Wings of Flame Read Free Page B

scant clothing, a few weapons and their lives. Kyrem still held the long knife he had taken. He sliced a square of cloth from his trousers with it, soaked the makeshift napkin in the spring water and came and plastered it on the shuntali’s head. The cut above her eye was swollen. She reached up under the cloth and touched it, felt the stickiness of congealed blood on her fingers, felt weak and then angry at her weakness. Faintness was a girlish trait, and she was a boy, was she not?
    â€œBut what are you doing in Vashti?” she asked Kyrem sluggishly. “When folk are still roused in wrath about the war?”
    â€œI am my father’s hostage for peace. I am to take up residence with your King Auron.” Kyrem’s voice hardened. “Evidently someone does not want me to reach Avedon.”
    â€œBut who?” she asked in her soft way, and Kyrem laughed without mirth.
    â€œThat is a very apt question.”
    The men had gathered around, listening. “If you fail to arrive,” the captain said, “Auron will be able to accuse your father of breaking faith. Perhaps he will use the pretext to march.”
    â€œThen you say it is Auron himself who sets traps for us?”
    â€œKing Auron would not do that,” the girl protested, and all the men laughed.
    â€œâ€™Tis a tempting theory, Captain,” Kyrem said judiciously. “But in all fairness it ought to be said that Auron has not been one to march in the past. Also, my father seems to trust him, which is odd.”
    â€œKing Kyrillos hardly trusts anyone,” the captain wryly agreed. “Even himself.”
    â€œBut who else could it be but Auron?” a man spoke up.
    â€œFor the present, it scarcely matters,” the captain grumbled. “Here we are, half naked, our comrades slain, here in a wilderness without food or gold or gear, and three weapons among the seven of us. Yonder lad would be better off back with his family.”
    â€œI have no family,” the shuntali said.
    â€œNone?” All eyes turned on the lad. “What might your name be?” Kyrem inquired.
    â€œName?” she repeated stupidly.
    â€œYes, your name.” He smiled with genuine friendliness. “You know mine. What is yours?”
    â€œI have none,” she whispered.
    â€œNo name?” Kyrem sat down by her, dumbfounded. “But how can that be? What was it that they were calling you at the inn?”
    She could not answer, could not bring herself to say the hated word. “Shuntali, my lord,” someone else told him. “It is a sort of curse. Vashtins use it for those they consider unfit to live, beneath regard. The boy is an outcast.”
    â€œBut he is a mere slip of a lad!” Kyrem turned to the girl. “What can you have done at your age to deserve contempt?”
    She kept her eyes turned to the ground. Kyrem raised her chin with two fingers of his right hand.
    â€œAnswer,” he commanded.
    She knew she must have done something. “I was born evil,” she said, and Kyrem sighed with exasperated relief.
    â€œYou’re a bastard, then? Well, so am I. So are we all.” The men roared with laughter and nodded their agreement.
    â€œI’ll give you a name,” Kyrem said.
    Her eyes widened enormously. Everyone saw, but no one laughed anymore. Her world awaited redemption. Kyrem looked at her carefully, seeing a rather delicate boy, sensing how brashly he had trodden on ground where no man had yet gone. Holy ground or unclean, it made no difference, the risk was the same.…
    He thought frantically. The name had to be right.
    In Vashti people were named according to their place in the planets, the family, the clan, the magical chart of seven times seven correspondences. But in Deva folk took the names of things they found lovely or significant—flowers, jewels, birds, the breezes that sifted through the bristling black upland trees, the echoing mountains