“Should I be?”
“I always am.”
“You’re a member of the Umalyn, a Priest of Ferrol. Have you no faith in our god?”
“I have every faith in Ferrol,” Thym said. “I trust Ferrol will do as Ferrol chooses. I spend my life working to increase the odds that He won’t rain misery upon us as a people. That is enough to ask. I don’t expect Ferrol to notice me personally, much less protect me from a rampaging giant, a life-threatening storm, or a horde of goblins.”
“You don’t look terribly frightened.”
Thym looked back. “Well, not this trip, of course. You’re with me.”
“And why does that matter?”
“You’re Miralyith,” Thym said, and turned around, leaving his back to her. Whether he meant her to hear or not, she caught the words said under his breath. “You’re the scariest thing out here.”
They reached the bottom of the valley, where a small stream ran through a chasm between scarred hills. There were few trees, and the rocky land was covered in a felt of grass. Green fields. It was as if they were in the middle of a massive bowl. All around, hills rose, and to the south one huge tooth speared that wondrous sky—Mount Mador. She knew the tale of how Fenelyus had created the mountain during the war with the Dherg, even though Fenelyus didn’t speak much about that time. The old fane avoided mentioning anything about the war, talking about it only in vague terms. To everyone else, the Great War had been her finest hour, but Fenelyus treated it as a shameful thing. “Mistakes of my youth,” she often called it. Mount Mador didn’t look like a mistake. The towering behemoth was astounding. The fact that Fenelyus had ordered the land to rise to such a height was beyond impressive.
I could never manage anything like that.
The sheer power and force of will required was more than Arion could imagine. She felt privileged just to see the mountain, to be inspired by it. Gryndal had been right: This trip was good for her.
Reaching a stream, Arion was forced to urge her mare to follow Thym across. So far, the trip had been along a fairly clear trail. Crossing looked to be dangerous, and neither Arion nor Naraspur liked the idea. The horse shifted from side to side, voicing her apprehension with unmistakable body language. Arion lay forward, clutching the horse’s neck with both arms as at last Naraspur moved forward. They made their way through the stream, which turned out to be shallower and easier than expected. Arion sat up and chided herself for being so concerned. Like most Fhrey, and certainly those who populated Estramnadon, she had lived a life of isolation, one that lacked adventure. She was starting to regret that.
“What are the Instarya like?” she asked as the trail widened enough for her to come alongside Thym.
He looked skeptical. “You haven’t met anyone from the warrior tribe?”
“Of course not. I grew up in the temple and then sequestered myself in the towers of the Miralyith. Oh, by the way, what’s that big light in the sky again?”
He rolled his eyes.
“That was a joke,” she told him with an encouraging smile.
He squinted his eyes, a hint of suspicion added to his face.
“You know what a joke is, right?”
He nodded. “Oh, yes. I just haven’t heard a Miralyith make one.”
“Given how well that one went over, I’m not surprised.”
He studied her a moment longer, then shrugged more to himself than to her. “The Instarya are…” He paused, searching the horizon. “You have to understand that they’ve been out here, left to guard the frontier, since the Dherg War. Lothian will be the fourth fane they’ve served under. After the conflict ended, they weren’t allowed to return home. Generations have been born and died, some without setting foot on our side of the Nidwalden. So over the centuries they’ve adapted.”
“Adapted?”
“Life out here is different. Luxuries are few, the weather is awful, there’s no culture to speak of, and everything is potentially dangerous. Even some plants are poisonous. The Instarya have developed a more robust outlook, a set of values that might appear crude to you at first. They’re more akin to the ancients in that they hold honor and courage sacred. To them these are not just ideas, not mere concepts or metaphors. The Instarya are a proud people and…”
“And?”
Thym looked uncomfortable. Refusing to face her, the plump priest wrapped in his white asica kept his focus up the trail. “And, well…they don’t like the Miralyith.”
Like all Fhrey in Estramnadon at the time, Arion had been at the Carfreign Arena to witness the challenge. At Fenelyus’s death, the leader of the Instarya had returned to Erivan and had been awarded the right to challenge Lothian for the throne by blowing the Horn of Gylindora.
The battle had been horribly one-sided. Zephyron had come armed with sword and shield; Lothian had used the Art. It had been the first time a challenge had been fought between a Miralyith and a member of another tribe. Lothian had sought to make an example and didn’t merely beat the Instarya leader—he made the contest a spectacle.
First, Lothian enveloped himself in a shield of air, rendering Zephyron’s weapons and fighting ability useless. Next came humiliation. Using the Art, Lothian turned his opponent into a puppet. Zephyron stripped, danced, and humiliated himself before the crowd. Lothian forced the Instarya leader to crawl on all fours, bark, howl, roll in mud, and eat grass like an animal. Then the show started a long walk into darkness as Lothian began his second act by forcing Zephyron to mutilate himself. The first offense was making him bite off and swallow each of his fingers.
At that point, Arion had risked admonishment by leaving. She had only reached the rear of the arena before vomiting. Later, she heard that the “battle” had continued for another two hours and that by the end of it she hadn’t been the only one to get sick. When Lothian finally granted the Instarya death, Zephyron had become unidentifiable as a Fhrey. No wonder the Instarya didn’t embrace the Miralyith as benevolent leaders.
Coming around a bend, Arion saw another stream. It looked much the same as the first. This second branch flowed even more lazily, and with newfound confidence she remained upright as Naraspur crossed. Although it wasn’t much deeper, the current was stronger, and as the horse was climbing out the far side, one of her hooves slipped. Arion felt the odd shift of balance. A stuttering step followed, bouncing Arion harshly and tilting her to one side. The fear of a dozen warnings and tales of tragedy flashed through her mind as she reached for the horse’s mane. Naraspur, who likely had quite enough of the river’s current, chose that moment to leap the remaining distance to the far bank. Arion failed to go with her.
With a horrified cry, the tutor to the prince fell. She struck rock and river, certain her life was over. Her last thought was how it was embarrassing to die in such a fashion. A painful moment later, she realized she wasn’t dead. Her hands, hip, left knee, and elbow hurt, and she was soaked, but other than that she was fine.
Thym turned his horse and rode back, staring at her in shock.
The pain was bad, the embarrassment worse, but it was the fear the river had caused that made her angry. Standing in the water and the shadow of Mount Mador, Arion began a weave. Recognizing the signs of magic, Thym retreated, taking Naraspur with him.