Rhianon-2. Princess of Fire and the Winged Warrior. Natalie Yacobson

hungers for magical knowledge no less than the living. Here we all die and are born to darkness. And some die before that.»

      She tried to wrest her hand from his.

      «I remember the execution,» she whispered.

      Clive stopped abruptly, and looked at her differently, not with the long, hard stare she’d received the first time, but with a look of dismay. His unexpressive eyes twisted for a moment, his lips twitched slightly, as if he wanted to say something and couldn’t. Rhianon looked closely at him, and for a moment thought she had a glimpse into his soul.

      «You’d better leave us,» Orpheus looked as if he were about to come between her and her escort. «You see, she doesn’t need a guide. She can learn a great deal more about this place herself than she can in your presence.»

      Rhianon was frightened that a furious altercation was about to break out between her two companions. Orpheus looked angry and disheveled, as if he’d just had a fight with a bunch of rivals and was ready to get into more. There was a palpable power coming from Clive. But unlike the talkative Orpheus, he was still restrained and wise. Apparently, death adds to wisdom. Rhianon had no doubt that he had survived it, and now saw the world very differently than they did. At any rate, instead of the expected quarrel, only a slight nod of the head followed. Clive let it be known that he accepted the remark and was ready to step into the shadows temporarily.

      «You shouldn’t be here,» Orpheus clutched at her shoulders as soon as Clive left them, pulling at the lush flounces of the fabric. His ethereal touch was suddenly very tangible. He hurried to lead her somewhere forward through the dark galleries, and seemed ready even to rip her off the ground and carry her in his arms. «You will die here,» he whispered, «and so will I.»

      «You think we have somewhere else to go,» she hissed at him. «Perhaps to my castle, where I would be headless and you could sit guarding my corpse or pestering other people. You’d better go and be a companion for someone who’ll really need you.»

      He didn’t even take offense at her.

      «I’m already too attached to you.»

      «Yeah, I can see that,» she grudgingly looked at the way his thin, too-long fingers wrapped around her shoulders.

      «I can hardly keep up with you anymore.»

      «That’s what parasites do when they suck on some plant. Vines in the garden or mushrooms at the roots of trees, you, like them, just need to live off someone else. On your own, you are nothing. You are zero. You are an empty space. You become more material the closer you get to me. And you think I haven’t noticed it yet.»

      «Chill out! Otherwise your breath will ignite this gallery.»

      His remark was sarcastic, but it was the right one. She tried to hold her breath. The tight corset tightening her breasts worked well for that. The fire that had matured inside her never broke free with a gasp. But Rhianon was still staring into the darkness, afraid that it was about to burst into flames.

      «To think that you’re so golden and delicate, and you’re what I’d call a fiery beauty.»

      She did not react at all to Orpheus’ remark. Sometimes even he was right. But that truth was of little use. Nothing could be changed. She was what she was and that was why they had come here now.

      «Stop dragging me along,» she snapped at him, «I can find my own way around here.»

      «Well, please,» Orpheus obediently took a step back from her. «Choose your direction. You’re the only one who can get where you want to go. After all, you were the one invited here, not me. Move at random and try not to inflame everything in the process. It’s so dangerous with you.»

      He rubbed his hands as if they were burned. He could hardly have been burned by the contact with her shoulders. Rhianon regarded his gestures condescendingly, as if they were a joke. You would have been a fine clown, she wanted to say, but she listened to herself instead of bickering. She wondered if she should just take a random route and let the magic take her where she needed to go.

      Rhianon stared down one of the branches of the wide, dark corridor, and long rows of sconces flashed on either side, as if pointing the right way. It was so reminiscent of the Milky Way. Rhianon involuntarily stared at the flickering lights in the darkness.

      And then it suddenly seemed to her that she had missed something. There should have been some other rite or ritual, a test of her abilities, an initiation and a meeting, but there was none. The road before her seemed eerily empty.

      «Why does no one greet us?» She asked Orpheus quietly.

      «You are different and your story is special,» he shrugged nonchalantly, the ringing of the stirring bells in this space seemed ghostly rather than perky. It was so unaccustomed. Rhianon felt the fire inside her. But an icy wind had blown.

      «You are allowed to walk around here alone. The others wouldn’t be allowed to do that. And you go wherever you want, though there are so many forbidden paths here.»

      «I thought the way here was forbidden in itself.»

      «But there are rules, too,» he too stared into the darkness expectantly, as if he could see something she hadn’t seen yet. «Let’s hope you don’t get hurt, my beautiful princess. After all, you are special, and so pretty. If anyone is offended by your presence in their midst, they will be silent, out of respect for the fire within you.»

      «Stop your chattering,» she paced ahead of him.

      «I’m only trying to talk sense,» Orpheus kept her at her side for several paces. Orpheus would not allow her to go more than a few paces away from him, and he would be at her side as if he were bound to her. There was really no getting away from him. But if she could bear to be around him, listening to his endless chatter was becoming unbearable.

      «All you’re going to do is make my ears hurt,» she hissed, silencing him at least for a few moments. How nice it would be if he only commented on business and kept his own considerations to himself. Shall she tell him to do that? Was he bound to her by so much sorcery as to be compelled to do her every wish? That would have to be checked sometime. For now she was more interested in the aura of the place. Rhianon went wherever it seemed to be calling her.

      The train glided smoothly behind her on the marble floor. In the silence ahead some rustling could be heard. There were hundreds of voices. They were talking and whispering, making absurd suggestions and jokes and promises, but they were all part of one big overarching silence. Perhaps she could have singled out any one of these voices just by wishing to listen to it alone, but she didn’t want to. She didn’t even want to look beneath her feet and notice in the cracks of the floor a multitude of tiny uncertain creatures, like the midget she had seen in the carriage just for a moment. Then he gave her a bow. Did this mean that she had been expected here for a long time.

      Rhianon walked down the corridor for a long time before one of the open doors caught her eye. Every door she’d seen before had been closed, but here a golden light shone through the crack. She stepped closer, and all kinds of hues flashed through it. It reminded her of a rainbow. Rhianon was about to reach out and open the door, when she remembered that the star was still clutched in her hand.

      «There is a pendant from the neck of the condemned man,» she must have said the words out loud when someone in the empty space answered her.

      «Do you want to call out to him?»

      It was not the voice of Orpheus behind her, and it was coming from somewhere above, not behind. She looked up and saw that a tiny man, just like the one she had seen in the carriage, was sitting over the doorpost. He, too, had taken off his wide-brimmed hat when she looked at him, exposing his tiny head. He would have easily fit into a thimble or a walnut shell all by himself. The creature was no bigger than a ladybug or a bug, but he acted as if he sensed his own importance. It was dressed somewhat differently than her last acquaintance. Tiny legs in gold stockings