Godsteed Book 4 Dead Man's Race

Prologue

Pain ripped through Erinya, like hot spikes stabbing deep into her bones and eviscerating her insides. Teeth clenched, she clutched her swollen belly, fell back, fingers slipping. A scream tore from her throat.

A young acolyte scrambled to her feet from her place before the hearth. A whirlwind of saffron and gold robes, Meerta hurried to Erinya’s side. Behind her, bubbles leapt from a black cauldron to die hissing in flames.

Erinya groaned. ‘Get me something to bite on.’

‘What?’ asked Meerta.

‘By the Heavens, anything!’ Erinya wailed, wishing the midwife was here. But it was early, this child, unexpected, and the midwife lived at the farthest reaches of the valley.

Beyond the fortress window, wind keened. Gusting inside, it slid over Erinya’s skin, bringing with it bitter cold desert night. In a sconce set high in the wall, torchlight flickered, spilling leering shadows over rough, red sandstone walls crawling with sweet-scented jasmine.

Fumbling fingers forced something hard into Erinya’s hand. She shoved a stick between her teeth, bit down, hard, willing thoughts of her son. A summer son. Blessed by the Sun God, Indarra.

‘What will you do if it is not a boy?’ asked Meerta.

Erinya wanted to curse. Could not. In her mind, Lakenaden’s voice said, ‘Only if it is a boy does it have the right to live.’

She choked back the scream in her throat, tasted blood. This time she was certain. This time she would bear a son.

‘One more push,’ urged Meerta, face red and strained beneath her black, dishevelled hair.

Erinya dug her fingernails into her palms, catching strands of her own waist-length blonde hair. ‘You push!’ she screamed, spitting wood, convulsing in mindless, agonised delirium. Drawing ragged breaths, she curled her fingers around a wad of soft wool. Her son’s swaddling blanket.

One last time she uttered a final, cathartic shriek. Something welled inside her, broke. With a cry, Erinya collapsed against sweat-drenched blankets.

Meerta lifted a wrinkled, blood-slimed creature in one arm. With her free hand, she grabbed a dagger and cut the cord, then tied it off with twine. She dabbed clean the writhing newborn with a cloth, then wound the wool blanket around it.

Just like a midwife.

A feeble whimper pierced the stillness, a cry that brought tears to Erinya’s eyes and an ache to her breasts. She struggled to sit up, blankets wet and sticky and red between her thighs.

Copper tang of blood mingled with oily smoke from torches. Sweet incense hung upon the air, drifting from a single candle on a brazier near the round, stone door, mixing with the scent of jasmine. Meerta stood by the bed, cradling the baby.

‘Bring me my son,’ Erinya demanded.

Meerta’s face grew pale. ‘I’m sorry, mistress. I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry . . .’ she repeated over and over.

Erinya slumped against damp pillows, heart hammering. Sweat trickled down her chest and pooled beneath her milk-laden breasts.

Another failed spell.

It was certain, then. Her power was dead.

Her thoughts tumbled in confusion as tears of exhaustion and frustration stole down her face. What now? What now? How could she hide her mistake? After three failures, she had promised her king-husband a son. Lost three daughters to slavery.

Forcing her mind past paralysis, Erinya clutched the swaddling blanket, compelling Meerta to lower the babe. The baby pulled her legs up to her belly, waved her arms, put her fingers in her mouth. A tiny hand closed round Erinya’s little finger. Silver-gold hair, like her father’s. A pretty upturned nub of a nose. Erinya’s, not Lakenaden’s strong, straight one. Silver-blue eyes, not speckled-gold like his. Erinya’s fist clenched. No mistake. But too much like me, and he loves me not unless I can give him what he wants. He will not love you, either. Resolve hardened within her. You must not pay for my error. She turned to Meerta, trembling as she said, ‘Hurry. Take her away before–’

The door opened, spilling hallway light into birth-chamber gloom. Lakenaden strode in, blond hair flaring about his shoulders, eyes bright with expectation. ‘You stopped screaming, wife. Show me my son.’

Terror clawed at Erinya as he looked from her to Meerta and back again. She wished a cloak of concealment might cover her, allow her to steal her child away, but that was one trick she had never mastered. Beside the bed, Meerta did her best to turn away, hiding the babe in the peach-rose folds of her skirt.

A shadow drew over Lakenaden’s strong, angular face as though a black storm cloud obliterated the sun. ‘Show me!’

‘Leave me in peace.’ Erinya’s words were a hissing snake.

Her husband’s eyes turned to frost. ‘Show me my son.’ Danger punctuated each syllable.

Trying to free her voice of panic, Erinya kept each word quiet. ‘He was stillborn. Let Meerta take him and bury him.’

‘But I thought I heard . . .’ Lakenaden’s eyes narrowed, his face taut. ‘No,’ he said, lips stretched tight, teeth bared like a tiger. ‘Not stillborn . . . another girl!’ He thrust his arm toward the startled acolyte, spun her round, then snatched the babe from her grasp. Pulling back the blanket, he scowled, then shot an icy glare at his wife. ‘Damned witch!’ he bellowed. ‘You swore upon your life you would give me an heir!’

The baby wailed.

Contempt disfigured Lakenaden’s face. ‘Stillborn, you say. Well, she’ll wish she had been!’ Before Erinya could even scream, he hurled the baby against the stone wall. The child’s skull cracked, leaving a trail of blood-clotted brain to follow the ruin of her body to the floor.

‘No!’ Erinya fell from her blood-spattered bed, crawling to the mass of flesh that had been her daughter. ‘What have you done? What have you done!’

Meerta backed away, eyes horror-filled, one hand pressed against her mouth. When her back hit a wall, she slid down, cowering in shadows, arms wrapped round her legs.

‘This will be the fate of all females born of my line!’ stormed Lakenaden. ‘I am the leader of the Sun Herana, and I demand male heirs!’

Somewhere deep in the desert, a jackal howled.

‘What have you done?’ Erinya hugged the broken flesh to her chest. Wild oceans of grief surged over her, drowning, choking, pulling her down beneath heaving water.

Once more, the jackal howled.

The jackal. Then there is power still, though not of my making. Rising fury clawed Erinya back from the darkest pits of all the hells. Her powers might have faded, but the jackal was of the spirits, one with the world and the Living Sphere. She would call upon it. This night she would use it to purge the world of him and all his kin. She glared up at Lakenaden. ‘You shall have your wish.’

Erinya lifted a finger smeared with the blood of her child and traced the air. ‘I curse all your herana. If it is only male heirs you want, then that is all you shall have. No female shall be born of your loins, nor of any man raised in your herana. No woman shall look upon you or the men of your herana with love, or ever again willingly come to your beds. And any that you force will die in childbirth.’ When she finished, her harsh tones hung upon the night.

Lakenaden strode toward her. ‘Do not taunt me with idle threats. Your powers died long ago, with the others of your kind.’ His hands closed about her throat, squeezing. ‘Go, join them.’

Erinya struggled, trying to pry away his death grip with one hand. ‘I curse you until the end of all the ages.’ Her last words came as a strangled gurgle, leaving in their wake triumph, and bitter despair.

Chapter 1

Freedom

Darkness swirled about Orlanda like a whirlwind inside a chasm, turning, spinning, endless circles of black. Somewhere in the distance, a pale light formed, came nearer, then rushed at her. Blinded, she winced and clenched her eyes closed.

Cold. So cold.

Winter overlaid on death.

Images. Blurred. Pain and desperation. Her escort fleeing Romondor after her father’s assassination. The flight to reach the Korin Pass. An avalanche of raining snow and ice, pushing her white stallion off the cliff’s narrow path. Plummeting into deep depths of a chasm.

Falling.

Falling.

Falling.

Hands clawing at rocks. Stone cutting, scraping skin to blood. A hard landing on an outcropping of granite, a cliff towering above her, an immeasurable drop below. Wind, filled with stinging snow. A shrouded cliff top. A misstep. Falling once more. Light of snowy sky far above.

Nothingness.

Rainbows of black whirled behind her eyelids, forcing her eyes open. Lifting her head, she squinted. Everything spun once more. Then a vision came, and at its heart stood Areme, black hair unbound and flaring around his clear, strong face.

He reached for her, calling her name. Orlanda, I am here. Come to me.

Orlanda drifted upon a haze of pain, held tight by cold, cold, heartless stone.

No voice to scream. No will to fight. No hope at all.

Dark descended. Frigid granite walls wedged her tight, pressing hard against ribs, scraping her cheek. She floated in darkness, suspended in a netherworld, half-dead, other half not quite alive.

Awaken.

Eyelids stuck with frozen tears. She forced them open with a groan, numbed cheeks rubbing against chilled rock.

Gods! Gods! What waking nightmare was this?

Light seeped from an opening far above. Too far above. Breath fogged as she tried to scream, ribs crushed in a vice. One hand free, she grabbed at stone, trying to heave herself upward. Frozen fingers clawed at tiny fissures. Her feet, encased in leather riding boots, scrabbled for toe holds. She struggled toward the patch of blue sky, one inch. Another.

Back, chest, caught between rock. Dress and cloak snagged. Fingernails tearing. Pain shot through her. One foothold to another. Room. Room for one thing only.

She screamed. ‘Areme! Areme!’ Ragged, rasped, his name echoed wildly, bouncing back and forth up the crevasse until keening winds bore it away around the mountain.

Orlanda screamed to hoarseness, till his name mocked her benumbed ears. ‘Areme. Areme,’ she whispered. ‘Please find me.’ Cold deeper than ice flooded over her as she huddled against the rock, and slowly, slowly, death-sleep threatened to overtake her.

Awaken. Sleep is for the dead.

Orlanda gaped around her prison of stone. Did someone speak?

Something white fluttered down, landing like a feather on her torn cloak. Soft flakes drifted from high above. Her shivering increased.

No voice. Just whisper of snow.

Fighting down terror, she tried to fold her frozen fingers into fists, but the blue digits refused to move. Her clenched teeth were icicles in her mouth.

This was the end, a corpse frozen into the mountain.

No.

Her men would find her. Areme would come.

Fear clutched at her again. Maybe he was injured. Perhaps the avalanche had claimed his life. Perhaps all her escort had fallen. No one to save her. No one to know what had happened to her father. The Duke of Romondor would march upon an unsuspecting kingdom.

No.

No.

None of these.

She forced her bloodied fingers to move. Scrabbled at the wall. Her battered body screamed. She had to escape this. She must live. Must warn her commanders. Must have her revenge.

She fell back. Once more, walls closed round. In the darkness, something breathed, soft, beguiling, shaping mountain gusts and flurries into the suggestion of voice.

Why do you fear the dark?

Orlanda stared wildly around her, words scraping along her throat, ‘Who said that?’

Silence.

She swallowed, mouth dry, throat parched and sore. She was imagining things. Looking up, she tried to measure the distance to the sky.

Too far, and if she did manage to claw her way up and slipped, she would die. Only the angle of her body held her suspended between two granite walls that fell away into darkness.

Fear not. This mountain will never harm you. The voice tickled inside her ear, feather-soft, inspiring terror that engulfed her like rushing wind. Despite the calming words, the voice carried death within it, a dagger’s edge of pain, lost hope and despair.

Orlanda beat one helpless fist at rock. ‘Let me go!’

A hollow rumble echoed around her, thunder from deep inside the rock, like the beating heart of the mountain. Cold granite slipped apart, grating. Ribs and back, arms, legs, scraped against stone. Something pulled at her, drawing her down. A scream tore from Orlanda’s throat as the mountain swallowed her, sucking her into its cavernous embrace. She dropped, shriek after shriek torn from her as she slid and tumbled, then landed with a terrific jolt. Pain shot through her left leg. Rocks showered down, thudding on her head and shoulders, driving her to curl into a ball and cover her head with her arms. When the rock fall stopped, she lay in darkness, shaking with dread. Fear prickled under her thick woollen dress and cloak. Cold air drove against her, turning sweat to ice. Damp black air smelled of time gone sour; and weight of ancient granite pressed down upon her.

Orlanda struggled on to her knees, yelping as crushing agony speared her foot, a burning more acute than anything she had ever felt. All thought ceased as she collapsed, screaming, hoarse, choking cries that were only hers for a heartbeat before they became a wild burst of echoes crashing from walls as though a multitude of madwomen were trapped beneath the rock. Orlanda shrank into herself. Squeezing her eyelids together, she willed an image of Areme; moonlight glowing on his hair, turning black to silver; his eyes, endless pools of love and longing, the curve of a smile brightening his grave countenance. But when she opened her eyes, only darkness and pain remained. She lay there, half out of her senses, until her racing heart slowed, and only a dull ache touched her flesh.

One by one, hundreds of yellow eyes blazed into existence, neither moving nor blinking.

For the world, I give the stars of the mountain. The dead voice killed her with every syllable.

She whirled round, trying to find the owner of the voice whispering in the dark, but there was no one there. Wanting to hide, to disappear inside herself, Orlanda instead forced herself to examine the eyes. As her vision adjusted to the faint light, she realised they were not eyes at all. A surge of triumph coursed through her. She remembered something that niggled at the edge of pain and memory. Visions of her tutor, stories of illuminated caves.

Starlaces. Harmless mountain flowers that grew and glowed in the dark. She pressed her hand to her mouth, stifling a cry of relief.

She leaned closer to the lights, finding comfort in their presence. Empty space surrounded her, walls adorned with twinkling luminescence. She breathed deep. Still, dead air, hung suspended over a world frozen in decay and halted in agelessness. She was in a cave, or a defile in the mountain that smelt of winter and a forgotten age. Caught by the mountain.

Remember.

Orlanda whipped her head round. ‘Who said that?’

Silence – death stillness.

Her heart drummed so hard she wondered her ribs did not burst asunder. She waited, quivering and rigid, taut as a strung bow.

A millennium’s worth of loss flowed about her, of secrets long lost seeking to be reborn. And then came the voice, kiss of a butterfly’s wing upon her ear.

I create a passage through the darkness and light it with the flame of love. Walk with me.

Orlanda stared wildly around, searching for the owner of the voice. She felt as though someone stood at her shoulder, behind her, but everywhere she looked – nobody. Shadowed dark flowed around her, and a deep, brooding silence hung upon the air: sadness, enveloping her like a shroud.

Orlanda clasped her arms about her body, hugging her torn cloak close, too aware of the bones of her ribs, and a sudden wild hunger clawing at her gut. As she struggled upright, torment beyond any she had ever experienced stabbed through her leg. She lurched, stretching out her left hand to the closest rock wall for support. Slowly, she hobbled, pressing against stone, trying to relieve the agony in her left foot that made her want to vomit.

Laughter bubbled, a wellspring of hysteria.

At the voice.

At the pain.

Orlanda fought it down. Madness would not help. She must ignore the invisible voices in her mind, bear the pain. She had to bear it if she was to get out of there. Forcing herself to stay calm, she focused on the location of the ache. It came from her lower foot. Broken, maybe. But all breaks would heal.

Hopping on one leg, she placed her hands carefully on rock walls, taking care not to crush starlaces and extinguish light. A vaulted passage stretched ahead of her, illuminated by phosphorescence.

Every movement she made reverberated through the cavern – the scrape of her boot against rock: growing, echoing back. Fear engulfed her like a swirling wind. Her skin crawled. What if there was no way out? What if she was trapped?

She shook her head, temples throbbing. It was useless to think such thoughts. There must be a way out. There had to be. She must find Areme. Her longing for him was so intense, it was as though her heart had been torn out. He was not dead. Could not be.

Ever.

Areme would be searching for her. But how would he know where she was? Her aching fingers tensed on rock. Maybe he thought she was dead. Orlanda drew a deep breath. No. They were bound to each other. He would know if she had died, just as surely as she would know his fate. He must know. He would come for her. He must.

Hauling herself upright, she hobbled on, hands groping along frozen rock. Boots tapped and scraped against hard, slippery stone. Footfalls echoed as if an invisible army marched through the depths of the mountain. Walls closed in. Unmoving air hung like a dark, cold mantle about her shoulders. Orlanda braced her back. She must not bow before fear, but heartbeat after heartbeat, terror swelled in her belly, crawling over her skin.

The dark corridor led deeper and deeper into the mountain. Orlanda strained to see, to hear. Naught before her but cold, dank air.

‘Areme, where are you?’ The susurration echoed down the corridor like a sighing breeze.

Time passed. Hunger and thirst scraped at mouth and gut. Then a strange new sound, faint, but growing louder with each step.

Plop.

Plop.

Water! It must be. Ground disappeared beneath her floundering feet. She lurched, tumbling down a slope, and landed with a splash in a puddle. Ignoring her wet cloak and dress, she rolled over, cupped water in her hand and raised it to her lips. A moment later, she gagged, spitting it out, mouth rancid with the brackish taste of rock.

She pounded the wet ground with her fist. Water, but not fit to drink. She dragged herself to a wall, slumped against it, shivering. Thirst dragged claws down her throat. Soft glowing cavern walls revealed arches of thin stalactites and stalagmites, hanging like long swords from the ceiling, or lances driven up from the rock floor as though the mountain had stolen the weapons of an ancient army. Wrapped in thoughts of an army of frozen warriors, Orlanda drifted into unsettled asleep, curled beneath her cloak.

When she woke, cold cramped all her limbs. Nausea set the darkness spinning.

As she struggled to rise, needles of pain pierced her, a tingling raging into an inferno. Her cheeks first, then her fingers. She tottered on, hardly noticing walls closing in upon her until jagged rock pressed hard against hip and shoulder. She forced her way forward. The passage constricted even more. She stopped, feeling in front of her. There had to be space enough to pass. Closing her eyes, she breathed deep, then groped at rock. Forced to turn side-on, breasts pressed flat to stone, she fought down panic.

Gods! What if she could not get through?

Granite scraped hard, jagged stone catching at her cloak. Her chest heaved at breath. She stretched her arm. Emptiness. Then there was space. No yellow light or tiny flowers welcomed her, but darkness did not weigh upon her as before. Something shifted under her boot. Kneeling, she clenched her teeth against the pain of her injured leg outstretched behind her.

Orlanda touched the ground. Not rock, but sand greeted her – cold and gritty, sliding through her fingers. She groped forward.

An age seemed to pass and then a breeze touched her cheeks. Soon, a faint light shone in the distance. A choking sob caught in her throat.

Unbidden, the wish she had made at the pool of the moon came to her. Freedom. Had Areme foreseen this on that night beneath the singing stones when they had declared their love for each other?

She sucked in a ragged breath. Ignoring bleeding hands and pain coursing through her leg, she lurched forward. Areme would be coming for her. Perhaps she would hear his voice, the echo of his boots. Her breath quickened. Areme would be awaiting her at the end of this nightmare. She would step out of darkness into the light of his embrace.

Limping, she no longer felt the walls. Areme was ahead. His silver eyes, long black hair streaming on the wind, sweet lips with their secret smile, long, slender fingers that fired her skin with every touch. Neither cold nor dark could erase his image or the warmth of his body from her mind.

Faint light gleamed ahead and a colder breeze lifted her hair. Orlanda faltered, afraid to believe her senses. Perhaps it was her own desperate longing that had evoked the radiance and there was really nothing there.

But light brightened as she approached, a trickle of daylight piercing the dark heart of the mountain. Blinking after being blind for so long, she shaded her eyes with her hand. Beyond a wide circle of daylight lay a glistening world of snow.

Behold, a world lit by a star crystal.

She whirled at the whisper of that stalking voice battering her senses.

Remember. Remember me. Remember all you were. Will be.

Orlanda clenched her fist, a sense of fighting an implacable will driving at her. ‘I’m the Queen of Mirador. Who are you? Where are you?’

No answer came but echoes of her voice.

Choking down a sob, she limped to the cave’s entrance and stared beyond. Thin sun touched her cheeks. Snowbarks twisted into sun-bright sky. A silver kite flew overhead, its cry high and wild. Orlanda breathed deep.

She was free.

Long fingers of molten sunlight traced mountain peaks long into distance. Below her, a snow-covered valley ended in trees already swathed in deepening shadow. Granite ridges rested against blue-rose sky of evening.

She shivered.

Where was Areme?

Dejection replaced joy. She had been so certain he would be waiting for her.

The sound of trickling water fell upon her ears. She turned back to the mouth of the cave. A runnel of water ran down a wall of rock, snow melting beneath the sun. Orlanda fell against it, icy liquid stinging her tongue like a hundred pinpricks. Then she slid to the ground. Sun dipped. She examined sand at the cave’s entrance. Tracks, other than her own, had disturbed it, but the snow beyond lay unmarked. Old tracks, of an animal long gone, she hoped.

Weary, Orlanda re-entered the cave and huddled in a decline deeper in the depths where air stood still, and it was strangely warmer than outside. Night closed around her. She pulled her torn cloak fast against her body, and wished for the gloves she must have lost in the fall. Every muscle of her legs, back, and shoulders ached. This night she would rest as best she could. On the morrow she would find Areme.

***

Dawn. Orlanda forced her aching body to stand, willing herself not to lie back down and coddle her foot. Despite the cold, she pulled back her cloak and rolled up the sleeves of her dirty white dress. Her arms were a strange mixture of purple, yellow, and black. Grimacing, she imagined the rest of her would look no different.

She limped across sand, points of pain like tiny daggers striking every inch of her body. At the cave entrance, she stared out at strange mountains and snow glistening over the valley. Where in all the kingdom was she?

Near the forest edge, snow heaped along a stream bank. No sign of man or beast.

Thirst struck Orlanda. She looked back at the cave wall, with its iced water still frozen from night chill, and decided to make for the hiss of the rushing stream. She reeled dizzily across snow-covered ground. Shining discs of iced snow shimmered as they skidded away from her boots. Her injured leg ached whenever she slipped and forced it to bear weight.

She hung over the edge of the bank, then dunked her hand into swift-flowing water. The liquid numbed her hand but restored her senses. Thirst sated, she stood. Dizziness struck and she staggered, hand grasping the dead branch of a snowbark. Her stomach clenched tight.

The bough splintered and cracked, showering her with slithering snow. She looked back at the cave. It beckoned her, like a doorway to a welcoming home. She eyed the mountain. How far had she travelled through its depths?

Orlanda clenched her fists. Home was Mirador. Areme. She must get back to both. But what awaited her in the kingdom?

War?

Her head stopped spinning. She had to hurry. She had to reach safety, and soon. Men froze in snow. She had to find a garrison, something. Find Areme.

Tumbled, confused thoughts spun to a stop, halting at one question. How was it she was still alive? How?

Pushing the question aside, she started up the valley, leaning against her new staff. Sun rose in the east and that was the way she must travel, toward the safety of Pelan. Home and Mirador were far to the north, too far to walk, even in summer.

She hobbled to the top of a ridge, grimacing every laboured step, struggling across snow, fighting against pain. When she reached the crest, she gazed over endless ridges of white. Her heart fell. Gods. It went on forever. Then resolve hardened within her. She was Queen. And her kingdom in peril. No distance was too great. No pain.

Silence settled on the vast emptiness of white as Orlanda picked her way down into the next valley, boots slipping often on the steep slope, her staff saving her more than once. She grabbed at branches and saplings, but sometimes slid out of control, banging her arms and legs, the injured leg hardly standing up to all she forced upon it.

Shadows lengthened as the day wore on, darkening cliffs to her left. In the silence of this empty world, every rustle of snow echoed to fill the entire valley. Orlanda waited at the bottom, listening for any sound other than her own breathing or heartbeat as sky fell into darkness. If only she knew how to start a fire. In a hollow between roots of a snowbark, she curled into her cloak for the night.

Moon rose, pale light glittering on frozen landscape. She thought of Areme and his moon-filled eyes.

Distant cries, the call of silver cranes, fell against her ear. ‘Garoooooo . . . Kaweee-kreee-kurr-kurr-kurr-kurr-kurr-kurr.’ The trumpeting grew louder. She pulled back her hood and gazed at the moon. Silhouettes of birds stretched in flight against it.

Orlanda’s heart hammered. The cries receded and left her feeling desolate. She huddled deeper into her cloak, thankful for its warmth, but wishing for her lover’s arms.

Her eyelids drooped.

Unbidden, visions came, slamming into her mind with sharp clarity. Wildfire streaking through forest. Men and horses running before it. Burning. The pop and crackle of roasting flesh.

And Areme.

Fingers clenched on a dagger.

The force of his hand creaking wrist bones.

Her wrist.

She wrenched against his grip, trying to free herself.

His voice, screaming rage. ‘I don’t want your love!’

He plunged the dagger home.

Blood, hot and sticky, oozed over Areme’s fingers.

The taint of death hung upon the air, and something else, wretchedness, loathing.

Words grated from her lips. ‘Why, Areme? Why?’

Orlanda struggled to wake, terror drenching her in cold, cold sweat. What nightmares were these?

She wrapped her arms around her knees and stared at the dark forest. Only nightmares, yet they seemed real. After that, she battled to stay awake.

Morning came. Orlanda swayed as she stood. Faint, she forced herself onward. Once more she started to climb, feeling like an ant on a mountain face. She jolted on her staff around a promontory, good leg shaking, the other dragging. A barbed bush, protruding from a crack in the rock, caught her cloak. Another rock rolled beneath her boot, rattled and plummeted. Many heartbeats later it struck bottom with a distant echoing clatter. Orlanda took care in freeing herself, fearful she would lose her footing and fall to the depths below. Clinging to the rock face, she fixed her gaze on the surface, searching for hand or footholds.

A cry echoed around the cliffs. A hawk hovered, suspended in sky above her, a brown speck against azure. Orlanda pressed against granite, catching her breath.

Another sharp cry split the air. The sparrowhawk wheeled, wings lifted on currents of air.

Hawks marked moving men. Her soldiers had told her that.

She forgot about her aching legs and weariness. Straightening, she looked down, fighting dizziness. The valley floor lay far below. She had not realised how far she had climbed until now. Scrambling up further, she pulled herself onto a slight outcropping of flat rock.

Somewhere, distant, hooves drummed against rock.

Orlanda’s heart pounded fit to burst.

She allowed no thought of danger. None.

It must be Areme! Come to rescue her. Who else would be abroad in a winter wasteland?

Chapter 2

The Grey Rider

Orlanda limped along the ridge and stared down into the next valley. Far below, a rider wearing a grey cloak sat upon a grey horse next to a stream, both pale in soft light. Her heart lurched. He had come, just as she had known he would.

‘Areme!’ His name tore from her throat.

He did not look up.

She was too far away. He could not hear her. She climbed down rocks, staff clattering, injured foot a distant thought. A little way down the slope, movement caught at the periphery of vision. Areme was riding away along a trail.

‘Areme!’ Grief, longing and fear all rolled into one anguished cry.

He did not stop.

‘Areme!’ she screamed again, certain her call must carry across the white wasteland of snow to fall upon his ear, make him stop, bring him to her. But he never turned, just rode on and disappeared into trees.

Not wasting a heartbeat, Orlanda scrabbled down the slope, cursing her gimp leg. He had not heard her, but he was here, close, searching for her. He would find her, or she him. Soon.

She reached the valley floor as sunset crowned the highest peaks, stumbled across snow toward the trees. Nearby, a magpie carolled, its piping warble loud upon silence. Black and white flashed among snowbarks.

Orlanda found tracks and fell to her knees in the snow, fingers caressing crisp indentations of hoof prints. ‘Areme,’ she whispered, as though a thousand winters had passed since she had last seen him.

Determined to catch up with him, she arose, limped along the trail until darkness covered the mountains and cold chilled her bones. Peering into night, she hoped for a fire, but no beacon flamed to guide her. Anger warred with despair. How could he not have heard her? Not have waited? How did he expect her to find him in darkness? Then she clenched her fist. No matter. She would find him in the morning. This night, he would rest also. He was near. He was searching for her. She huddled against a tree.

Wings shadowed the moon again that night. Her heart pounded as eerie cries echoed around the cliffs and night drew iced fingers across her skin.

In uneasy sleep, visions of wildfire again scorched her brain.

Full sun rose behind a unicorn, shone blindingly on every prism of snow and ice. On a wildfire plain, among half-seen, half-felt, half-heard shapes and sounds of horses and men, Areme strode toward Orlanda through unreal night. His night, with a black moon blocking the sun.

Black as my heart.

Areme stood before her, buffeted by wind. He called, fear in his