AVERIL HAD SPUN into a world of wine and frivolity, but like the self-pity she had wallowed in before, this was no true part of her. The men with whom she danced were a blur of faces forgotten as soon as they had passed. There was no face in the world for her but one, and she refused to look at it.
She could not get him out of her heart. She was not in the least surprised between dances to find herself in front of him. He had reinforcements: Riquier and the mage who claimed to have been a Paladin.
She trusted that one no more now than she ever had. He was not human; how could anyone be sure he truly cared for mortal troubles?
They surrounded her and herded her out of the crush of the court to the relative quiet along the wall. The next dance began without her; her erstwhile partner looked briefly forlorn, then wandered off toward the wine.
“There’s a spy,” Gereint said.
He never had seen the use in talking roundabout. Riquier winced slightly, but Peredur looked merely interested. Averil delved into herself in a kind of panic, but all she found there was Gereint, staring back at her.
“It’s not you,” he said. “Someone else is weakening Prydain’s defenses. It feels like another of the Morescan’s allies.”
“It’s my fault somehow, isn’t it?” she said.
That was the wine talking. None of them took the bait. She felt cold suddenly; her head was clearer than it had been in days.
“Will you help?” Gereint asked her.
“What can I do?”
He did not take it as a cry of hopelessness, but answered it as the honest question it was. “Help us find him.”
She could refuse. They did not look as if they meant to force her. But she had much to atone for, and she had danced most of the foolishness out. “What, you’d like me to scry for him?”
Gereint shook his head. “You’ve been dancing with every man here. Will you finish what you began? I’m thinking that if you’re close to whoever it is, you may be able to sense the working in him.”
“What if it’s someone I’ve already danced with?”
“We’ll take care of that,” said Peredur.
She felt her spine stiffen. Her dislike of him was so strong she was surprised he did not fall back a step. “Should I dance with you, messire?”
He grinned. “I’ll be honored, my lady.”
She examined him closely for any sign of guilt or deception, but there was nothing. Not that she expected there would be. He was too powerful a mage to give himself away.
Still, she thought, why not? She might detest him on principle, but he was a comely enough creature, and God knew he was light on his feet. She held out her hands for him to take.
He took them with good will, then bowed and spun her back out into the hall.
IT WAS NOT Peredur. As much as she would have liked him to be the traitor, it seemed he was honest in that much at least. He handed her off to an eager princeling from some unintelligible backwater of Prydain, who was not unpleasant to look at, but she was blessed if she could understand a word he said.
She lost count of the dancers but not of the time. That was advancing rather quickly toward the day’s meal; already a fair number of the court had withdrawn toward the lesser hall and the banks of laden tables.
Occasionally she caught glimpses of the two Squires and the Myrddin weaving through the courtiers. They had found nothing. Nor, unfortunately, had she.
She was tiring with the exertion of balancing both dance and magic, and the lack of sleep and food, and the aftermath of her wild mood. Gereint fed her strength, but his was not inexhaustible, either. She was close to giving up and leaving it to the queen to discover the worm in the palace’s heart, but even on the edge of exhaustion, Averil was too stubborn to let go.
It did not help, either, that the part of her that still rode with the ship was sending her images of sea and storm and black sails thick on the horizon. The diversion was closing on its target.
At first she thought she was imagining things: growing confused with weariness. The man who guided her through a stately pavane was as innocent of magic as a noble in Prydain could be. She had been finding him frankly restful, until with a turn of the dance she looked past him to the queen.
Eiluned had been dancing with the rest of them, but she had retreated to her throne for this little while. She looked as if she might be thinking of rising and bidding the music stop and dispersing the court to their dinner. But that was not what caught Averil’s eye.
The prince Goronwy stood beside the throne, leaning on its arm with an air of studied elegance. He was dressed all in black, which suited him; it was striking beside the queen’s elaborate gown of blue and silver.
He had not asked to dance with Averil. She was not sorry for it. But as her glance passed over him, it caught on something strange.
It looked like a thread, so thin it was nearly transparent, like a strand of spider silk. If she had not been looking for it, she would never have seen it. It stretched through the layers of the world toward the walls of air and grew like a root into the world beyond.
Averil stumbled. Her companion caught her with words that were both gracious and kind. She realized that she could not remember his name and could barely remember his face.
There was no time to linger. She babbled something that she hoped was suitably grateful and escaped toward Gereint.
He already knew, because she did. Her legs would barely hold her up. He lifted her in his arms and carried her away to blessed quiet.
THE QUEEN WOULD not hear it. Even Peredur could not make her listen.
Gereint was too shocked to speak. He was no stranger to blindness, but this was deadly.
Eiluned was adamant. “Whatever our cousin believed she saw, our nephew is innocent. If there is a breach in our defenses, our mages will mend it. We do thank you for drawing our attention to it.”
She was speaking as queen, with stiff formality. That was anger turned to arrogance. Gereint had not realized Eiluned was so besotted with her brother’s son.
Nor, it seemed, had Peredur. “Majesty, as much as you love him, you know how human he is—and humans have weaknesses. I’m sure if you press him, he’ll be able to explain. It may be he suffers from the same ensorcelment as your cousin, and can be healed as easily. Or maybe—”
“We shall consider it,” she said, stiffly still.
Peredur bowed. Gereint might have argued further, but that was not his place.
AVERIL WAS ASLEEP in her bed, with Riquier watching over her. Her sleep was deep and full of dreams. Gereint felt the tug of them like a tide of the sea.
The enchanted ship had found the fleet and sailed past the leading edge of it. Voices called out; feet thundered on decks. A flight of arrows flew, but none so much as pierced the sail.
The image on the boat emerged from its shelter. The wind blew back the hood from its bright head. It stared as if astonished, then darted back into hiding. Surely it was only Gereint’s eyes that saw through it as through a clouded glass.
The fleet seemed suitably impressed. As the boat veered to catch the wind, a serpent of flame uncoiled from the foremost of the ships. It lashed through the blood-red sky and struck the ship full on. Timbers and enchantments alike burst into flame.
The crew dived screaming into the sea. The flames caught their hair and the trailing edges of their garments before the waves swallowed them.
The ship sailed on, burning slowly to ash, until the prow of a black ship rode over it and drowned it. The last of its embers died in the last of the light.
The fleet had drawn up like the ranks of an army. The wind shrieked. A wall of icy rain swept down upon it and splashed back as if from a wall of glass. The sails were full, but not with the wind of the world.
The sea around the ships subsided. The great waves that rose above the masts died to a slow swell beneath the black hulls. To Gereint’s eyes the water had a peculiar shimmer, like scales on a sinuous dark body.
He knew that vision all too well. As he looked up from Averil’s face and her dream, he found the same vision in Peredur’s eyes.
No one but Averil had ever been able to see as he saw, unless Gereint was there to guide with words and magic. Peredur needed no help. It was a little disconcerting, and in an odd way comforting.
“So,” the mage said. He sounded satisfied. “He’s taken the bait.”
That set Gereint back on his heels. “But—”
“He’s spent a good share of magic on our diversion,” Peredur said, “and we know where he’ll strike with the rest of it. He’ll aim for the gap in the wall.”
“Did you plan that, too?” Gereint asked. He would not have said he agreed with Averil that Peredur could not be trusted, but he did wonder a little.
“A wise commander plans for everything,” said Peredur. “Go, sleep if you can. Both of you. Be ready to ride in the morning.”
Gereint did not need to ask where. What doubts he had had were gone again. So was Peredur, so swift he seemed to vanish into air.