Aralorn thought about that for a moment before a cat-in-the-milk-barn smile crossed her face. “I do so hate being bored. You always manage to have the most interesting problems.”
She caught him off guard and surprised a rusty laugh out of him.
“Come,” she said briskly, “help me dry off, and we’ll eat. My mother’s people live near here—maybe they can help. We’ll stop there before we go back to Sianim.”
THREE
Aralorn walked to the great hall, with Wolf ghosting beside her, once more in lupine form. When she’d told him he didn’t have to accompany her, he had merely given her a look and waited for her to open the door. When he wanted to, the man could say more with a look than most people managed with a whole speech.
She’d searched through the clothing still in her closet, trying to find a long-sleeved dress that would cover the scars on her arms. The dresses were all in beautiful condition (many having never been worn), but the fashions of ten years ago had tight sleeves that she could no longer fit into thanks to a decade of weapons drills. She’d settled for a narrow-skirted, short-sleeved dress and ignored the scars.
The room was crowded, and for a moment she didn’t recognize anyone there. Ten years had made changes. Some of the crowd were tenant farmers and gentry who held their manors in fief to her father; but from the number of very tall, blond people in the room, Aralorn thought most of them were her family, grown up now from the ragtag bunch of children she remembered.
Wolf received some odd looks, but no one asked about him. It seemed that mercenaries would be allowed their eccentricities.
She smiled and nodded as she waded through the crowd, knowing from experience that the names would sort themselves out eventually. Usually, she was better at mingling and chatting, but this wasn’t just work, and the black curtain that hung in the far corner of the room held too much of her attention.
In the alcove behind the curtain, her father’s body was laid out in state—awaiting the customary solitary visits of his mourners. Visits where the departed spirit could be wished peacefully on his way, old quarrels could be put aside, and daughters could greet their fathers for the first time in a decade.
She’d seen him now and again, the last time at the coronation of the new Rethian king. But I was working, and he never recognized me under the guises I wore.
“Aralorn!” exclaimed a man’s voice somewhere behind her.
Aralorn gave herself an instant to collect her scattered thoughts before she turned.
The young man slipping rapidly through the crowd wasn’t immediately identifiable, though his height and his golden hair proclaimed him one of her brothers. She hesitated for a moment, but realized from his age and the walnut-stained color of his eyes who he had to be—the only other boy near his age had blue eyes. When she searched his features she could see the twelve-year-old boy she’d known.
“Correy,” she said warmly, as he came up to her.
Wordlessly, he opened his arms. She wrapped her arms around him and returned his hug. The top of her head was well short of his shoulders in spite of the torturously high heels on her shoes.
“You shrank,” he commented, pulling away to reveal a twinkle in his dark brown eyes.
She stepped back so she wouldn’t strain her neck looking at him. “Back less than a day, and already I’ve been insulted twice for my size. You should have more respect for your elders, boy.”
“Correy—” A female voice broke into the conversation from somewhere over Aralorn’s left shoulder. “Mother’s looking for you. She says you forgot to get something that she needed for something else, I forget what. I can’t believe that you are wearing a sword; Mother will pitch a fit when she sees that you’re wearing a weapon to Father’s wake.” A tall, exquisitely groomed woman of somewhere around thirteen or so tripped past Aralorn without so much as a glance and stopped at Correy’s side.
Correy rolled his eyes, looking for a moment much more like a boy of twelve than a grown man. With a smile for Aralorn, he reached out a brotherly arm and snagged the immaculately clad girl around the neck and pulled her to his side. “You won’t recognize this one, Aralorn, as she was only four when you left. Lin has set herself up as the mistress of propriety at Lambshold. She wants to go to court and meet the king. I think she envisions him falling desperately in love with her.”
The girl, only inches shorter than her brother, struggled out of his hold and glared at him. “You think you’re so smart, Correy—but you don’t even know that you shouldn’t wear swords at a formal gathering. Mother’s going to skin you alive.”
Correy smiled, ignoring her wrath. “I meant to tell you that black looks exceptionally well with your hair.”
“You really think so?” Lin asked anxiously, suddenly willing to listen to her brother’s previously dismissed judgment.
“I wouldn’t say so else, Lin,” he said with obvious affection.
She kissed his cheek and drifted off, taking little notice of her long-lost sister.
“I apologize for her rudeness ...” began Correy, but Aralorn smiled and shook her head.
“I was fourteen once, myself.”
He smiled and glanced down casually at Wolf, but when he met the solemn yellow gaze, he started. “Allyn’s toadflax , Aralorn, Mother said you’d brought your pet, but she didn’t say he was a wolf.”
He knelt to get a better view, careful not to crowd too close. “I haven’t seen many black wolves.”
“I found him in the Northlands,” said Aralorn. “He was caught in an old trap. By the time he was healed, he’d gotten used to me. He still comes and goes as he pleases. I didn’t know he’d accompanied me here until he showed up in the courtyard.”
“Hey, lad,” crooned Correy, cautiously extending his hand until he touched the thick ruff around the wolf’s throat.
“You don’t have to be quite so careful. He’s never bitten anyone yet . . . at least not for petting him.”
There were too many people in the room for her to worry about the purposeful steps that approached her from behind, but she did anyway. Hostility always had that effect on her.
The man striding toward them was dark-haired and dark-eyed, the epitome of a Darranian lord. Not as handsome as Wolf—who was half Darranian and looked it—and less dangerous-looking, though he had something of Wolf’s grace when he moved. Nevyn, she thought with a touch of resignation accompanying her nervousness.
He stopped in front of her, close enough that he was looking down, forcing her to look up to meet his eyes. “You profane this gathering by your presence, shapeshifter.”
“Nevyn,” she greeted him courteously.
From the corner of her eye, she noticed Wolf pull away from Correy and slink toward Nevyn, his lips curled back from his fangs.
“Wolf, no,” she said firmly, hoping he would listen.
Yellow eyes gleamed at her, but the snarl disappeared as he trotted back to her side.
When she was certain Wolf was not going to do anything rash, Aralorn turned her attention back to Nevyn; but the distraction had done her good—and that might have been Wolf’s intention all along. He was a subtle beast. Prepared now, she examined the Darranian sorcerer. The years had been kind to him, broadening his shoulders and softening his mouth. The shy anxiety that had plagued him had faded, leaving behind an intense, handsome man who looked prepared to defend his family from her.
“I am truly sorry you feel that way,” she said. “But the Lyon is my father, and I will stay for his burial. For his sake, I bid you peace. If you feel it necessary, perhaps we could discuss this in a less public forum.”
“She’s right, husband,” said a firm voice, and a woman, slightly taller than Nevyn, materialized to Aralorn’s left. In Freya, Lin’s promise of beauty was fulfilled. Thick red-gold hair hung in glorious splendor to her slender hips. Her belly was gently rounded with pregnancy, but that robbed her figure of none of its grace. The dark blue eyes that glanced a quick apology at Aralorn were
large and tilted. “This is neither the time nor the place for this conversation.”
“Freya,” said Aralorn, smiling, “it’s good to see you again.”
Mischievousness lit the younger woman’s smile as she patted her husband’s arm before she left him to hug Aralorn. “Don’t stay away so long next time, Featherweight. I missed you.”
Aralorn laughed, grateful for the change of topic. “I missed you, too, Puff.”
Correy gave a crack of laughter. “I’d forgotten that name. None of the youngsters got nicknames once you’d gone.”
“Maybe,” said Freya, her eyes twinkling as she folded her arms and puffed out her cheeks in the manner that had given her the once-hated appellation, “I didn’t miss everything about your absence.”
“If I remember Irrenna’s letters correctly, your child is due this spring, right?” asked Aralorn.
Freya nodded and started to say more, but Irrenna, emerging from whatever social emergency had been keeping her at a distant corner of the room, called Aralorn’s name.
Hurrying forward, Irrenna pressed a kiss on Aralorn’s cheek. “Come, dear, the alcove is empty, so you can pay your respects to your father.”
Although she knew the smile on her face didn’t change, Aralorn felt a cold chill of grief. “Yes, Irrenna. Thank you.”
She followed her stepmother’s graceful form through the crowd. They paused here and there for introductions—Irrenna had taken refuge from her grief in the social amenities called for at any large gathering.
Wolf ventured ahead and found a corner near the black curtain where he was unlikely to be stepped on and settled quietly. Aralorn murmured something polite, squeezed Irrenna’s hand, and continued to the curtained alcove on her own.
The black velvet was heavy, and it shut out a great deal of the sound from the outer room. Incense burned from plates set at the head and foot of the bier, leaving the room smelling incongruously exotic. She let the curtain settle behind her before stepping farther into the little chamber.
It was unadorned except for three torches that were ensconced on the stone walls, sending flickering light to touch all but the narrowest shadows. On the opposite side of the round room was a thick wooden door that was used to take the body to the burial grounds outside the keep. It was a small chamber, with space for only eight or ten mourners to cluster around the gray stone bier that held sway here, a private place.
The man on the stone slab didn’t look like her father, though he wore the same state robes she had seen him in at the Rethian king’s coronation. Aralorn’s lips twitched when she remembered he’d been thieving sweet cakes out of the kitchens. Green and brown velvet embroidered with gold. She touched the rich cloth lightly with her fingertips. He had been an earthy man; it was fitting that his burial clothing reflected that.
“You should have died in battle, Father,” she whispered. “Sickness is such an inglorious way to die. The minstrels are already singing ballads of your ferocity and cunning in battle, did you know that? They’ll make up a suitably nasty foe to have dealt your mortal wound just to satisfy their artistic souls.”
The stone of the raised bier was cold on her hips, surprising her because she hadn’t realized she had stepped closer. “I should have come sooner—or stopped you at court when I saw you there. I’m a spy, did you know that? What would you have done if the scullery maid, or the groom who held your horse, shifted into me? Would you have had me tried as a traitor to Reth? Sianim’s mercenaries aren’t Reth’s enemies until they are paid to be. You know I would never betray Reth’s interests for my adopted home.”
To Aralorn, touch was as much a part of talking as the words themselves. Almost without conscious thought, she bent forward, cupping her hand on his flaccid cheek . . . and stilled.
She had touched dead people before—a lot of them. She had even touched a Uriah or two, who were dead-but-alive. Her shapeshifter blood did more than allow her to change shape and light fires; it made her sensitive to the patterns of life and death, decay and rebirth.
Beneath her fingertips, the pulse of life was still present—and it didn’t have the fragility of someone near death. Despite his appearance, her father seemed to be merely sleeping, though he did so without breath or color in his face.
“Father?” she said softly, her pulse beginning to race with possibilities. “What is this that you have gotten yourself into?”
She searched for sorcery, human or green, but her magic found nothing. She began to sing softly in her mother’s tongue. Singing allowed her to focus her magic, letting her see more than just the Lyon’s still form.
She had never been hungry for the power that magic could bring, so she’d never done much besides learn how to reshape her face, change into a few animal forms, and open locked doors. This was entirely different, but she had to try something.
She struggled for a while before she was able to discern the pulses and rhythms of his life; more difficult still was finding the underlying organization that was at the heart of all life. Just as she thought she found the Lyon’s pattern, something dark bled through. She sought it, but it faded before her searching, as if it had never been. Deciding it might have been a fluke of her inexperience, Aralorn returned to her original search. As soon as her concentration was elsewhere, the darkness returned.
This time it caught at her magic as if it were a living thing. Startled but not alarmed, Aralorn stopped singing. But the connection between her magic and the shadow didn’t dissolve. Creeping up through her magic, the darkness touched her. As it did, pain swept through her, raking her with acid claws.
“Wolf,” she croaked, meaning to call out, but her voice was only a hoarse whisper as she fell to her knees.
* * *
Lying just outside the curtained alcove, Wolf listened to Aralorn’s singing and wished he couldn’t feel the stirring of green magic at her call. He didn’t know what she was doing, but he sent a thread of silence around the curtain, hiding the sound of her music from everyone except him.
No one needed to know that she called magic, not when so many here disapproved of her. He’d seen the looks that Aralorn had ignored. She chose to believe that they did not hurt her, but he knew better.
The pads of his feet tingled, and the air thickened with the sharp, clear presence of Aralorn’s magic. He shifted irritably but stilled when the singing stopped. Abruptly, Wolf surged to his feet, trying to put a name to the change he sensed. Then, faintly, he heard her call his name.
He bolted under the curtain to find Aralorn curled on her side, and the magic in the air so strong it almost choked him—not Aralorn’s magic; hers never stank of evil.
“Eavakin nua Sovanish ven,” he spat, straddling Aralorn as if his physical presence could ward off the attack of magic. At the end of his speaking, the dark magic reluctantly faded back from Aralorn. He shaped himself into his human form: He could work magic whatever shape he took, but there were some spells that he needed his hands for.
“Kevribeh von!” he commanded as he gestured. Rage twisted his voice as it could not touch his fire-scored face. “She is mine. You will not have her.”
As suddenly as it had come, all trace of the magic that had attacked her disappeared. The chamber should have retained a residue of it—he could detect the traces of his own spellwork—but the shadow magic was gone as if it had never been.
Wolf moved aside as Aralorn began to push herself up.
“Wolf,” she said urgently, “look at him. Look at my father and tell me what you see.”
“Are you all right?” he asked, crouching down beside her.
“Fine,” she said dismissively, though at the moment she seemed to be having trouble sitting up. He helped her. “Please, Wolf. Look at my father.”
With a curt nod, Wolf turned and approached the bier.
* * *
Aralorn wrapped her arms around herself and waited for his answer. When Wolf stiffened in surprise, she clenched her hands into fists. He set his right
hand over the Lyon’s chest as he made a delicate motion with his left.
Remembering what had happened to her when she had used magic, Aralorn said, “Careful.”
It was too late. Even without her magic, she saw the unnatural shadow slipping from under the Lyon’s still form to touch Wolf’s hand.
“Plague it!” Wolf exclaimed, using Aralorn’s favorite oath as he stumbled back from the bier, shaking his hand as if it hurt.
The shadow vanished from sight as quickly as it had come.
“Are you all right?” asked Aralorn, staggering to her feet. “What is it?”
Wolf walked slowly around the stone pedestal, careful not to touch it. He frowned in frustration. “I don’t know. I can see it, though, when it moves. It seems to have a limited range.”
“Is it a spell of some sort?”
Almost reluctantly, Wolf shook his head.
“It’s alive then,” said Aralorn. “I thought it might be.” The hope she’d been clinging to left her. The life that she’d sensed had been the shadow-creature and not her father at all.
Of course the Lyon was dead. She sucked in a deep breath as if air could assuage the hurt of departing hope.
The sound brought Wolf’s gaze to her, his amber eyes glittering oddly in the flickering light. “So is your father.”
“Wolf?” she whispered.
The rattle of the brass rings that held the heavy curtain over the door gave brief warning before both Correy and Irrenna burst in. Wolf dropped his human form for the wolf more swiftly than thought. If one of the intruders had looked sharp, they would have caught the final touches of his transformation, but their attention was on Aralorn, still sitting on the floor.
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