Free Lord of the Changing Winds by Rachel Neumeier Page B

the darkness of the swift dusk. She was not, at first, quite sure why the brightness of the stars seemed so like a forewarning of danger.
    She did not at once remember where she was, or with whom. Heat surrounded her, a heavy pressure against her skin. She thought the heat should have been oppressive, but in fact it was not unpleasant. It was a little like coming in from a frosted winter morning into a kitchen, its iron stove pouring heat out into the room: The heat was overwhelming and yet comfortable.
    Then, behind her, Opailikiita shifted, tilted her great head, and bumped Kes gently with the side of her fierce eagle’s beak.
    Kes caught her breath, remembering everything in a rush: Kairaithin and the desert and the griffins, drops of blood that turned to garnets and rubies as they struck the sand, sparks of fire that scattered from beating wings and turned to gold in the air… She jerked convulsively to her feet, gasping.
    Long shadows stretched out from the red cliffs, sharp-edged black against the burning sand. The moon, high and hard as the stars, was not silver but tinted a luminescent red, like bloody glass.
    Kereskiita
, Opailikiita said. Her voice was not exactly gentle, but it curled comfortably around the borders of Kes’s mind.
    Kes jerked away from the young griffin, whirled, backed up a step and another. She was not exactly frightened—she was not frightened of Opailikiita. Of the desert, perhaps. Of, at least, finding herself still in the desert; she was frightened of that. She caught her breath and said, “I need to go home!”
    Her desire for the farm and for Tesme’s familiar voice astonished her. Kes had always been glad to get away by herself, to walk in the hills, to listen to the silence the breeze carried as it brushed through the tall grasses of the meadows. She had seldom
minded
coming home, but she had never
longed
to climb the rail fence into the lowest pasture, or to see her sister watching out the window for Kes to come home. But she longed for those things now. And Tesme would be missing her, would think—Kes could hardly imagine what her sister might think. She said again, “I need to go home!”
    Kereskiita
, the slim brown griffin said again.
Wait for Kairaithin. It would be better so.
    Kes stared at her. “Where is he?”
    The Lord of the Changing Wind is… attempting to change the course of the winds
, answered Opailikiita.
    There was a strange kind of humor to the griffin’s voice, but it was not a familiar or comfortable humor and Kes did not understand it. She looked around, trying to find the lie of country she knew in the sweep of the shadowed desert. But she could not recognize anything. If she simply walked downhill, she supposed she would eventually find the edge of the desert… if it still had an edge, which now seemed somehow a little unlikely, as though Kes had watched the whole world change to desert in her dreams. Maybe she had; she could not remember her dreams. Only darkness shot through with fire…
    Kereskiita—
said the young brown griffin.
    “My name is Kes!” Kes said, with unusual urgency, somehow doubting, in the back of her mind, that this was still true.
    Yes
, said Opailikiita.
But that is too little to call you. You should have more to your name. Kairaithin called you
kereskiita.
Shall I?
    “Well, but…
kereskiita
? What is that?”
    It would be… “fire kitten,” perhaps
, Opailikiita said after a moment. And, with unexpected delicacy,
Do you mind?
    Kes supposed she didn’t actually
mind
. She asked, “Opailikiita? That’s
kiita
, too.”
    Glittering flashes of amusement flickered all around the borders of Kes’s mind.
Yes
.
Opailikiita Sehanaka Kiistaike
, said the young griffin.
Opailikiita is my familiar name. It is… “little spark”? Something close to that. Kairaithin calls me by that name. I am his
kiinukaile.
It would be… “student,” I think. If you wish,
you
may call me Opailikiita. As you are also Kairaithin’s