Birds and Prey (3 page)

Sade did as instructed, feeling terribly exposed as she stepped toward the strange man.

He was taller than she was -- taller than the princess, even -- and broad-shouldered, in a way
that made his simple navy tunic seem ill-fitting and strange. She saw him tug at the tunic’s waist in an irritated gesture as she came to stand in front of him.

He looked her up and down appraisingly. “I’m Haytham,” he said, and extended his hand.

Sade took his hand and introduced herself. He was warm -- warmer than Laire. What
was
he, to burn with such fire within?

They’d barely had a chance to touch, barely had a chance for Sade to notice the deep green of his eyes, before Princess Laire took Sade’s wrist in a firm grip. “Good,” she said. Haytham released Sade’s hand, as the princess pulled Sade back to her side.

“Now that we’ve finished the formalities,” began Laire, “let me explain why I’ve brought you two together.”

As always, Sade tensed at the princess’s touch, feeling caught between desire and fear. Twitchy and unsettled, she rubbed her free palm over her hip. She hated how nervous Laire made her feel.

Princess Laire began to speak, relating to their guest the same story of promises and betrayal that she had explained to Sade earlier, in her private chambers. Sade listened intently, even this second time round, hoping to glean some greater understanding of her past.

Though Laire never came out and said so directly, it was clear from the way she told her story that this Aranion must be a cold man, incapable of love. What game had he played with Sade, she wondered, while he was weaving his lies with the princess?

As the princess talked, Sade glanced over at Haytham. The man’s gaze seemed far away. Sade wondered if he was even listening.

“So, the only solution is for you to kill Aranion. And that is why I’ve called for Haytham to help you do it,” Princess Laire concluded, with a satisfied gesture that included Haytham again.

Sade couldn’t believe she’d heard Laire properly. “
Kill
him?” she repeated, stunned. “I’ve never killed anyone in my life!”

Laire’s eyes narrowed, her voice taking on the same dangerous flatness as when she punished her courtiers with her own hands.

“And how would you know that, Little Bird?” she inquired.

“I…“

The last thing she wanted was to upset Laire. Sade dropped her gaze, and shook her head. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t remember.”

Laire nodded. “Good. That spell of forgetting protects you from the pain.”

She rested her palm on Sade’s shoulder, and, through the fabric of her dress, rubbed at the area in slow circles. The touch didn’t comfort, but at least Laire had lost that crackling air of repressed fury.

“Haytham is an excellent blade dancer,” Laire continued. “He will teach you well, won’t you, Haytham?”

“I will,” Haytham said.

“Then I will leave my little bird in your capable hands,” the princess said. She lifted her hand from Sade’s shoulder. As always, Sade felt it as both a relief, and a loss.

“Return her in three moons. That should be enough to make her ready.”

“I’ll need to take her to the peaks,” Haytham said. “For her training. Also, your bird will need some sensible clothes. And a decent knife.”

The princess tightened her lips, taking a short breath in through her nose. She pulled a necklace of delicate beads from around her neck and squeezed it in her fist, eyes closed, hand glowing. When she opened it, a delicate, pearl-bordered mirror rested on her palm.

“I expect daily reports. Use this.” She held the mirror out to Haytham, who took it.

Sade was still in a shocked daze. She’d only just found her place in Laire’s court, and now the princess wanted to send her off to some mountain with a stranger to learn to kill!

Among many other things, Sade didn’t think she had it in her to kill someone -- not even in self-defense, let alone hunting down a stranger and killing him in cold blood.

“Princess,” she began in a wavering voice, “I don’t think—“

“Don’t fret, little bird,” said Laire. She patted Sade on the shoulder again. “You’ll be strong enough. You are stronger than you think.” She smiled down into Sade’s face. “And, when you’re done, you can return home, to me.”

With that, the princess took Sade’s hand. The rush of pleasure was distracting, making her want to pull the princess close and ravage her mouth. Sade wished she had the strength to wrest herself from the princess’s grip.

“Sade, Haytham,” said Laire, in the voice of one clearly used to being obeyed, “stay for the feast. Afterward, you’ll have whatever you need from our stores. And I’ll have one of the ladies choose suitable clothing for my pet.”

“It would be better for us to begin immediately,” Haytham said.

“Nonsense. If my pet and I are to be separated for such a long time, the least I can do is give you both a pleasant send-off.”

“My lady,” Haytham said, clearly bowing to Laire’s wishes.

His expression was calm and respectful, but the tension in his shoulders betrayed his discomfort. Sade gave him a reassuring smile.

He met her eyes for a moment. Then he averted his gaze.

The gesture made Sade feel a kinship to him. Like her, he was an outsider to the court. Maybe she would be able to find some common ground with him, when they were alone. They would have to find some common ground, presumably, if he was going to teach her…whatever he was going to teach her.

Truth to tell, Sade thought it just as likely that she would prove so hopeless that Haytham would return her to the princess with his apologies. Privately, that was Sade’s hope. No matter what this Aranion might had done to her, she didn’t want to kill him.

But she couldn’t deny the horrible, churning pain in her chest. Most of the time, she could ignore it. But when it was quiet, and she had nothing to do, the pain would become so strong that all she could do was gasp, and try her best to breathe through it without crying.

When they arrived at the feast hall, the dancing had already begun. Gentle harp music filled the open hall. The tree branches had been pulled aside for the feast, and sunlight streamed through the open spaces, shining over the brightly colored silk and jewels of the elven dancers.

To the left of the dance floor stood a raised dais with a table for the royal family. Only the royal family sat on chairs; the rest of the courtiers either stood to eat, or took their plates and sat on one of the scattered pillows on the floor. The High Lords and Ladies fed their honored courtiers with their own hands.

Sade knew she would eat, as always, at the princess’s feet. She found it awkward – as if she were a pet in truth, some kind of lap dog -- but other courtiers did the same for those they served, and they assured her that Laire was bestowing on Sade a very high honor.

One of the courtiers pulled the princess’s chair back, and Laire sat down, her robes making a flutter of liquid silk that spilled to her feet.

To Sade’s surprise, a red pillow had been laid for her use on a short bench at the princess’s left. Sade sat on it carefully. It was high enough for her to see over the table, at least well enough to see the dancers, and Sade enjoyed the rare treat. The princess stroked Sade’s hair absently, as she turned to order one of the courtiers to bring them meat, wine, and a second bench for her guest.

An expression flashed over Haytham’s features that looked to Sade like disgust. “The floor is good enough for me, my lady,” he said.

He sat down, crossed-legged, near the edge of the table: close enough so that it was clear that he was with the princess, but not so close that she could easily touch him.

“Might I have some water, my lady?” Haytham asked.

His words had been nothing but polite. Still, it was clear to Sade that Laire was angry. “I’ll ask one of the courtiers,” she said, her mouth drawn tight.

Haytham only nodded.

When the food arrived, the princess fed Sade morsels from her own fingers. Though Sade was also accustomed to this, she found her cheeks warming with embarrassment as she realized that Haytham was watching them both, an inscrutable expression on his face.

“I will miss you, my pet,” the princess said. She held out a glass of crystal wine.

The glass seemed as thin and fragile as a soap bubble, and Sade sipped from it, terrified that it might break. The wine was bubbly and sweet with just a hint of tartness, and Sade felt that it went straight to her head. She relaxed into the princess’s touch in a way she rarely did, except when Laire was sleeping.

The princess smiled, and, placing the glass onto the table, kissed Sade gently on the lips.

Her lips were warm, and the pleasure of it was too much for Sade. She parted her lips, hoping the princess would reach, find her through the silk, and rub at her moist slit before guiding Sade beneath the table to satisfy the princess’s desire…

The princess pulled away first. “Dear pet,” she said. “We have a guest.”

Sade glanced over at Haytham, her face hot. The soul-bond was aching, but the pleasure of the princess’s touch had managed to drown out the pain, for at least a short time.

The princess followed Sade’s gaze as if by accident. Something in her expression shifted.

She stood, and tapped her long fingernail against the side of the wine glass. The entire room silenced. Even the harpist’s interrupted note faded into dissonance.

The princess said, “Today is the last meal we will have with my Little Bird. I have given her over to the care of our guest. He is a skilled Wind Dancer. Haytham, if you would be so kind as to offer us a dance.”

Haytham’s head whipped up, his eyes narrow. “My lady?”

“It is your
free
choice.”

Haytham looked at the princess, and then at Sade, finally letting his gaze sweep across the court.

“We don’t dance for entertainment,” he said. Laire’s body tensed, an expression of fury flashing over her features.

Haytham continued, “But, as a demonstration…I will need a knife.”

“Of course,” the princess said, her face immediately smoothing again. She reached beneath the table and pulled free a silver blade. “It is a heartblade,” she said. “Use it well.”

Sade glanced at the knife. The knife ran straight along the top, but curved on the blade opposite side, narrowing to a sharp tip.

Sade had never seen it before. It certainly wasn’t the princess’s, whose heartblade was tucked in through the loop at the left side of her waist.

Haytham took the blade. Holding it openly in one hand, he started down from the dais to the open floor. The elves parted before him, falling back against the branches that served as the room’s walls.

“Whose knife is it?” Sade whispered, wondering how she’d mustered up the courage to ask.

The princess turned to Sade and pressed her lips against the mortal’s temple. Lowering her lips to Sade’s ear, she whispered, “My pet, it’s yours.”

The knife’s hilt was warm in Haytham’s hand as he took the first position for the dance.

Every dance was different. Each step was dictated by the wind’s song. And here, with so many barriers between Haytham and the open air, he found it difficult to find his center. Outside, the music was open and free. But here, in the elven court, the wind’s glorious song was fragmented and mourning.

Haytham submitted to it. He fell slowly to his knees, his arms in front of him, the blade held loosely in his right hand.

Equally slowly, he rose. The weight of the wind’s grief made his limbs heavy.

As he began to move, the whispers of his audience faded to silence. He breathed, and the wind filled him with its music.

Freed at last from the confines of this hall, and all the chains of his oaths, Haytham danced.

His body was an instrument, and he moved like one. The knife glinted in the sunlight as he whirled faster and faster.

He called the wind through his movement. One of the closer elves gasped as the wind flung the feathers from his hair, and sent them flying in a cloud around him. The watchers clapped, their applause providing an odd counter-beat to the wind’s song.

Just as the wind moved through everything, carrying the sounds of the audience’s attention, filling their lungs and expelling itself again in sound as they gasped and occasionally cheered, the wind’s dance allowed Haytham to move to, and through, everything.

Absently, he noted the audience’s weaknesses. Through the wind’s dance, he could kill them all.

Eventually his muscles began to burn. It was a pleasant feel, the exertion -- like flying -- and he wondered if his hawk form had become visible, shining through the air around him. Given his choice, he would turn his back on the entire Edenost court, leap from the nearest open ledge, shed his human skin and into the wind’s arms.

But his oaths held him down: held him here.

Regretfully, he let the wind’s song drain away. He was sweating. Sometime during the dance, some of his hair had freed itself from the tie to fall haphazardly around his face. He pushed it back with his fingers, still breathing heavily.

Princess Laire stood, clapping her hands in applause. “Oh, that was a true gift!”

Haytham nodded, acknowledging the compliment. But his attention was focused on Sade, who stared at him, her lips parted. Her eyes were wide and wet with tears.

Had she heard the music? If so, she was the only one in the room who had truly understood.

Haytham turned away his gaze. Sade was the key to his freedom. There wasn’t any point in his trying to find commonalities between them. That would only make it more difficult to do what he had to do.

Haytham returned to the princess, holding the blade out to her.

“It’s my gift to my pet,” Laire said, taking the knife. “And, judging by how beautifully you’ve used it, I think it will serve her well.” She patted Sade again on the head.

The entire display was both shameless and disgusting.

Haytham returned to his spot on the floor, and one of the courtiers came by and handed him a glass of water in a piece of hollowed-out wood. No doubt the princess meant the coarseness of the material to serve as an insult. But Haytham was grateful that he’d be able to drink without worrying that he’d break some fragile work of elven magic.