Transformation (Rai Kirah) by Carol Berg

Author:Carol Berg [Berg, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Roc
Published: 2000-08-01T06:00:00+00:00

We traveled three days northwest, deep into the mountains, avoiding villages, hiding in the trees when the rare traveler would pass. Aleksander could not say where was our final destination, for the map imprinted on his mind unfolded and changed itself as we traveled. I stood watch in the dark hours that we camped. In the daylight, I clung to the Prince’s back and slept. He asked how I could possibly sleep on the back of a horse, and I told him I could sleep anywhere; the trouble was the dreams. On the third day I couldn’t shake them, and Aleksander’s also seemed to get worse as we went on. Thus it was that we were both awake and unsettled at moonrise on the fourth night from Capharna, when a dark figure stepped out of the shadows and said, “Who are you who have followed the way of the gyrbeast?”

I quickly pulled the hood of my cloak down low over my face. So it had come—more quickly than I expected. Rejoicing and despair and overpowering memory all at once. The first Ezzarian I met, and not only did I know him, but he was bound to me by ties of blood and affection and grief. His name was Hoffyd. My brother-in-law.

My older sister Elen had adored the quiet scholar and lifted him from the depths of failure when she agreed to marry him. He had tried to become a Comforter, one who could touch a demon victim and allow the Aife to work through him even at a great distance, but he had too little melydda and was too shy to be sent into the world. After finding his happiness in Elen, he discovered his calling in his talent for formalizing spells and enchantments, a useful scholarly pursuit.

Hoffyd had fought beside my father and Elen on that last day, attempting to preserve an escape route for our Queen. My brave and lovely older sister had refused to leave with the other women when our last refuge was ready to fall. Elen, a red scarf in her dark hair, had been waving and smiling at me as she whirled a pikestaff ... a pitiful, primitive pikestaff ... at an armored Thrid mercenary who took her head without slowing his step. My father had fallen ten seconds later. I had wielded a sword and a knife and every skill I possessed, thinking that somehow I could turn the tide of blood that was drowning us. I had fought for twenty hours straight that day, not understanding how the Derzhi had found us so quickly, in despair because everyone within my sight was dying, and we had nowhere else to run....

Even as I barricaded the doors to that memory yet again, and calmed the shaking sickness that always accompanied it, I blessed Aleksander for making me come. I had seen my father and my sister die, but if Hoffyd yet lived, perhaps others I loved did also. Even if I was dead to

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