Spin the Dawn(77)

A strange, wonderful contentment filled me.

Edan had been right—this journey had changed me irrevocably.

And for the first time, I stopped counting the days until it was over. Now I didn’t want it to end.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX


When I woke and saw that the world outside the cave was white, my first thought was that the clouds had fallen, so soft and satiny was the snow.

I began my descent. The climb down Rainmaker’s Peak was easier than the ascent. My enchanted shoes had dried, and with Edan’s help on the summit, I used a rope to rappel down the other side. But still it took me the better part of the day. At nightfall, Edan joined me in his hawk form. He made a glorious sight, his night-black feathers and milky-white wings gliding down. He landed neatly on my shoulder, his talons curving gently against my collarbone. I smiled at him. “Show-off.”

In his beak was a knot of wildflowers, which he dropped onto my lap.

“For me?” I asked.

Edan the hawk merely blinked. With a laugh, I put the flowers in my hair and kissed his beak. Then I readied our mounts, me riding Opal with Edan perched on my shoulder, and Rook pacing behind.

Moonlight lit our path through the mountains, so we had no difficulty traveling by night. Sometimes Edan disappeared for an hour or two. He was a predatory bird, after all, so I didn’t wonder about him. He always found his way back to me, sometimes with a spider or a snake trapped in his beak.

I touched his throat, rubbing it with my finger. “Wonder if that’ll give you indigestion tomorrow, Edan.”

It was so easy talking to his bird form that I found myself telling him about my brothers, about Finlei wanting to explore the world, and Sendo writing poems about the sea. About Baba and Keton, and my dream to become the best tailor in A’landi.

It made the time fly, and it helped me stay awake. When sunrise came, Edan flew off my shoulder and onto Rook’s back. And as the first rays of sun shone upon us, I was no longer traveling with a bird.

“Tired?” was Edan’s first word to me.

I shook my head.

He smiled, seeing the flowers tucked behind my ear; then he cleared his throat. “You accepted them.”

“Was I not supposed to?”

“A man who wishes to court a woman brings her flowers.”

I blushed. “You were a hawk. Besides, there’s no such tradition in A’landi.”

“I’m not from A’landi,” he reminded me. He cleared his throat again. “But I once served in a land where it was customary to make one’s intentions known to the object of one’s affections. I like the idea very much. And,” he said, leaning closer, “if a woman accepts a man’s flowers, it means she’s willing to be courted by him.”

A rush of warmth heated my face. “But…how could you court me?” I blurted, wanting to take the words back as soon as they came out of my mouth. “What about your oath?”

Edan looked vulnerable for once. “You told me to make up my mind, so I have,” he said softly. “It is an illusion to assume we choose whom we love. I cannot change how I feel about you. I would move the sun and the moon if it meant being with you. As for my oath…I cannot promise to break it, but I would do everything in my power to make you happy, Maia. That I can promise.”

His words stirred a want inside me. I longed to kiss him and tell him all that I felt, but I bit my tongue.

He reached for my hand. “Do you not want me to court you? Simply say the word and I’ll stop.”

I wanted him to, more than anything. Yet something held me back. I withdrew my hand and made a show of picking a snarl out of Opal’s mane so I didn’t have to look at Edan. “Where do we go now?”

Edan’s hands fell to his side. “South. To Lake Paduan.”

“That’s where we’ll find the blood of stars?”

“Indeed,” he said quietly. “It will be the hardest of the three to acquire.”

I ignored the swirls of dread curdling in my stomach. “I take it that’s a hint to start on the carpet.”

I had two bundles of yarn that Edan had bought in the Samarand Passage. The colors were poorly dyed—a washed-out blue and a dull coppery red. I began knotting the base for a rug to the dimensions Edan specified. The rest, I’d leave to my scissors.

“Why didn’t we stay on Rainmaker’s Peak?” I asked as we rode through a flat stretch of forest. “Surely the top of a mountain is the closest we’ll come to the stars.”

“You haven’t studied the Book of Songs, have you?” chided Edan gently. “In one of the odes, the Great Eulogy to Li’nan, it’s written that ‘the stars are brightest in the dark, and the dark is in the forgotten.’ We must go to the Forgotten Isles of Lapzur in Lake Paduan. The Ghost Fingers.”

“Where the god of thieves shot the stars to make them bleed,” I said. “I know the myth.”

“The myth doesn’t tell you everything.”

“And you know everything?”

“No.” He spread his palms. “But I’ve had many more years to study and learn than you. A knowledge of A’landi’s classical poetry would enrich your craft, Maia. And I think you’d appreciate its beauty, even better than I.” He tilted his head, lost in thought. “I’ll pass you my books once we reach the Autumn Palace. I only hope the servants brought them all.”