Path of Honor by Diana Pharaoh Francis Page B

welcome, the humping shapes of their nesting rocks glowing white with droppings in the twilight noon.
    There was a notch in the white spume below where the waves rushed into the harbor cavern. In the bay, a few fishing trawlers tossed on the whitecaps as fishermen returned home. Above the bay, cormorants and seagulls hung still against the looming sky, their wings beating furiously against the wind. One by one they plumeted into the water, where they bobbed like corks. Liver-colored seals splashed and rolled among them, undaunted by the battering surf.
    Reisil blinked and wiped at her eyes, squinting to shield them from the lash of the wind. She scanned the waves beyond the headland spurs, but the gathering fog blocked the horizon in a ghostly wall.
    Since last evening, there had been a painful burning in her stomach. Now it churned hotter. Knowing what she did, shouldn’t she tell Sodur? What could he do? Report to Lord Marshal Vare? As if he would believe her. As if anyone did.
    But Scallacian sorcerers. Scallas had been chewing at Patverseme for years, and only the might of their wizards had held the sorcerers at bay. How could Kodu Riik defend against them? But if she said nothing, they would sail into Koduteel without warning.
    She had to tell Sodur. It was possible that he could make the Lord Marshal listen.
    If he chose to do so.
    Lady, but she was tired of not knowing what to do or how to do it!
    She needed Saljane. Her ahalad-kaaslane had a way of cutting to the heart of a problem.
    But—
    For four lonely months since she’d sent Saljane away, they had shared only limited contact, once every few days or more, and then it had been glancing, shallow. A necessary choice, Reisil thought, sure of this, if nothing else. It had saved Saljane’s life.
    Reisil’s chilled lips twisted. If Saljane’s health had improved, hers had not. With Saljane’s sudden disappearance came dozens of rumors. That the Lady had revoked Her trust in Reisil and seized Saljane. That Reisil was no longer ahalad-kaaslane . Others claimed that Saljane’s vanishment was part of her ongoing plot to destroy Kodu Riik. Or overthrow the throne. She hadn’t figured out exactly what they thought she was up to.
    Reisil sat down, poking at a pocket of wolf’s-claw moss wedged in a crease of stone. She ached to have Saljane with her again, to fly with her, to open herself to that blending, like two streams running together, flavoring each other’s thoughts, at once distinct and entwined.
    But winter storms continued to bluster through the spring. Returning to Koduteel would only mean a relapse for the goshawk, and both the healer and ahalad-kaaslane in Reisil refused to allow it. Saljane still needed the recuperative freedom of the wild. But every contact made the separation harder.
    She sat for long moments, contemplating the moss. There was no choice. She needed Saljane’s wisdom.
    Reisil knotted her fingers in her lap, pulling her thoughts to order, even as her heart danced anticipation.
    ~Saljane, where are you? Are they still there?
    The answer to Reisil’s silent query was immediate and wrenching. Her vision shifted. She grabbed the ground on either side of her thighs and shut her own eyes against the disorienting double vision of looking out of two sets of eyes at once.
    They were high in the air, circling above an inlet set in a thin bezel of rocky white sand and surrounded by steep, tree-covered ridges. They dipped and rose on the gusting wind. Saljane’s fierce pleasure wrapped around Reisil.
    ~I have missed you!
    And the words came with an eager wash of sharing: memories of hunting, soaring, eating, loneliness. Back on the cliff, Reisil savored the communication, soaking it up like water on cracked mud.
    ~I have missed you as well. But there was little time for communion. What about the ship? What about the sorcerers?
    Saljane tipped on her wing, dropping in a long spiral. ~They wait.
    Far below, a ship lay at anchor in the mouth of the