The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [219]
‘No repayment needed, your holiness.’
‘Please call me not that. I be no priestess any longer.’
‘Well and good, then, my lady.’ Gerran bowed to her, then strode off, following the dragon.
Pir raced forward and flung his arms around her. She could feel him trembling and smell his fear, slowly ebbing. She pressed against him and ravelled in the warmth of his arms around her, a tangible safety. For a long while neither of them could speak. He stroked her hair, then kissed her on the mouth.
‘We’d best join the others,’ Pir said. ‘The Ancients have taken charge of them.’
The Ancients seemed to be determined to treat their prisoners as decently as guests. Once they all reached the tents, the Lijik men drew back and let the Ancients lead Pir’s band to a communal fire in the centre of their part of the camp. Since Sidro knew nothing of the Ancients’ language, and they knew nothing of hers, they spoke together in the Lijik tongue. An archer with hair as pale as Evan’s came forward and introduced himself as Danalaurel and the herald as Maelaber.
‘Come eat,’ he said. ‘Do you drink mead? We’ve got some.’
‘Not for me,’ Sidro said, ‘but it were kind if you did share with our men.’
‘Gladly.’ He turned to Pir. ‘I understand that you’re a horse mage. Come sit in the place of honour. My lady, if you’d accompany him?’
Pir shrugged and smiled his agreement. ‘Um, well, this is a surprise,’ he whispered to Sidro in their own tongue.
‘Yes, it is,’ she said. ‘You’ve arranged the most successful surrender I’ve ever heard of.’
‘I’ll wager they want something from us. Let’s not celebrate till we see what it is.’
As they walked through the camp, Sidro kept looking around her for Evan, even though she wondered why she would want to confront him. He’d lost her everything she loved—no, she told herself, Lakanza’s safe, Laz lost himself, and Alshandra never truly existed, did she? Finally she saw him, standing off to one side. He hailed Danalaurel, started forward, then stopped, staring her way.
‘Evan!’ Sidro called out. ‘Please, come speak with me!’
He hesitated, then slouched over, his hands in his pockets. ‘Are you going to berate me, your—wait!’ Evan said in the Lijik tongue. ‘I hear you don’t consider yourself a priestess any longer.’
‘I do not, nor would the order consider me one, should I ever try to go back. Some days ago I scried that you did speak with Lakanza. I fain would know what she did say.’
‘She forgave me, bizarrely enough. And she told me that it ached her heart that she’d not listened to you. She said she knew she’d been unjust to you and wished she could tell you so.’
Sidro’s eyes filled with tears even as she smiled. ‘That gladdens my heart,’ she whispered. ‘But never could I blame her.’
‘Well, you were right, you know,’ Evan said. ‘I am Vandar’s spawn, and a witchman, and all of it. I even was in love with Rocca, just like you thought.’
‘Then my heart aches for your loss.’
‘Does it truly?’
Sidro surprised herself, but she nodded. ‘It does. Go in peace, Evan, and I shall do the same.’
‘Done, then.’ He reached out and touched her hand with his fingertips, then turned and strode away, disappearing among the tents and the growing shadows of twilight.
The Ancients gave them food as well as drink. After the meal, several men brought out harps. Pir and Sidro sat together and spoke but little, listening to incomprehensible songs swirling through the camp. The Ancients had parcelled out Pir’s men to the campfires close by. At first Sidro worried about Vek, but Danalaurel told her that two healers had taken charge of the boy.
‘One of Pir’s men mentioned that Vek has fits now and then,’ Danalaurel said. ‘Our healers have herbs that might ease them.’
‘That gladdens my heart,’ Sidro said. ‘I do worry that he might fall some time and badly hurt himself.’
As the evening wore on, Sidro first rested her head on Pir’s shoulder, then leaned against him and fought to stay awake, until at last he told their hosts that she needed to rest.
‘My apologies!’ Danalaurel leapt up. ‘Let me talk with