A Reluctant Leave-taking
One icy, pewter-coloured morning in late spring, long before sensible people were out of bed, Irenya stood in a courtyard doorway, bleary-eyed and gloomy. Beside her was Aeryl, both of them watching the orderly confusion of last-minute preparations for the journey north. Mist dampened the voices and muffled the crunch of gravel. Beyond the courtyard, horses waited, their soft snorting counterpoint to jinking harnesses. Leaving Ilkyrie in search of answers should have made Irenya chafe to be away, but she was also leaving the mirror, her only link to home. A parapet above her dripped freezing water on her head. She tugged the hood of her cloak forward and shivered.
Aeryl slid an arm around her shoulders. ‘Cold? Anxious to be gone? Or just plain anxious?’
‘All of
