

So that was the task which kept him from Teredia. When she'd heard him return early into the dawn, and sensed him hover outside her bedchamber.

'Then he had planned this?' She asked, incredulous. 'To release me?'

Elyon glanced at her. 'He made you a promise did he not?'

So Theodan had told Elyon of his promise to her? What else had he told him, she wondered? Had he told him of their deal too, struck and sealed under the moon's gaze?  Blush dusted her cheeks even as a deep yearning clutched at her body.

'He also made a promise to come for me,' she said. She knew he had heard Theodan utter it in the Meadow of The Sun. 'Tell me, how is he to do that if these allies of his betray him? He said he no longer knew who his enemies were upon the council.'

'He will find a way.'

'He should not have forced me away!' She snapped, anger lacing her tone. 'Or he should have left Leoth with me, not order I go with you.'

Elyon said nothing a moment before his mouth turned down in a sort of pout. 'I apologise for not being the escort of your choice, Princess.'

'And you!' She flared, rounding on him. 'Must everything be a jest?  Why in the Gods would you agree to obey such... lunacy? To leave him alone there without a soul to speak for him! No one but you spoke for him before your hideous council, yet now he believes there are those who will? He is a misguided fool!'

She knew it was her fear which spoke such thin words, yet she could not stop it clawing its way out of her chest to her throat onto her tongue.

Elyon watched her intently, his eyes wide with surprise and interest.

'You do not know Theo as I do,' said Elyon calmly. 'He would never give his word if he had no intention of keeping it. If he made a promise to you, then trust he will do everything within his power to see it done.' It sounded almost like a warning as he tore off another piece of bread with his teeth.

She made a noise of anxious frustration and strode off to loosen her limbs a little more.

'You do not think much of our council do you?' He asked a short time later, still chewing happily on his bread. 

She could not keep a measure of disdain from sliding onto her face. 'Should I?'

Elyon shrugged, non-committal. 'Then I am to assume you prefer the rule of tyrant kings?'

Her anger rose again. Elyon of Lethane was quite possibly the most infuriating Leoth she had come across to date.

'Leoth aided the most villainous of tyrant kings,' she accused, unable to prevent the derision in her tone. 'Your council voted for such an act and you think yourselves innocent of tyranny?'

He considered this some moments while he lifted his flask and drank deep of his wine. 'Our Dark god bred us for war, yet until Azura, our council never once ordered us to wage it - do not you think that strange?'

She stopped pacing and studied him. She had considered it; why the strongest race of Ethis had never once waged war against any other. Until Azura.

'The choices made by those with power are mysterious, that is true,' she replied. 'But it was clear from my time standing before your council, that it thinks itself far superior to us mere humans.' She thought of Paeris of Mennir's sneering face and the sharp exquisite features of the female councillor who had called for her execution for what she'd called 'feminine sorcery.' 

'Arrogance is one thing, princess, but all Leothine accept the knowledge that they are created equal,' Elyon said.  'Can your race say the same? For human kings and princes delude themselves that they are descended from the Gods in some other, more superior, way than the rest of you. But they are not. So consider this,' he moved to stand, brushing the crumbs from his leather breeches as he did. 'Leothine are the strongest race in the four realms. Our blood is gifted directly from our God. If we Leothine subscribed to your peoples' thinking — that blood and strength alone makes us kings — then Leoth should govern all of Ethis. It would also follow that every noble house of the four realms should bow to the humble blacksmith of Leoth.'   

She stared at him, wordless, stunned. 'What point is it you make?'

He shrugged. 'I speak merely of structures of governance, Princess.' This time the word princess was levelled like an accusation.  'We have chosen ours and you have chosen yours. A council of equals or a Tyrant King. Whose hands would you rather your fate was placed in?'

'Not all kings are tyrants,' she pointed out. 'King Sylvan of Azura was gentle and fair and you slew him for it.'

He inclined his head. 'Now, come, that was not quite the reason he was slain as well you know. But the death of King Sylvan is not on Leoth's hands — it was King Torrik's tyrant blade that did that deed —for I witnessed it myself.'

'And you did nothing,' she countered. 'You stood by and watched. Then you helped him destroy an innocent realm and its people.'

Elyon did not look offended or even angered by her accusation. Not as Theodan had looked when she'd levelled the same at him. Elyon merely lifted his wine and took another deep draught from it. Then he replaced the stopper and hung the flask back on his belt.

'Sadly, that is war,' he said. 'And it seems to me that from now on you should be more concerned for your own realm, Fara of Calate, for Leoth's council of equals may yet decide to see it suffer the same fate as your beloved Azura. The Gods know that allying with Zybar against us is almost as foolish as breaking a marriage betrothal without cause.' He looked at her pointedly before striding past to the bank of the stream where he proceeded to open the lace of his leathers and relieve himself into the rushing water.

Her mouth dropped open and she spun from him to face the rock, speechless at his lack of care for her audience. When she heard him talking in low Leoth some moments later, she turned, tentatively, to find him running a smooth hand over the Varveh's silver mane while whispering to it softly. Something she'd seen Theodan do many times with Nux. From the saddlebag he took what looked to Fara like three unpeeled Ovash — the fruit Mor had asked her peel and clean — then turned his palm out to feed them one by one to the grateful beast. 

'Where are we?' She asked, looking around the valley. The landscape did not look familiar to her, but neither did it have Leoth's foreign scent or quality. 

'The Gelder Mountains,' Elyon replied.  'The Northernmost region of Azura.'

'So there is still some part of her war has not yet destroyed.'

'Give it time,' came his easy reply.  When he arrived at her side again he gave her a pointed look that she did not understand. She frowned up at him. 'If you need to relieve yourself, I suggest you do it now. We won't stop again until we have reached Calate's border.'

She blushed, mortified, and was about to argue she would do no such thing in his presence when her body creaked in protest, her insides pinching tightly.  With an impatient expression, Elyon gestured toward the large boulder, before reaching down to scoop up the other saddlebag and carry it back to the Varveh.

Behind the large boulder, she lifted her skirts and lowered herself to the grass and tried hard to ignore the fact that her private ministrations were at this moment being done only a stone's throw away from an Leoth warrior.

When she emerged from behind it she found him leaning casually on the opposite side, arms folded over his chest, waiting.  She threw him a withering look, which he only smiled at, and tugged and pulled at her gown.

'Perhaps next time you might consider giving me some privacy?' She scowled.  

'Oh, you think this is humiliating? Earlier I heard you talk in your sleep as we flew.' He raised his eyebrows as though scandalised.

'You did not.'

'Oh, but I did.' He said and started toward the Varveh, leaving her staring after him. 'I look forward to hearing what else falls from your sleeping lips. Come, let's fly.'

oOo

This time she was determined to remain awake. With Elyon, there was always a chance he had been teasing her, but she decided she would not take the risk. The idea of uttering her secrets as she slept frightened her beyond measure.

Instead, she watched the leagues pass below her; the grey glittering depths jostling to and fro against the wind that carried them eastward. The miles made no difference to the weight in her chest, in her heart, the heavy dread which clung steadfast to her ankles. She felt trodden and sore and she could not clear from her head the last image of Theodan standing alone in the white meadow as she flew away from him toward the sun. The image so like that on his library floor.

Keep him, safe Goddess, I beg of you. I know he has committed many injuries to your most glorious realm but he also seeks to undo them. To repay what he has taken from you. Please keep him safe.

Another thought slid into her mind as she spoke her prayer to the Goddess. She thought of Him. The Dark One. Whom she had prayed to once before, in the court of the moon as Theodan lay cold and grey on the marble floor. It had felt blasphemous then. To speak benediction to one such as He, but now everything felt different. Now it was as though she viewed the world through some kind of looking glass; where everything still breathed a familiarity but was yet a stranger to her. Enemies were not as they once seemed, neither were her fears, her hopes, her dreams, her beliefs. Everything she once knew of the world had changed and nothing would ever appear the same again.

She spoke the blasphemous words again now. To both Gods she had ever felt indebted to, she sent a prayer.

Keep him safe, Dark One. Do what you must to return him to me. He is your most loyal servant, surely you see that. Return him to me and I shall never again curse your name.

Her thoughts drifted then to Panos. The ache in her chest twisting inward, tighter. It hurt to think of him too; of his end. Her strong, valiant brother pushed to his knees in chains. His hair glinting copper-gold under the moonlight. His head pushed down upon the stone as the Leothine blacksword was brought down hard upon it. Through flesh, muscle and bone. Taking from her again that which she had loved.

No. She had to believe he lived still. That they both lived still. She felt sure she would feel it if Theodan no longer breathed upon this world. Her hand reached up to the collar around her throat, her fingers smoothing over the warm steel, over where his name bound her to him. Could he feel her fear through it now? Could he sense her loss and her longing? She was his after all.

I claimed you because you are mine.

I would not have cared had He commanded I leave you in the dirt for the Zybarians, Fara - for still, I would have taken you.

Because you are mine. You have always been mine.

Yes, he would come for her. He would keep his promise to her because she was his. She had always been his.

She tried not to recall Valdr telling her the very same thing the night before she stole Galyn's heart.

Suddenly, the Varveh's wing stretched up on one side, like the sails of a great ship being manoeuvred by her captain. Their direction shifted slightly northward, putting the ash sea behind them and carrying them over stretches of field and vineyards, many of which had been trampled and crushed beneath the onslaught of war.

She saw the broken and charred ruins of small villages and farms pass below and she shivered to think of what fate its inhabitants had met. Torn from their lives and enslaved to Zybar or Leoth or killed for resisting.

Those who had been enslaved by the Leothine she now knew to be the fortunate ones, for they would at least be treated kindly by their new masters. Some may even find a measure of comfort in the enticingly lush realm of Leoth.

Another pang of loss quivered in her chest, a thrum of envy across heart; a lute's lament. For how simple her life might have been had she been Cassine the palace maid in truth. Claimed by Theodan of Teredia to work and live on his estate. To wash Ovash with Mor in the well-tended garden beneath the soft milky sun. To spend evenings perusing the great library and reading the stories by firelight. To fall asleep in the arms of the Leoth who had claimed her as his own. She did not notice the tears right away, slipping silent and slow over her cheek. When she felt it land upon her lip she wiped at it with the sleeve of her cloak.

Casting her gaze far ahead to the east she saw ships. A great number of them scattered close to the shoreline and further out into deeper waters. Their sails were too far away for her to note the sigil upon them but she was sure they belonged to Zybar. There were less than there had been when the first attack had come, and it gladdened her to see that Torrik had sent some ships home. Had he and his generals remained?

She imagined him holding court in the great throne room of The Golden Palace, imagined him soiling Queen Arielle & King Sylvan's bed with his screaming conquests. Nails curling with fury, her stomach heaved as she thought of Arielle. Arielle who, it seemed, had sacrificed her own life so that Fara might live.

Theodan had been so certain of her death and she had not questioned it. Whether it a vision or something else it did not matter, for Fara would ensure Torrik of Zybar paid for Arielle's death with his own. 

On and on the great beast flew.  The further from the sea they travelled, the less evident the touch of war became. Over untouched fields, well-worked farms, and bustling small towns the Varveh progressed at speed. Elyon was as capable as Theodan at skyriding; controlled, smooth, and easy with each turn of the rein. She had long stopped hiding her eyes, had long found she no longer felt the awful sickening fear spooling inside her as she was lifted higher and lower through the clouds. Now she was able to look around wide-eyed and awed at the sight being so high off the earth gifted her.

She closed her eyes only to imagine it was Theodan she clung to now. To imagine it was him carrying her over the clouds on the wind's breath. Not toward Calate but through the blue-grey skies of Leoth to some of his most favoured places. Soaring high above its verdant green forests and luscious thriving meadows with contentment in her heart and his scent in her lungs.

Would she ever enjoy such a thing? It was all she longed for now. For this threat of war to have passed and for them both to be free of all that constrained them.

She thought of Galyn's babe growing inside her. Would Theodan still consider her his knowing she carried another male's child?

Before the beast's wings began to slow she felt it. The cold. It licked across her neck, her face, the tip of her tongue. It spread its icy chill under her cloak and around her throat and began to squeeze tight.

Up ahead the mist hung over the pointed tips of the trees in a layer of gauzy sinister white; like a spectre whose wispy tendrils reached up and beckoned her forward into its clutches. A lurch of fear rose inside her, cold chilly doubt at last.

So sure she had been of his mercy. Of her own power over it. That his joy at her standing before him, alive, would outweigh his anger at all she had done.

The tremble of doubt moved through her bone-deep, a dull ache clenching her tight in its grip.  

The Varveh swooped lower and lower still, through the soft white wisps above the treetops and on toward a row of fields where a patchwork of frost-tipped gold, green, and pink spread out before them. Elyon called out some command in Leoth to the Varveh and then turned, urging her brace, before a moment later they hit the ground at a bouncing thundering gallop.

The impact rumbled up and through her as they raced toward the cover of the trees beyond the stretch of tended farmland. She could see no sight of a farmhouse, no sight of farmhands or their masters either, though beyond the adjacent field she spied some cow running in the opposite direction startled by the sudden thunder of the Varveh's hooves. 

Though there did not appear to be any soul around, there was still a chance someone had seen the grey beast drop down from the sky onto Calatian land. For even before the war, a Leoth would have found no warm welcome here on the border. Now, a Leoth dropping from the sky on a winged Varveh would be treated as a military strike. 

As they neared the blanket of forest the Varveh began to slow, the great wings already folded back under its body — though certainly no one who saw it would be in any doubt about what it was. If this was the border then they still had some way to go across land. How they would make it to the castle at Prissia without being assailed she did not know. 

Though she supposed Theodan had chosen Elyon for this task not only as he trusted him more than any other, but because he was as formidable a soldier as Theodan was. He would have no trouble dispatching any he considered a threat.

Soon Elyon brought them to a stop upon a flattened rise, where the earth dropped down on one side toward a rushing stream; again he had chosen a spot where the Varveh might drink and the sounds of the stream would muffle any of their own.

'We will rest here for the night,' announced Elyon as he loosened the harness holding him to her and slid down from the saddle. 'First, we will eat, then you will sleep.' 

'And will you listen to my secrets as I do?' She accused, pressing her fingers to the base of her spine to ease the ache there. Her neck and back throbbed with the now familiar ache of the sky ride, and she longed to lie flat upon the grass to stretch out fully.

He flashed her a smile. 'Worry not, for Theodan is no secret to either of us,' he said, reaching up to lift her down from the Varveh. Then it had been Theodan's name she'd muttered, not Valdr's. She breathed a soft sigh of relief.

While he loosened the saddlebags, she pushed back her shoulder blades and turned her head from left to right to loosen off the ache that had settled at the nape of her neck. Her behind felt numb too, and her lower back was knotted with hot pain. She proceeded to stretch her arms above her head and rotate her hips a few times to ease it.  Gods, she had forgotten the pain of riding for any length. When she turned she found Elyon watching her, one eyebrow askew and a look of amusement on his face.  

'You know there are times when you look less like a princess of Calate and more like a painted dancer from the pleasure houses of Asalla.' 

Horrified, she lowered her arms.

'You know there are times when I wonder why Theodan held you in such high regard — for you are truly without manners or decorum.'

This only amused him further. 'You know, I think he would agree with you on such a summation, Princess.' He reached to his hip and unsheathed a dagger, the black blade offering no glint of light.

When he raised it he looked at her with such intent that it caused her heart to leap into her throat. She swallowed.

Elyon frowned. 'You truly think I would have flown you all this way to kill you in some dull woodland of Calate?' He asked as he looked around.

She glanced at the dagger and then back to him. Perhaps the council had his loyalty? Or worse, the Zybar. A myriad of doubts and fears clambered atop one another.

I trust him with my life, Fara. And yours.

It was but the grip of fear and dread which tainted everything. Valdr's taint. As though it lived in the trees and the mist around her. This was his realm now; not Galyn's or Theodan's. This was fear and darkness and sin.

This was home.

'It is for hunting, princess,' Elyon sighed, indicating the blade. 'I assume you'd like something more gratifying to eat for you and that babe you carry inside you than stale, day-old bread?' He glanced briefly to her stomach. 

Fara felt her mouth drop open.