On the Fly concludes this month. With Zephra down and Lyrio's future uncertain, Aenarii has some very important decisions to make. The complete tale will remain available here. And watch for a new serial, launching in this department next month!

On the Fly
By Bonnie Rutledge
Chapter 6

But facts are not emotion.

Maron found his master leaning out of the window.

"Pardon my saying, sir, but if you're of a mind to go jumping, can I have the month paid in advance?"

Aenarii did not reach for his purse, but he did pull back slightly, golden telescope in hand. He neither laughed nor scowled to answer the jest. "There are storm clouds to the north."

Maron noted the absence of Cathoun's mask. He scratched his thoughts for a moment over the implications before joining his employer in gazing upon the city landscape, glorious birthmark on the Empire's backside that it was. It took less than ten seconds to find the Master's point of interest. It took less than that for weariness to overcome his temper. "So you chased her off, eh?"

"With your assistance, Maron. Thank you."

Maron bowed his head and scraped at the marble windowsill, thumbnail like a pickaxe. The Master only thanked him for doing things that were questionable--stealing from the governor's coffers, relocating competitors to the river with rocks tied to their ankles, and not killing elves whenever the urge hit. Aenarii never offered gratitude for the usual offenses that come with being a servant of a Councilor. Roughing up merchants for a rollback of their profits in the market stood as standard practice. Bribery and extortion in order to push along contract negotiations boasted itself as more of an attractive feature of city economics than a blemish. The honest folk were the scandalous ones mucking up the system with their blather about fair trade and honest wages, and Maron believed they deserved every bruise they got for being a sack of sanctimonious ninnies.

The Master always used his given name, as well. "Thank you, Maron." "We cannot have the Imperial Economist seeing the real mining production reports, can we, Maron?" "You must lie to Zephra, Maron. Use your best judgment, Maron, and make her hate us."

Maron knew his place in the world--bastard Feyborn, son of a pauper, no skills save his blunt fists and ragged poetry--his lot was not fated for praise or camaraderie, yet Aenarii thanked him for doing his work. After long days of stalking the city streets, when he had his fill of citizens terrified at the sight of him, the drunken name-calling from tavern doorways, or the high-and-mighty who deigned to look through him as though he did not deserve to exist, Maron reminded himself of this unnecessary kindness and felt as much warmth of human spirit as he could stand. Luckily, sentiments passed quickly.

"Right," Maron grunted. In the distance, he could see the postman's glider bobble and soar. "Didn't take much, did it, sir? I thought Zephra would question us more. She knows we eat scrambled truth for breakfast."

Aenarii turned to him, the brutal reality of his bare features a burden to behold. "Zephra is as intelligent as she chooses to be. She chose to believe what we wanted. We should appreciate her accommodation." The Master stared out the open window arch once more, a darkly contemplative look etched into his marled features. "Perhaps, on some level, she could sense that we wanted it." Finally, he shrugged. "The truth is not always pleasant; that is why people are so comfortable with lies and masks."

"So where's yours?" Maron mumbled.

"I wanted a better view."

"Pfeh." Maron had never been one for bird-watching. Imagining Zephra and Lyrio's progress over the market square put him in the mood for a nap, one his gut argued wasn't coming. "Flying a bit low, ain't he?" Maron hunched forward as he watched the glider spit out a tiny blot of shadow that proceeded to hurtle toward the ground. "Gods, does that elf know what he's doing?"

"Steady..." the Master urged softly as he refocused his lens.

"That elf doesn't know what he's doing," Maron stated.

"At this juncture, that is a non-productive opinion."

"I don't trust the postman," Maron insisted.

"Shall I repeat myself?"

"You talked to him your bit, and maybe the elf seemed a sane fellow to you, but I am telling you again, sir--he wasn't right in the head when I picked him up at the mail office. I see where he could be a fine chump if you trusted him with something meaningless like delivering quill shavings to the dump, but you're expecting him to keep Zephra safe!"

"I listened to you, Maron, and I tested Lyrio's ability to react on the fly because of it. I gave him a trial by fire, and he passed."

"He's also heading the wrong way. Some protector. The fool cannot even find his way out of town."

Maron had dared much to speak his mind. He felt it now as the Master's glare bore into him. "Sir, I--"

Aenarii cut off any attempt at apology with a sharp wave of one hand, while he still trained the telescope on the tiny glider circling in the sky. "Have silent doubts all you like, but they are in flight. It is done... and far out of our hands." The Master squared his shoulders, collapsing the scope and resting it on the sill. "Perhaps we are the fools for whimpering at open windows when there are worries aplenty remaining on the ground."

Maron followed his employer's example and straightened. The morning's earlier frustrations gnawed at him. Maron would have liked something triumphant to report. "We've had no success, sir. The capitol building is as tight as the Magistrate's corset." The Koru Palmyrna boasted few slender attributes save his dainty wits.

Aenarii nodded gravely. "That is disappointing."

"Your strongest footmen with the cream of the militia thrown in," Maron said, shaking his head in aggravation. "The poor sods had at that building from every angle with a battering ram, and they never even touched stone. There's some shield about it, sir. A wall before the walls."

"Of course there is."

"Sir?"

"Tell me, Maron. What would be the point in stealing something, only to leave an easy opening for the rightful owners to reclaim it?"

"Bit of strategy, that. Not thick," Maron agreed, brightening slightly. "Guess that clears the Magistrate as a suspect, then." He peered expectantly at the Master, hoping for a grin. None came. "Sir, would you know who did...?"

That suggestion elicited a jagged smile. "I do not know everything, Maron. More's the pity. What I have is a bad feeling..."

"Pardon, sir, but me mum says what with the way you eat you should have had the scurvy years ago. She makes me take two spoonfuls of lemon when I visit because of it." Maron's mouth puckered into a grimace automatically at the distasteful memories.

"Your mother..." the Master began thoughtfully, causing Maron to wish he hadn't mentioned his matron. He tried not to think about it, but in the back of his mind, Maron wondered again if the reason Aenarii had not entrusted him with Zephra's journey out of the city was because he worried about his mother too much. Never mind that he couldn't fly for farting, it made Maron feel a failure as the Master's right hand.

"That reminds me," Aenarii continued. "I want you to fetch your mother and take her out of the city as well."

Surprised, Maron found himself sputtering inanely, "She won't leave without her goats!"

"Then bring her goats along. It is not that complicated, Maron. Take them to my father's estate, but make certain they stay out of his groves." The Master paused. "The goats. You mother will behave herself, I expect."

"Thank you for your generosity, my lord, but why the hell would your father take in a peasant and her herd at your leave?"

Desonir Aenarii clapped him on the shoulder then, gifting Maron with a glimmer of emotion somewhere between friendship and brotherhood. "Because he loves me. I never really thought about it that way until recently, but I have the right of it now. I spent years thinking of him as some pitiable, washed-out old coward, when in reality it wasn't that he couldn't take his Council seat back and crush me like any other young upstart who had tried before. He was not afraid. He was not beaten. He was simply a man who cared for his son more than his power. He let me win."

Aenarii closed his eyes, and Maron promptly looked away. He suspected that this private moment was more than the Master had intended to share, but it was comforting. The elder Aenarii had sacrificed to make a place for his son in the world. If the sentiment was correct, the Patronas and his mother would likely see eye to eye when they came face to face. No small feat, that.

"Go." Aenarii slapped Maron's shoulder once more in camaraderie and pushed him toward the door before turning back to the window. "Bid my father good health. Tell him... tell him that when the troubles in town settle, I would very much like to see him. With his permission--make certain to ask him that."

Maron bowed. It was an errand--an errand to benefit a woman--yet one that filled him with pride. "At your will, sir."

He did not make it out of the room. A rumbling howl began in the distance. The noise came as a shrieking thunderclap, but more massive and intense than any storm that Maron could remember. It was the sound of something dying, something immense. Out of habit, he looked to the Master for guidance. Aenarii let out a shout of alarm and scrambled for his telescope.

Maron ran back to the window at the sight of the undulating grey cloud towering in the distance. "Where is it, sir? What is it?!"

The Master frantically searched the barrier of smoke. "Beyond the market. I cannot see them, Maron! I cannot see her!"

Maron watched his employer's torment and confusion with reluctant eyes. He swallowed, feeling useless and foolish, but he regurgitated the best, lying platitude he could think of. "The elf knows what he's doing."

"The wind is picking up again, I believe. The sky has started to clear. There!" Aenarii shouted in triumph. "They are still flying! Too low for my taste, but the elf has them aloft."

"I'm sure the postman wants clean of that muck as surely as you--"

"No! No..." The Master twisted the sights on his scope desperately. "Zephra... she isn't moving."

"She is safe, sir. She has to be," Maron said, stubbornly. "We are far away. You cannot be certain of anything you see at this length."

"She is not moving, I tell you! Lyrio... he's having trouble keeping the craft steady. They're dropping--he's headed for the wreckage! What if they are crashing, Maron? I cannot see clearly!"

"I will go and see for you--" Maron mumbled.

"Damn him!"

Aenarii violently threw the telescope against the wall, charging from the room toward his private chambers. Maron picked the device up, finding the metal casing dented, but the glass miraculously unbroken. He lifted the scope's sight to his eye and clumsily turned the barrel, hunting for a sign of what had enraged the Master. He found it soon enough--the swine of a postman guiding his glider swiftly north with newfound spirit...

Alone.

The Master reappeared, swathed in a heavy hooded cloak. He had abandoned the use of gloves in favor of twisting a thick band of black leather between his fingers and around his scarred wrists as he crossed the floor, for all intents and appearances headed for the villa portico.

Maron follow him incredulously. "You're going out?"

"I must."

The Master was upset, that much Maron understood. "You've forgotten your mask. I can get it."

"I will draw less attention as a priest of Oron," Aenarii countered as he tightened his arm bindings. "You heard the calamity. Whatever happened out there, no one will question a servant of the dying."

In the last step before daylight, Maron grabbed the sleeve of the Master's cloak. "Let me go with you."

"You already have your orders."

"You haven't walked the streets in years! How will you find your way?"

Aenarii brushed him aside and began a steady jog down the smooth slate hill toward the market square, calling, "I expect I can follow the sound of suffering as well as a servant."

Maron took up his pace; he was supposed to follow, guard the Master unto death. "My duty--"

"Your duty as I grant it to you is to fetch your mother. I will have no argument on the matter. Take her to my father's as we discussed. Afterward, you will not return."

"No!" Maron feared dismissal more than punishment. A normal servant's life was one of thankless loyalty, but it was in Maron's nature to balk. "The hell I won't!"

They had reached the fringes of the market lined with ornamental linder trees. The Master stumbled to a halt as he focused on the first of their slick, twining trunks, his eyes lifting to the wiry branches brimming with slender green leaves that had yet to show signs of the season.

Aenarii slowly turned his back to the greenery and grasped Maron by the bracers for distraction. "This is your service to me, my friend. When you leave my father's house, you will track the elf."

Maron blinked back surprise at being called anyone's friend. It felt ungainly, like trying on armor two sizes too small and ungodly tight in the chest. On the heels of that revelation, the magnitude of what the Master asked sank into focus. "Gladly! By my life, he will beg for mercy and receive none. Never trust a body born with magic, that's our code, what?"

Aenarii shook him then, agony in his expression. The market had swiftly filled with confused, panicked citizens, each voice as loud as their own, and the men were jostled for their crime of standing still. "No. Not by your life, Maron. I taught Lyrio that he could rob a man of his breath in an instant. If he can abandon Zephra to ensure his own survival, you will not stand a chance if you barrel down on him, fists swinging. No, you will have to learn stealth, Maron. You will have to catch him unawares and deliver our revenge unfairly."

Maron had never delivered a blow where he could not look his target in the eye and witness their pain. He felt shame to consider anything less, but the Master--his friend--needed him. It was another strange feeling, the realization that he had a streak of honor in him. Maron had committed many crimes, but not with the guile of an assassin. But monsters recognize their own.

Maron realized this was goodbye. "No other man in Mal Nassrin would have had a Feyborn as their butler," he said awkwardly. "You let me belong somewhere. I never thanked you for that."

"You saved my life."

Maron shrugged. "You saved your own life. I got you bad healers."

He smiled then, still troubled, but a smile nonetheless. "It was enough. Go. Fetch your mother." Aenarii looked to the trees and swallowed deeply. "Strange how things change. I am going to wish you luck."

Maron took his first step away, but the specter of smoke in the distance made him pause. "You don't know what the hell you're going to find there."

Desonir Aenarii's reply was simple and certain. "I am going to find her."

And she crashed to the ground, mindless to reality.

Zephra woke on her back. The excruciating pain in her right leg told her this was not a normal morning. She gradually eased her eyes open, her gaze initially coated in a fiery crimson haze that gradually faded into a faint flickering of stars decorating her vision. She lifted one hand to her face, her arm aching in protest. She closed her lids for a minute, listened to the blood pounding doors in her ears then decided to try again.

This time, the stars were gone, replaced by a pale gray sky that reminded her of Desonir's eyes.

Zephra released a ragged groan. Between her thoughts wandering astray and her leg, she believed that she was due a self-pitying complaint or two.

With another glance at the sky, more details drifted into her view--the ruins of a building surrounded her, no wind, no glider...

No Lyrio.

Zephra began to breathe rapidly as she struggled to remember what had happened. She recalled the explosion--that terrible explosion--the screaming...

So many people screaming.

Zephra clapped her hands over her ears to block out the memory of the sound, but it remained, scoured into her brain with a throbbing roar. It was no use. She let her hands fall back to her sides, red light streaking her vision again.

But the red light was far too real. It was her hand. Blood streaked her left hand.

Zephra's thoughts now raced. If she was a different sort of woman, it might have been nice to faint into oblivion and wake up when her surroundings were more amenable. A dream. Yes, it would be splendid if this nightmare was truly hocus pocus played on her by her cruel, unwaking mind. In her heart, however, Zephra knew there would be no fainting. Oblivion already surrounded her in the form of crumbling walls and a bed of rubble.

She noticed that she rested on an incline. Zephra propped herself gingerly on one elbow, holding steady as a wave of dizziness drifted through her. No, she would not faint. Fainting was for the unimaginative.

"Lyrio?" The dust had reduced her voice to a rusty croak. She coughed, her head threatening to explode from the pressure, and she tried again in a brighter, stronger tone.

"Lyrio!"

Zephra could picture how the cloud of debris had risen from the rubble to envelop them. She could resurrect the fear of those moments, but in the last, clear images of her mind, she was flying still, floating safely within a bubble of tranquility as the wind raged about them. Lyrio had seen to that. Where was he now? What was she doing on the ground in the middle of a ruin?

Zephra leaned forward and dared to probe her head, searching for a wound. Above her right ear, she felt a tender knot in her skull that hammered angrily at her mild interference, but when she drew her fingers away, they were clean of any more blood.

It made no sense. If she was not bleeding...

The smell sank into her consciousness. The odor whispered of rank and decomposition, and Zephra bit her upper lip, terrified to look down, yet unable to resist.

Gravel laced her makeshift pallet, but in between the charred and jagged stones lay a mound of bodies, some aged to the point where the weight of her hand caused the flesh to split open like a rotten melon, some a husk of desiccated skin and others fresh with death, their clear eyes gazing back at her with mirrored horror.

Zephra lunged toward a beacon of mottled sand floor, scrambling to place a barrier of space between herself and the corpses. She screamed as her leg collapsed beneath her weight, moaning at the sight of bone poking through her skin.

"Help me! Somebody!" Her voice had shattered like her leg, and Zephra began to shake from terror. The sand seemed to shiver in sympathy.

Then a pained sound silenced her. She heard a man calling, echoing her own cries for rescue.

"Somebody! Help me!"

It was a foreign, metallic voice. It resonated as if he waited at the end of a long corridor, but Zephra lifted her gaze to find him standing not ten feet away, clawing desperately at whatever invisible demons plagued him.

Finding another survivor numbed her panic. Zephra reached out to him, latching onto any distraction that would keep her from thinking about the bodies or her own injury. "What is it? What is attacking you?!"

Abruptly, his speech solidified. For one heart-stopping second, the stranger froze, gaping at her through a hollow stare. He offered a simple, clear word. "Please."

Zephra did not blink. The world changed anyway, not in a gradual warping, but in a sudden burst of existence.

At once, the scenery surrounding her was different. The walls reconstructed in bright frescoes of peach and viridian. A roof graced by a silver candelabrum had appeared over her head, blocking the cloudy sky. The refuse of corpses had disappeared, replaced by moving bodies--a hearty crowd of ale-drinkers and their kin. Zephra found herself sitting on the wooden floor of a tavern. Before her stood a table. Around it sat a gang of gambling men, throwing dice without care. In the middle of their game stood the stranger. In the middle of their table, Zephra realized. The table was cutting him in two.

The man began to howl in a scream she recognized--the scream of the dying. The scene changed again, the walls crumbling, the bodies writhing about her as they alternated between states of decay. Some crawled to their feet, threatening to approach her, only to collapse in ravaged heaps of bowels and limbs in the next breath. All the while, the table flickered. Zephra watched with mounting hysteria as the man spasmed through each sputtering instant of his punctuated death.

She screamed uncontrollably, overwhelmed by the pulsating images surrounding her consciousness, no longer able to process their meaning. "Stop it! Stop! Please! Stop!"

No one seemed to hear. Her voice began to pull, expanding into a deep cave of sound, and she felt time stretch with it. Gone were the flickering shapes and structures, replaced by a pool of embryonic light. Zephra felt as though she was swimming through space, the air transformed into a liquid, primordial consistency that threatened to sink into her nose and mouth. The taste was rank and bitter. Zephra spat, pushing the fluid out of pressed lips, then covered them with her hands to keep from gagging as she balled her knees into her chest as the light grew darker and darker still.

The liquid spontaneously divided, splitting the world into a proper division of wind and matter. Her surroundings took on an exquisite focus--the texture of a well-worn rug beneath her, scattered with stains of ale still wet to the touch, the walls brightly papered with placards from the arena, boasting the patronage of an emperor who had died when she was still in leading strings. The voices were sweet and pure. They laughed amid music, an old standard Zephra could remember her mother singing late at night when her father had brought out the honeywine and young daughters were supposed to be asleep.

The table had solidified again. It was now covered in crisp felt with a highly polished rim, the tortured stranger mercifully absent. The gamblers leaned over their winnings with predatory eyes, the clinking of coins changing hands interspersing each roll of the dice. The air carried the scents of fresh clove and heady hashish smoke.

Zephra felt lightheaded, followed by an ache in her bones, and she realized that her own flesh was bending. Finally caught in a scene that seemed real enough to touch, she was the creature out of focus. She whimpered at the sight of her gnarled hands, her knuckles blue-veined and knotted. They smoothed before her eyes, melting into the plump, tiny fingers of a young girl. She stared at them in wonder before glancing down at her once-broken leg, now rejuvenated and considerably shorter. She was also missing her clothes.

Zephra hopped to her feet as several patrons noticed her presence, and the music broke off. Just then, the gambler at the head of the table pushed back his chair with a disgusted roar. He threw his tankard through the smoky air, aimed straight for her, his drink streaming in its wake. "Cheaters! The lot of you!"

The girlish Zephra stumbled as time tripped forward. She felt a tingle as the ghost of an ale mug sailed through her chest. Zephra crouched into a ball, and the world turned counterclockwise. The tankard became real again, continuing its flight over her head and crashing into a wall.

A fight proceeded to break out, rippling toward her from the past. Zephra limped between the memories toward the echo of the tavern door. Over her shoulder, she could see the screaming stranger had returned, tearing helplessly at the surface of the gaming table until the brawling figures knocked it on its side. Set free, the figure of the stranger collapsed into peaceful silence, joining the other corpses that sputtered in and out of existence.

One of the fighting gamblers drew a knife, embracing his opponent as he knifed them in the gut. Zephra turned away, dodging stray fragments of forgotten lives as the tavern seemed to collapse about her anew. Her leg faltered, the broken bone fracturing back into reality, and Zephra was forced to drag her body along at a crawl, now desperate to reach the outdoors.

Zephra stopped moving when the only sound she could hear was her clipped, hysterical breathing. She held it, allowing her lungs to burn as she took stock of her injuries. Head... pulsing. Leg... useless. Hands... much the same as she liked them, barring the ripped fingernails. Shoulder... Zephra grimaced as a new pain ripped through her flesh, goring her shoulder.

She investigated reluctantly, cursing as she found a wayward six-sided die embedded below her collarbone, an ebony dot winking at her from its center through the sheen of blood.

Half-snake eyes, Zephra reasoned, rolling onto her back and letting her lids drift shut, much as she had started. Half-dead, I still beat the house. Her mind spun in circles, dodging between clouds and illusions, fear and hope, until finally, her thoughts became grounded. She squirmed with discomfort against the remnants of a cobblestone path, one sharp rock poking into her spine.

Zephra sighed.

She dug her fingers around the carved die, grinding her teeth until she felt the cube pry free, then she shouted out in a mixture of tormented relief.

"Why?!"

She looked at the sky. Time passed, and the buildings began to cease their shivering. She experienced a tickle now and then, pressure against her stomach--an old man walking by, a child bouncing a ball, the hem of a woman's tunic brushing her cheek. Zephra shared an impression of them all, but each had ceased to be real.

Eventually, nothing remained. Her only company was the rubble. Alone. Waiting. She felt drained, disinclined to budge a muscle. She was in no hurry. She could be patient.

Then Zephra heard his voice.

"Can anyone hear me?! There is no need to be afraid. I only want to help you!"

It was a charming voice, gravelly and rough. It made Zephra think of desire.

She hiccupped a bubble of laughter. Perhaps she was dreaming after all, another spate of the improbable followed by the incomprehensible.

"Over here! I'm here!" She tried to shout, but failed miserably. Her throat made a wispy squeaking sound, her vocal chords raw and out of tune due to her earlier efforts.

Zephra heard running, but she couldn't place the direction. She felt tired, excruciatingly tired. That's what came from dreaming.

Zephra's eyes snapped open. She could no longer hear footsteps. The silence stabbed petulantly at her, and Zephra wondered if she was truly dead after all. Perhaps this was her penance, waiting forever in a wasteland for a man who never arrived.

A shadow fell over her face, the sweet, blissful kind that promised that promised shelter from the harsh light of the real world.

She heard him mumble something heated and low, but she could not make out the words. She looked up at him, all looming and stark concern, and she wondered that she hadn't seen it in his face before. Just his eyes were enough, filled with more than a smolder of wanting or the hint of hesitation, but a generous shimmering of genuine affection, joy, and gratitude that she was there. With that look, Zephra rather suspected that he adored her.

On that welcome note, she grinned sleepily and said, "About time. I thought you'd never get here."

And time flies...

She was alive.

Desonir did not worship the gods any longer, yet he had considered them as he trekked through the vestigial shambles of Primarch's Walk. He witnessed the crushed remains of countless citizens, young and old mercilessly piled among the shattered homes and tattered streets, and he wondered if the gods even existed.

Desonir despaired. He began to tally his steps, marking each until he found her. It seemed like an inevitable ticking--left foot, right foot, left foot--a countdown to the end, followed by a burgeoning certainty that he would have to endure what came afterward alone.

You let her go.

As Desonir stepped over the bodies of children who had born, lived and died in the span of his indulgent self-imprisonment, he believed anew in the cruelty of fate. Guilt traveled alongside him, blooming with the thought that he survived out of spite, little more than a lucky, undeserving pawn in the tide of time. He had not moved mountains to serve the people of Mal Nassrin as their Councilor; he had not moved so much as a little finger unless there was a profit in it.

You killed her when you let her go.

He tolled every step--ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-six--and he found only death and destruction. He ceased calling her name after the first handful of pleading summons remained unanswered. He became desperate to hear the timbre of any survivor's voice, craving a small token of hope to keep him moving. If someone could survive, if anyone could survive in the wreckage, that meant he still had a chance of finding her in one piece. So few had been that fortunate.

And he found her. She was alive. Desonir Aenarii felt he owed several beings high and low his apologies.

"I am sorry," he said softly, falling to his knees next to her prone form.

Desonir shook as she gazed up at him, her expression relieved and happy. He waited for her to take stock of her rescuer, to measure his scars as sins and retreat in aversion, or to bow her head reverently at his priestly guise, but Zephra only offered an irreverent grin as she chided him for being late.

Desonir decided to inspect her head for injuries first.

"Ow." His fingers were cautious as he pushed her hair aside and prodded her skull for tender places. She seemed displeased by his efforts, her expression turning suspiciously accusing. "Are you just going to poke at me gravely like I am an overcooked goose?"

The sounds of anguish began to grow as men and women ventured into the wreckage to find their homes and families destroyed. Desonir took a calming breath. Brash, incautious Zephra--leave it to her to harangue the first stranger passing by for not rescuing her properly. "You are injured," he said patiently, trying to assume the sheep-like, placating tone he recalled from his sickbed days.

She released a long-suffering sigh that trailed into a spate of shallow coughing. "I did notice. It's rather obvious."

Desonir fought back a smile. Zephra had always been tight-lipped about her relationship with the local temple, dismissing the gods as too abstract to justify personal attention when admiring rocks (preferably emerald) or bit of glass (hand-blown) suited her perfectly well as a form of appreciating their work. She had accepted his Cathoun mask as easily as any of the faithful, however, and Desonir had wondered if she had told him the full story as the weeks in his villa turned into months cloistered away from the city priests. From her scowl at his holy ministrations, he obviously needn't have worried. Zephra was not impressed by the trappings of an average servant of mercy.

His inspection paused at her collarbone. A tidy, square-shaped hole bisected the shoulder straps of her frimla. The edges were tipped in dried blood. He pushed the vest aside, baring her collarbone and found an indentation of ivory skin in a matching shape. It was an injury long-since healed, yet he had never seen the mark during his torturous hours studying every tantalizing inch of her bare flesh.

"Is this scar new?" he whispered.

"Yes," she replied huskily, then thought better of it. "No." Zephra shook her head faintly, confused. "Both, I suppose."

She grasped his hand, barring his further prompts for explanation, and pulled it closer to rest against her jaw. "Get me out of here. Please."

He judged her plaintive expression soberly. Zephra was far too friendly with strangers. It was one of her boldest faults, the way she welcomed people she barely knew with open arms, never considering the consequences until she had already stirred up trouble. Desonir chased away his non-priestly thoughts and pulled back from Zephra's touch. He stood matter-of-factly, brushing the dust from his hand bindings as he searched the landscape for nearby citizens he could requisition to aid the injured. "Your leg requires a stretcher." He moved to rifle the surrounding debris for boards that would long enough to suit his purpose.

"Come back here." Zephra shot him with a strict frown. "I want you to carry me."

"Be reasonable." He lifted the remnants of a cracked barrel and tossed it aside as too small. "You cannot be carried by one man without paining your leg more than necessary."

"You'll carry me, or I'll crawl," she threatened, her tone gaining pitch. "I won't let you keep your distance while I am carted home like some prodigal sack of potatoes by strangers." Good on her word, Desonir watched in appalled disbelief as Zephra turned onto her side and commenced dragging her injured body along the grime-laden walkway. "Are you angry with me? Is this what you want? Do you want me to crawl back, penitent?"

"Don't." Desonir scooped her into his arms, tucking her head beneath his chin as he cradled her soft body against his chest. "Don't." He rocked her soothingly as he smoothed her hair and she wept silently. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

Desonir waited for the fear to strike, the familiar sense of suffocation to inch along his skin, but it never came. He felt only her, alive and warm. He brushed his rough lips against her brow, and she made a small sound before wrapping her arms so tightly about his neck it could take an army to pry her away. Zephra could choke the life out of him; he didn't care.

He came to an unpleasant realization. "You know who I am."

"I don't need to see you to recognize you," Zephra chided. "You entered this hell for my sake, and then you dare to deceive me? That hurts more than my leg, Des."

He began to march carefully so as to not bump her injuries. "I do not want your pity."

Zephra tipped one finger under his chin, teasing the crevices of his scars with cool deliberation. "What have you ever done that deserves my pity?" she declared in a huffy tone. "Don't flatter yourself. You are the last man I would confuse for a victim, and a self-serving man at that, Councilor Aenarii."

He took her hand, gracing the inside of her palm with a lingering kiss. "That I am. My home will wait. I intend on taking you to the temple."

"But--"

"Are you going to be a miserable patient, Zephra? Warn me now, and I will scavenge earplugs as well."

She glared at him hotly for his teasing, "I will not languish about for weeks eating buttered partridge and filing my nails, waiting for my leg to heal, if that's what you are asking. I shall go mad. I swear it."

"I should have guessed."

She gave a muffled squeal before tilting her head to nuzzle delicately at his neck in between reasoning softly in his ear, "If you cared for me at all you would prop me up on pillows in my own bed and buy me a proper healer. Not one of those sticks in the mud dishing bark tea and sympathy, but a true magician."

Desonir angled his earlobe away from her ruthless persuasion tactics and let his eyes drift over her features. The portion of her brow that was not scraped was smudged in dirt and soot. Her lips boasted teeth marks and her left cheekbone hinted at the beginnings of a purplish bruise. She was perfect. "I have never used a natural-born healer, Zephra."

"But... when you were injured, surely...?"

"I was unrecognizable, and they would not accept Maron's custom. Only your so-called champions of bark tea would take a Feyborn's coin when it mattered. When I had recovered enough to make demands on my behalf, it was too late to repair all the damage."

"Oh." What she lacked in pity, Zephra made up for in knowing glances. "I expect Mary got to hit somebody for that."

"Doesn't he always?" Desonir laughed softly until he noticed a bedraggled woman climbing free of the wreckage, staring at him resentfully for his smile. The signs of life returned the closer they drew to the fringes of the damage. Here, the injured began to outnumber the dead. He considered how the temples would be overrun within hours with the needy begging for succor. "A healing mage could mend your leg and have you on your feet in a matter of days," he said thoughtfully. "Would you leave the city?"

Zephra wrinkled her forehead prettily and glowered. "You cannot expect me to barter my future--"

"If you desired it, I would go with you."

"Well!" Zephra opened her mouth as if she had a further retort, then promptly shut it again. He studied her as she calculated the worth of his offer, the brief light of pleasure that crossed her features fading as she scanned the gathering survivors. "Des, how many people died?"

"It will take a great deal of time and work before anyone will know," he replied. He followed her gaze as she watched a man limp from the remains of a modest home, a child's small form crumpled in his arms.

"Too many died," she said quietly, her thoughts somewhere faraway that he could not share.

"Yes." There was nothing else he could say.

"Who caused this? What caused this?"

"I do not know." Terrifying as his ghosts were, they were insignificant when compared to entire city streets laid to waste in a matter of minutes. "The magic I have read about, all I have seen, none of it begins to touch--"

Her voice worked into an indignant wail. "You think all those people died for the sake of magic?!"

He shrugged, at a loss to answer her. "I honestly do not know, Zephra."

Suddenly, she clapped her hand over her mouth in horror. "And Lyrio... Gods, I have not spared a thought for Lyrio since I woke. How could I not think of him?"

Silently, Desonir considered it better that she had forgotten. "What do you remember?"

"It's hazy. We were flying directly above when the explosion... implosion... whatever it was... we were high above when it happened. The ride was rough, but I believed that Lyrio could fly us out safely. Truly, there is nothing I can remember, Des. One second I was in the sky, and the next I woke up on the ground alone."

Desonir considered telling her the elf's betrayal. Zephra would choose to know if he gave her the option, but there was a dark sadness in her eyes when she nursed her private thoughts of what she had survived. He found that he hadn't the stomach to add to her burden.

"Lyrio is dead," he announced. It was a small lie. Soon enough, it would be true.

"We cannot leave," she whispered. He felt her rest her cheek over his heart. "It is your city, Des. It is our city. We cannot abandon it. We cannot hide in your villa, either, waiting for the other Councilors to call. What happened was too terrible. We cannot pretend like it does not affect us."

They had reached the market square. Desonir searched for a bench, found one in use below the linder trees, and sent its occupants scurrying with his scar-laced frown. "I do not deny that, Zephra, but we cannot help every man, woman, and child left in Mal Nassrin, either." He settled her in his lap, grimacing as she inhaled in a sharp hiss as her injured leg knocked the stone platform. "What do you expect to do? What do you expect me to do?"

"You'll think of something." She clasped his hand, squeezing his coarse fingers in a light grip. "And if you don't, the view's much better out here--we have the trees, the flowers, the sky..."

"It will be dangerous," he warned.

"We have each other," she concluded, daring him to argue with an obstinately eager look.

Desonir kissed her. He could smell honeysuckle in the air amidst the lingering smoke. A light breeze teased through the linder leaves, and a curl of her hair danced against her cheek. Temptation. Torment. "You are going to get us both killed," he murmured.

"Together? I'll take my chances." Zephra moved her lips against his jaw and grinned audaciously. "How bad could it get?"