No masters were visible. There should have been guards, but the guards might have been anywhere: one escape had hardly served to alert a lazy, uninterested group who performed their duties out of no more than habit. Wherever the guards were resting, they were not in the corridor: everything went smoothly. It was smoother than Cadnan was willing to believe.
Soon, though, they were actually in the great lobby of the building. It, too, was dark and empty. They stood dwarfed by the place, the gigantic doors that led to freedom no more than a few feet away.
Cadnan kept telling himself that where Marvor had gone he, too, could go. But Marvor had had a plan, and Cadnan had none.
Yet they were safe—so far, so far. They walked toward the door now, a step at a time. Each step seemed to take an hour, a full day. Dara walked ahead, straight and tall: Cadnan caught up with her, and she put out her hand. There was no more than an instant of hesitation. He took the hand.
That pledged them to each other, until the time of mating. But what was one more law now?
Another step. Another.
Cadnan, in the silence, was suddenly tempted to make a noise, any sort of noise—but it seemed impossible to create sound. The quiet dimness wrapped him like a blanket. He took another step.
Mating, he thought. If the chain of obedience was broken would the trees refuse to obey, in their turn? Puna had said so, and it was true. And if the trees refused to obey there would be no mating....
Yet Dara would be safe. That was the important thing. One thing at a time.
Another step.