"I don't think Rikash is coming back for a while," Numair said, instead of trying to invent a rather awkward greeting. Daine raised her eyebrows at him, and the man explained, "If he wasn't an immortal I would say that he was throwing a tantrum."

"He showed you how to watch me." The girl said simply, hunting the trail for the bow which she had dropped when she disappeared. A wan smile crossed her face as she crouched down and picked the long weapon out of a puddle. "I knew he would eventually, but he prob'ly thinks I'll hex him for it."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to spy on you." He stumbled over the words, which he had practiced in his mind so often that they no longer made any sense. Daine considered him for a moment, and then wiped dirt from the bow onto the edge of her tunic and chewed her lip thoughtfully.

"Why do you think you're here?" She asked, finally. Numair blinked and opened his hands in a vague gesture.

"Ozorne is…"

"Oh, Ozorne." She said dismissively, and shook her head. "None of this is about that monster. The higher gods don't give a fig for Ozorne and his blustering. They're worried about Chaos."

"Then that's why I'm here." Numair shrugged and risked a smile. "Either way, killing Ozorne is a good start, right?"

"You make it sound so easy! He's possessed by a goddess whose magic can make loving mothers strangle their children in their sleep." Daine's voice was flat, but there was a harshness in it that made her raise her fingers to her lips as if she had misspoken. "How are you planning on beating that kind of power?"

He fell silent for a long time, and Daine beckoned for him to start walking down the trail again. Hoisting his bag onto his shoulder, the man thought about everything which had happened since daybreak. He hadn't really thought about himself so far; he had been amused by the idea of Daine being his patron goddess, but the actual meaning behind that connection hadn't meant very much. He had assumed that she was a shapeshifter goddess, or some kind of huntress, which made sense if they were on a divine mission to hunt down a mortal shapeshifter. It would fall within her power to summon somebody for that reason.

But now that he had spied on her and knew what kind of power she was responsible for, he found a small shred of fear beginning to squirm in his stomach. She hadn't been angry that he had spied on her. She had known that he was watching, but she hadn't asked him what he had seen. Her companion was a creature that danced through carrion, and her domain was as full of darkness and death as the Hag, who she answered to.

Rikash had nearly shouted it at him, hadn't he? She was the patron of the helpless. He had crowed the words in a voice which mixed mockery and pity. She can only be with them, and comfort them, until it's all over.

She had wanted Numair to know that. She had wanted him to see.

"Daine," He choked, and in his confusion he stumbled on the uneven ground. When he righted himself and caught his breath he saw her watching him with level eyes. There was a darkness in her eyes which he didn't recognise. She could see that now, finally, he understood. She bit her lip and took half a step forwards, and then stopped short and wrapped her arms around her stomach.

"All we can do is keep fighting." She whispered, and her voice held a pleading hope which made him want to vomit. "They set this in motion because they needed a diversion, but maybe we really can kill him. Mortals can change the paths of the gods sometimes, if… if they…"

He shook his head and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, forcing the dancing pain away from his stomach and sinking his nails into his palms. She was the patron god of the helpless, and the gods had chosen her for a hopeless task. He had been brought here to fail. He had been brought here to die.

"They want you to succeed." Daine was saying, her voice harsh and tearful. "They say it's impossible but we all know that a mortal can challenge the fates. I know… I hoped…"

"Please," He gasped, and wrenched his head up to shake it wildly. "Daine, why did you have to choose me?"

"I didn't." She swallowed and took a step back, spreading her hands wide. "You did."

He looked up in horror, and saw that she wasn't lying. Her words were utterly incomprehensible to him. She steeled herself and took a step forwards, taking his shoulders and gently pushing him down to sit on the dusty ground. For the first time she didn't immediately take her hands away, but he could feel her fingers twitching even through the fabric as she fought off her dislike of human contact. Her voice was soft as she explained.

"You were the first person who called out for me. The only one who loved me. And I… I heard you. I answered. I'm so sorry."

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and stared at the tears on his skin. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I couldn't." She shuddered and for a moment looked as nauseous as the man felt. "I knew you'd hate me for it. I couldn't bear it. I thought… if I made you hate me first, then maybe it wouldn't hurt you so much to think I'd…" she stopped talking abruptly and shook her head. Thick, cloying guilt ran through every word. "Knowing you're going to die is far worse than actually dying. I only had a few minutes of it. My poison will take weeks to kill you."

"Don't you dare." Numair rounded on her with sudden anger. "This is nothing like what he did to you."

She flinched and pulled away, putting on her habitual coldness like a winter cloak. "I meant to tell you when you had days left, not weeks. Rikash wasn't supposed to tell you anything until we got to the caves. I should have fused his wings together."

"Go on then. Go and find him!" The man said, still furious. "I'm sure he's just dying to know how this little scene played out. The only reason I know he's not hiding in the trees is because I know he'd be laughing himself sick right now. Go and tell him to go to Chaos, along with all your other friends!"

The girl scowled, and Numair found himself rooting on the ground for a clump of earth to throw at her, to break through that icy expression which seemed to mock him. He had condemned himself with the love he had felt for her, was that her story? He didn't believe it for a second. He blindly threw torn grass and mud until his hands bled, shouting at her to leave him alone, and when he raised his eyes to the trail she was gone.

Daine watched him bury his head in his hands through the veil of invisibility which she had cast. Her heart seemed to grow far too large for her chest, and she could hear it thudding in her ears. Surely he would be able to hear it! But for now, Numair's mind was firmly fixed on other things. She watched him for a few more minutes, making sure that there was nothing nearby that could hurt him, and then she shook the clods of dirt from her feet and made her silent way along the trail.

It was difficult to find Rikash, but not impossible. Unlike Numair, she had no link to the immortal that she could follow. Instead, she trusted in her years of trail craft and, when there were no broken branches to follow, she asked passing animal gods which way the stormwing had gone. They all answered with a different kind of disdain, pointing North or South or West with barely concealed loathing. Rikash had been loud, and had torn through flocks of birds and fragile nests as he had swept through the forest. Nobody had missed him. It was almost, the gods said snidely, as if he wanted someone to know where he was going.

Daine thanked them quietly and kept walking. She moved quickly, not because she wanted to see the immortal, but because every step made her aching heart close up a little more. She was sure that she wouldn't be able to stop herself from screaming if she didn't speak to somebody soon. Rikash was about as sympathetic as a rock, but at least he wouldn't throw things at her. The memory of Numair blindly lashing out made her throat ache, and she bit the back of her hand to stop herself from weeping.

Rikash was lounging in a clearing, taking the weight off his claws by laying back against a slanting rock. He took one look at her and his thin mouth split into a smile. "Looks like the little godling finally told the goat that he was going to be sacrificed!"

"You are such an ass!" Daine cried, and burst into tears. Running blindly across the clearing, she beat against the surprised immortal's chest with her fist and sobbed out every word, words like hate and idiot and fault, until even they failed her and all she could do was cry. Burying her face into Rikash's shoulder, she wept until her chest hitched with painful sobs. It was only when she tried to push herself away that she felt a strange weight on her shoulders, and realised that the stormwing had wrapped both of his wings around her back and was holding her tightly. His feathers lay flat against her skin, but they held a living warmth which surprised her. She had imagined the harsh coldness of dead steel. The cool pressure was strangely comforting.

"I made a clean spot on your shoulder." She mumbled, suddenly feeling ashamed of her tears. He laughed, and she could hear the same odd embarrassed note in his voice. Clearing his throat, the stormwing made an obvious effort to return to his normal sardonic tone.

"I'll get fat if you keep wailing like that around me." He sniffed, making a show of it. "Although I've never had a taste for women's weeping."

"You could have pushed me away." She retorted, but her head hurt and there wasn't much energy in it. She raised her head a little and moved her hand away from his shoulder to gesture to his wing. "You could let me go."

"I could." He agreed, but he didn't move. Daine sighed and rested her forehead against his chest. For someone who didn't need to sleep, she felt exhausted. Being held so tightly felt far more comforting than all the soothing words her parents had used, even though she knew that Rikash was always less than two sentences away from a hurtful gibe.

"I'm sorry for hitting you." She said. "Did I hurt you?"

"Not with those feeble hands." He said, laughing snidely.

"Then why aren't you letting me go?"

"I don't like the taste of sorrow." He said in an arch tone. "I'm hoping for something better."

"I'm not going to panic. You can't hurt me, so I'm not scared. And you'll get bored long before I start feeling trapped." She said, surprised into laughing and looking up at him. He smiled and shook his head, and for a moment their eyes met. Daine was suddenly aware that she was held, not trapped, with her hands on his bare skin and his face just a few inches away.

If he had still been laughing she would have wriggled free, but in that moment she saw the same strange uncertainty in his eyes that she knew was written in her own. He hesitated and leaned a little closer, and for a brief racing heartbeat Daine found herself reaching up, before a shock of fear shivered through her body, and she drew back with a gasping breath.

Rikash let her go just as quickly, and when she staggered upright from the sudden sense of space she saw that he was smiling. It was a thin, shaky smile unlike his normal slanting grin, but in her confusion Daine thought that he was mocking her.

"Are you satisfied?" She demanded, planting her hands on her hips.

"Your face has gone red." He said acerbically. Then, pausing for a moment, he added, "Sometimes I choose not to taste things, you know."

"What a waste." Daine muttered. The stormwing nodded seriously, and then tilted his head to one side.

"I wonder if you know what that means, godling. I can smell your fear even when you try to hide it. I could taste any emotion. Humans hide how they feel from each other, but they could never fool a stormwing. We see through liars like they're made of ice."

"We're both liars." Daine said, folding her arms and thinking back to Numair with a shiver. Rikash glowered at her and shook his head. True to his words, he could tell what she was thinking just by the odd strands of emotion which perfumed the air around her. His stomach growled hungrily, but he sternly stopped himself from tasting a single scrap of that banquet. Just like her dejected tears, he let the flavours drift away in the breeze with gritted teeth.

"When you're around him you taste like honey. We were created to feast on fear, so bad emotions taste the sweetest. The gentler the feeling gets, the more bitter the taste." He moved closer, and leaned down a little so that he could look straight into her eyes. "When you're near me, you taste like salt."

Daine bit her lip and stared at the ground. "I've been crying." She said. "Humans cry salt tears, you fool."

He cawed with laughter and flapped his wings, ready to take flight. As he beat dust from the clearing his voice rose over the pulsing air. "Humans might, but you're as far from being human as I am!"

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