Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 638
fix animals?"
"I asked it yesterday," he said as he awkwardly sat next
to her. The horses were looking tired too. They wouldn’t last
much longer at this pace. "Mediation said that it can heal those
who can talk to it--meaning me. But not you, because you
can’t."
"So? Have you gotten it to heal you?"
He shook his head. "That wouldn’t be fair. More to the
point, how would I know when you were at the end of your
strength if I felt perfectly fine all the time?"
She laughed humorlessly and shook her head. "Oh, what
are we doing? What in the world are we doing?"
He hung his head. "I’ve been trying to come up with a
plan."
"Yeah? Tell me."
"We’re following Armiger. Well, everybody’s following
Armiger. It’s like he’s is a boat in a stream, and the Winds and
everybody else are swept up in his wake. Thalience is after
him; I think they were only after me because I was a clue to his
existence. Now they seem to know about him, they’re not so
interested in me anymore. Calandria and Axel are after him
too. So everyone is converging on him. And he’s making for
the Titans’ Gates.
"They’ve all forgotten about me. Armiger doesn’t need
me now that he can command the Winds himself. The hooks
and swans don’t care about me now that they know about him.
And Calandria and Axel... well, I was just a way for them to
find him, too." It hurt to say that. He shrugged. "The swans
seem to have forgotten about Mediation too--and the others
never knew about it. But the Titans’ Gates are the stronghold
of Mediation.
"For some reason Armiger hasn’t spoken to Mediation