Nicias nodded slowly. "Of course." After that, he changed the subject to one that obviously had been gnawing at him the way the attack on Urban had been at me. "Oliza, when you were taken... all your guards thought you were sleeping in the nest, and everyone from the nest thought you had gone back to the Rookery. You were abducted from the middle of Wyvern's Court." His voice was raw with guilt. "There were signs of a struggle by the statue in the market, but there were dozens of scuffles that morning and the rest of the day, once word got out about what had happened to Urban. We were so focused on minimizing those fights that it wasn't until midday that anyone even noticed you were missing. And once we found the note, half of your guard  -  including Gretchen  -  refused to search for you, saying that if you had left willingly, it wasn't their place to drag you back like a disobedient child. Others hesitated because they wanted to obey our captain.

"Actually, I have charges of mutiny and treason hanging over my head right now for blatantly ignoring Gretchen's orders and convincing others to follow me," he said,

"though your parents won't support a trial for either. Unfortunately, by the time I convinced people to look for you, the rain had washed most of the lions' tracks away. We sent out search parties by air and land and found almost nothing. We failed you."

"It sounds," I answered, "more like you were one of the ones who didn't." Nicias shook his head. "I swore to protect you, Oliza  -  not the Arami, nor the heir to the Tuuli Thea, but you.

Even if you had left Wyvern's Court willingly, I would still have been bound to protect you. And not to judge you." Reluctantly, he added, "I didn't know whether you had wanted to leave, but I didn't want to lose you either way." The trip home was long and dismal. Within a couple of days some of the serpents from my guard met up with us, but even then we were short several Wyverns. These were the only ones who had looked for me, I knew, the ones who would not let me disappear into the night. None hesitated to consider Nicias their leader; apparently he had earned the position. They watched me vigilantly, never leaving me by myself for a moment. I appreciated the security, even though I desperately wanted to walk away from the group a little and call for Betia.

None of the serpents had seen a girl by her description on their way here, and while they had seen wolves, they admitted that they couldn't have recognized Kalisa from Velyo in wolf form.

A few of the serpiente glanced quizzically at the melos

I wore, but they never asked their questions aloud, so I never had to answer them. Being surrounded by armed guards made me uneasy. In Wyvern's Court, I had rarely been guarded unless I was somewhere secluded. Never had this many been around me at one time, and never had they been so heavily armed. There had never even been an incident in Wyvern's Court in which my guard had needed to draw a weapon. Ours was not a warriors' society.

Right now, we looked like one. Any stranger who approached us would be seen as a threat, not as a visitor.

Sitting by our campfire and thinking my dark thoughts, I shuddered and felt Nicias put a hand on my shoulder. He sat beside me and stirred the fire in silence. I needed to tell him the one thing I hated to admit even to myself. He was the only person I knew who might have the power to do something about it. Softly enough, I hoped, that my other guards would not hear, I said, "Nicias, when the lions took me, they..." It hurt to face this, as if saying it would make it real. "It wasn't just the drugs that stopped me from coming home sooner. Those wore off days ago. They clipped my wings."

He tried to hide it, but there was a moment when I could see his horror, the very response I was afraid I would get from all my people.

"Is there anything you can do?" I asked. "I don't know much about falcon magic, except for how powerful it can be. There has to be a way  -  "

"I wouldn't even know how to begin," he admitted.

"I know you've been studying further since you came home. I know you have some kind of a teacher. Isn't there someone you can ask?"

"I have been studying," Nicias answered carefully, "but along very different lines. And as much as I hate to admit it, no