couldn’t see. Again and again the chimes rippled, but they sounded muffled as she grimly fought through the pain and hung on to the edge of consciousness.
Then someone struck the gong. Once. Twice.
She only heard a part of the third beat. Sweet darkness descended.
2
“She’s hurt!” Alexa Fitzwalter, once of Denver, now a Swordmarshall of Lladrana, whirled to face the Marshalls and Chevaliers.
Few were paying attention to her or the new Exotique. They were herding the newly arrived volarans out the door, the gray stallion grumbling, then taking off. People ran with unseemly haste to find their own winged companions.
The defection of the flying horses ten days ago had devastated the Chevaliers and Marshalls. A black pall of despair had filled the Castle. Calls to battle had been blessedly few—only three—but fighting without the flying horses was nearly impossible. Lladrana would be lost to the invading monsters without volarans. Dread had circled the Castle like a vulture.
They’d been desperate when they’d worked the ritual, praying the one they Summoned would somehow lure the volarans back.
A medica strode forward and crouched by the woman on the floor. Alexa turned back to watch the examination. She didn’t even know the woman’s name yet, but Alexa feared for her. She and the Marshalls had Summoned this woman from Colorado, away from Earth to this world, so Alexa was responsible for her until she made her own place on Lladrana. Biting her lip, Alexa shifted from foot to foot, grateful when her husband, Bastien, joined her.
He cocked his head, as if he listened to the mind-Song of a volaran—or many. His nostrils flared, then he grinned. He grabbed Alexa and spun her around and around, then placed her gently on her feet. Holding hands, they looked down where the medica sat next to the new Exotique, smoothing blond strands of hair away from a pale forehead.
“The volarans came back,” Bastien said. “For their Exotique.”
Alexa leaned against him in relief.
The medica said, “The Lady’s pelvis has recently been broken in three places.”
Alexa winced.
Glancing up at them, the medica said, “I suggest we all join together to do a healing spell.”
Alexa said, “I’ll call Marian, the Exotique Circlet Sorceress. She can help, too.” The community of Sorcerers had had Marian Summoned from Boulder, Colorado, just a few weeks ago.
“Good idea.” The medica hummed a slow lilting spellsong that settled the woman deeper into a healthful sleep.
Marrec watched as Lady Hallard closed the door of the healing room behind her, muting the continuous lilting of a healing Song. Hallard, the noble he swore loyalty to, ran her fingers through her hair.
He pushed from the wall where he’d stood, guarding the corridor for the last hour. “How’s it going?” he asked.
“Good,” Lady Hallard rasped. She rubbed her throat. “She might not be able to ride long hours horseback, but flying a volaran will be possible.”
“She’s the right one?”
Hallard shrugged. “Has to be, if you believe in the Song and the Marshalls’ Summoning.”
Amusement unfurled inside him, mixing with deep gratitude that his volaran had returned. He’d never prayed so hard as he had the last ten days, wanting Dark Lance back. Marrec was a poor man with only the one treasure—his volaran—to his name.
But he answered his liege-woman. “I don’t dare disbelieve in the Marshalls’ Power.”
She grunted, pulled out the gloves tucked in her belt and put them on. “Think I’ll take a late-afternoon ride—if my lady volaran will deign to do as I say.” There was irritation in Hallard’s tone. Like all the rest of them, they’d thought of the flying horses as their property. They’d never been so shocked in their lives as when the volarans—even those born and bred in noble stables—had all deserted to the wild herds and the legendary Volaran Valley. It had never happened before.
All the Chevaliers—and the Marshalls—would be uneasy for some time.
Looking at him from under lowered brows, Hallard said, “You’re one of those who can hear and talk with the volarans mentally, right?”
He kept an easy smile on his face, though all the muscles of his body had tensed. Now that their special gift was known, those like him could be either prized or destroyed by the rest of the Chevaliers, and everyone knew it. A delicate situation. A balancing act. He ducked his head. “Yes, my lady.”
“Huh. Your volaran say anything to you?”
“No.”
“I asked Bastien, he says they aren’t talkin’ to him, either. Says they want to talk to the new Exotique first.”
Marrec lifted and dropped a shoulder. “Bastien’s the best with the winged steeds.”
Without another word, the Lady strode away. Marrec exhaled a sigh and rubbed his forehead. Lady Hallard was rich, had six volarans and fifty Chevaliers who’d sworn fealty to her.
He had one volaran, Dark Lance, that he couldn’t even consider his anymore. He shuddered. He wasn’t getting any younger. Time to seriously think about making his fortune, taking risks on the battlefield for booty. He’d have to give the Lady thirty percent of what he earned, but somehow he must come up with a stake to buy a small parcel of land where he could retire and ranch. He didn’t want to spend his older days as a pensioner in Lady Hallard’s castle. If he lived that long.
The Chevaliers were hoping that the new Exotique would participate in a Choosing and Bonding ritual for a mate. Marrec hoped, too, that she might choose him.
Fast footsteps approached. Marrec moved to stand in front of the door, listening to the stride. A tall man, rich because he had good, hard leather for the heels and soles of his boots. Arrogant. Probably a nobleman.
Even before the man turned the corner so Marrec could see him, Marrec sensed it was Faucon Creusse. A nobleman with many Chevaliers, wealthier than most Marshalls, and nearly of equal status. Attractive to the ladies.
Faucon glanced at the door behind Marrec, probably didn’t even notice Marrec.
Faucon would want the woman. Marrec had heard that Faucon was one of those men who was innately drawn to Exotiques. Something in their mental Song or their strangeness or even their otherworldly scent, drew Faucon like light drew moths. He’d sniffed around Alexa until Bastien, and Bastien’s brother, Luthan, had interfered.
He’d met the Circlet Sorceress Marian and given her expensive gifts. Marrec had heard the nobleman had become close friends with the Lladranan-Who-Was-Now-Exotique, Marian’s brother, the Chevalier Koz who had a Lladranan body and Exotique mind.
The new female Exotique behind the door had been expressly Summoned for the Chevaliers, would bond better with the knights than any other segment of Lladranan society. All the more exciting for Faucon. Yes, he’d want her.
Any
