Aryn was already mounting Bel bareback.
Irian disappeared into the night, inside Aryn, guiding him to the source of what he had sensed.
When Aryn slid from his mount sometime later, what he saw pacing in the moonlight was the last thing he had ever expected.
The elvish stallion was taller, broader than Bel, with larger eyes that had the uncanny, unsettling ability of glowing. It resembled a horse, the way a tame house cat resembled a wild mountain lion some faerie minx had tamed.
But this elvish steed looked very unlike the mount Aryn had seen just months earlier. His neatly groomed coat had grown long and shabby, his eyes no longer had that ‘settled’ look in them. He looked vaguely lost as he turned considering eyes Aryn’s way.
He looked…wild.
But he kept cocking his head at Aryn as the swordsman slid one leg over Bel’s head and circled the clearing, his intelligent eyes trained on the swordsman’s face, rapt and fascinated. Curious. Hungry.
And then Jaren charged in, lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl as he launched himself in a low tumble at the elvish stallion that ended with him underneath the beast, a long wicked blade drawn and ready.
His own mount went nearly wild, pawing at the air, her screams filling the night.
Aryn kicked Jaren’s wrist, hard enough, he hoped, to numb it and grabbed the elf’s ankle, hauling him out from under the stallion.
“He betrayed his mistress,” Jaren snarled, flipping to his feet, snarling at Aryn and whirling back to the stallion.
“He looks rather lost to me.” Aryn turned back to the stallion, rubbing the beast’s black face, his cheeks and neck with gentle hands, staring into the dazed, helpless eyes.
“Pretty mistress…good hands…she never came…”
The voice filled the air, echoing in their minds...and around them, clear as day.
Even Jaren stumbled back in shock from it.
Aryn recovered first, and brought the stallion’s attention back to him. “Tyriel. She was coming to you that morning. She never came, did she?”
“The elvish mounts are fantastic creatures, but none can comprehend that well.” Jaren moved again in Kilidare’s direction. “’Tis like a guard dog. And he sorely failed at his job.”
“Nevernevernevernever.”
Aryn ran his hand again down Kilidare’s cheek and slid Jaren a look. “We go to find her. The lady. The pretty lady with the good hands, your mistress.”
“Evil man, evil dark take…I scent…not see…bad taste. Bad taste—we know.”
“Evil man?” Jaren asked, stopping in his tracks. “How do you know his scent?”
“Town, demon mark…all over her. His scent, all over. He take, I feel, then pretty mistress gone.”
Jaren’s face was blank, simply stunned.
Aryn smothered a smile as he continued to stroke Kilidare, soothing the bewildered stallion.
“We will find her,” Aryn murmured soothingly as the great beast rested his head over the human’s shoulder, a huge shudder wracking him.
* * * * *
Tyriel knew the end was finally nearing.
Her heart was failing her and the thought brought her peace.
She lay wearily on the cold floor. It was cold in the dungeon, but she’d long grown used to that. If she were to feel warmth again…well, that might shock her weakening heart into stopping altogether. Not that she’d mind dying warm.
Not that she’d mind dying. At all.
“It won’t be long now,” she said to herself, her voice raspy from weeks of disuse.
Tainan might have finally forgotten her.
She hoped he had. She was tired of looking at him and remembering what life had been…before.
His guards still remembered her, but their cruelties were nothing like their master’s. She could no longer block them out as easily, but her strength was so far gone from her, it took little for her to black out.
While she shuddered to think of what they did to her in those periods of darkness, she was grateful for that escape.
Soon, she wouldn’t have to think of any of it.
Not ever again.
Soon, she’d fly free. Perhaps she’d even find her mother waiting for her. Perhaps she’d find peace.
Her heart did another skipping bump and she smiled at the feel of her own heart dying.
It didn’t hurt. She hadn’t known if there would be pain or not. With her mixed blood, it was never easy to say which trait she’d inherit.
When it came to heart ailments, it seemed the elvish in her had won out again. Her heart’s strength was merely…slipping away. Ever slowing beats and eventually she would drift into a sleep that could linger for days or weeks.
Without the treatments her people knew, she would be dead within a month. And mostly likely even those would not help. Human or elvish will made up for so much.
Tyriel had no will left. No desire left to live and suffer and fight.
There was a brush on the edges of her mind that felt oddly familiar as she drifted closer to sleep. The contact warmed her and almost stirred her to curiosity. But her exhaustion won out. Still, that presence warmed her as she slid into sleep.
For once, she didn’t feel alone.
The crashing of doors, the burning smoke didn’t faze her at all.
* * * * *
The low, sprawling house, so lavishly built, wasn’t at all what Aryn expected.
When the songs were sung of heroes heroically rescuing the Princess, it was from a towering, craggy cliff, or a cave buried deep in a jungle.
But the steed had started to liven, and purpose had returned to his eyes. The wildness had slowly leeched out of the intelligent steed over the day and half since they’d found him but now, he truly resembled the beast Aryn remembered from years past.
And he knew why.
They’d found her.
Somewhere in that stately home, Tyriel lay trapped, beaten, alone, likely thinking she’d been abandoned.
We’re coming, he thought, wishing he could send the thought winging to her.
This was where Kilidare had led them, where Aryn’s heart and soul had been guiding him. They had stumbled through a thick, obscuring fog that tasted metallic, almost poisonous, burning and stinging Aryn’s eyes.
“’Tis illusion,” Jaren said quietly from atop his mount. His dark-green eyes shifted to a paler color as power rolled through them. One hand lifted and his fingers spread, flexed, and a mist of light formed, then dissipated. “It feels deadly, but it isn’t. It’s just a protective shield. It hides something.”
The something had been this place, this house. After the light had dissipated from Jaren’s hand, the fog surrounding them had started to lift. And as they moved, it lifted ever more until they moved into a circle of free air. By midday, it was all gone. And at nightfall, they came to the edge of a clearing in the woods and that low sprawling structure came into view.
In the light of the full moon, Jaren said, “I feel her, her strength wanes.”
And the stallion near went mad, scenting her. Aryn could feel her, too.
The strategist in him would prefer a plan of sorts and he muttered just that out loud.
Jaren slid him a narrow look, his eyes gleaming like a cat’s in the dark. “As would I, swordsman. But her time runs short. I did not leave my Princess with good words between us. She is young, too young, too good a woman to die in such a place as this. And I know this scent—’tis my fault she is in there. At the time, I did not believe he would come seeking her so quickly.”