Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 80
her wet hand rose to clutch his shoulder. "You're safe, Jordan,
much safer than you realize. Safer than you were in that
village, after you started dreaming."
"I don't believe you," he said.
"Your worst enemy is yourself," she said, and her hand
sank back again.
They ate well in a dining hall of royal proportions.
Jordan had spent the most luxurious half hour he could ever
recall bathing in the marble tub. His clothes were now clean
and dry, and Lady May had lit a fire here in the hall, in a large
hearth with stone gargoyles on the mantelpiece. It looked as
though no one had ever lit a fire there before. Warmth against
their backs, they contemplated the rain-streaked darkness of the
windows, and Lady May told him the names of some of the
people on the painted ceiling.
"The stories those paintings tell are traditional stories,
older than Ventus itself."
"How can a tradition be older than the world?" he asked.
"Mankind is older than this world," she said in her
measured, confident voice. "The Winds made Ventus for us to
use, but then they rejected us. Have you never heard that
story?"
"Yeah," he said, looking down at his plate. "We made
the Winds, the Winds betrayed us and trapped us. They teach
us that at chapel lessons." His fingers traced the perfect circle
of the china; he was here, and alive, in a place of the Winds.
"It always seemed very remote from real life."
"You’re very lucky to be able to say that," she said.
"Listen, when did you start to dream about Armiger?"
"A couple of days... a day before Emmy ran away, I
think. Was it you who did that to me?"