Free Kindred and Wings by Philippa Ballantine Page A

decades, for nothing. Her broken kin had known exactly the moment to strike.
    As she looked down at the scroll she held out to Circe, she also began to mull over what was in the scroll.
    The other woman’s eyes narrowed and she flinched away, not a great deal but enough for Talyn to take note of it. “You must keep hold of it, because your next task is to destroy it.”
    That comment made her spine tingle. The empathic link was indeed weak but she could sense Circe was masking whatever her true feelings were. That also was something no Vaerli would have even attempted. The joy of the link was the sheer honesty of it. The coil of unease unraveled even further in the pit of Talyn’s stomach. At her back she heard Syris stamp his hoof in an echo of that distress.
    Feeling her anger and consequently her frustration grow she tossed the scroll of parchment down at the edge of the water. “Do it yourself. Find yourself a fire and be done with it.”
    Only now the child reacted, when she pulled back her teeth and hissed at Talyn like a feral cat. Circe slid her arm around the girl and pulled her behind her.
    “You should have that taken care of,” Talyn said, managing to keep her voice flat and calm, even though her skin was almost ready to crawl right off her.
    Circe let out a little laugh. “Little Veleda is just feeling a little fragile, not quite ready for the world.” Talyn could have sworn she felt more words hovering just on the tip of Circe’s tongue: But soon. Very soon . . .
    As Circe patted the girl’s slick hair, she crooned something to her that Talyn could not understand. It did not sound pleasant or soothing to her ears, though. When she was done, she turned back to Talyn. “What you should be concerning yourself with,” she said with an eerie tilt of her head, “is that scroll and its destruction.”
    Talyn’s hands curled into fists at her side. She had heard that tone of voice many times, standing before the Caisah. It meant she had much experience keeping quiet in the face of it.
    Circe patted Veleda on the head as she went on. “It will not be easy. What is made with power cannot merely be burned or shredded.” She smiled slyly. “Surely you have not forgotten the ways of the pae atuae so quickly?”
    Word magic was the most ancient of Vaerli magics. Its use stretched back beyond the time that her people had been summoned to Conhaero. The myths had it that pae atuae had been one of the ways they had survived the great white of the Void.
    “It was never going to be my magic.” She found herself skirting the issue, even as she watched with some trepidation, the little girl emerge from behind her elder. Veleda had such a look of adult cunning on her face that Talyn feared what the pae atuae carved on her body, but hidden by her dress, might actually say. She would bet that they were twisted versions of what the real seers should have worn.
    “Even so,” Circe snapped as shadows began to twist like smoke around her shoulders, “you must know that the great words once set down are not easy to destroy. It must be in a certain time and place and by the right person. You—as a descendant of Ellyria—are the right person.”
    “And the place and time?” Talyn asked, certain she would not like the answer.
    The bunching of shapes at the Phage’s shoulder was resolving itself into the shapes of the Kindred, and the nubs around Veleda began to rise and sink like terrifying pustules. Syris was suddenly at Talyn’s back, pressing his tall shape against her and filling her nose with the scent of greenery, like fresh seaweed. The beast had no words, but he was well able to make her feel a little better knowing he was there.
    Which was a fine thing, since now the tormented heads of the Kindred were breaking free of Circe’s flesh as well and beginning their odd, horrific and yet mesmerizing dance.
    “The time and place will be of your choosing,” the Phage said finally, “because only dragon fire can