CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The FarReach Mountains, Southern Kyros

S alome was too emotionally and physically exhausted to sleep. She lay there, drifting between wakefulness and drowsiness, listening to the murmur of voices coming from across the campfire, and turning over in her mind the events of the day.

It had not eventuated quite as she’d expected.

Salome wasn’t quite sure what she had expected, for she’d never been precisely clear in her own mind about what she would do to StarDrifter when she found him, but today’s events hadn’t fitted any of her imagined scenarios.

She had expected StarDrifter to justify and excuse and evade, and he’d done none of those things.

She’d expected him to strike back at her, to be angry and judgmental, and he’d done none of those things, either.

She had never imagined, never, the revelations the day would bring.

He was Embeth’s unknown lover.

StarDrifter was her grandfather.

That had numbed Salome as nothing else could have.

StarDrifter was the lover who had deserted Embeth, who had left her to die birthing his child.

Salome felt as if this should make her hate him even more.

But, astoundingly, it didn’t. Perhaps that was because all her emotions appeared utterly dead.

The naming of her father meant nothing to her. Salome supposed she’d heard the name WolfStar somewhere, but she’d paid so little attention to the world beyond the intrigues of the Corolean court that she could not recall what she’d heard.

“Would you like me to tell you about WolfStar?” StarDrifter said softly behind her, and Salome jumped, her heart pounding painfully.

“I’m sorry,” he said, for what must have been the hundredth time that day. “I startled you. I thought you were awake.”

He sat down on the ground beside her. “Do you mind if I share the blanket, and your hearth bedding?”

Salome couldn’t believe he’d ask that. She struggled to rouse some indignant anger, but she was so spent that she couldn’t raise the effort, and so when StarDrifter took her silence for assent and lifted the blanket and crawled under beside her, pulling her back against his body, all she could manage was an affronted stiffness.

At least she had her back to him, but all that meant was that StarDrifter could curl the more effectively about her own body.

“WolfStar lived many thousands of years ago,” StarDrifter said, very softly. Salome thought he was infusing his voice with something else. A melody perhaps. Was he trying to fool her with some Icarii trickery?

Trickery or not, as StarDrifter continued speaking the gentle melody in his voice soothed away both her irritation and stiffness, and she gradually relaxed against his warmth.

This wasn’t how she’d envisioned ending this day, either.

“He was then, and remains to this day, the most powerful Enchanter the Icarii had ever produced,”

StarDrifter continued.

“He was a SunSoar?” Salome asked, surprising herself with her interest.

“Yes. And Talon. An Enchanter-Talon.” StarDrifter laughed very softly, washing warm breath over the back of her neck. “Enchanter-Talons have ever been the most troublesome to the Icarii people. I can’t think why Broad-Wing now wants another one.”

The last meant nothing to Salome, but she did not comment.

“WolfStar developed a fascination with the Star Dance,” StarDrifter continued. His arm, where it lay about her waist, tightened fractionally. “Do you know what that is, Salome? Have you ever felt it?”

“No,” she said, and StarDrifter sighed, fanning more breath against her neck.

“You are an Enchanter as well, Salome,” he said. “Hasweb was undoubtedly one, too. Your lives should for many years have been dictated by the Star Dance—the music the stars make in their dance about the heavens. That music infiltrated every aspect of our lives, our very souls, and Enchanters used it to weave such magic…

“Ah, but all that was lost during the devastation of the wars of the Timekeeper Demons. They destroyed the Star Gate, through which the music of the stars filtered, and we lost the Star Dance. That happened some five or six years ago, so you must have lived for twenty-five years or more with the Star Dance washing about you. Are you sure you have never—”

“I have never felt a thing. It means nothing to me.”

“Well, anyway, WolfStar wanted to step through the Star Gate and allow the music of the Star Dance to consume him completely. To cut a long story short, he did. He vanished through the Star Gate, and for thousands of years the Icarii people assumed he’d died. But, no. He came back, more powerful and dreadful than ever before, and created mayhem and disaster among the peoples of Tencendor. If the land perished, then it was largely due to his machinations.”

“You are afraid of him.”

“Yes, I am.”

“And now? Is he dead? Wandering about?”

“Dead. I hope.” Again StarDrifter gave a soft laugh. “But one never assumes that death can hold WolfStar forever.”

“I have a powerful father, then.” There, thought Salome. A powerful father, but not a powerful grandfather.

“Aye,” StarDrifter said, and did not sound affronted at all. “Very powerful indeed.”

“Then should you be afraid of me?”

“Very much so,” StarDrifter said, and Salome frowned at the teasing note in his voice.

“Salome,” StarDrifter said, before she could speak, “I have been a wandering, dissipated fool most of my life. I have loved women, and destroyed women. I have failed many people. Perhaps with you I can make a fresh—”

“Don’t try to pretend we have a—”

StarDrifter’s hand slid under the loosened waistband of her trousers and then over the warm skin of her slightly rounded belly.

“This is not pretense, Salome. Tell me, did you not think to discard the child? I am sure you must have known how.”

She was silent.

He sang a little snatch of melody, very softly, and she drew in a sharp breath.

A sense of peace had washed over her with that melody, and as she exhaled the breath, she relaxed entirely against his body.

“I knew as soon as you said you were pregnant,” StarDrifter said, his mouth now almost against the skin at the back of her neck, “that this child would be my get, and not the product of your rapes. BroadWing said fate bound us together, Salome. I think BroadWing has a somewhat remarkable perceptivity.”

Again, that snatch of melody, and Salome closed her eyes as they filled with sudden tears.

“It is a son, Salome,” StarDrifter said. “An Enchanter. And,” Salome could feel his mouth curl in a smile against her neck, “a peaceful and happy child. An heir to everything we have both lost.”

Salome thought StarDrifter was being terribly presumptuous with that last remark, but now she was so comfortable, so warm, and so peaceful, that drowsiness was finally achieving dominion over her body.

“Mmmm,” she murmured—and then shivered as StarDrifter kissed the back of her neck.

“Sleep,” he whispered.

The Weeper lay a few feet away, forgotten by both Salome and StarDrifter.

As they fell into sleep, StarDrifter still curled about Salome’s body, the Weeper began to ice over.

It spent all night encased in ice, engaged in such a powerful magic that even the ground beneath it froze solid.

In the morning, when the camp stirred, the Weeper lay in a small puddle of water, condensation sliding down its body.

No one paid any attention.

When Salome awoke—the last of the camp to rise—it was to find that StarDrifter had left a mug of tea and a wedge of warmed bread slathered with butter and red beet and onion chutney by her side.

Salome sat up and ate the food.

It was the best breakfast she could ever remember having eaten.

When she rose to her feet, brushing away the remaining crumbs of the bread, she winced as something caught in her back.

A muscle, she thought, grown cold and stiff during her long night’s unmoving slumber.