HAN KNEW Thurlock was looking for him, and he supposed he was grateful the old man cared enough about him to want to help him think things through. The truth was, though, he didn’t want help. He didn’t want to sort things or figure them out. He didn’t want to come to terms with the dragon; he wanted to forget it.
Yes, he was glad he’d been able to help Luccan, and he had the dragon to thank for that. Still, it wasn’t a welcome development in his life. It was exactly the development he’d been hoping to dodge for most of his previous years. In every generation of the direct Drakhonic line, one person had manifested the dragon. He’d known this fact since he was a small boy, since it was regularly the topic of family stories told around the hearth on winter nights. When he was very young, he used to play at being the dragon, spreading his imaginary wings and cleansing the earth of rot and meanness with his imaginary fire. His flights had been so vivid that now, looking back, he found himself confused as to whether they had all been only in is mind.
More honestly, he was afraid they hadn’t. He could, if he tried, believe those times were absolutely real. The thought had ramifications that made him sick.
Trying to put distance between him and Thurlock, Han entered through the front door of his small, tidy home, stripped off all finery and evidence of his Drakhonic heritage and donned the plainest of his military garb, all of that almost without ever having come to a stop inside. Then he strode out the back door and into the trees that crept up to within ten yards of his home.
He tried to think of where he could go that Thurlock wouldn’t think to look. He knew dodging the wizard was acting like a child, but truthfully his misery had its roots in the child he once was. If his brother, Lohen Chiell, were still alive, maybe he would have been able to take some comfort from him. But Lohen was well and truly gone, and Han didn’t think he could face anyone else. Especially not the ever-helpful-and-caring, all-wise Thurlock.
A thought about where to hide came to him—a small clearing on a stream bank, almost hidden by a thick copse of willow, rushes, and yellow flag. He sometimes went there of an evening just to put the day’s worries behind him. He’d pretend to fish, but really he was only keeping company with the small spotted trout that jumped for flies as the sun went down. Unlike birds the fish kept chatter to a minimum, and Han usually found it a relaxing meditation to follow their simple comments, which could be interpreted something like this:
“Cool.”
“Big.”
“Good.”
“Hungry.”
“Sleepy.”
“Moon.”
Now, he wasn’t in the mood for such communion, but the place might be a little harder for the wizard to find, and Han could be alone with his dreadful thoughts at least for a while.
He sat down at the edge of the water with his back against a trio of mossy stones that had always seemed to him to have been placed there by some great hand for just that purpose. The water cooled the heat in the little glade somewhat, and judging from the position of the sun, more time had gone by while he rescued Luccan than he’d thought. The Midsummer Day remained hot, though, so Han stripped off his sandals and plunked his feet down in the water, which was just deep enough here to top his anklebones. After the slight stir of mud settled, the water cleared to crystal, and he could see the bed of colorful, waterworn pebbles on the bottom. A small otter—one of Tiro’s very distant relatives—splashed into the stream from a dozen feet away, and when she emerged, Han realized she had a lame foot.
That’s when he remembered that, when he’d gone to Luccan’s room this afternoon, he’d been lame too. He turned his leg and lifted his khalta to examine his wound, and found it red and tender but healed. The wonder of that occupied his mind for a moment, but then he looked out over the water, and the particular angle of the light brought to mind one of the reasons he’d always loved this spot. It reminded him so much of another stream by the house he’d lived in as a child. A memory—the very worst of all the memories he had—rose up full in his mind.
After the fire. Lohen, standing in the stream with him, bathing him clean of dirt and ash and his own filth. Over and over whispering shushes and soothings that meant nothing and everything all at once. Han crying into his brother’s shoulder as evening slowly fell to dark over the stream bank where Lohen held him and sang to him their mother’s songs.
L’ARIA STOOD on an island of sand, screened from Han’s sight by vegetation—the kind that grows very tall very fast, its roots reaching down into a temporary land that might not last the season. She was planning to travel and already had her feet sunk into the water that still coursed through the lower layers of the sand that made up the island. She’d meant to be gone by now, but across the gold-splashed water, Han Shieth’s heart seemed to be breaking. She’d almost gone to him to see if she could help, but now Thurlock approached with his big, noisy wizard feet.
He’ll take care of Han. He always does.
Still, she stayed a moment, sang a song of silence, of camouflage, words that spoke of no sound set quietly to a melody that wove itself into the sounds of the trees, the grasses, the water in the creek, and all the living things hidden nearby. As long as she sang this particular magical song, no one would know she was there. Not even the great wizard Thurlock would see her unless he specifically set his mind to the particular task. At present, though, he had no reason to do that, she was sure. She doubted anybody had even discovered she’d slipped away from the Sisterhold.
She hadn’t known that Thurlock had returned, and she was happy to see him. It was never a good thing when he was absent from the country for too long, and this time even Han hadn’t known where he’d gone or when he’d be back. Or maybe—judging from the way Han had dodged the subject when she’d heard others talking with him—the question in Han’s mind had been if Thurlock would be back. For a moment, L’Aria considered coming out of hiding to greet the old man. Maybe, she should even tell them she planned to leave.
L’Aria kept to herself a lot, and she’d been making most of her own decisions since not long after her mother died—she’d been only nine years old then. She kept herself independent, and because of that people assumed she only cared about herself.
It wasn’t true.
She’d known even before her father put it into words that the magic she inherited from him, River Song, was all about the preservation of the world. And though her father said things had been different in past millennia, in this age, preservation of Ethra meant preservation of the Sunlands, because that’s where the light had arisen brightest after the last great upheaval thousands of years past. Tiro, didn’t—couldn’t—explain the politics to her. He wasn’t quite human enough to do that. What he knew, he knew by instinct and by his unseverable connection to the waters, lands, and spirit of the world. And L’Aria knew too, from her connection with him. But she understood some things differently because of her mother’s humanity.
River Song was needed now because so much had gone wrong. She had power to help.
She carried an enchanted sea-green teardrop gem, an heirloom called Tiro’s Stone, which her father had given to her last summer when she’d helped defeat Mahl’s Earthborn thralls outside the Witch-Mortaine Isa’s tower in Earth. It boosted her magic and the energy behind it, and she’d done incredible things in the flooding waters of Black Creek, helping the entire military expedition get back home to Ethra when it had seemed impossible. So much had gone wrong in the world; clearly the time was coming soon when River Song would need to join with the power of the stone again. It seemed likely she would need to use the full force of her magic to help save Ethra from whatever dark thing was crawling all over it, tracking its stink and corruption everywhere. The thing that had taken Luccan under. The thing that had made Tiro L’Rieve sick.
She knew the day of need was near. She could feel it everywhere—even in the water. And when that day came she would be there to fight.
But, she decided, the time isn’t yet. At this moment, the most important thing she could do was find her father. When he’d left the Sisterhold, he was suffering. For the first time in her life, L’Aria feared for him. She had no real sense of where he’d gone, but she knew he would revert to otter form and stay near water to let himself heal. And of everyone in Ethra, she was the one who stood the best chance of finding him. She knew where his wild homes and haunts were, and she could travel quickly from one likely place to another—River Song, this magic only she and her father possessed in all Ethra, could create a portal from any pool.
She loved Han like a favorite uncle—her habit of sassing him was only meant to keep anyone from knowing how much she cared. Han’s worry could be for Luccan, she supposed, but instinct told her if Luccan was worse—or even if he wasn’t better—Han and Thurlock would be with him. No, Han’s fallen spirits were about something else. Whatever had happened to make him so sad, her heart told her to comfort him. But Thurlock was there, and he understood Han far better than she did.
She made her choice. The Sunlands needed her and her father, and she needed him. Tiro had taught her always to make choices for the greater good, and for now that meant she had to choose him. He was a singular being, but he didn’t have to—and she’d see to it that he wouldn’t—face his mysterious malady alone.
She let her love for him fill her heart so it could shine out through the magic of her song as it flowed among the lives of the world, seeking one particular echo. After only a moment, she thought she heard it, found the direction she needed to travel to meet up with Tiro.
With a shift in her song, she sank down into the pool, into the emptiness of Naught, and out beyond.