Heirs of Prophecy - Lisa Smedman [79]
"What's wrong?" Larajin asked.
Words choked their way out of Kith's mouth. "I… had wings once. Gone, now."
"Wings?"
Kith fumbled at the ties that held her shirt closed, then yanked it down to her elbows, exposing her back. Under that baggy shirt lay the source of Kith's pain: two crudely hacked stubs where wings had once been. The severed limbs were healed over, but only just. The scars were still raw and red, the skin puckered and dotted with crude stitch marks. It looked as though muscle and bone had been severed with an axe, one brutal chop at a time. Larajin wondered how anyone could survive the agony that must have caused.
Kith's shoulders shook as she struggled to suppress her sobs. Goldheart, also staring at the elf's back, growled low in her throat, then, deliberately, she walked
up to Kith and gave the elf s bare leg a gentle nudge with her cheek.
Kith yanked the shirt back up over her shoulders, wincing at its touch as she turned back to Larajin.
"You ask why I go Evermeet," she said. She jerked a thumb at her shoulder. "This be why. My shame. After I escape first time, arena let wizard take my wings, for his spells. How can I return to flock now? I must seek great healing, before return."
"Goddess grant it to you," Larajin whispered.
She realized what Kith was: an avariel elf-a breed of elf so rare that the books in Stormweather Towers had referred to them as mere legend. And here that "legend" stood in front of Larajin, broken and dejected. She wished she knew a healing spell that would regrow Kith's wings, but such powerful magic was beyond her. Her spells could close a wound, or slow bleeding, or even splice a shattered bone, but they could not regrow flesh and feather from air.
Kith's eyes dropped to Goldheart, who was still rubbing against her leg.
"Companion-to-Larajin, I know you mean comfort, but beautiful wings make sadness."
Turning away, Kith strode out of the circle of hght cast by the dagger, into the moonlight-dappled forest. Larajin was about to run after her but paused as she heard Kith settle again, a short distance away in the woods. From that spot came the soft sound of a woman weeping.
Torn between her desire to comfort Kith and the certain knowledge that Goldheart must be bearing urgent news, Larajin hesitated. A familiar tingle began in her ears and lips. As it grew, she heard the tressym's meows turn into intelligible speech.
"She aches like a wounded bird," Goldheart observed, peering off into the darkness where Kith had disappeared. "Someone should give her a swift death."
"She needs healing," Larajin answered curtly, "and I can't give it to her."
Frustrated, she dropped to her knees in front of the tressym.
"I am glad to see that you are safe, Goldheart" she said. "Did you follow Leifander? Where is he now?"
"He nested for one night in a place not far from here, and another night in a place that lies a day's flight in that direction," Goldheart said, nodding toward the northwest as she spoke. The place was at the edge of a great wood and had many trees heaped in piles. The humans and elves there busy themselves day and night building walls and practicing with their long-claws."
Larajin nodded. Goldheart must be describing a town in Deepingdale, known for its timber trade. She guessed that the "long-claws" were swords or daggers.
"He then flew toward the forest, stopping here and there to meet with groups of elves-but only nesting for one night in a single place. For the last two nights he has nested in the same spot: on a hill with no trees, only stones on top. I left him there this morning, and flew back to find you. I have been a day and most of this night