The dreams were fitful.

Long after Onainat had gone to her own room, long after he'd exhausted his words, and long after Iluq's breathing had grown steady Koe had finally managed to find sleep. What he found while he was sleeping were images and memories he would just as soon forget. The road, after Taereme died. One lost soul after another. Ilyien's face, streaked with blood, weeping those drops of red onto the cracked earth. A child being eaten by some ravenous cannibal. Minaht's face taunting him with memories of what had been, and what would be once again. They were the dreams that always came with a glass of wine. Some drank to forget. Some drank for pure enjoyment. Koe did not think a day would come for the rest of his life when spirits would be enjoyable to him, for the images they conjured. For the damage they could do.

( Dreams too often felt a weapon against the infirm mind. )

They said the Flying Gardens was one of the most beautiful sights in all of the Free Cities. She'd seen them the last time she was in Agethlea, though it seemed ages ago now. The city was in such a state of disarray now that Vedette thought it foolish to venture far from the inn they were temporarily staying at. Hyacinth Cross was a fine inn, run by an elderly couple which seemed to make everyone feel as though they were family. At the heart of the city itself it didn't seem to hold the same madness that the streets did. Nor did the innkeepers seem as troubled as the other residents of Agethlea. Perhaps it was just because they were happy to have someone staying here who could pay, or because they thought someone who looked like Vedette did would not appreciate anything but a gentle happiness from those whom she chose boarding from.

Vedette would have felt more comfortable if the pair were weeping nonstop rather than the seemingly forced niceties they projected outwardly. She thought of staying in the room she'd purchased and waiting for Koe there but the sounds of the City from her window drew her down into the common area. This place had smelled of flowers once. Long before this couple owned the place, and probably long after they did as well. But now the only smells which she could make out were fire and ash.

( Some messanger of sorts had blustered in shouting about a fire. )

A full pack was strapped to Onainat's shoulders. She'd stuffed it with every item she could imagine needing -- from inks to candies to a skinning knife...which was kind of silly when she could eat meat just fine without cooking it. Onainat appreciated the weight of her items, though. They made her feel like she had direction. Purpose. At least until she got tired. She shifted the pack when she walked out onto Agethlea's streets alone. The evening light made the sky a deep turquoise, with dull reds and purples still sitting on the heels of the diving sunset. She looked upward as she moved slowly, the floppy hat sat on top of her head making it hard to see the beginnings of the stars. Onainat did not feel eagerness to leave friends. The entrance of the cool night air did not help. Only the presence of persistent (and brave) street vendors spurred her forward; the smell of spiced meats from around the corner was made to be a small treat in her mind. To get her on her way.

Her eyes were straying to the sculpted roofs along the skyline, wondering if they would be worth sketching, when she heard a familiar tune. Onainat was a collector of songs more than she was a bard and should have nown the tune, but something was not right with it. What was not right? She found herself searching the emptying streets for the stringed instrument responsible. The tempo was too slow to match the right words to; the meter was distorted beyond artistic license. Onainat let out a small huff of annoyance. It was a purposeful, sad rendition of something upbeat. Something she knew from the eastern highlands. The Flower of Sweet Strabane.

The name came to her when she was ten steps behind him. He was leaning against the pole of a fruit stand, his back toward her, strumming his guitar on the street as if his instrument were the hollowed pots of the poor. Her father seemed to be thoughtfully bored. His presence here should have shocked her more. Yet it was like waking in the middle of the night and finding that he'd come home from the village, only to sit on the porch alone. There were some things that did not change and her father's profile was one of them. He looked the same in her child eyes as he did right now, and even though she knew that too much had happened for him to be the same person, it was so easy to believe. It was easier to remember.

Onainat walked up and tapped his shoulder. Then pulled down the edge of her hat.

"You shouldn't play such a happy tune that way. No one will give you any shinies."

They were clean now, washed as well as they could in a river that wasn't yet too cold. Actually it seemed warmer by the day. They just kept moving mostly. Sleeping when it was required and walking most of the time. Koe was very gracious to always offer her his horse but Vedette still didn't have a taste for riding horses. She was more used to giving them off to farms where they would live their lives not so much as a beast of burden, but as a partner in work. Humans did like their horses, naming them and tending to their needs when it could be done. Poorer farmers often had mules as they were cheaper to purchase and did harder labor for less food. But a fine horse could do very much for a man. A companion, a friend, an ear or shoulder to listen to his woes. Vedette simply did not feel that way for them. She felt guilty riding them.

She'd lived for a decade and a half surrounded by men who thought Dragons were nothing more than beasts so she felt as if she was abusing the creature by riding upon it so often. but when the day felt hot and the sun was on her too much Vedette could not move like Koe could. Her face drew pale and paler and her eyes heavy lidded. Ready for sleep, ready to change, ready to make it snow so she could be comfortable. instead she then laid against the horse's back and neck and relaxed. Catching shade under her old uniform jacket, the spare. At least it was heavy and black, at least it kept the sun from scorching her. Not that it was miserable hot. Not yet. They still had far to travel in open hot plains..

( She would miss the mountains. )

It was colder outside of the tent then inside of the tent and she was glad for it. Her mood was a little panicked, and a lot confused. Panicked because she didn't want him to leave her there alone and confusion over what exactly caused him to leave. What could it have been? Did he know something she didn't, was he as worried as she was over the fact that Master Ilyien didn't seem to know whether or not what he was doing was right. Vedette was pretty sure she didn't want to run into a band of phoenix again, but it did seem to mean something. Her head was as full as her heart was but she didn't know which was steering her now. She'd felt something was amiss, something huge, something unnamed and that was why she'd gone after Koe. She didn't even hesitate as she ran past the gatherings of people, of the Thunderbolts, and of the tents that had once held her entire life. Ithacles and Faustben.. putting them behind her had felt so much harder until she'd walked into that tent and saw Koe again.

( Now she was chasing him down. )

One naked hand firmly in the small of Sabev's back, he pushed her forward. She wanted to stay - and doubtlessly to try to help the burns they'd both seen on the captain's hands - but there could be none of that. The Prince had given his orders and it was to Ilyien to follow them. Apart from that, the sweet temper of the younger phoenix in front of him probably had never dealt with the closed hearts of the ones in the Outer Realms. At home, assisting others was as natural and as common as fire-building. Birds who never met before would assist in mending the wounds of another. Here.... Here it was different. It always had been.

His mind was on other things - how to proceed, how to lure the others to him, how to keep the prisoner from escaping - and he had just begun to lower his mental defenses long enough to mindspeak to Sabev about his formulating plan, when the unforgettable, unmistakable strains of a certain song filtered back to him. He stopped mid-stride and turned around...

Tidraq. Of course, Tidraq.

Two wide steps closed the distance between the two men. Ilyien swiftly, firmly set a hand over the strings spread over the opening of that instrument. "It would hardly seem the time, old friend," Ilyien grit between his teeth.

Tidraq was enjoying this. The merriment in his eyes, that impish twinkling, was too prominent for Ilyien to mistake. With a growl that was so stifled in his throat that it almost seemed a grunt, the firebird swept his free arm backward, catching the edge of the tent flap that he'd just pushed Sabev through. "After you," he said. And then, seeing the one who had saved him from the curses of the Deadlands, he added to Shine, "And you, Lady."

Odd. Ilyien expected that Shine would follow him and Sabev. She had come with them on this endeavor. Of course she would see it through. But what of Tidraq? Ilyien's eyes had missed the flecks stained on Tidraq's collar - old blood, not new. What exactly had happened that Tidraq had been stained with blood? It was strange; the dragon had no need to ever draw blood, to ever be around blood at all. Such was his skill.

Perhaps he had been healing some of the villagers.

Idle thoughts. They were hardly relevant now. Ilyien ducked through the tent flap and followed Sabev, Tidraq, and Shine.

The need to know just what had happened banked most of the accusation in eyes trained on him -- most, but not all. He needed no inborn phoenix ability to read their emotions; they were written clearly now in their expressions: dismay, betrayal, anger, and desire for retribution. Those expressions were why he was not looking at the ones gathered with him in the small tent now. Raking a naked hand through travel-greased hair, Ilyien continued to squint into the lamplight. His human eyes hurt from it, but the phoenix in him couldn't stop staring. He had never before felt so separated from his people than tonight. Tonight, when he refused to return to them. It had not been the wrong choice. But it had been a choice. His own choice. ( His one choice. )

They were in the foothills of the Central Mountains - not high enough for the cold to be painful yet, but high enough that Ilyien could feel the difference. Cold was to phoenix as mud was to fleshlings - wearying after a time, and difficult to shake. In the silver glow of the winter moon, it had been impossible to miss Sabev's discomfort. Surely, she couldn't have learned of how mountainous areas could drain their kind -- not after such a sheltered life as she'd led. She must have known, of course; she would have been taught at some point about the chill of other regions of Caeleste before she left her city walls. But knowing and knowing were two things entirely. The Guard still recalled - even after the Risings between now and then - the first time he spent the night in the mountains. He had done it alone.

And so, not so long after they'd made camp and finished their meal, not so long after most had bedded down for the night, Ilyien drew Sabev silently to his side. As he suspected, she was burning too hotly, overcompensating for the weather around them. It was better, he told her without words, to keep a lower, more stable temperature -- which cost less to them and still provided some measure of relief. She would learn it for herself soon enough. For just then, however, he set his arm around her and shared his warmth. As intimate as the gesture seemed, for Ilyien it was an extension only of duty, of honor. He could not allow her to suffer needlessly. Sabev seemed to understand, or perhaps it was just exhaustion -- but whatever the cause, she'd dropped into a grateful curl against his side and into sleep almost immediately.

His was the second watch of the night. There were enough warriors in the party that it was not necessary for him to take any other shifts, and the rotating schedule allowed a full night's sleep between watch nights. Ilyien could have chosen to take a few hours rest before his shift began, but tonight felt... different. As the moon crept higher in its orbit, then began its shift toward the opposite horizon, a tugging presence grew in his mind. He could not place what it was -- but it was terribly familiar, even for its faintness. He turned the sensation over and over again, examining it as a child would examine a puzzle - with equal amounts of frustration. But the awareness would not be named before the appropriate time. Only after the barren branches all but obscured the moon overhead did Ilyien understand what the feeling meant.

They - he and Sabev - were not alone.

The eagerness that swelled in his chest at the recognition of his own kind was nearly enough to push him to his feet. Were Sabev not sleeping soundly beside him, he would have moved, would have saddled and rode out to meet the approaching phoenix. As the minutes ticked by, he could finally make out the number of them - four, to be exact, all males. And all, he realized minutes later, Guards. They were his brothers. And from the as-of-yet tenuous connections he made with them through this distance, he understood their intent: they had come to find him. Him alone.

That got him on his feet. He was grinning as Sabev lifted her head. "Do you feel them?" he asked her silently. But he could see from her expression that she did. Offering his hand, he helped her stand before he turned toward the closest elven guard. "Four men approach from the south," he said. "They are colleagues of mine."

The elf seemed ready to argue, but in that very moment a short-range scout ran on silent feet to the Thunderbolt in front of the Guard. His news was the same - four soldiers riding with intent toward the camp. As the Thunderbolt turned to look at Ilyien with an expression that read, How did you know that?, Ilyien himself found questions of his own. How did the four know his location? Ilyien had long ago ceased reporting to the Praetor. And why now did they come looking for him? There could be only one answer: one of the Guards was an Ascendant -- if not a Psion.

"I'll go out to meet them," Ilyien said. But even as the words left his mouth, the sure and steady sound of hooves on rocky ground sounded at the far end of camp. Odd indeed that they would ride with such urgency in the night. His initial excitement had quickly faded. Something was amiss. He had never before been sought out - not even at The Breaking.

Ilyien turned on his heel and started immediately for the other side of camp. Their side of camp.

There was nothing left for her if she decided to leave Faustben. She may have owed Ithunvel her life, but the man was now dead and there was nothing she could have done to prevent that. She'd saved his life as much as she could and he lived to a very old age before his health fell beyond that which the healers could deal with. What was she suppose to do now? She thought until recently that she'd live there until she was certain Ithacles and his sister no longer needed her, but that day seemed to be fast approaching now. Her friend was questioning what she was. He was angry with her for being angry with him. She'd overstayed her welcome, or at least it seemed as much to her.

She abandoned that dying fire. As Ithacles had said, she'd been strangling it of the air it needed to survive. Well so was he. So was Faustben. She stripped her jacket off and deposited over her pack as she stormed into the surrounding wood. The cold would never make her shiver and she had no fear of being alone. Her cold eyes cast about the wood for a moment before she settled down on a patch of grass and dropped back until she was completely down. She could see the stars through the branches of the trees. Astarii felt like it'd been forever ago, and yet it hadn't been. Was everything going to feel like that now? Seconds seemed like days. She was older than she'd ever admitted to Ithacles. He suspected she was.. something else. She was something else.

( She was a dragon. )

Orc blood reeked.

Even after having changed clothing, even after having covertly changed forms briefly to burn all traces off his skin, Ilyien could still smell the stuff on him. It hung as a miasma in the air around him - and the other warriors who marched with him up the mountain pass. They were not, as he had learned, Prince Ithacles' men. After having heard the tale, Ilyien selfishly found himself grateful for being turned away from a city rife with such dishonor. Still, the soldiers of this Lord Ilúvatar Voronwé had proven themselves valorous and capable. They lost but one of the refugees at the beginning of the skirmish; the thirty-three others were still shaken, but unharmed.

( Ilyien was not certain he could have claimed the same. )

Is this how a dragon conquers?

The first day. Red was ambling along the winding road without conviction, trotting to one side or the other with limited forward progress. They had not slept in some time. Koe could not recall the last time that he'd slept, the last time that he'd dreamed, but it was there. In his mind he could recall such a time. Only just enough to look forward to its return, to look forward to that which would come back again. Where were they going on this road that led to nowhere? There was something in the way that Red walked. Koe opened his eyes. Red was walking along at a normal pace, calm, steady. Not at all lacking in energy. Koe scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand.

( Is this how a dragon brings the dawn? )

Koe opened one eye to take the room in, slowly. There was little evidence that anything had changed. Yet he felt it had. A sense, a sensation. Intuition. Something had stirred him from his slumber. Something made him open that one eye. A shifting of the curtain. The window was open. He certainly had not opened the window, nor suggested it to Taereme. As soon as he thought it, he realized how foolish the notion was. A locked window would not keep Orb out if he came looking for them. Koe might not have slept if he hadn't felt so weary in his bones. Explaining, trying to believe, struggling with the thought that not all of this was as it should be. Taereme should have been safe. She shouldn't be fearing for her life even more than she had on the darkest street, in the faintest light. Koe should have been able to do something to make her safe. But the power that creature wielded could terrify even so ancient a being as him, and Koe did not want to feel that sensation ever again. Nor the urge to fight, the urge to kill, that it stirred in his chest.

( He'd sworn off such feelings long ago. )

There were candles in the room. He could not recall lighting them, could not recall even finding them, but there they were. Arranged in a circle on the table before them. Koe did not know what had become of the hours in between. His memory, which was normally excellent in such situations, had gone from him. There were tired murmurings to his horse. There were whispered secrets echoing in his mind, calling him back to the days - to the days when he had been young, and the world had been younger than it was today, and all was well. All manner of things were well. Rand had given him destruction in the guise of guidance. Had shown him a path to destruction that could not be matched or equaled. That was the destruction he sought to avoid. There was murder in the heart of one who taught such things. There was murder in the heart of one who knew such things. He did not want to have a killer's heart. If he would die, he would die as what he was. That refrain echoed through his mind. He would not change himself to stay alive.

( But he would be a fool to say he did not fear death. )

They were in a room.

Koe did not remember coming here. The horse. He'd collected his horse, who had been near to panic himself, as ... Koe's thoughts were fractured varied things just then. Smooth in composition and substance, smooth as a song itself, they were the disarrayed noise of a first-time player now. No harmony, no illustrious bardic rhythm to them. Red was safe. Taereme was safe. He was safe. But he did not know for how long. If Orb could read minds. No, stop. That was not the frist question. The first question was how he'd... no, the first question was, what in the hells beneath the earth was Orb? He felt like swearing. He never swore. There had been ancient creatures once, long ago. He'd faced one with his daughter and her allies, at the entrance to what was, just before the Breaking. A behemoth of stone that towered over the tallest of structures in Agethlea. He did not know how long ... Orb was like, but unlike, that creature. Of the same ilk?

( None of it made sense. )

Agethlea was not the city of Koe's birth, and so he was not fond of it in any way. Though its sculpted buildings were impressive and the monoliths that dotted the city were both grand and fitting the egos of the mages who called this place home they were not his sort of city. A city ought to be one joined height, whether great or small. A city ought to feel like a collection of souls and not a place of mystery and suspicion. From the first they knew he was not ordinary - being mages, they had eyes as sharp as any thief's, and more discerning - but they did not know what. So they walked wide, eying him when they were sure he was not looking, and in general making nuisances out of themselves whenever they could. This effect was made somewhat worse by the company he kept. She was riding and he was walking, yet no one would think that she led. Perhaps that, they thought, was the game?

( The game. )

The unknown road unfolded before them in greedy fits and sparks - here a stretch hidden just beyond a bend, there a tiny curling wisp of dirt trail that disappeared over the horizon of the next hill - and Taereme reveled in it. She knew in a distant way that she had traveled before, long ago, before the world had turned cold. Or perhaps it had always been cold. But she'd never traveled like this. Never without the sense of a knife close behind her, never without the sense of true danger. There was a freedom in the open road, a beauty to which she'd never before been witness. Spring was no longer the beginning of a better financial season; it was something... more. Something fresher, something newer than she'd ever seen. For the first time since she could recall, she felt... hopeful. Without desperation. Without the niggling feeling that she would lose if she didn't place her feet correctly. It was true that she had no earthly idea where they were going. But her companion today was an older man who seemed not to have a single harmful bone in his body. Difficult to feel insecure around him. Taereme wondered how he ever had survived in the world she knew. Did he know some different world? It seemed unlikely; he was a traveling minstrel. He had to know the ugliness that Caeleste marinated in. But he didn't seem touched by it. Or rather, it seemed to pass through him instead of cling. An odd sort of man. But one that did not threaten her. One that seemed kind.

Kind in the way that the matron in the cottages at Oisea had been. Taereme thoughtfully looked down at her sleeve. Over the freshly laundered green dress, she wore a hand-me-down jacket with very little give to the threads - newer despite its previous use. Gloves now covered her hands. Gloves. She'd never worn gloves in her life; never had enough to spend to get them. And even more surprising than all this, a small purse of coins nestled reassuringly against her waist where it hung on a new belt. She didn't understand why the matron had been so kind, and didn't understand why there'd been a ... fondness.... in the woman's eyes when she'd taken her leave with Koe. She didn't understand a lot of things these days.

But she found that it was... tolerable. There was still a part of her that held itself aside, that warned Taereme that it could never last, that soon her benefactors would ask her for payment or somehow turn on her in other ways. But it hadn't happened, and it hadn't happened, and more and more, that voice began to fade. She felt... trepidation... and hope. Hope. Such a strange feeling....

She almost didn't notice when, for the fifth time today, the horse on which she rode decided to nap under the willow tree at the side of the road. The beast knelt, nickered, and set its massive head on its curled forelegs. Only Koe's exclamation drew Taereme back from her thoughts just in time to remember to grab on tightly to the horse's mane -- but not to pull, for everything that she cherished in life! The last time she'd done that, the result had been painful.

"Silly beast!" Taereme whispered in the horse's ear, as she leaned over his neck to secure herself from the inevitable lurch upward again.

"You," Koe pointed out reasonably. "Bargain very hard."

"Next," the innkeeper said lazily.

Oisea was not a city of the arts. In fact, Koe thought rather rudely, it was a city in the main oif farmers and soldiers. Only he'd never known such a sour group of farmers in all his life. Not only were they entirely oblivious to music - not one coin fell into the bowl of leather and bone which he'd acquired for the purpose - but none of the city's innkeepers seemed particularly enticed by the idea of having a true bard performing in their midst. Might scare off the patrons, they said. Or it might put a stop to business and we's can't be having that now can we? Koe mouthed the words silently as he stepped onto the gravel road, and met the rain with the bulk of his fortitude. Ten inns and not a single yes. Oisea not only deserved the torrential downpour that was coating it but every piece of foul luck that followed. Such unkind thoughts were usually not in his nature. He was angry only because one innkeeper had taken him by the scruff of his neck when he'd begun to sing. The intention was to show what a talent he had.

( There was no appreciation of music in them. )

A slow, graceful pace was the very last thing that resided in her heart, yet Onainat's walk to her father's room was a perfect execution of it. Her normally unruly hair hung straight and just above her eyes, which had become a dark, dark blue. Onainat passed a mirror in the hall and thought she was walking past her mother for a brief moment. The soldiers of Lojatuq used to whisper that their High General had eyes like a storm, the kind that swallows up the world after making the sky black. Marmar dragons lived for the weather that glided over the sea, twisting and diving among the lightning as if they were bolts themselves. There was no weather that her kind ever feared, no wind that could not carry their wings. In thinking of those beautiful clans swerving and cutting through the wrath of the gods, Onainat wondered if Minaht felt as she felt. Did she ache? Did she want to see such a storm, to fly in the center of it, not bear it in the crook of her ribs? Onainat looked down at the wooden flute case she gripped so tightly in her hand. For thirteen years...no, no longer than that. For too many minutes, hours, seasons, she followed something not worth following. And when faced with the truth, she still wanted to run from Ceranarad and catch up to him. She would follow Ilyien when he told her not to. She would follow Ilyien until he broke her again.

A tear slipped down Onainat's cheek as she stood outside her father's door. It was a good door, made of oak. If she leaned upon it, it would hold her better than any pair of arms. Onainat remained on her own feet. She knocked. She remembered staring into the wild, storm eyes of Minaht. Minaht was loyal to Lojatuq, despite the truth, because of love. Onainat swore not to be like her mother. But she had been so young. She did not understand.

She did not want to understand.

Were there words for a man who left in the middle of the night? Were there words for a father who would leave right behind him? No tragedy was ever singular in Onainat's life. Koe Tidraq was going to disappear again and there would be no finding him without the interference of Amasa. Onainat had a better feeling for time now. She knew the path of wanderers. She was a wanderer herself once, and she had betrayed that existence. For what? For a being that could not love her because she was not one of his own? For her father, who didn't need her help? For her god, who stood silent as his creation fell to pieces? What did any of this matter when she'd seen the corruption of the Tree? When she'd turned away the prospect of the stars? Why love, why believe in these people, why pretend to be a hero? She never wanted the prison designated for the brave. Her whole life, Onainat had only longed for the world.

The door opened and her lips thinned in a tight line. Her fingers felt as if they had no flesh or blood. It was as if her true form was hiding behind a transparent skeleton. Onainat held out the wooden flute case before her father could open his mouth.

"I think you should take this with you," Onainat said. The words felt metallic and rung too brightly as they passed her teeth. "I would only trade it for ink."

Ilyien walked a pace behind the dwarf, who was himself neatly sandwiched between Onainat and Tidraq. He would have felt much better if she were not so close to the dwarf, would have felt more comfortable if she were at his side instead of the elder dragon who walked on his left. He could imagine the dwarf reaching for her the way he had caught Koe - burly arm wrapped around her throat, hands possessively on her hair, blade against her neck. The sight, even in his imagination, was enough to fire his blood to a fury. At his side, she couldn't be snatched away, couldn't be used to threaten their mission, couldn't... The Guard was attempting to focus on the reasons why it would be detrimental to their purpose if Onainat were taken unawares by this dwarf. His fool's heart was determined not to see reason. He realized - for the fifth time - that his eyes were on the soft mass of curls that bounced against Onainat's back. Squaring his jaw, he jerked his eyes back to the wide shoulders of the bald dwarf in front of him.

Beside him, the elder dragon made a sort of snuffling coughing sound. Ilyien turned in time to see the dragon school his face to the pink of innocence. But it took no effort to sense what the dragon was feeling -- in waves. Amusement. Near glee. It was galling that his struggle to stay on task was so evident to the keen eyes of the one beside him, and even more so that he found it amusing. There was one solace. The dwarf was not amused. The dwarf, hastily shooting glances behind him every so often, was terrified of him. Clearly, he knew something of the Path of Fire, enough to know not to cross one who knew it. Ilyien hoped his deception did not backfire on the lot of them.

As they walked further into the heart of the city, Ilyien felt less and less comfortable. Even walking behind them, the best place to guard a prisoner, he was not at ease. There was an awareness around him; they were not alone. From the corner of his eye, he caught snatches of shapes that moved just a touch too far behind them for him to catch what or who it was. When he stretched his awareness out toward it, he found nothing he could pinpoint. It made him even less easy with the circumstances. When the dwarf finally stopped at the steps of a relatively plain but well-made building - an excellent defensive design - Ilyien had his hand on the hilt of his sword. The other was free enough to reach for Onainat if he needed, free enough to sweep her out of the way of -- whatever it was that he felt.

When they began the short climb up the stone-cut stairs, the double doors above swung open instead. A man stood there - a servant, by the looks of him - and gestured the lot of them into the building. "Ah, Edrac, Dall -- you're expected."

Not the words Ilyien had wanted to hear from a servant.

There could not have been a more impossible or uncomfortable arrangement. The five of them were squeezed into one of the many stone and wood tables that were scattered about the city, or rather the tower, for public use. On a much lower level now. Koe could never become accustomed to the unnatural light that fell from the strand into their humble conversation. It was like sunlight, but something about it was wrong. Constantly there, constantly glowing, always illuminating what the light that forced its way through Bahamut's sky could not touch. It seemed wrong somehow that a city could be constructed so far from Bahamut's sight. Perhaps that explained the rampant villainy that he'd witnessed since he arrived. There were soldiers out in force, but they were not looking for a few peace breakers from Bahamut's Nest. They were looking for larger game, the sort that required swords and hard words. Koe didn't think anyone had been killed in their escape. He preferred to think that, and to keep thinking that. A narrow escape to be sure. Koe had thanked Edrac, and Ilyien, and Onainat, for doing what they could to ensure it stayed that way. Now there were larger problems facing them.

( Such as what to do with this fellow. )