Dry land, a chance to build a fire, eat roasted slow-lizard, nibble the last crumbs of bannock-cake, to remove his rotting footwear and pluck the leeches from his legs. Turin gauged the distance as no more than an hour's slog and sighed.
"Yes."
"MY LADY?" TANAROS PAUSED, HIS fist poised to knock again, when the door was flung open. Meara.
The madling tossed her tangled hair and sized him up and down. "What brings you here, Lord General?"
"Meara," he said politely. "I'm glad to see you well. I've come to invite the Lady Cerelinde to view the moon-garden."
Her mouth stretched into a grimace. "Oh, you have, have you?"
"Meara?" A voice from another room, silvery and clear. "What is it? Does Lord Satoris summon me again?"
Tanaros shifted uncomfortably, tugging at his collar as Cerelinde entered the foyer. "My lady. Arahila's moon shines full this evening. I thought it might please you to view the garden of Darkhaven."
"At night?" Her fine brows rose a fraction.
"It is a moon-garden, my lady." A slight flush warmed his face.
"Ah." She regarded him, grave and beautiful, clad in a robe of pale blue. "So you would permit me a glimpse of sky."
"I would."
"Thank you." Cerelinde inclined her head. "I would like that."
Meara hissed through her teeth, stamping into the quarters beyond and returning with a pearl-white shawl, woven fine as gossamer. "Here," she muttered, thrusting it at Cerelinde. "You'll take a chill, Lady."
"Thank you, Meara." The Lady of the Ellylon smiled at the madling.
"Don't." She bit her lip, drawing a bead of blood, then whirled on Tanaros. "I told you it was a mistake to bring her, with all her beauty and kindness! Did you not think it would make it that much harder for the rest of us to endure ourselves?"
He blinked in perplexity, watching her storm away, doors slamming in her wake. "I thought she had taken kindly to you, my lady."
"You don't understand, do you?" Cerelinde glanced at him with pity.
"No." Tanaros shook his head, extending his arm. "I don't."
He led her through the gleaming halls of Darkhaven, acutely aware of her white fingers resting on his forearm, of the hem of her silk robe sweeping along the black marble floors. There were shadows beneath her luminous eyes, but captivity had only refined her beauty, leavening it with sorrow. Haomane's Child. The Havenguard on duty saluted as they passed, faces impassive, keeping their thoughts to themselves.
"Here, my lady." A narrow hallway, ending in a wooden door polished smooth as silk, with hinges and locks of tarnished silver. Tanaros unlocked the door and pushed it ajar, admitting a waft of subtle fragrances. He stepped back, bowing. "The garden."
Cerelinde passed him.
"Oh, Haomane!"
The mingled joy and grief in her tone made a knot in his belly. Tanaros entered the garden, closing the door carefully behind him. Only then did he dare look at her. The Lady of the Ellylon stood very still, and there were no words in the common tongue to describe her expression. The air was warm and balmy, rich with the scent of strange blossoms. Overhead, Arahila's moon hung full and bright off the left side of the Tower of Ravens, drenching the garden in silvery light.
It was very beautiful.
She hadn't expected that, Tanaros thought.
Tainted water, feeding tainted earth, saturated with the seeping ichor of Lord Satoris' wound. Such was the garden of Darkhaven, and such flowers as grew here grew nowhere else on Urulat. By daylight, they shrank. Only at night did they bloom, stretching tendrils and leaves toward the kindly light of Arahila's moon and stars, extending pale blossoms.
Cerelinde wandered, the hem of her robe leaving a dark trail where it disturbed the dewy grass. "What is this called?" She paused beneath the graceful, drooping branches of a flowering tree, its delicate blossoms, pale-pink as a bloodshot eye, weeping clear drops upon the ground.
"A mourning-tree." Tanaros watched her. "It grieves for the slain."
"And these?" She examined a vine twining round the trunk, bearing waxy, trumpet-shaped flowers that emitted a pallid glow.
"Corpse-flowers, my lady." He saw her lift her head, startled. "At the dark of the moon, they utter the cries of the dead, or so it is said."
Cerelinde shuddered, stepping back from the vines. "This is a dire beauty, General Tanaros."
"Yes," Tanaros said simply, taking her arm. Stars winked overhead like a thousand eyes as he led her to another bed, where blossoms opened like eyes underfoot, five-pointed petals streaked with pale violet. "Have you seen these?" A faint, sweet fragrance hung in the air, tantalizing. His eyes, unbidden, filled with tears.