Free Kindred and Wings by Philippa Ballantine Page B

destroy what Ellyria Dragonsoul made.”
    A dragon, and there was only one of those that Talyn knew. It was not the dragon that worried her, as much as it was the one who had Named him. Finnbarr the Fox, who was so much more than a simple talespinner. Talyn swallowed and looked away.
    “Wahirangi CloudLord will not do as I ask,” she whispered. “He was not Named by me, and dragons are not something I know how to deal with . . .”
    “But you know how to deal with the one that Named him.” The Phage’s pale face looked even worse when it was plastered with a smile.
    Veleda made Talyn start when she spoke. Her voice was high and clear, and made every hair stand up on the once-Hunter’s skin. “The Fox is hunting for his brother, and we happen to know where he is going. She who told him is weakened greatly. The dragon and the means of the scroll’s destruction will come to you.”
    Talyn met her new master’s eyes and felt bile rise in the back of her throat. She opened her mouth and tried to find words. She wanted to rage—and not just at the Phage. She’d traded the mercurial Caisah in for the chill determination of these twisted versions of her own people. Now they would force her into contact with the one man she feared to see again.
    For an instant she considered pulling out the pistol the Caisah had given her and shooting them both then and there. However, she had seen things in the months since her change of masters that made her realize that would be pointless. Much like the tyrant, the Phage were harder to kill than that.
    It would be better to play along and see where all this was going.
    Finally, she croaked out the words she did not want to let out. “Where shall I go?”
    The blank eyes locked with hers, while the heads of the imprisoned Kindred moaned in eerie accompaniment. “You shall go to the sea. Where he was most happy.”
    The words ran her through as sharply as any sword would have. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head and backing up a step. “Not back to the sea.” It was where she’d met Finn, fallen in love with him, and lost herself. Thanks to his breaking of her control, she remembered each of those precious dangerous moments as if they had happened yesterday.
    The snarling, snapping circle of Kindred heads were suddenly silent, all watching her. It was so eerie that she suddenly wished for them to go back to their pain. The Phage watched her from cool, dark eyes. “Is the Hunter so very afraid of one little fox?”
    “I am the Hunter no longer,” she replied, half-shouting so that she showed none of her vulnerabilities, “and Finn means nothing to me.”
    At her back, Syris pawed the ground, snorting through his nose and showing how little he cared for Circe and her small minion.
    Yet it was Veleda who spoke again. “Then ride your beast to the sea, and manipulate the talespinner into destroying the scroll. He has a weakness for you that will prove useful.”
    Then, as if dismissing her, the pair of Phage turned about to slide back into the water. Talyn spoke. She was curious, after all, and had no one else to ask: “I saw something in the sky just after I retrieved the scroll . . .”
    The twin rings of Kindred flicked back, their tormented eyes burning into hers, while Circe and Veleda did not. It was an eerie effect that set Talyn’s teeth on edge. “The sky?” the child whispered under her breath.
    The former Hunter watched with trepidation as the mass of heads stilled. She was used to them twisting and turning as if they were burning. This was different; they barely moved while their eyes scanned her face. Their regard was a hefty weight to bear.
    “Yes,” she said, her heart suddenly beating hard in her chest. “A strange cloud moving with brightness, that looked like lightning, but there was no thunder and no bolt to the ground. Syris acted very strangely.”
    “There are many strange things in Conhaero,” came the reply, hissing from the mouth of the