Storm Warning - Mercedes Lackey [13]
Firesong’s white firebird flew gracefully across the garden room as he climbed out of the pool and dried himself off. It landed beside the smaller, cooler pool that supplied the waterfall, in a bowl Firesong had built for it to bathe in. It plunged in with the same enthusiasm as the hum-blest sparrow, sending water splashing in all directions as it flapped and rolled in the shallow rock basin. When it finally emerged from its bath, it looked terrible, as if it had some horrible feather disease, and its wings were so soaked it could scarcely fly. It didn’t even bother to try; it just hopped up onto a higher perch to preen itself dry with single-minded concentration. Hawkbrothers usually had specially-bred raptors as bondbirds, but in this, as in all else, Firesong was an exception.
An’desha got along quite well with the bird, whose name was Aya; especially after he had coaxed some berrybushes the bird particularly craved to grow, blossom, and bear fruit out of season in this garden. Aya was happy here; he did not seem to miss the Vales at all.
Even the firebird felt more at home here than he did. He recognized the fact that he was feeling sorry for himself, and he didn’t much care. The firebird paused in its preening, as if it had read his thoughts, and gave him a look of complete disgust before shaking out its wet tail and turning its back on him.
Well, let it. The firebird had never had its body taken over by a near-immortal entity of pure filth, had it?
He dried his hair and wrapped himself up in his thick robe, then went off to one part of the garden he considered his very own.
In the southwestern corner of the garden, near the window, he had planted a row of trees screening a mound of grass off from the rest of the garden. In that tiny patch of lawn he had pitched a very small tent, tall enough to stand in, but no wider than the spread of his arms. It wasn’t quite a Shin’a’in tent, and it certainly wasn’t weatherproof, but that hardly mattered since it was always summer in this garden. Here, at least, he could fling himself down on a pallet, look up at a roof of canvas, and see something that resembled home. And as long as he made no sound, there was no way to know whether or not the tent was occupied. Firesong had made no comment about the tent, perhaps understanding that he needed it, even as Firesong needed some semblance of a Vale.
A strand of his own damp white hair tangled itself up in his fingers as he pushed open the tent flap, and he shook it loose impatiently. White hair—he looked Tayledras. Just as Tayledras as Firesong or Darkwind. There was no way that anyone would know he was Shin’a’in unless he told them. Was there a reason for that? Firesong had told him it was because of the magic, but if the Star-Eyed had chosen, She could have given him back his native coloring. For a little time, at least.
He sat down on the pallet; it was covered with a blanket of Shin’a’in weaving—a gift from a Herald, who’d bought it while on her far-away rounds—and it still smelled faintly of horse, wood smoke, and dried grasses. The scent was enough, if he closed his eyes, to make him believe he was home again.
If the Star-Eyed could remake my body, couldn’t She have taken away the magic, too?
Magic. For a long time, he’d wanted to be a mage. Now he wished She had taken his magic away, but there was always a reason why She did or did not do something.
He stared at the canvas walls, glowing in the late afternoon sun coming through the windows, and chewed his lower lip.
If She left me with magic, it is because She wants me to use it for some reason that only She knows. Firesong keeps saying it’s my duty to do this, to Her as well as to myself. He felt a flash of hot resentment at that. Hadn’t he risked everything to defeat Falconsbane—not just the pain and death of his body, but the destruction of his soul and his self? Wasn’t that enough? How much more was he going to have to do?
Then he flushed with shame and a little apprehension,