The other lands

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Make her fly higher!" Aaden called.

"As high as she can go!" his friend Devlyn added.

"I don't make her," Mena said. "I just ask. She chooses on her own."

"I know, but she should go higher. If I were her, Id go up and up and up. I wonder how high she could go?"

As high as she wants, Aaden. As high as she wants." Mena smiled, watching her nephew's upturned, enraptured face. His mouth hung open with the unanswered question. For a moment, Mena was tempted to snatch up one of the grapes left over from their lunch and drop it on his tongue. Instead, she formed the image of rising in her mind and wished it toward the creature.

The aunt, nephew, and his friend sat on a quilted blanket that had been laid out on the short grass of the Carmelia, the massive stadium named in honor of the seventh Akaran king's wife. Around them, the flat field stretched out in all directions, running right up to the walls that hemmed the exhibition grounds. Beyond that, terraced levels of bleachers rose up, enough contoured benches to hold thousands of spectators. They were empty at the moment, though, save a few cleaners working their slow way down the aisle. These Mena barely noticed. The four Numrek guards who stood on watch were more conspicuous, spaced throughout the bleachers in an approximate square around Aaden, their special charge.

Above them, Elya soared through the air. She, of course, was what so captured the boy's attention. Seemingly in answer to Aaden's request and Mena's thought, she steadied her wings and tilted into a slow, circular flight, lifted higher on thermals of warm air.

"You'll get a stitch in your neck if you keep looking up like that," Mena said, winking at one of the three servants that stood attending them. The young woman smiled back.

Aaden showed no sign of having heard her.

Eventually, Elya was but a speck in the sky.

"She's going to disappear," Devlyn said. He was a handsome boy, slightly taller than Aaden, dark haired but with features that did not clearly mark his ethnicity.

"She won't, will she?" Aaden asked, his enthusiasm exchanged for concern. And then, as if something had just occurred to him, "Tell her to come down now."

"But you just told me to send her up! She's barely gotten started."

Mena joked with them for a time, playing with their growing anxiety. When both boys began to look truly troubled, she set an arm on Aaden's shoulder and did as he requested. She was no surer now how the communication between her and the creature worked than she had been at first. There were no rules to it, no way to explain or quantify it. She simply thought to Elya, and Elya responded. It was not words Mena used but visual images. As now: she saw the world from high above and imagined plum meting down, the contours beneath her taking shape, the outline of Acacia amid the shimmering cobalt sea, the terraced palace and the lower town and the spit of land upon which the Carmelia lay, three people waiting on a square of woven fabric. She imagined all this and knew that Elya would both think it and understand what Mena meant by it.

That was just how it seemed to work, with images and also with emotions. Elya could pick up Mena's frame of mind readily. Sometimes Mena realized what she was feeling only because of something Elya did in response to it. When Mena grew pensive, thinking about Corinn or concerned about Dariel on his mission far away, Elya might make faces at her, invite her to fly, or simply draw near and let joy radiate between, like heat from her body.

At other times Elya knew when to withdraw. When Mena and Melio were intimate, for example, Elya acted as silly as any maid making a show of embarrassment for having caught them entwined in the bedsheets. She backed away with her head low, stepping lightly on the balls of her feet. Had her skin not been hidden beneath her soft plumage, Mena reckoned she would have seen her blush. Yes, between them there was no other word for it than what she had shouted to Melio back in Talay: love. Elya had brought a new level of love into the palace. Much needed.

As the avian and reptilian and wholly unique winged being plummeted down the last few hundred feet in a headlong dive, Mena greeted her with thoughts of affection, of admiration for her beauty, and thanks for the many ways she kept Aaden enthralled. Elya fell toward them with her wings close to her body, her head stretched forward and tail straight as an arrow behind her.

Only when Aaden and Devlyn raised their arms in alarm and the three servants dove for the ground did Elya snap her wings out. The effect was immediate. The membranes of her wings billowed back, stretched taut, and filled with air. Her wings caught hold of the air so completely that all of that incredible speed vanished. She hung above them for a few seconds, and then retracted her wings, that rapid clicking as they curled and shrank to nothing but small protrusions on her back. The air within them escaped and she touched down lightly on the grass.

Aaden rushed toward her. He threw his arms around her neck and pressed his face against her plumage. For a time the boy was lost in speaking with her, a tumbling stream of words that Mena could not follow. Elya, though, cocked her head, blinked her eyes, and wrinkled her nose as if she understood everything the boy was saying and found it all most engaging.

"It's too bad Grae isn't here," Aaden said, wrenching himself away for a moment. "He would love this. If he was, would you let him fly with Elya?"

"Remember what I said. I don't command her. She could let him ride if she chose, but… I think she is very choosy." As is your mother, she almost added. She leaned toward him and nipped his nose between her fingers. "You should feel honored. You're special, and not just because you're the prince. That means nothing to her, and she likes you for what's truly inside you."

The boy took this praise as he took all praise, as if it were his due and as if it were as light as the words themselves. He climbed upon Elya and called for a servant to fetch his bow and blunted arrows. With his quiver slung over his back and the ash weapon in hand, he urged Elya into something faster than a walk. The creature was careful with him. Mena could tell by the awkward way she moved, taking care to keep him steady on her back, even though it required extra contortions of her limbs. Devlyn knew better than to ask to ride himself. He fetched his own bow and made a show of circling, an instant hunting party. Aaden shouted for Mena to join them, but she declined. She was content to sit on the blanket and watch them, to smell the salt-tinged air and hear the rhythmic concussion of the waves on the base of the seaside wall of the stadium.

Small ruminants, about the size of dogs and looking much like lanky potbellied hares, munched on the grass a little distance away. They had been brought in after Corinn chose to seed the field several years ago. They kept the grass trim, and their droppings made for a pleasantly fragrant fertilizer. At first sighting Elya they had fled in awkward, loping fright. Now they hardly took notice of her at all. At Aaden's urging, Elya pressed her body low to the ground, intent as a carnivore stalking. The grazing animals were no more afraid than hens are with a toddler in their midst. They did not love being shot with the blunted arrows, though, and Devlyn seemed particularly good at stinging their backsides.

How strange to think that just a few weeks ago Elya was not even a part of her life. That seemed impossible now. She was family. Even Corinn saw it! And, like family, Elya had affection for the boy that went beyond his personal traits. Perhaps she smelled the bond between him and Mena and offered herself to him because of it. Or maybe he was special. Mena warmed to the thought. Maybe he was. Surely, he managed to balance both his childish nature and a calm acceptance of his heredity and the role it meant lay before him. She tried to imagine Aliver having been that at ease, but he never had been. What, she wondered, did this contrast between them mean? What might the reign of King Aaden amount to?

Motion on the stairs caught her eye. Two more Numrek had arrived. They emerged from one of the tunnel mouths at a brisk pace, stopped, and scanned the field and then the bleachers. Seeing the other guards, one headed toward the chief of the guard detail, and the other walked to the other nearest Numrek. Mena watched them speak for a moment, and then she looked at Aaden and Elya, who were at the far edge of the stadium now.

There was another reason for her good mood, a secret she and Elya shared. Three days earlier, in the private courtyard that had become Elya's domain, the creature had shown Mena a clutch of four eggs. They nestled within a blanket, tucked in a basin that caught the rays of the afternoon sun and preserved the warmth in the stone. They were like no eggs Mena had ever seen before-as large as dinner plates, tapered from one thicker side down to the other, only faintly oblong, and colored by pale orange swirls against a creamy background-but there was no mistaking them.

Nor could she doubt the nervous, hovering concern in Elya's demeanor. Mena looked up from the eggs, with moisture gathering on the rims of her eyelids, to find the creature standing behind her, waiting. In the look was a mixture of so many questions. It was hopeful, proud, frightened, seeking approval, but also defiant, ready to react should anger need to be a part of her response. In her eyes were the hopes of a mother faced with the enormity of what it meant to create life. How Elya could have been pregnant or how the eggs could be fertile Mena could not explain, but she did not want to. She just welcomed it.

Or perhaps Mena saw the things she imagined she would have felt faced with evidence of her own unborn children. Either way, she formed thoughts of warmth and pride and comfort and joy in her mind and floated them toward Elya. Even now, she still felt the pulsing intimacy of the moment. She knew that the first thing she would do back in her quarters would be to return to the eggs and whisper kind things to them.

She had said nothing about it to Corinn or Aaden or anybody else except the four maids who lived and worked in her private quarters. Them she could keep nothing from, but they were loyal to her and just as smitten with Elya. They would do nothing to endanger her, which is how Mena had explained the need for secrecy. "People are quick to fear," she had said, speaking to the four young women as they huddled around the nest the evening she learned of the eggs. "Even my sister might think nightmares will be born of these eggs. Foulthings. But we who know Elya best know that there is nothing but goodness in her." She had waited for eye contact with each of the women before continuing. "These babies will be beauties. They will be blessings on the empire, if only we are brave enough to see them born into safety." They had agreed, as she knew they would.

Even so, the eggs made her think even more about journeying to Vumu. Perhaps she should take the eggs, Elya, and Melio to the archipelago. She could raise Elya's offspring there in greater seclusion. Melio would go with her. Of course he would, especially when she told him she was ready and willing to grow his child within her. She and Elya would be mothers together. And then what? Perhaps she could start the other project she had been thinking of recently: an academy of the martial arts. It would not be the same as the Marah training. She would make it something else, less about killing and more about honing the body and the mind and finding peace through mastery of skills. She would have to achieve this herself first, but she increasingly felt she might be able to, now that the wars were over and the foulthings no more.

"Princess," one of the servants asked, "will Prince Aaden be eating anything else? Or needing anything more from us?"

Mena said, "No, I don't think so. You may go back to the palace. We'll be along soon as well."

She used the impetus of the exchange to rise and stretch her legs. The newly arrived Numrek and the chief guard left their post and proceeded toward the other group of two with their long strides. Likely, Corinn was checking up on them, Mena thought. She did that often, even within the royal confines and other protected areas. Mena began to walk toward her nephew and Elya.

I'm sorry to keep secrets from you, Mena thought, but you'll see. You'll thank me later, and we really will find ways to be better, to do something with this rule of ours. Not that she thought it all through in reasoned terms, but Mena half believed that Elya could warm Corinn's heart. By the Giver, she needed that! Something had to melt that icy barrier she maintained between herself and the world. Mena had thought Grae could do it, but Corinn had rebuffed him and sent him away without explanation. Afraid, Mena thought. She's still afraid to love. It did not make much sense, but she could not help feeling that Elya, with time, would change that.

Aaden had dismounted, his stalking game seemingly forgotten. It looked, from a distance, that the two boys were performing an arm-waving drama, with an audience of one rapt creature. Without deciding to, Mena knew that sooner or later she would mention the eggs to Aaden-a slip of the tongue, perhaps, an inadvertent hint dropped in such a way that he, inquisitive as he was, would not let it go unchallenged. It would happen, and she would shrug and they would keep the secret for a time. Eventually Corinn would find out as well. She would purse her lips and ask sharp questions and fume about the dangers and then… well, then it would be fine. How wonderful it would be to have smaller versions of her flying above the island! What tales the people would tell then. A new age dawning, new creatures to announce it.

Mena was still some distance away from the trio. Glancing back, she saw that two of the Numrek had climbed onto the field and were following her. A tingling of unease climbed up her spine. She never liked having people at her back, especially not armed ones. That was nothing unusual. She brushed her fingers along the belt that snugged her tunic at the waist. Just a strip of leather. No weapon on it. That realization was another unnerving jolt, but just as quickly she brushed it away. Of course she was unarmed. She had made a point of putting down her sword when she returned to Acacia. It had been hard to do, but important because of that. Who wanted to live with a sword always in hand like another limb? Not she. She quickened her pace briefly, skipping ahead in a manner meant to keep her mirthful mood physically alive.

Elya-apparently at a signal from the prince-leaped into the air. Her wings rolled out and beat hard enough to keep her aloft a moment. Aaden lifted his bow, nocked an arrow, and drew. For a moment, it looked as if he planned to shoot her. But then he snapped around and loosed the arrow toward the sea. Elya snapped her wings down hard and bolted after it. A game of fetch, then. Watching them, Mena dropped back into a walk again.

She approached the boys from one side as four Numrek came down the stairs and approached them from the other side, and as two others closed the gap behind her. The guard in the front beckoned Aaden toward him with a hand. "Prince," he said, his Acacian thickly accented, "your mother wishes for you to come to her. Please come. I will escort you." He kept moving forward as he spoke, the others close behind him.

"Wait!" Mena called, but she was not sure why the word shot from her mouth. She was only twenty or so strides away. She had only to hurry forward and she could leave with them. Something was wrong. The guard had just done something Numrek never did. Her hand automatically went to where her sword hilt would have been. There was still no real reason to feel threatened by the prince's guards. And yet threatened was exactly what she did feel. She asked, "What are you doing? I will take them. Draw back and-"

"Please, Princess, the queen wants me to-"

That was as much as she heard. Two things happened at the same time. She realized it was that "please" that had sent her pulse racing. Numrek never were polite like that, even when serving the queen. Then a shout turned all their heads. Looking up into the heights of the stadium, a figure she recognized as Melio dashed up from one of the tunnels, armed and followed by a river of Marah, their swords unsheathed. They ran along the landing and hit the stairs at a tumbling run, leaping four and five at a time.

Mena grabbed for her sword again, and again clutched only the air. She looked back at her nephew, who was standing beside Devlyn, perplexed, his hands on his hips as if in grown-up disapproval of the Marah's strange urgency. Mena cried, "Aaden!"

He turned his head.

The chief Numrek turned back to the prince. He stepped toward him, grim faced but unhurried, a dagger slithering from his sleeve and into his hand. The motion was so muted, so in line with the matter-of-fact manner that the Numrek usually kept up around the prince, that Mena did not believe what her eyes told her. Casually, the Numrek reached down and drove the blade into Aaden's belly. He twisted it, studying the boy's face as he did, and then yanked the blade out and jabbed it into Devlyn's abdomen. The Numrek twisted the blade, then ripped it down. Devlyn's intestines tumbled onto the grass, the boy collapsing at almost the same instant.

Mena had started to run forward the moment she saw Aaden stabbed. Her strides ate up the remaining distance so that when she vaulted over Aaden and toward the Numrek she was in full sprint. The Numrek, surprised and still stooped forward with his dagger blade spilling Devlyn's insides, snapped his eyes up. The muscles in his back and shoulders and arms tensed, and had Mena been any slower, he would have caught her with an upswing of the dagger.

But such abrupt, complete Maeben fury drove her actions that she was a blur of deliberate motion. As she flew forward, she kicked her legs out to one side. She caught the Numrek's head to her chest, clamped her talons around it, and held tight as the momentum in her legs swung her around, horizontal to the ground. She felt two moments of resistance. First, the muscle of the Numrek's late reaction, and then the catch as the vertebrae in his neck reached the limit to which they could turn. They snapped.

His body was so heavy, legs planted so firmly, that Mena swung all the way around with the now dead head clutched to her chest. She let go and landed on her feet. She caught the dagger that was just then falling from the Numrek's suddenly limp grip. With her left arm she shoved him in the chest, needing to use all her force to make sure his body, with the wobbling head still attached, fell backward away from Aaden, who was now a knot on the ground, unconscious.

The others were upon her now, two with swords drawn, another swinging an ax before him, intent on killing her quickly. Mena moved faster than thought. She ducked beneath the hissing arc of the ax that was swept around by the first of them to reach her. She stooped under him and sliced the tendons at the back of his knee. The man fell roaring to one side, knocking one of his companions down and entangling another in his writhing agony. The few seconds this allowed was enough for her to scoop Aaden up with one arm, half dragging, half carrying him as she scrambled backward. He was warm and slick with blood, heavy and so very fragile at the same time. He said something, a moan or single word or a hope that Mena could not make out, but that was all.

The two Numrek shoved the wounded man away and came at her, their massive strides eating up the distance quicker than she fed it out. The one approaching from nearest the oncoming Marah said something to the others, but they stayed fixed on her. Mena changed the direction of her retreat to keep him in view as well. She did not look, but in the periphery of her vision she registered that Melio and the others were about to reach the field level. Near, but not near enough.

She feared she would have to put the boy down again to fight, but then something behind her caused the Numrek to slow. They hesitated, weapons raised defensively. Their eyes widened. One of them pointed, as if the others might not be seeing what he saw.

Then Mena understood. And she knew what to do. She dropped one shoulder and twisted her body around, throwing all her weight behind the other shoulder, which came up and around, lifting Aaden off the ground. She swung him in the crook of her arm, which she snapped taut at the exact moment to hurl him into the air. It was an awkward move, her force not entirely controlled. The boy somersaulted in the air. Only then did Mena see Elya.

She had landed at a run and was closing the last few strides with her head low to the ground. She moved with a frightening, reptilian rapidity, all sinewy snapping and writhing, her feather plumes erect and trembling, her mouth open in a rasping hiss. Her head stretched out, neck reached to receive the tumbling boy. He slid down her length and his torso smacked against her back, cradled between the nubs Mena used as a saddle. And then Elya leaped over Mena, wings snapping out and smashing down, shooting her and the prince up into the waiting sky.