“I’ll have to thank him,” she said, relieved it was nothing more than the duke‘s bruised ego that bothered her fiancé. She took Brant’s hand, but he shook her off, turning away and moving toward the horses.
“I’m sorry, Kayla. I’m not trying to hurt you. It’s just . . .” he paused, seeming to gather courage to speak, or perhaps find the words themselves. “He’s right,” he continued. “I should have told him when I first came home, but I was so caught up in the euphoria that I didn’t even think of it. What kind of a son am I? What kind of duke will I be if I do nothing but think of myself first?”
“Hey, now,” she reprimanded. “You’re going to be a wonderful duke, every bit as good as your father. You’re seeing him now after decades of practice being the man he is. I’ll bet you he’s had his embarrassing moments and failures too. You can’t live in this world without making mistakes. You just have to own up to them and be aware so you don’t make the same ones twice.”
Brant was quiet for a long moment. She was about to speak again when he turned to face her, a light smile playing at his lips.
“How did you ever get to be so wise, Kayla Kalandra Felandian, soon to be Domanta?” he asked, wrapping his arms around her.
“Just born that way, I guess.” She smirked as she gave him a light peck on the cheek, pulled out of his arms, and turned toward the horses. “Come on.” She stepped to her beautiful new mare. “Let’s get back before anybody misses us and starts passing around more of those ugly rumors.”
Brant pursed his lips, but before he could answer Kayla had climbed onto her mare’s back and dug her heels into the flanks. She surged back toward Dragonmeer, tossing her laughter behind her like a ribbon for Brant to catch.
“Hey!” Brant hollered, echoing her earlier call, but his laughter only spurred her faster. The race was on again.
This time Kayla was clearly the winner as she dismounted breathlessly in the courtyard and handed over her mare to the groomsman. Brant barreled into the yard just as she ran toward the front door. He didn’t even stop his horse before he leaped from the animal, stumbled, then charged after her.
Kayla put on speed, her slippers perfect for moving quietly through the halls as she ran for her room. She had just reached the door when Brant caught her against him, gasping and laughing, and they tumbled through the doorway to lie in a giggling heap in the middle of her floor, the door gaping wide open.
Kayla scrambled up first. “I’ve got to change after all that exertion, love. You’re going to have to wait outside.”
Brant sighed, but picked himself up and strolled to the doorway. He stopped only to brush his lips lightly across hers before he exited the room. Kayla slammed the door, flushed both from the run and his attentions. She was determined not to let him get the upper hand, though her determination faded with the chuckle that sounded from the other side of the door.
She quickly shucked off her new dress and found her lavender gown hanging in the closet. She wiped the sweat from her body with lavender-scented water and a washcloth that had been left on her vanity. How thoughtful of Sarali to match the scented water with the shade of her dress. Kayla pulled on the gown and tied the sash around her waist. She headed for the door, but spotted her now made bed and thought of the Sapphire Flute. She had to take just one more look before she left. Perhaps she would even let Brant join her in admiring the glowing instrument.
She thrust her arm beneath the feather bed to pull the flute from its hiding place, but it wasn’t where she left it.
Maybe it got moved when the servants made the bed, she thought, reaching deeper, then sweeping her arm back and forth from top to bottom and side to side. It wasn’t there. She ripped the clean blankets from the bed, then pulled the mattress itself out and scrambled around inside the frame. She searched corners and down the side nearest the wall.
The Sapphire Flute was gone.
Her knees turned to rubber, and she collapsed in a heap, panicked and tearful.
Where could it be? I know I put it under the mattress when I left. Who would have taken it? Who wouldn’t?
The questions circled around in her head like a wheel on a cart. She couldn’t straighten her mind enough to find any answers. She had just assumed things would be safe in Brant’s home. They’d never had many problems with thievery in Dragonmeer. And how would they have known it was there?
Nothing else seemed to be missing, so it was obvious they came for that and that alone.
A knock sounded at the door, but Kayla hardly heard. She sat stunned, holding back the tears that burned her eyes and choked her throat. The knock came again, louder, more insistent. Kayla roused herself, just enough.
“Who is it?” she called, emotion causing her voice to warble.
“It’s Brant. What’s taking you so long?”
She surged to her feet and threw open the door.
“Do you have it, Brant?” she asked. He took a step back.
“Have what? Did someone steal from you?”
Kayla’s face crumpled. She threw herself against him, sobbing into his shoulder. “It’s gone, Brant! It was here when I left, and now it’s gone!” She clung to him, and he alternately patted her back and caressed her hair.
“Shhh, Kayla, shhh. Tell me what’s missing. I need answers before I can do anything.“ He held her at arms’ length and met her eyes.
“Someone has stolen the Sapphire Flute! Oh, Brant, what am I to do?"
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ember lost track of all time as she ran on four legs through the forest, the wind racing through her fur like a sparrow through the trees. It was exhilarating—all her senses heightened. Even as she ran with the wolf pack, she could hear the scurry of mice and insects through the leaves and smell the musty decay of the earth and the sharp tang of pine. She never tired, her tongue lolling in joy, much like the huge alpha wolf to her left. She couldn’t help the expression and didn’t care what she looked like. There was a large part of her that never wanted to go back, content to stay a wolf for the rest of her life.
The pack climbed higher, and now she felt the strain in her chest and hindquarters as she surged upward through the rocky terrain. Higher and higher, until it almost hurt to breathe, then just before a rocky outcropping, the lead wolf disappeared into the mountainside. Ember followed as, one by one, the wolves vanished into what appeared to be solid rock. When it came Ember’s turn, she found that it was mere illusion. The slit in the rock opened into a huge cave.
Water dripped from the heights to collect in a pool near the center of the room. The pack skirted the edge of the water and ran farther into the cave, single file now as they wound through the crack that cut deep into the earth. Finally, when the drip-drip of the rain had stopped and all she could hear was the panting of her pack, the lead wolf stopped and turned to face her. All the wolves circled and dropped to their haunches, tongues hanging, as they breathed their exhaustion.
It was the huge white wolf who spoke to her, though the words came directly to her mind, never reaching her ears. “Who are you, little one? Why have you not been taught the ways of the Bendanatu?”
Ember wasn’t sure how to answer and had no idea who the Bendanatu were. Out of habit, she tried to vocalize her thoughts, but all that came out was a series of yips, whines, and growls. She shook herself in frustration and tried to focus her thoughts. “Who are the Bendanatu?” was her first question.
The white wolf looked at her as if she were mad. “We are the Bendanatu, the people of the wolf, servants of the Guardian Bendanatu. Night walkers, wolfmen, werewolves, wolfwalkers—we have been known by all these, and you are one with us. How can you not know this?” He sniffed at her, then sneezed, a low growl coming to his throat.
Ember’s heart raced. She was Bendanatu? A wolfwalker? How could that be? She thought she was just another magi hopeful. She knew so little about magic; she had just assumed the other wolves were shapeshifting magi like herself. Was this another of those things Marda had
never bothered to tell her? She had no answers and began to panic at the restless growls coming from the pack.
“I don’t know! Truly, I don’t know any of these things. I’ve never changed before today. I didn’t even know I had magic until this afternoon. Please, you have to believe me.” Something occurred to her then. “Maybe it came through my father. I never knew him. He died in a fire when I was only a year old.”
The big wolf stood, seemingly surprised, and sniffed her further. He gave one last long whiff, digging his nose in the center of her chest, right about where she figured her pendant must be showing silver on her fur. When the wolf sat back, a big grin split his face.
“Shandae?”
It was the second time that night a stranger had asked after her as if he knew her. She was almost afraid to answer after her encounter with the big, bald man. But the pack had saved her. They deserved her honesty. “Ember Shandae, yes—”
The wolf howled, his eyes sparkling as though they held the moon. “Ember Shandae, daughter of Jarin and Brina?”
Ember was confused. He knew her father, but not her mother? That made no sense. “My father is Jarin, yes, but my mother’s name is Marda, not Brina.”
The wolf chuckled, and Ember heard it in her ears and head both. It was a strange sensation. “It is of no matter what she calls herself these days. I know your scent now. I smell your father upon you, sense his magic, and you look so much like him you could be his twin.”
“How can I look like my father when I’m a wolf?” Ember asked.
He laughed again, and once more the sound echoed in her head and ears together. “You’ve taken the same form as he. It must be in your blood. Come, let me show you.”
He got to his feet and wound back through the tunnel to the big pool. Ember followed his trail, still amazed by her heightened sense of hearing and smell.
“Look,” he said, as a glowing ball of pale magelight appeared over their heads. Ember yelped, startled by the light, then feeling foolish, crept forward to look into the pool as he did. She felt a sense of awe when she caught sight of herself in the water. Her fur was white, though muddied with the gray ash that ran up her legs and dotted her back. She looked smaller than the other wolves, but she attributed that to her age, or gender.
The strangest part of her appearance, though, was the brilliant emerald green of her eyes. On a normal day, they were green, yes, but a faded, muted, almost mossy-colored green, like that of sage. That had changed with her transformation. Now they were bright, the color of emeralds or spring leaves, and seemed to glow from the inside out.
Ember glanced at the big wolf beside her and realized his eyes glowed with the same green light. They also shared the same snowy fur coloring. None of the other wolves were white. They were more the traditional grays and browns, but she and this giant of a wolf were very much the same. Why?
“Would you like to see your father?” he asked.
She didn’t trust herself to speak, so only nodded. How could she not want to see him? She yearned to know what he looked like. A low muttering sound resounded in Ember’s head, like listening to a crazy old man or trying to overhear a conversation from outside a closed room. Occasionally she’d catch a word she knew, though most of them she could not understand. An image began to waver in the pool, an image that looked very much like the one she saw of herself—though larger in stature, with the same glowing green eyes and broad shoulders. He and the wolf at her side could have been twins for the similarities.
Ember started to get a nagging suspicion that she had more in common with this wolf than a reflection in the pool. The image in the water shifted, and she lost her breath. The wolf that was supposed to be her father became a man, and she could see the similarities of which the white wolf had spoken.
She shared her father’s eyes and brow, his nose and chin, the same quirk to the mouth that she found so often in her own mirror. If she had been in her human form, she would have cried in sheer joy and sorrow. This was her father, the man whose memory she had lost in her youth. Now, at long last, she held the image of him in her mind. She examined him carefully, knowing she would never forget, not now.
Ember turned to the white wolf. “Thank you, but I must ask. Who are you, to know my father so well? And why do you look like us?”
The wolf was serious. “I knew him so well because he was my best friend and companion. He was also my brother. Welcome to the family, Ember Shandae. My name is White Shadow, but you may call me Uncle Shad.” He bowed his head to her.
All Ember could do was stare in absolute shock. She’d found her father’s family at last.
Ember slept that first night in the cave, nose to tail with the other wolves, her newly found uncle Shad curled at her side. She slept warm, dry, and extremely content with the pack, and if it hadn’t been for the mage trials calling her onward, she would have stayed there with her other family for a very long time. Unfortunately, her sense of duty overwhelmed her, and so she found herself restless as the darkness gave way to morning, though she only knew morning was near by the increased sound of songbirds and the smell of the rising sun.
It was none of these things which woke her. It was a dream that seemed more real than any she’d ever had and brought to mind the one she’d had the night before Devil’s Mount erupted. This time Ember was absent from the dream. The focus was entirely on a beautiful woman playing a sapphire-colored flute, her hair crackling around her like static while the evil blonde woman from Ember’s previous dreams dove toward her on dragonback. Even now in the stillness of morning, Ember shivered at the memory. The flute player had slightly pointed ears, and Ember guessed her to be part evahn, at least.
Only after fully awakening did she realize that the flute player had also been in her previous dream, the one in which her group had actually defeated her attacker. Was she someone important? Was she real? Were her dreams beginning to mesh with reality? The caverns began to resonate with the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard. It was a wordless song that floated through the tunnels in a constant round so the echoes formed harmonies with the original melody.
Ember stretched and shook herself, then padded out of the cave in search of the sound, which was easier thought than done with the caverns distorting her sense of direction.
Finally she just stopped to listen. The song seemed so sad, it squeezed her heart to hear it, but she felt compelled to listen. It was almost as if the music had become a language unto itself, and Ember knew she had to find the source.
She got up again, trying to tune everything else out, and moved forward. She listened hard, spun around and went back the way she’d come, then turned down a small side passage.
The volume continued to increase until she entered a grand cavern with multiple entrances. The roof was embedded with crystal that reflected light from the surface and looked as if it were covered with a rainbow of stars.
In the direct center of the floor, a man knelt on a boulder with a flattened top, his arms outstretched and his head thrown back. His eyes were closed, but his mouth was open in the wordless song that had drawn her. Ember slunk to the side of the cave and lay down beneath an overhang to watch him.
He was well-muscled, as if he’d worked hard and come by his strength naturally, much like a blacksmith or carpenter. He didn’t seem tall, though it was hard to tell as he knelt, and her perspective had changed a bit since she’d shifted into a wolf.
His face was what drew her eyes the most. There was something tortured and yet worshipful about him, as if he were pouring his pain out to the heavens. It fascinated her. She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t go until the song was done.
Ember closed her eyes and listened, letting the music carry her much the way the wind had as she’d run in wolf form. It was every bit as exhilarating, and gave her a glance into his true soul. She was sure he would not have sung if he’d known he had an audience. The moment seemed so private, but somehow she felt close to him in spite of it—or maybe, becau
se of it.
Eventually the music wound to an end, the echoes of the tuneless theme coming back to her one more time. The singer’s head fell forward in benediction and stayed that way for several seconds before Ember released a sigh of regret. His head snapped up at the sound, and he scanned the room, finally stopping on her glowing eyes beneath the overhang. There was no use hiding now. She got to her feet and came forward, then bowed her head in his direction, a gesture of gratitude and praise before she turned to go. He nodded back, his blue eyes a little guarded, but not unfriendly. Ember didn’t want to scare him, not sure if he knew the wolves personally or not, so she walked slowly toward the tunnel she’d come through.
“Are you one of them? I haven’t seen you around before.” His speaking voice was every bit as beautiful as his singing voice had been.
Ember turned, unsure how to communicate with him. She whined and nodded her head.
“What’s your name?” This time she watched his face and realized he hadn’t used his mouth to say the words. He was mindspeaking, just as the wolves had, but it was so clear, it sounded as if he were vocalizing.
“Ember,” she said. “Who are you?”
“DeMunth. I’m a friend of Shad’s. I asked him to accompany me to Javak.”
“Javak? You’re going to Javak? For the mage trials?” Ember couldn’t help the excitement that crept into her mindspeech.
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