Page 30

‘What will you do next?’ Emma castigated, her tone both rough and filled with worry. Sereh opened her mouth to answer.

‘There’s no need to talk, and no need to explain. Arrow came to get me, and she was right to do so. Don’t speak, Sereh. There’s plenty of time when you’re recovered. Now, do you think you can stand?’

The question was kindly uttered. Sereh wondered at it before becoming aware of how deeply the cold had penetrated her body. Her legs, which were drawn up to her chest, were simply stuck. The last thing she recalled, she’d been standing. And she’d been much further away from the side of the ledge.

‘How did I get so close to the edge?’ she whispered, shuffling backwards and only then attempting to stretch her legs. A piercing scream ripped from her mouth. Instantly, Arrow was at her side, her questioning face on a level. For once, Sereh didn’t push the too-inquisitive wolf-dog aside but took a few moments to gather strength from her familiar yellow eyes before Arrow grew impatient. She encouraged her to move with a persistent nose. Sereh breathed deeply, expelling it as she straightened her legs, grimacing still, but able to stand. Emma stood close by, offering her shoulder. Arrow accepted the tight hold on her soft neck willingly.

Sereh’s breath billowed in the chill morning air, a cloud of her own making. It warmed her face. She turned to Emma.

‘Sereh, don’t speak. Not yet. Hush.’

There were so many questions on the tip of her tongue but Sereh knew Emma wouldn’t answer them until she was safely stowed in front of the hearth.

Now, she remembered very clearly that this had happened to her before. She’d endured this regularly since Erann had been lost on the glacier.

With every step, Sereh recalled more and more of what had gone before. Fear tightened her, and she began to pant although she hardly moved with any great speed.

‘I agreed to this?’ she managed to force the words through her sore throat.

‘You did, yes,’ Emma’s voice rang with sympathy and sadness.

‘I made you let me do this to myself.’

‘You, did, yes,’ and Emma’s words were even more sympathetic now. ‘A cycle must be followed, as we’ve discovered. And every time, you forgot all about Erann.’ Emma’s voice was raw. It was as though she was the one who’d endured the vision of Erann’s imprisonment, and not Sereh at all.

Sereh stumbled. The full import of Emma’s words crushed her. She realised her face was wet. She’d not realised she was crying again.

‘And Jon?’

‘And Jon,’ but this time Emma’s tone was harsher as she repeated the words. Sereh sensed Emma didn’t blame her for Jon. But she blamed herself. The fresh anguish at the loss of Erann warred with the knowledge she was responsible for someone else’s heartbreak. It was unbearable. Remorse weighed heavily on her as she stumbled towards the heat of the common room. How much more of this could she take? She knew Jon could endure no more. She feared seeing his face. Was her sacrifice even working? Where was Skaldi? Had her vision helped him to find Erann, at last? She bit her tongue, tasting blood.

The walk to the common room was agonising. But it was nothing compared to the look on Jon’s face as he rushed into the room half-dressed and carrying an armful of furs, as she limped within. The sight of her brought him to an abrupt standstill. With a searching look at her pinched face and a swift glance towards Emma, he deflated. Wearily, he sank to a stool. Desolation swept over him. Sereh recognised it.

‘I’m sorry, my love. I’ve failed you. Are you very hurt? How long had she been there?’ His voice cracked as he looked to Emma for the answer to his final question. Sereh didn’t respond, feeling her heart contract afresh at his misery, which shadowed hers at the loss of Erann. It was her fault. She’d vowed last time it wouldn’t happen again. She’d failed far more than Jon. She closed her ears to Emma’s kind reply. Guilt and anger consumed her.

Emma bustled around the common room, warming food, and offering heavily herbed teas to her and Jon. Sereh found she couldn’t look at Jon. She didn’t want to see the grief so plainly etched onto his face, knowing she’d caused it.

Arrow trailed slowly between them, looking into their eyes while her yellow ones blazed, as if to assure herself physically they were well. The feel of the smooth, satiny fur under Sereh’s fingers acted as something tangible to which she could cling. Her thoughts were a whirl. With a look to check that Emma was busy she surged to her feet and strode from the room, back the way she’d come.

‘I’ll find Skaldi. This can’t go on. I’ve endured enough,’ she resolved, coughing because her throat was still so raw. For how long had she been with Erann? Shouting along with him? How had no else heard her? ‘Either he has enough information to find Erann, or I’m leaving to seek Erann myself. I need to get away. I can’t face Jon. I’ll exile myself in the hope that whether I find Erann or not, Jon’s heart will mend. Mine can’t, not until I know the truth, but I can spare him.’

Fully expecting Emma to summon her back, she was surprised when she was allowed to go without complaint, no one following her, aside from the ever loyal Arrow.

‘She’s had enough of this as well,’ Sereh murmured, her resolve strengthening as she walked down tunnels she’d learned well in her time within the caves. ‘Not that she ever wished me to truly do this.’ Emma’s tacit acceptance of what she was doing bolstered Sereh’s resolve in seeking out the dragon. Skaldi had been largely absent from her life ever since Erann had disappeared. She knew he’d been searching for Erann. Or at least that was what he’d said, through Emma. And yes, he’d been gone for days at a time, but she only had his word, or rather Emma’s explanation, that he was seeking Erann.

Erann had been missing for four weeks now. Enough was enough.

‘My vision shows me Erann is alive. Why by the Gods can’t Skaldi find him? He’s a dragon. He can go anywhere across this land, in almost the blink of an eye. Either Erann’s irretrievably lost somewhere inaccessible to Skaldi, or he’s playing me for a fool.’ Sereh fumed as she marched towards the frozen ledge, which acted as a divide between dragonkind and the people like her, and then back out the other side and into Skaldi’s rooms.

His quarters were nearer to the ledge than those of her kinds. Inside, the heat was less intense, and the chamber pulsed with a green light.

‘Skaldi,’ she called, but knew he wasn’t there, as the word echoed back to her. It was impossible to miss a creature as large as him, even in a room this size. She kicked something, wincing at the sharp stab from the piece of ice she must have trailed in with her cloak. Only then did she remember her feet remained bare, white and pink. Neither, as she noticed, did she wear any clothes other than two cloaks. She hoped her simmering anger would keep her warm while she waited for the dragon. ‘I’m not going to get dressed until I have my answers,’ she resolved, calling Arrow to her side, from where the wolf-dog hovered uncertainly in the entrance way.

‘Where are you now?’ she mused. ‘I need to speak with you. Or rather, I’ll need Emma to speak with you. But I need you to be here in the first place.’

Skaldi’s rooms were bare apart from a huge stone bed worn smooth by his predecessors over the passing rotations, directly imprinted into the stone floor. She strode to it, aware the spot had been chosen long ago by former Speakers because of the heat rising through the black rock to warm a dragon’s belly. Hesitantly, she stepped onto the bed. A pleasant heat rushed along her frigid toes and warmed her calves. A rush of air swirled around her legs. She looked for Skaldi but it was merely Arrow. She bent to the wolf-dog and patted her on the head.

‘Good girl. He’s not here, though. He never is when I want him, but I’m determined to wait for him. You can too if you want, or you can go back to Finn and the others. I won’t be offended.’