“El,” he said, all of his heart in her name. He released her and took a step away. With deliberation, sorrow creasing his face, he placed a single booted foot into the Pall.

“I love you,” she said.

A shadow crossed his face. The light in his eyes snapped out. The body collapsed.

Elen grabbed the prince under his arms and dragged him free from the Pall. He was a dead weight, entirely limp. She staggered back, dragging him up the embankment to get him away from the shoreline.

The Pall churned into a violent whirlpool beneath the pale mist. A shadow darker than night rose like sinuous smoke out of the blanket of fog. The shadow had the sleek face and long body of a dragon, whiskered, winged, but entirely without substance. It twisted and turned as if seeking but unable to see her.

A gust of wind tore the smoky vision to pieces. It spilled back into the mist, where it thrashed as if in agony until it finally coalesced into a long, slender, winged form visible beneath the surface as glittering light. Only then did the haunt race in a tight circle, as if with a final message, and at last, with lightning swiftness, flash away out into the Pall and disappear.

65 THE DISTURBED VIPER

Elen’s legs gave out. Everything in her heart and soul fled, torn out of her.

“Your Highness!” Footsteps on the embankment above. A chaos of frantic voices.

She slumped beside the unmoving body where it sprawled along the slope.

A rough hand fell on her shoulder. “What happened? What did you do?”

“I pulled him free,” she gasped, covering her face. She couldn’t bear to look on the prince’s unconscious body, to see that dear face. Not now. It was too cruel.

The hand shook her harder. “What did you do?”

“Captain! Let her go,” said Xilsi. “Kem said the prince ordered her to attend on him. It looks like she saved his life.”

Elen had survived too many close calls not to reflexively defend herself. In a dull, numbed voice, she said, “He had a foot in the Pall. I pulled him free.”

Jirvy said, “Shouldn’t we get him inside?”

“I’ll check him for Spore first,” said Simo. “Her, too. Ipis, do it.”

The flat of a shrive-steel blade pressed against her cheek, held by the young warden. It was like bitter ice burning. It stung like the road on her feet. The viper writhed at her heart and uncoiled, desperate to free itself from her body, to seek safety elsewhere, but if the wardens saw the viper, they would cut off Elen’s head right then. Breaking into a sweat, she gritted her teeth and brought the viper up short. The struggle between her and viper went unseen by the others except as the tension in her body, the grimace on her face.