“A tail feather. See how the quill runs right down the center. You’ll learn to know the shape of any given type of feather, whether it is a tail feather, or the leading edge of the wing, or the rear edge, or a contour feather grown close to the bone . . .”

Even the precious eagle’s feather did not attract her attention. She stared as into a void.

He sighed. In the days since he’d found her, he had not touched her in any manner, fearing that even a reassuring pat might be interpreted as violence. It was so hard to tell with this young thing, caught as she was in the whirlpool of awakening and trapped as well in a deeper stream whose currents he could not fathom. Some other trap was strangling her voice. She must emerge of her own will, by her own choosing, in her own time.

Yet leisure was the one thing they did not have. Now that he—and she—were back in the Hundred, those who wished to destroy them would seek them out swiftly and without mercy. Days and months and years they had in plenty, given what they had become, and yet a measure in which to pause and breathe, they had not at all.

“We can’t stay here long,” he said.

Mindful that the molt feathers of the giant eagles were sacred to the gods, he anchored the feather within the bristling hedge of thorn trees. The gods must watch over that which they deemed sacred. Another traveler would come, and find it, or no one would.

He stood beside the shelter with the torch still blazing, his gaze turned toward the dark sea. He mused aloud, as had become his habit over the years. He was not a man who liked to be alone, but he had learned to endure solitude when he must and enjoy company when he could. Anyway, he supposed that the sound of his voice, kept low, might soothe her.

“After so many years and such an arduous journey, I expected further trials of a very different sort.” He chuckled. “So I am paid in my own coin, being given what I had hoped to avoid. Yet it did seem to me that you recognized something, that there was a spark of knowledge, a moment of trust, when we first came face-to-face in the temple of the Devourer. You gave me a question, and a decision. You asked me, ‘Who are you?’ You told me, ‘I will come with you.’ And here you are, and here I am.” He smiled, amused by his own consternation. “Aui! Now it seems you cannot speak, or will not speak. I love conversation above all things. Shelter over my head, a dram of cordial, a well-laid table, and a few cheerful companions with whom to pass the evening! I like to think of myself as a man who makes few demands, and is easy to please, and content with little enough, but I see the gods have chosen to test me in the manner meant to make it hardest for me. So it goes.”