Free Valdemar Anthology - [Tales of Valdemar 02] - Sun in Glory and Other Tales of Valdemar by Mercedes Lackey

dreams are worse, yes?:
    She knew that that was as much an answer that he would offer, and it made her uneasy. She said, simply, “My mother told me I was safe as long as I was in Riverend.”
    :You were safe there. But others are not.: He was silent while she gathered her things. Only when she was safe upon the height of his back did he continue. :What you dream of . . . it is true in a fashion. We are closer to it. We will draw closer still. I am . . . sorry.:
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    On the fourth day, she woke from dreaming with Darius’ muzzle in the side of her neck. She was sweating, although it was cold, and he caught the edge of her rough woolen blankets in his perfect teeth and pulled the more tightly around her.
    His eyes were dark, his gaze somber.
    â€œDarius,” she whispered, when she could speak past the rawness in the throat, “I heard bells.”
    He was silent.
    â€œNot bells like yours, not bells like the ones you’re decorated with. But . . . bells. Loud and low.”
    :I know.:
    â€œThere are no bells here, are there?”
    :No. Not on these roads; the next village is half a day’s hard riding away.:
    â€œWhat are they?”
    :You know, Kayla.:
    And she did, although she did not know how. Death bells. “Tell me?”
    He shook his head. :It is forbidden for me to tell you what they are; you will know. We will reach the capital in the next two days.:
    As he spoke, the hairs on the back of her neck rose. She thought of Riverend. Of Tessa and Evan, of Mitchell, of the Widow Davis. For no reason at all, she wanted to weep.
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    The first large town that Kayla entered seemed so vast she assumed it was the capital. Darius laughed, but his laughter was gentle enough that it reminded her of her father’s amusement at her younglings antics a lifetime ago.
    â€œBut it’s so—so— big! ”
    :It is big, yes. But . . . it is not a city. The town is large. That building, there? That houses the mayor and his family. And that, that is as close to a cathedral as you will find. But this is a tenth, a twentieth, of the size of the city you will enter when we—Kayla?:
    She sat frozen across his bare back, her legs locked so tightly her body was shuddering.
    :Kayla!:
    She could not even shake her head. Her mouth, when it opened, was too dry to form words. Darius . . .
    :Kayla, what is wrong?:
    The screaming. Can’t you hear it? The screaming.
    :Kayla! KAYLA!:
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    She was on her feet. Not his back, not his feet. She could not remember sliding from the complicated bits and pieces of baubles that announced his presence and his station so eloquently.
    The cobbled streets passed beneath her; she noticed them only because they felt so strange to her feet, so unnatural beneath open sky. The screaming was so loud she could hear no other words, although she thought she could glimpse, from the corners of her eyes, the opened mouths and shocked faces of the strangers she hurtled past, pushed through.
    She was through the doors and into the light before she realized that she had entered the cathedral; that she stood in the slanting rays of colors such as she had never seen captured in glass. A man, ghostly and regal, illuminated her and the ground upon which she stood.
    She stopped only a moment because given a choice between beauty and terror, beauty could not hold her. She knew what she heard. She knew it.
    The cathedral was an open, empty place of light and space, with benches and an altar at the end of the apse. She ran down it, boots pounding the ground, footsteps echoing in heights she would never have dreamed possible in Riverend. And she forgot to feel small, to feel humble; she knew she had to read the person whose screams were so terrible, and soon, or it would be too late.
    And she never once stopped to wonder what too late meant.
    She found him.
    It wasn’t easy; there were doors secreted in the vast stone walls, beautifully oiled and tended, that nonetheless