Then she stood outside the circle, clasped her hand around her bracelet, and let her heart cry out a wordless wail of anguish and a plea for help.
The air in her room vibrated with a single, deep tone, like the groaning of the earth in an earthquake; the floor sang a harmonic note to the air, the walls a second, the ceiling a third, the whole room humming with a four-part chord of dreadful power.
Then the blue sand exploded upward in a puff of displaced air.
She did not recognize the Elven mage who stood where the circle had been, blinking slowly at her with his amber eyes slitted against the light. His hair was as amber as his eyes; his clothing of deep black silk, a simple tunic and trews without ornamentation or embroidery of any kind. By that, she knew he was more powerful than any Elven mage she had ever yet met; only a mage of great power would be confident enough to do without the trappings of power.
"Tell me, Bird of Night," he said as calmly as if he had not appeared out of thin air in her room, so alien to his kind; as serenely as if he had not heard the tears of her heart calling. "Tell me what you need of me."
She told him in the same words that she had told Tyladen and Harperus, and it did not get any easier to bear for the retelling. He nodded and waited for her to answer his second question.
"From you, my lord, I need protection," she said. "Protection from the spells of human mages, for myself, and for the one who once wore this_"
She handed the Elf a feather, shed only yesterday from T'fyrr's wing. He took it and smoothed it between his fingers.
"A mage-musician, with wings in truth," he said, as his eyes took on the appearance of one who is gazing into the far distance. "But he is in a place that is dark to me; I cannot find him."
"I can find him," she said promptly. "But I cannot protect myself from the magics that stole him, nor can I protect him from the spells of our enemy, once I find him."
"I can," the Elven mage replied, with a lifted brow. "There is no mortal born who can set a spell that can break my protections, if those protections are set with consent."
She nodded, understanding his meaning. With consent, the mage was not limited to his own power in setting a protection; he could draw upon the strength of the spirit of the one he protected as well.
"You have mine," she promised him instantly, "and you will have his, once I reach him."
"Then I will be away," the mage replied, and as she widened her eyes in alarm, he smiled thinly. "Fear not, I do not desert you, nor shall I travel far, but I must go to a place more congenial to my kind. Your walls and metals interfere with my working. I have his feather, you have your Silver. That will be enough. When you need the protections, clasp your hand about the band of Silver, and call me." He regarded her with an unwinking gaze, and then added, "I am Fioreth."
She bowed slightly, acknowledging the fact that he had given her part of his Name, enough to call him with. It was a tremendous act of trust on the part of an Elf. He bowed in return, then the room hummed a four-fold chord of power once more, and he was gone.
Now there was only one thing left to do.
Find him.
The pain in her heart had a direction: north, and a little east. She needed to follow that_
Someone pounded at her door, and before she could answer it, the door flew open.
"Lady!" gasped one of the younger serving boys, panting with the effort of running up four flights of stairs. "Lady, there are guards at the door, and they want you! They say they have a warrant_"
"What colors are they wearing?" she asked instantly.
The boy blinked at her for a moment, obviously thinking that she was crazy. "Green and blue, but_"
"Then they aren't the High King's men; they're someone's private guards," she replied. "They can't have a warrant; they probably just have a piece of paper to wave, counting on the rest of us not to know it has to be signed and sealed. Since I'm T'fyrr's Second, they would have to have a warrant signed by Theovere directly, and he would have sent his own bodyguards. Tell Tyladen to demand the warrant and if it isn't signed and sealed with Theovere's seal, it isn't valid. That should delay them. And tell him to tell Harperus!"
Before the boy's scandalized eyes, she stripped off her skirts. "Give me your breeches!" she ordered.
"What?" he gasped.