Rhianon-3. Palace in Heaven. Natalie Yacobson

bird and could bribe her with a light flirtation. She put a finger to her lips, signaling silence. And the bird crouched on the spire and fell silent. She watched carefully as Rhianon walked away from the tent.

      The sleeping or humming warriors below the valley disturbed Rhianon only slightly. She spotted a bypass path that no one was guarding. The rather narrow path was slippery and steep, but Rhianon didn’t hesitate to follow it. She went down the mountain, taking dangerous turns and looping around a lot. The farther Rhianon went, the more grass she noticed on the side of the road. That meant the land wasn’t far away. She was getting tired of being at altitude. The view from the mountains was dizzying. It made her sick. And it was unlikely she would have dared to follow that trail if that one offered a view downhill. But the curves hid it, and Rhianon moved on without knowing where she was going. She wanted to get as far away from the tent as possible to see how well she could feel away from it.

      She stumbled a couple of times, almost falling, but she kept going down anyway. The fabric crunched, causing Rhianon to stop for a moment. Well, her inquisitiveness had ruined a beautiful dress, and it was a good thing the thorns weren’t caught in the hem. Before Rhianon could even regret the damage it had done, the shreds of fabric had already begun to repair themselves. Strands stretched to each other like living threads, connecting, weaving together. There was no need for a loom, everything was happening by itself. In a moment it was impossible to tell that anything had been damaged.

      Rhianon looked discouraged at the dress.

      “Is it magic?” A bird with a woman’s head sat on a rock beside her and grinned. “Is that what you call it?”

      “Yes, it is,” she turned away from the seductive grin. But the bird kept up.

      “That’s what people call it.”

      Rhianon turned around, though, to take another look at the seductive features. The bird flew right behind her, graceful and leisurely, keeping only a short distance.

      “What do people call you?” She asked.

      The bird thought for a moment. Her lovely features frowned in a way that was painful to look at. She obviously couldn’t remember something.

      “It is Cyrene… most of the time,” she answered at last.

      “Cyrene,” Rianon said again. “I like the sound of that.”

      And I like you, she wanted to add, at least to herself, but perhaps she didn’t have to. Their introduction had already taken place. No further words were necessary. The bird could probably guess her thoughts as easily as any other magical creature.

      “Are you going to the sea?”

      “What do you mean?” Rhiannon turned around again and almost fell over, catching the small rocks with her foot. They immediately flew down. There were more and more unusual plants at the side of the road, and sometimes they looked like dandelions or moss or junipers, but the creatures nesting in them and seemingly clinging to them immediately negated any resemblance. It seemed as if the flowers were already growing alive and moving, like inhuman bodies. They wriggled under the soles of her satin shoes and made a repulsive impression. Could it be a miniature hell, right beneath her feet.

      “This is an unusual place,” the bird remarked. “It is our place. Usually no one is allowed on this path.”

      “And me?”

      Her feathered friend raised his eyebrows involuntarily.

      “Don’t go too far away, you could get lost,” he warned her shortly.

      “What if I want to get lost?”

      “Then he’d have to come looking for you, and he’d be furious with us all. He’s awful when he’s angry. You’d better not bring him to that.”

      There was no need to question who the bird meant. Rhianon knew at once that she was being asked to somehow contain his anger, most often directed at those around her, for better or for worse. She decided to tease her escort a little.

      “What if I want to get lost with you?”

      The bird flinched sharply. Her cheeks flashed across her beautiful face, blushing brightly. It looked more like a boy’s face now. Rhianon grinned understandingly. She liked to embarrass young men and, for that matter, women, too. At court she often teased Hildegard, Conrad’s unattractive but over-gripping sister, probably in part because she guessed her secret desires. She too was silent in response, and the crimson spots on her cheeks could be interpreted as a fit of anger, but Rhianon sensed otherwise. About the creature beside her she could not exactly judge what was more masculine or feminine in it. And she couldn’t understand why it bothered her so much. After all, if she did not read the pretty head, it was only a bird: wings, claws, and plumage, and how it all attracted her. Maybe after chatting with Madael, she began to have a particular affinity for winged creatures. After all, if angels didn’t have seductive bodies, they’d be like birds themselves.