She has a point. Even many of the people who are on my side hold a grudge against me for taming their hunting quarry.
“It’s a long flight tonight, girl,” I tell her. “Do you think you’re up for it?” If we fly directly, we can make it to the Machair Wastes in about two hours, judging from our experience last night. And then we still have to return home.
She makes a little excited chirp and stomps her lion feet, her tail waggling behind her like a dog.
Taran is leaning against the wall of the stall, steeling himself for the journey. But there’s no need. If I’m able to get Sylvie out somehow tonight, there won’t be room to carry us all back, so I’ll need to go alone.
“No,” he tells me before I’ve even had a chance to say it. I swear he’s learned to read my feelings just as well as I can read his after all these years. “Don’t even ask it. You can leave me at the camp. Drop me beyond it if you think you can get her. But I’m not letting you go by yourself.”
“Taran—”
“No. If I must, I’ll go without you, but I will not let you do this.” His blue eyes are like ice, cold and unmoving.
I could pull rank here, but out of my love for him, I don’t. I know he just wants what’s best for me. “Fine,” I say. “I doubt we’ll have the chance to get her tonight anyway. This is just a scouting mission.”
He nods, but he does not believe me, and he’s right to doubt me.
Because if I see even the slightest chance, I’ll take it, and we both know it.
The palace recedes behind us as we tear through the night sky. The air is cold and thin as we break through the clouds, but we both learned our lesson last night and dressed in the warmer woolen layers we keep for Faros’s bitter desert winters.
My eyes water from the wind, and my legs cramp from the strange sitting position I have to keep to remain within the straps on Kira’s back, but every flap of her great eagle wings brings me closer to Sylvie. Her feelings grow stronger with every passing town, every line of enemy tents that we leave behind.
It’s such a relief to feel the full force and complexity of her emotions once more that I barely notice when we’ve arrived at the last of their encampments, the last legions before the toxic Machair Wastes begin.
I tilt Kira beneath the clouds to take a better look. This camp is far larger than the forward legions that are currently besieging Faros. Thousands, tens of thousands of men and women are below. Practically everyone with settled magic in Nithyria mustbe here, and though I can’t confirm it, I suspect some of Selara has come to join their cause.
“Anything?” says Taran, his voice strained with discomfort and the fear that he just can’t overcome, no matter how long we spend in the air.
I look to the last group of tents before the Wastes. “She’s there in the center. The largest tent.” A prison tent? No, I realize as we get closer. It’s far too nice. Though I can’t make out the decorations from this height, the fact that is has them lets me know exactly whose tent this is.
Seth. He has her in his own tent.
Well, it’s better than a dog kennel, at least.
We’re too far in the air for me to be able to feel if he’s in there with her or how many people guard her. Some limited patrols are navigating the edges of the camp, but we should be able to overtake them as long as we do it quietly so they don’t let anyone else know we’re here.
“We land in the Wastes,” I say. “Just over that ridge. Then we sneak down, take out their patrol if we have to, and make for the tent.”
“What if Seth’s there? What if she doesn’t want you to kill him?”
What if she doesn’t want to go with me? That’s the question he really wants to ask. But I won’t answer it because I know he’s wrong.
“Then we’ll leave him there and make a break for it. Kira can take the two of you back. I’ll wait within the Wastes for her to return. I doubt many will try to pursue me there.” With good reason. The Wastes are poisoned, tainted by magic. There are many superstitions about what will happen to you if you travel there, but the reality is much less exciting than the rumors suggest. As long as I don’t eat anything there, I’ll be fine.
“I’ll wait within the Wastes,” he says. “You take her back.”
“Godsdammit, can you just do what I ask of you one time?”
“No, sir. I cannot. That’s why you always take me with you.”
And fuck, I hate it, but he’s right. He’s saved my ass far more times than I can count, almost always from myself.
“I don’t want to leave you there. That’s why I didn’t want you to come.”
“We don’t have to do this tonight. You can feel her—is she in pain? Is Seth harming her? Is she afraid?”
Not really. There’s some fear there, but it’s not her most pressing feeling. Her most powerful feelings right now are boredom. Boredom and loneliness, the same loneliness I felt from her when we first met. She’s alone there, wondering if I’m going to come for her.
