Free In Stone's Clasp by Christie Golden

talent. Altan had a good heart, if on occasion a sharp tongue, and Jareth loved him.
    To Altan’s surprise and his own, Jareth stepped forward and embraced him with a warmth and ease he had not been able to express to his own family. Slender and delicate, a willow to Jareth’s oak, Altan tentatively returned the embrace. His head against Jareth’s shoulder, he murmured, “You are always welcome in my home, Jareth. There will always be a place for you.”
    Jareth let Altan take him to his house, ate the food the boy prepared for him, and in general permitted the huskaa to think Jareth stunned, but resigned to the inevitable. It was well past the middle of the night when, reassured by the sound of regular breathing on the pallet next to him, Jareth woke and stepped quietly out of the house.
    Don’t leave me.
    Never.
    Both Taya and the earth itself had promised this; both had broken their promises.
    He was not going to grieve for his dead family. He was going to make the gods bring them—and Jareth’s other great love, his connection with the earth—back to him.
    And if the gods would not oblige, he would kill them.

6
     
     
    Kevla-sha-Tahmu sat easily atop the back of the great red Dragon who had once been a god to her people. The beat of his mighty wings created a wind that caressed her body and tousled her long black hair. She stroked his scales as they sailed over the jagged peaks of the northern mountains, savoring the smoothness against her hand, content to be exactly where she was.
    She glanced down at her hands, long-fingered but strong and callused. Here and there were the lighter-hued scars from countless nicks and cuts. She smiled a little as she regarded them and thought of how profoundly her life had changed.
    Not so very long ago, Kevla would have been more comfortable chopping vegetables, carrying water and tending to the kitchen fires than perched atop a beast out of legend. But after hardship, fear, and the agony of devastating loss, Kevla had accepted her destiny. For perhaps the first time in her brief life, she felt calm and tranquil. At peace. Free.
    Idly, she glanced down, and realized where they were heading. She frowned.
    “Dragon, why do we go this way?”
    “You must find the others,” came the Dragon’s rumbling reply. He craned his head on his long neck to look at her. “We have sensed only one thus far, and his land lies to the north.”
    Kevla closed her eyes, recalling her visionary dream. Again she saw the man who awaited their arrival, though perhaps he knew it not. Tall, fair-haired, clean-shaven. So different from Kevla’s people, with their black hair, dark eyes and brown skin. This man’s eyes were blue, and he stood on a hill covered by a white substance that seemed to resemble sand but, the Dragon had told her, was called snow. The thought of meeting this man, who seemed so strong and calm, who understood what they were both working toward, was thrilling. Kevla had borne her burdens alone for so long. She would be grateful to surrender them into his capable hands. Surely he would know what to do next.
    But still…
    “Is there not another route?” she asked. “We are flying directly over the Emperor’s land!”
    “I am not unaware of that,” the Dragon said. A wisp of smoky annoyance rose from his nostrils. “But this is the swiftest way, and time is precious.”
    So are our lives, Kevla thought. Her joy in sharing this flight with her companion ebbed, replaced by apprehension. In her heart, she knew the Dragon was right. Her dream had been tinged with urgency. Time was indeed precious. And yet…
    In her two decades of life, Kevla had learned to fear many things: poverty, ridicule, the seemingly senseless laws of her people and her own potentially lethal abilities. She had learned to fear death, and killing, and the excruciating pain of losing someone she loved more than anything in the world.
    And she had learned to fear the man known to her only as the