Chapter Nine

Frightened, Ziara peered around the corner, staying well within the hallway. She had been in her room when the foreign voices accosted her sensitive ears. Curious as well as scared -- for she was certain someone had come at last to kill them both.

"Sular?" she whispered.

"Ikcher du kcharsen?" a voice not the Phoenix's replied, and Ziara was startled to find a huge black-tipped beak in her face. She screamed, a high keening sound, and backpedaled against the wall, heart hammering in her chest. Then Sular was sloughing to a stop in front of her, one leg thrust out in a show of possessiveness that shocked her to the core.

"You know as well as I do, Lieutenant, that your query lies with me and not the lady." He deliberately spoke the gryphoness' language; for her benefit, she was sure.

The black-tipped beak retracted and the owner stepped around the corner. "You have been accused of desertion, Reconnaissance Ventrishika. You will return with us to serve in the war."

Peering from around his outstretched leg, Ziara saw Sular frown, the corners of his white beak pull down at a degree impossible for Glacials. "I sent my resignation two weeks ago, Lieutenant," he replied quietly, crest held at a subservient level. "You should have it by now."

The lieutenant shook his head. "We received no such word, Ventrishika. By the order of Lord Grawn'fay, you are hereby ordered to return under penalty of Vahazayi law."

A tic moved under Sular's right eye. He swallowed convulsively, throat bobbing as he fought his instincts.

"I shall not return. You do not order me anymore, Lieutenant. Lord Grawn'fay holds no sway over me; I am a citizen and not under regulations."

The lieutenant glanced back at his fellow, hidden in the shadows. He turned back to Sular. "Lord Grawn'fay has an ultimatum, then, Ventrishika." Sular's leg trembled and Ziara marveled at his strength. In the short time that she'd been living here, she knew him to be a passive individual; this confrontation was going against everything that he was.

"Say on, Lieutenant."

"Either you return to Phoenixia now or never."

Exile? Oh, how simple it would be! So simple!

"There is more than that, Ventrishika."

"Do tell." Sular surprised himself. The words were falling so easily from his mouth now.

There was no turning back.

"You would have to give us everything that makes you Vahazayi -- your badge of office, your supplies ... and your warcollar."

"No ..." Sular's wingclaws went up to his collarbone. Gladly would he relinquish everything -- but not his collar! It was his; made for him, keyed only to him; part of him.

"Ventrishika ... ?"

Slumping, Sular stepped aside, his whole body swaying. "You shall find all in my room," he mumbled at last. Ziara clung to his calf, trembling with the emotion running rampant through their quarters. The lieutenant nodded to the one on the shadows, who stepped forth, passing Sular without a word. He made a strangling sound. "Bria ... oh, Bria ..."

Ziara's head snapped up at the feminine infliction. Some invisible hand reached out with its clawed fingers and squeezed her heart until she let loose a meep of disbelief. The female Vahazayi came back a moment later, Sular's effects and warcollar tucked under one wing. She stopped briefly by the disheartened male and opened her beak to say something ... but did not. The lieutenant made a motion and they swept out of the cave's mouth, disappearing in a gout of flame.

"Sular ..."

The Vahazayan looked up, eyes swirling as the glints focused in on Ziara's dark blue features with their stunning amber eyes -- slightly canted -- cut beautifully by a beak as white as his own. Putting out his wingclaws, he heaved himself into a sitting position, careless of crushing tailfeathers.

"How long?" he asked hoarsely.

Ziara settled herself before him, wolf-brush curled about her raptorine hind feet, the tip laying across delicate dexterous forepaws. "A few hours," she told him. "You fainted dead away after they left." She sidled forward. "Who were they, Sular?"

He sighed, looked away. "Emissaries -- from Lord Larath Grawn'fay. We --" He closed his eyes momentarily. " -- they are going to war and they needed every available soldier."

"But you sent that letter -- I saw you!" she cried incredulously, still stung by the callousness of the proceedings.

"Either way, it does not matter, Ziara." Every feather on his body drooped; he pushed himself to his feet, stepping over the gryphoness. Eyes wide with his submissiveness, she, too, jumped up and bounded after him. She found Sular face down in his bowl of a bed, wings falling over the sides, head at the baseboard.

With an angry thrust of lower jaw, she pulled over a stool from the wall and climbed upon it, placing herself directly in the line of his sight. "Sular."

He cracked a dull grey eye, rolling it upward to stare at her set and determined jaw. "What?"

"Why didn't you fight them -- like the colddrake?"

He shrugged, closing his eye again. "That was different, Ziara. No lives are at stake here."

She wouldn't understand -- she couldn't understand the complexity of Vahazayi politics. No one could.

He felt her surge of anger before the slap. It rocked his head to the right, stinging with more pain than she could have caused. "Damn you," Ziara growled through a clenched beak. "You're not the kind of person I thought you were."

Rubbing his cheek, Sular rumbled low. She had no right of that, he thought acidly. Levering his avian form on one wing, he reached out and dragged Ziara off her stool and into the bowl. He slammed her back down so hard that her belly lay vulnerable to him; huge amber eyes stared in utter terror into his pulsing grey ones.

"You have no idea who I am," he thundered, chest heaving, breath coming heavy. "I do not fight, I do not question. I accept things for what they are because nothing I do can change them!"

She smelled differently, part of his brain reasoned. He leaned closer, nares dilating, puffing smoke-scented wafts of air as he searched.

Ziara lay quite still, heart hammering in her narrow chest. She felt, rather than saw, the great beak-tip touch her neck, for she was staring at his eyes.

There.

Sular touched her neck again. Opening his mouth, he flicked his forked tongue out, tasting her plush fur for the first time.

"S-su-lar?"

He looked up, eyes gleaming, chest rattling with hitherto unknown desire. "Ziara," he breathed, drawing back slightly, keenly aware of their size difference as a new wave touched his loins. It would never do; he was far too large for her.

Tentative paws came up to cup either side of his face. I must be crazy, she admonished herself, even as her body responded. White-tipped tail uncurled from where it had been held tightly against intrusion, wings relaxed and she sank downwards. Her tongue reached out and slid across his nares.

Sular sighed, cast his glinting eyes upward ... began to glow. Suddenly, Ziara found herself face-to-face with a Sular-patterned Glacial gryphon: low-set brown ears, white beak, grey chest and pinions; black forepaws, white crest and tipped tail. Everything that was in Vahazayi, transformed to a Glacial body. She cried with delight, wrapped her arms about his neck as she'd always longed to do.

"Why didn't you tell me you could do that?" she whispered in his ear as he encircled her slender frame in his own arms, pressing her against his chest.

"I did not know I could," he murmured back, burying his beak -- now smaller -- into her fur. It wasn't that hard, getting used to a semi-quadrupedal frame as he'd thought it might be. They were quiet a moment, reveling in these new-found emotions.

"Sular?"

"Hrrmmm ..."

"Do you love me?"

Large grey raptorine eyes met amber orbs. "How could I not?" he replied, gently using the knee of one hind leg to pull hers apart. "How could I not?" Tipping his head up, repeating himself in utter contentment. Loving Ziara was as natural as ... breathing -- how could he not have realized it sooner?

"Say my name, Sular; say it again."

Gladly, he obliged her. Dipping his head to hers, he took the sensitive flesh under her lower jaw into his own mouth, biting hard, but not painfully. "Ziara-ziara-ziara ..." Again and again he called her name, even as she arched herself against him, setting her claws into his shoulders. Said it as she closed her eyes and he entered her; it sang in his mind and soul as words failed them both and they joined for life.

Sular curled a protective arm around her body as they lay in the languid aftereffects of their coupling. His head rested between her white-splashed tufted ears, tails wrapped, inseparable.

"Who is Bria?"

Ziara's soft query did not bring a wave of concern to Sular. "A childhood playmate, sister of my ... best friend." The words caught in his throat then, choking in their admission. He would never see Calgon again nor the children he and Tamatha were sure to have, nor his family. Never to see Phoenixia's rolling hills or sparkling blue oceans; never to taste talion or perindal; hear his mother's gentle admonishes about his journeys ...

...never, never, never ...

Quietly, Sular began to cry. If only ...

Strong, loving arms and nimble, dexterous paws held him, wings coming up to shelter him as benefit a newly-hatched Phoenix, just dried from the birth-flames.

"Hye elglina, hye elglina ..."

"Shh .. you haven't failed, my love."

"Akai, akai. Hye elglina ..."

"Hye orth kareyah, Sular Ventrishika."