Wings of Flame by Nancy Springer Page A

succor of the floor, but by the time she reached it, she had fainted.
    She awoke a few minutes later to find herself lying with her head in the arms of the doorkeeper and the king himself kneeling beside her, dosing her with wine. She turned her head to hide her eyes from him. But Auron placed a hand by her cheek and gently held her gaze with his.
    â€œSeda,” he said. He himself had titled her with that name now. “That was very courageous, but unnecessary. ‘Shuntali’ is not a legal term within the code of this kingship.”
    She stared, not understanding. Auron sighed and tried again. “Seda, you also are my most honored guest, the companion of my guest the prince.”
    She did not feel that she could stay on those terms. She wet her lips three times before she could reply. “Let me be his servant,” she whispered at last.
    â€œBut I have servants enough for him and for you! You both have suffered. Rest a while.”
    Her eyes, the look in them of a small, trapped animal, gave the answer. Auron saw and acceded to the need in her.
    â€œAll right,” he said. “Serve if you must, but remember that you will not be able to work your way into wholeness, Seda. You must seek for better truth.”
    He placed his other hand against her head, comfortably, almost casually, and she sat up, suddenly stronger.
    â€œThe body I can heal,” Auron told her. “I am a king of Vashti; I have that power. Suth help you with the rest. Now come and eat.”
    The stable was large, with clay-floored horse-bays for nearly fifty steeds opening onto a central courtyard. Finely sculpted spiral columns supported the red-tiled roof that overhung the stalls deeply, making them cool and shady. The brick walkway behind the columns was as tidy as the hallway in a lady’s home, each horse-bay piled deep with yellow straw, and the stone trough in each one brimming with clean water. Scores of paupers in Deva scarcely lived as well as the steeds here.
    Into this scene of equine bliss came Kyrem, scowling, his hand on Omber’s neck.
    Stable and yard swarmed with priests and would-be priests, many boys in brown robes and youths in gray, a few men in blue or red. These were not their own colors, but the hierarchical colors of their calling; they had forgone their own personhood to become priests. None of them greeted their visitor or so much as glanced at him; they busied themselves. The boys scurried about like so many brown beetles. But Kyrem had only just started to look around him when a tall man in a yellow robe stepped from the shadows of a stall and strode to meet him.
    â€œKyrem, prince of Deva, greeting,” he said, inclining his shaven head slightly, his tone gravely courteous.
    â€œAnd who might you be?” Kyrem demanded, his tone not nearly as courteous.
    â€œNasr Yamut, atarabdh, at your service.” Atarabdh meant fire-master. This priest had reached the highest rank he could hold without entirely retiring from the world into a life of meditation as did the atarashet, those beyond the fire.
    â€œI need stabling for my horse,” said Kyrem curtly. As a member of the warrior elite, he held rank above that of the priest, whose calling exempted him from the obligations of war. Or at least in Deva the rank of a warrior aristocrat was above that of a priest, even a powerful priest.
    â€œThis way,” said Nasr Yamut, seeming not at all affronted.
    A priest in a green robe and a green skullcap, two in red robes and two in blue were exercising horses in the central courtyard, leading them about by brightly colored braided ropes of cotton. The steeds pranced and skittered on their strings like so many kites, or like huge fish, Kyrem thought. They seemed almost unmanageable, but the priests never reprimanded them. As he and Omber skirted the group, Kyrem looked carefully for the first time at the sacred horses.
    â€œTheir ears are clipped!” he exclaimed aloud in