Alira told the spirit of what she had seen, carefully detailing each scene and what she had assumed the blade meant by each vision.

“The last was the most obvious,” she said, sitting cross legged in the cramped cavern. She held the two Witch Knives, studying the blind blade’s empty sockets.

“Noran has the pommel stone,” she said quietly, and as she said it aloud, some of the things that Shadesorrow had read in Noran's memories seemed to open up.

“There’s none left here. They’ve been taken. She had you watching over them, but someone has figured out that they were here, what they meant, and maybe even how to use them.”

“I saw it, too,” Hrulinar breathed, awed by how he could see into the male witch's experiences. “Mara…”

“Yes,” Alira agreed and made her decision.

She tucked her blades into her belt and swung herself off the ledge, clinging to the side of the Plateau. Hrulinar's illumination, green and bright, made the cave seem like it was full of life.

“I'm going to find Therin and warn him,” she said simply. She began her descent, a much trickier thing than the climb up had been. Hrulinar rejoined her and filled her limbs enough to take the strain away.

Silently thanking him, she climbed in silence for a time, letting her jumbled thoughts and feelings spill into their shared consciousness. Finally, when they had nearly reached the bottom, she addressed the spirit again.

We agreed that we need to collect her soulstones?

Yes.

Possibly to resurrect her?

Yes.

I have a lot of questions about that. She admitted and she waited for the spirit’s scathing wit. When it didn’t come, she went on.

Will we need to provide her with a corporeal form or will she manifest one? What do we need to contain her, so that she’s not yet another danger we have to face? How do we convince her to help us and if we do, how do we trust her?

Alira swung up onto the mare’s saddle, adjusting herself. She flexed her back, much lighter without the enormous leathery wings, and rolled her shoulders. She took her waterskin out and drank deeply then nudged the mare into a slow walk.

All excellent questions. Hrulinar agreed. His continued brevity worried her and she waited a long stretch of time before addressing him again.

Do you have any answers?

The princeling sighed and Alira felt his weariness, a small wave of tiredness slowly trickling down her. She wondered if he was weary of her and her questions.

If I knew how to answer them, I’d perhaps not feel quite so lost.

She waited again, the mare picking its slow way along the overgrown southern track. If he was unable to advise her, unwilling to participate in the decision making, she would choose for herself. The humid air under the greenery filled the spaces between them, their silence aiding the feeling of separation.

Determined to find Therin, acquaint him with recent events, and decide what to do from there, she felt a restlessness well inside her. The need for action, to make progress, was terrifying. It felt like a pressure of darkness, an overbearing something at her back, urging her: faster, faster, go.

What do you think the blades were trying to tell you about the mare? Hrulinar finally said when they had nearly reached the edge of the forest. She knew his tone and groaned inwardly. He was going to make her fetch the ideas, twirling her and directing her in a spiral thought process that eventually ended up at his point.

I was hoping you’d have an idea. I truly don’t understand. He made a silent sound in her mind, one of grunted acknowledgement.

What of the image of Therin?

That one is less of a mystery to me. Alira admitted. She had come up with a theory while they had ridden in mutual silence.

Does it bother you when I’m outside? Hrulinar asked suddenly. Surprised, Alira shook her head.

Not as much as it used to. I do feel more…complete when we’re joined.

But it’s not draining you as it did? She agreed it did not and he appeared, a ghostly green image of a man walking beside the mare. He had made himself wear a cloak, the hood up, hiding his expressions. His eyes glowed green under the shade of the trees when he looked up at her.

“It isn’t the same as being in my own form,” he admitted quietly. “But it’s closer than sharing your body, which is strange. And actually quite disgusting. I can feel your hunger, your needs. It’s…awful.” He shuddered and Alira chuckled, despite herself.

“I suppose as a spirit you don’t have the physical needs.”

“Not like yours. Yours are ever-present and all consuming sometimes. The need for food, the need for sleep. How do you get anything done?” Laughing out loud now, Alira shook her head. Her silver-brown hair brushed her neck.

“So Therin,” she said, redirecting their conversation.

“Yes, share your insight,” Hrulinar suggested. His graceful stride easily kept up with the mare. She noticed that even though he could pass through the vegetation, he instinctively moved his limbs to avoid the greenery. He brushed a low branch out of his freckled face as he passed it and looked up to her, smiling politely, waiting.

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“I think that Therin either has information or a direct connection to where one of the stones may be. Perhaps the blades didn’t know how to indicate that we might have Therin discuss things with Devan.”

Hrulinar was thoughtful but she could tell he was going to poke holes in her idea.

“I don't believe the blades are capable of that much thought. I think that’s very abstract for something that isn’t truly alive.”

Alira huffed, annoyed.

“I don’t know what else it could–”

“Yes, you do. Stop thinking so human. Think directly. Think literally.” He glanced up at her and his ghostly smile annoyed her further.

“If you had ideas, why didn’t you just tell me?” She was tired of his games. “If you didn’t notice, things are dire now. She could be anywhere and you’re toying with me.”

“Focus, pet.” He put a hand on her leg and she shook him off.

“I don’t know.” She scrunched up her face. “Literally? Ok, Therin is a soulstone.” She said it to be petulant but Hrulinar’s pleasure washed across her.

“You’ve got the right idea, now hone it. Refine that idea.” She huffed again, her anger rising.

“I’m sick of this.”

“He isn’t a soulstone,” Hrulinar said, pressing her to continue.

“Fine. He’s got one, then,” she said flippantly but the spirit’s pride bloomed across her skin in prickles. “He’s got…a soulstone,” she repeated in awe.

“Clearly,” the spirit said in a voice so full of smugness that Alira felt her anger bristle, edging toward outright rage.

Mumbling something about annoying, egotistical spirits, she clenched her jaw and urged the mare into a quicker pace, forcing Hrulinar to keep up or rejoin her. She could see the crossroads ahead and time was ever marching forward.

The ride south was going to be longer than the one north, for while Alira was more desperate than before, she was cognizant of the fact that she had not slept properly in a while. She also acknowledged that her body was, in fact, in need of food. Finally, she admitted that if the mare became lame for some reason, she’d be forced to walk the remainder of the journey to Lightholde.

Hrulinar, unwilling to pace himself to her, rejoined her and the slight heaviness she had started to feel lifted. The sun was setting and they decided to make a small fire-less camp off the side of the road for her to sleep for a couple of hours.

She ate the last of the dried meat and fruit that Ohira had given her, her stomach still rumbling, and laid atop the fur-lined cloak. She had changed into one of the other shirts she had taken from Noran’s room and the thick air in the forest had dampened her skin, making the fine silk cling to her back and chest.

She was just off the main road, far enough back that she was hidden if she remained laying down. She had hobbled the horse further in the trees, allowing her a good area to graze from. She laid on her back, her hands behind her head, and watched the stars through the leaves.

Her hearing and eyesight were still super-human. The stars felt so much brighter, so much nearer now. Her connection to the world felt increased, as though she was able to understand the things she could sense much better now. Enthralled by this dreamy way of thinking, she felt her eyes slip closed, her mind an eddy of thoughts.

Hrulinar had agreed to stay vigilant, tapped into her hearing to listen for any danger. As she drifted to sleep, she felt him there inside her mind. He was fidgety, restless as she had been before the need for sleep had taken hold of her. Was he always in a state of constant need for action? What had his imprisonment atop the Plateau been like in that case?

Her dreams were strange, unlike ones she had ever had.

She was fast, speed incarnate, racing through a field of wildflowers, the joy of the sun on her fur filling her. She looked to her side and saw the doe she was racing with. Her own cloven hoofs thundered as she bound across the golden afternoon.

The afternoon faded to night, the bright sunlight fading to a blue moonlight. Still running, still racing, still the most swift being in existence, she was in a forest. It wasn’t like any she had ever seen in life, though. The trees were all spiny, the smell bright and earthy, the air cool and dark. Her paws crunched on the fallen needles and patches of snow piled where the trees did not meet. She climbed a small hill of the icy whiteness and stopped, lifted her head and let out a single, chilling howl. She shook her white and grey coat, and bared her teeth, her tongue lolling out of her mouth as she panted.

Lightning cut the sky and she was racing across the sea, invisible, no corporeal body to hinder her flight. The black waves below her churned and threw up giant hands of water to touch her. She skimmed the surface of one, feeling the water pass through her and she was suddenly below the heaving water, diving. The storm faded as she descended, the water as little a hindrance as the air had been. The dark pressed in, blinding, confining, but she dove deeper until lights bloomed in her vision, bright spots of blue and green. Creatures of fantastical nature made real in the unexplained depths of the sea.

These are not things I could imagine myself. She said lucidly. And then Hrulinar was there beside her, his form a ball of green-ish blue light.

These are my memories. He said by way of explanation.

Suddenly, it was midday and they were flying over an expanse of desert so vast it seemed endless. The blue sky was uncreased by clouds, the sun an irascible orb at their backs. The dunes below, like the waves of an untamed sea, held the ruins of some long-forgotten human endeavour. The sandstone pillars and walls were like the scuttled remains of a vast ship, the ocean of sand reclaiming the structure.

In the distance, a caravan trekked, single file, surmounting a dune. The shadows of the beasts of burden were long, the veiled humans astride them far taller than in actuality in the setting sun. Together, her and the Prince of Beasts flapped their wings, their predator’s eyes seeing the movement of small creatures far below. With a loud call, Hrulinar banked and seemed to leap further up. In the updraft of heat from the sun-gilded floor below her, she too rose higher, higher, into the blue.

The memories changed yet again and she was no longer racing. The sudden lack of movement was jarring, the stillness uncomfortable for her. Hrulinar was not beside her. Something had her in its grasp, something tight and painful, like iron bands across her shoulders, her legs, her hands. Her mouth was bound. If she concentrated hard, she could move, slowly, though her body felt weighed down and restricted.

Panic rising, she looked around her as best she could and saw she was in a good-sized bed chamber, the dull grey stones of the floor broken up by intricately woven rugs of bright jewel tones. The walls, also stone, were hung with tapestries of many different scenes. She recognized several, among them the desert scene she had just flown through. The shadows of the caravaneers were picked out in silver-flecked thread.

Moving with difficulty, she turned her body, struggling to achieve every movement. She revolved on the spot and stopped when a large bed came into view, the tall posts hung with gauzy black curtains. Inside the bed slept a figure, a young woman, her long black hair thrown across the snowy expanse of her pillow. Her pale skin was bleached pure white in the moonlight from the window.

Knowing she was dreaming, watching a memory play out, she relaxed and stopped struggling. Hrulinar seemed to loom inside her, watching the sleeping figure. It was then she felt the intense, burning love for the girl. The desire to protect, to care for, to love, to admire, to worship was so strong she felt her bound legs buckle and she fell to her knees, her head in her hands. Enraptured by this sleeping human, Alira felt Hrulinar’s personality fade to nothing.

All consuming love dried him of any thought, any free will. He existed to serve her. He lived to be of use to that woman. He would die for her. He would live only for her. If she forsake him, he would rather she kill him than abandon him. The desperate need to kiss her sleeping eyes, her fingertips, any scant part of her skin, seared him. She was perfection made human and he would love her for the rest of eternity.

Alira felt herself being slowly ejected from the human form of Hrulinar, bowing and curling into himself on the floor of that room. He looked the same as she was used to, but the tortured expression on his handsome face made him look more human. And the last image she had from Hrulinar’s memory, was of him, the most human he had ever been, prostrating on the floor of her mother’s room at the Temple of the Morinn, burning in his unnatural, passionate love.