Windhaven

S'Rella sighed. "Oh, yes, a marriage of convenience, all very businesslike. There's not a speck of romance in her soul — sometimes I can hardly believe S'Rena is my daughter."

"Marissa has enough romanticism for two. How is she?"

"Oh, wandering. In love with a singer. I haven't heard from her in a month."

Evan brought in two steaming mugs of tea, his own special brew, fragrant with white blossoms, and then discreetly vanished.

"Any news from the Eyrie?" Maris asked.

"A little, but none of it good. Jamis vanished on a flight from Geer to Little Shotan. The flyers fear him lost at sea."

"Oh," Maris said, "I'm sorry. I never knew him well, but he was said to be a good flyer. His father presided over the flyers' Council, back when we adopted the academy system."

S'Rella nodded. "Lori of Varon gave birth," she continued, "but the child was sickly, and died within the week. She's distraught; Garret too, of course. And T'katin's brother was killed in a storm. He captained a trading ship, you know. They say the storm took the whole fleet. These are hard times, Maris. I've heard they are warring again on Lomarron."

"They may be warring on Thayos too, before very long," Maris said gloomily. "Don't you have any cheerful news?"

S'Rella shook her head. "The Eyrie was not a cheerful place. I got the feeling I was not terribly welcome.

One-wings never go there, but there I was, violating the last sanctuary of the flyer-born. It made them all uneasy, though Corina and a few others tried to be polite."

Maris nodded. It was an old story. Tensions between the flyers born to wings and the one-wings who had taken theirs in competition had been growing for years. Each year saw more land-bound take to the air, and the old flyer families felt more threatened. "How is Val?" she asked.

"Val is Val," S'Rella said. "Richer than ever, but otherwise he doesn't change. The last time I visited Seatooth, he was wearing a belt of linked metal. I can't imagine what it cost. He works with the Woodwingers a lot. They all look up to him. The rest of the time he spends partying in Stormtown with Athen and Damen and Ro and the rest of his one-wing cronies. I hear he's taken up with a land-bound woman on Poweet, but I don't think he's bothered to tell Cara. I tried to scold him about it, but you know how self-righteous Val can get…"

Maris smiled. "Ah, yes," she said. She sipped at her tea as S'Rella continued, the talk ranging all over Windhaven. They gossiped about other flyers, spoke of friends and family and places where they both had been, continuing a long-running, far-ranging conversation. Maris felt comfortable, happy and relaxed.

Her captivity would not last much longer — she would be walking again in a matter of days, and then she could begin to exercise and work out, to get back in flying trim— and S'Rella, her closest friend, was now beside her to remind her of her real life that waited beyond these thick walls, and to help her back into it.

A few hours later Evan joined them with plates of cheese and fruit, freshly baked herb bread and eggs scrambled with wild onions and peppers. They all sat on the big bed and ate hungrily. Conversation, or new hope, had given Maris a ravenous appetite.

The conversation turned to politics. "Will there really be war here?" S'Rella asked. "What's the cause?"

"A rock," Evan grumbled. "A rock barely a half-mile across and two miles long. It doesn't even have a name. It sits square in the Tharin Strait between Thayos and Thrane, and everyone thought it was worthless. Only now they've found iron on it. It was a party from Thrane that found the ore and began working it, and they aren't about to give up their claim, but the rock is marginally closer to Thayos than it is to Thrane, so our Landsman is trying to grab it. He sent a dozen landsguard to seize the mine, but they were beaten off, and now Thrane is fortifying the rock."

"Thayos doesn't seem to have a strong claim," S'Rella said. "Will your Landsman really go to war over it?"

Evan sighed. "I wish I thought otherwise. But the Landsman of Thayos is a belligerent man, and a greedy one. He beat Thrane once before, in a fishing dispute, and he's certain he can do it again. He'd rather kill any number of people than compromise."

"The message I was to fly to Thrane was full of threats," Maris offered. "I'm surprised war hasn't broken out already."