Another group of Kethra’kai.
“Do they know anything?” Rhaif asked.
Llyra trotted her mare ahead, while calling back, “Let’s pray so! Or we may have to give up.”
Rhaif hopped out of the wagon with a groan, drawing Pratik with him. They followed the trampled trail of the scout’s horses. The leaf litter was already rising to fill those hoof tracks.
No wonder we’ve not picked up Shiya’s trail. These woods seem determined to hide their secrets.
As they rounded the pair of steeds, their scout bowed his head to one of the figures, speaking quickly in Kethra, too fast for Rhaif to follow. Rhaif studied the party gathered ahead. One tawny-haired fellow with broad shoulders held a wayglass in hand, turning in a slow circle. But his motion looked more like amusement than any attempt at taking a measurement.
Their scout was nudged aside by a length of cane. A white-haired woman strode toward their group, toward Rhaif. Her eyes—one blue, the other green—stared hard at him. She thumbed forward with her staff and stopped in front of him. He started to speak, but she lifted a hand to his face, silencing him.
He leaned back, not understanding what she wanted.
She reached to his brow. Warm fingertips brushed his hair aside. With her touch, his mother’s old song rose again, each note dancing brightly in his skull. Then it went silent again as her bony arm dropped. Still, he felt something drawn from him when those fingers fell away.
Her hand settled to her staff as she stared silently at him for a breath. “Dosh van Xan,” she said.
“Tall’yn hai.” He gave a bow of his head, matching the respect of the scout. “Thank you for the gift of your name.”
The elder leaned her head. “Hai ral mai kra’mery’l whyshen.”
Rhaif blinked, sure he had heard her wrong or deciphered her words badly: You echo with the whispers of the old gods.
Still, Pratik stiffened at her words, glancing hard at Rhaif, proving the Chaaen was far more fluent than he pretended.
Llyra frowned from atop her steed. “What did she say?”
Rhaif waved her question away. “Nothing important.”
Xan’s eyes narrowed at this lie, but she stared off into the forest and switched to Hálendiian. “You and I, we seek the same song on the wind.” She headed off, motioning him to follow. “We grow near to the one who calls.”
Rhaif swallowed, trying not to hope. He turned to Llyra. “I think she might have found Shiya’s trail.”
From atop her mare, Llyra stared as the elder joined her fellow Kethra’kai. “She had better—”
A distant rumble of thunder cut her off. It echoed ominously through the forest, coming from the west. Rhaif stared off into the bright mists in that direction. He saw no darkening of storm clouds. Still, the thunder continued, rolling over and over them.
“Firebombs,” Llyra explained.
Rhaif’s heart pounded harder.
Pratik had his wayglass out, studying its lodestone. “From the direction of Havensfayre.”
They all exchanged glances, knowing what that must mean.
Llyra voiced it aloud. “The king’s forces know we’re here.”
Xan stared back at them and confirmed the same. “They come for the singer.” As she turned away, she added something cryptic in Kethra. “Du’a ta.”
Llyra waved to the wagon. “Get your arses back aboard.”
Their guide had already nickered the two muskmules toward them. Rhaif and Pratik hopped into the wagon as it passed. The wain quickly gained speed as the Kethra’kai rushed ahead into the forests. Those on foot raced nearly as fast as the scout’s horses, their pale forms growing ghostly as they ran. One of the scouts pulled the elder, Xan, onto his horseback behind him. She whispered in the tribesman’s ear and pointed her cane.
They sped even faster.
The wagon bounced and rattled after the others. Rhaif gripped the seatback to hold his place. Pratik did the same, but the Chaaen ignored the forest and narrowed his eyes at Rhaif.
“What?” Rhaif snapped at him.
“The elder’s words. Whispers of the old gods…”
He shrugged, nearly losing his hold. “I don’t know what she’s talking about. The old woman’s probably addled by age.”
“And what about her final words, about the singer being hunted?” Pratik said. “Du’a ta.”
Rhaif frowned. “Like I said, the ravings of a madwoman.”
It certainly made no sense to him. Du’a ta meant both of them. He tried to picture another like Shiya. Impossible.
The path grew rougher, thrashing the wagon all about, silencing any further talk. Low branches whipped at their heads. It took all their concentration not to be thrown off the back of the bucking wagon.
Rhaif’s teeth rattled in his head as he clenched both hands to the seatback. Then a furious scolding rose from above. He glanced up to a swirl of small birds bursting from branches or hanging nests. They darted through the air in shades of copper and gold, flitting and diving at the noisy trespass below.
He knew those birds, even named a bronze mystery after them.
“Shiya…” he whispered.
The wagon suddenly slowed, throwing Rhaif and Pratik hard against the seat. The wain bounced and battered to a final stop. With the clattering wheels silenced, the thunder rose around them again, still booming, sounding even closer now.
Rhaif straightened from the wagon’s bed. A knot of Kethra’kai gathered near the bole of a large Reach alder. Its roots kneed out of the leafy mulch, covered in moss. As the tribesmen shuffled with whispers of amazement, Rhaif spotted a brighter glint buried at the tree’s base.
With his heart in his throat, Rhaif leaped from the wagon and rushed forward. He joined Llyra as she slipped out of her saddle. Pratik followed. They all pushed through the Kethra’kai.
Pratik grabbed Rhaif’s arm as the sight opened. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
A bronze figure lay on her side, half buried in leaves. Glassy eyes stared straight back at him, dull and dead. A leg lay crooked, bent the wrong way.
No, no, no …
Rhaif rushed forward. “Shiya…”
Xan was already there, down on her knees, her palms hovering over the top of Shiya’s crown of bronze hair.
Rhaif stared up, as if raising his face in supplication to the gods. Instead, he studied the fan of branches, leafed in alder gold, climbing up into the clouds. He pictured Shiya plummeting through those limbs, but it looked like not a leaf or twig had been disturbed up there.
The cold coal in his heart warmed.
She hadn’t fallen here.
He turned to the forest, only now noting a path of broken bushes and bent branches. He pictured Shiya stumbling through there, grabbing at those limbs to keep moving—until finally succumbing to her injuries.
Pratik stood nearby, wayglass in hand. He wore a deep frown and caught where Rhaif was looking. The Chaaen drew nearer.
“I was wrong,” Pratik said. “Her path was not toward the cliffs of the Shrouds. She was heading away from them.”
Llyra had her arms crossed. “No wonder we couldn’t find her.”
“Then where was she going?” Rhaif asked.
Pratik turned to the forest. His gaze followed where she seemed to have been headed. Thunder rumbled from over there, lit by bursts of light. Each blast brightened the fog, enough to reveal a greenish cast to those mists.