“Never get grumpy with someone you need to help drag bodies off you,” replied her brother, sounding somewhat calmer after ascertaining that Nevyn was still alive. “What have you done to Nevyn—and why hasn’t Freya woken up?”
“Sleep spell—not mine. I did Nevyn, though,” she replied, then allowed a touch of whine to her voice. “Want to lever Nevyn off before we have a long conversation? I need to find Wolf and see if he can get a message to my uncle and get him here before Nevyn wakes up. It might also be nice to breathe.”
“Aralorn?” asked a third voice, right on cue. “You were looking for me?”
Kisrah and Gerem between them managed to drag poor Nevyn off to the side.
“I should have known that you couldn’t resist sticking around when things were about to get interesting, Uncle,” said Aralorn, sitting up gingerly: Her head hurt, her back hurt, and her shoulder felt as if she’d been clawed by a howlaa and beaten against the door a couple of times.
“Actually,” he replied, “I was looking for you. I’ve talked to a few of our elders, and they say that there is no way a dead dreamwalker could do the kinds of things you think Geoffrey ae’Magi has done. I stopped by your room first, but no one was there, so I came here instead.”
“It wasn’t Geoffrey; it was Nevyn,” said Aralorn.
“Nevyn?” asked Gerem, sounding hostile. “Nevyn would never hurt Father.”
“Who are you?” asked Kisrah.
“Kisrah, meet my uncle Halven—he’s a shapeshifter who’s been trying to help. Uncle Halven, this is Kisrah, the current ae’Magi.” Introductions done, she continued without taking a breath. “Nevyn has a problem,” she said, then stopped. There had to be a way to explain without sounding like a madwoman. Her weak sleep spell wasn’t going to keep him under much longer. She had to make them believe her before he awoke.
“Nevyn is ill,” said Kisrah, kneeling beside Aralorn. He patted the sleeping man’s shoulder gently. “If I’d thought that he would have harmed anyone but himself, I never would have sent him here. He was half-mad when we took him from Santik. I’d hoped he’d settle down with me, but he was too damaged. I thought that this was the perfect place for him; he’s seemed happy since he came here.”
“Part of him is,” said Aralorn. “But there is a part of him that is not.”
“There is an unusual separation of his spirit,” observed her uncle.
“I think that the part of him that dreamwalks has separated itself almost completely,” Aralorn said. “He was talking about himself as if he were two different people.”
“I’ve heard that green mages are great healers,” said Kisrah diffidently. “Is there anything that you can do to help him?”
He’d taken the right tone; Halven preened before the respect in the Archmage’s voice. “Since I can see the damage, I might be able to do something,” he said. Graciously, he half bowed to Aralorn. “I think you’re right. It’s the dreamwalking part of him that has split off from his spirit. What is broken can be mended together again—as long as the cause for the break is gone.”
“Santik is dead, and so is Geoffrey,” said Aralorn in answer.
She got to her feet and backed away so that Halven and Kisrah could have free access to Nevyn.
It was over, she thought. Nevyn had been certain that Wolf could free her father. But as his words came back to her, the relief she’d been feeling stopped.
“Human death,” she said.
The two mages were involved in their discussion over Nevyn, but Gerem said, “What?”
Halven had said Wolf hadn’t been in her room.
“Gods,” she said. And she’d been so grateful there were no more secrets between them while she was fighting the howlaa because after her probable demise, Wolf would know exactly how she had felt about him. She could see now how careful he’d been to clear up any misunderstanding that might lie between them, any regrets or doubts that she might have.
If Nevyn knew that it would take a human sacrifice, Wolf did as well.
“Aralorn?” Gerem touched her arm. “What is it?”
Wolf knew, and, like Nevyn, he’d chosen a sacrifice. If Nevyn had realized just who Wolf had picked, he wouldn’t have tried to kill Gerem.
“He told me three times,” she said softly. “He said he loved me, three times.”
“Aralorn?” asked Gerem again.
She didn’t bother to answer but bolted out the door and sprinted down the hall. She took the stairs in leaping strides, ignoring the danger of falling, ignoring the pain in her shoulder, which throbbed in time with her steps.
The great hall was dark, and there was no sign of light behind the alcove curtain, but Aralorn felt the richness of magic at work.
She threw back the curtains and stepped into the darkness, only then feeling the wrongness of the power. It slid across her skin like thick, filthy oil. A moment later, the full effect of the tainted magic hit her as strongly as any fear spell she’d ever felt, leaving her unable to take a step forward for the sheer terror of what lay ahead.
It didn’t feel like a fear spell, though, so she had no antidote for its effects. Perhaps it was a side effect of the magic Wolf was working. As she hesitated in the darkness, fighting the urge to turn tail and run, she could feel the surge of power, and the corruption of the magic grew stronger.
“Deathsgate and back, Wolf,” she said, managing to put one foot in front of the other once, then again, until she stood on the far side of the darkness. “I warned you.”
He stood behind her father, who was covered with markings. Wolf’s scarred face was almost as masklike as the silver one. He touched the side of the Lyon’s face with the first finger of each hand as his macabre voice chanted words in a language she’d never heard. His staff, balanced upright on the claws on its base, glowed radiantly from just behind his right shoulder. Lights and shadows fought for his face so it was unevenly illuminated.
The scent of blood and herbs was neither unpleasant nor pleasurable. It was much hotter than it should have been in a stone room in the winter, and the heat and strong scent combined to make her almost dizzy.
He hadn’t noticed her come in, but she wasn’t surprised. The worst thing a human wizard can do is lose control of a spell, so most of them had incredible powers of concentration—she would have expected no less of Wolf.
Relief swept her briefly at the sight of him still standing, breaking the hold of terror. Her thoughts clear for the first time since she entered the room, she saw the runes that covered the bier and the floor around it. Runes in herbs and chalk and char, but too many of them were drawn in blood.
She looked up swiftly to note how pale his skin was where it was not scarred, and she knew where the blood had come from. His voice rose hoarsely, and the magic surged as he called; it was so strong, her skin tingled, and so foul, she wanted to vomit.
Wolf pulled his hands away from her father, and she saw the dark wound on his wrist. The slowness of the bleeding told its own story, though Wolf should have been unconscious before he lost so much blood. Or dead.
“No! Plague take you, Wolf!” she said, and ran, ignoring the runes she destroyed on her way, ignoring the knowledge that by breaking his concentration, she could destroy herself and her father as well.
She broke his focus, and he looked up. For a moment, she had a clear view of his scarred face, then the light from his staff went out. She caught him as he fell—as they fell—cushioning his head against her. She grabbed his sticky wrist and wrapped her hand around it, sealing the wound with her own flesh, but his skin was colder than it should be in a room this warm.
In her heightened state, she could feel the wild magic he’d called reach for him, could feel his life fading. She had no time for panic; instead, she drew in a deep, calming breath and centered herself . . .
* * *
Kisrah watched Gerem follow Aralorn out of the room. He’d overheard enough to have a pretty good idea of where they were going—especially since,
once he looked for it, he could feel magic taking shape somewhere in the keep.
Kisrah wasn’t certain that it wouldn’t be better if Wolf didn’t survive. No matter that Kisrah was virtually convinced that Aralorn was right to claim that Geoffrey was a villain. It did not take away the fact that Wolf knew black magic and carried its taint. By Wolf’s own admission, the Master Spells had not allowed Geoffrey to control him—and even if they had, the Master Spells were gone.
If he followed her, he would be forced to choose—to help Wolf or to kill him; so he chose to stay with Nevyn while Aralorn’s uncle tried to heal him.
“This damage had been mostly scarred over once,” the shapechanger said, finally looking up from Nevyn. “And only recently torn asunder. Violently.”
“Can you heal him?”
But Halven was looking around the room. “Where is Aralorn?”
“Rescuing Wolf,” Kisrah said.
Halven gave him a sharp glance but turned back to Nevyn. “I can mend the surface,” he said. “That ought to give Nevyn control over his dreamwalking self—probably return him to where he was before this most recent damage. True healing of such an old hurt will take a very long time, but it can be done.”
“If he’ll let you try,” said Kisrah. “He’s stubborn, and his life has not made him fond of magic.”
Halven’s eyes grew cold. “After the damage he’s done here, he’ll accept my healing, or I’ll kill him myself. Henrick is a friend of mine.”
“Nevyn is my friend,” said Kisrah in warning.
The shapeshifter’s mouth turned up, but his eyes did not warm. “Let me do what I can for him now, then. You go help Aralorn—there’s something going on in the bier room. Can you feel it?”
Caught, Kisrah hesitated. “Yes.”
“Go,” said Halven. “This will be easier without you here.”
But not easier for me, Kisrah thought. He would have to choose.
* * *
Halven waited for the door to swing shut behind the Archmage before turning again to his patient. The quiet was helpful but not necessary. Once he knew what had to be done, it was not difficult: A spirit was not meant to be divided. All he had to do was provide the magic to assist the weaving.
It did not take long before it was done as well as magic could make it. Only time would completely heal the rift. When he was finished, he waved his hand, and Nevyn’s eyelids fluttered.
Nevyn opened his eyes.
“Welcome back, sir,” said Halven, not unkindly. “I think we may have much to discuss.”
Nevyn rolled to a sitting position and buried his face in both hands. “It was me,” he said. “It was me all along.”
* * *
Aralorn held Wolf’s wrist tightly in one hand, sealing the wound, though she feared it was too late. With her free hand, she touched the artery in his neck. For a horrible moment, she thought that he had no pulse, but then she felt the faint beat beneath her fingertips.
He’d been holding to consciousness with magic, she thought. When she’d distracted him, he’d lost control of the power sustaining him and fainted.
They should both be dead. She’d broken the cardinal rule of magic and interrupted Wolf. His spell should have turned this corner of Lambshold into a melted slag like the tower in the ae’Magi’s castle.
It had not.
She was so weary. If she’d been a human mage, she would have had to watch Wolf die. But there was so much power in the room that the warmth of it strengthened her.
Most of the power was in the spell that awaited some missing component to act: Wolf’s death. Aralorn could feel the magic coerced and caged into some shape of Wolf’s devising, but it was human born, and she could not touch it. But flickering around the spell like a candle flame in the wind was other power, a latticework of green magic that held the spell at bay: Wolf’s magic protecting her still.
Someone came into the room, and a last vestige of caution made her look up for an instant and see Gerem stagger through the spell of darkness and silence that covered the curtain to the bier room. In that moment of inattention, when she strayed from her center, Ridane’s bond stretched tight.
Aralorn cried out at the pain and drove her fingers into Wolf’s shoulder and wounded wrist.
“Don’t you leave me, you bastard.” She gritted out the words, and called his green magic to her.
Even though she was careful to leave enough magic to hold Wolf’s spell, power flooded her, filling her veins with icy fire and making it difficult to breathe. She couldn’t tell where the pain was coming from now, from the too-great magic that had answered her call or from the death goddess’s binding that stretched taut and thin between them.
She had no idea what she was doing.
She bowed down and pressed her forehead against his too-cool flesh. She fed him magic at first, but it flowed through him and back into her without leaving any virtue behind. It was his magic, and he’d called it to save her, not himself.
She growled deep in her throat. “Not yet,” she said. “I’ll not lose you to your own stubbornness.”
She took the magic and twisted it until it was attached to her, then thrust it back into him like a needle pulling her life force through him.
“Wolf,” she murmured, touching his unresponsive lips, “don’t you die on me.”
She could feel that his pulse had steadied with the force she’d added, but she could feel, too, that it wasn’t going to be enough. Remembering how she had touched her father’s life, she began singing to aid her work. She hadn’t consciously chosen the song, and was almost amused when she realized it was a rather lewd drinking song—so be it. If anyone knew how to fight off the cold thought of death, it was a bunch of drunken mercenaries.
The music soon soothed her into a trance that allowed her to seep into the pattern of Wolf’s death. With more need than skill, she followed Wolf’s spirit where it lingered, held by thin traces of life.
Recklessly, she threw energy to his fading spirit, to anchor him to his body, using his own magic to do it. She found the bond the death goddess had drawn between them and gripped it like a rope to pull him to her, only to find it gripped in return as Wolf, free from reason and memory, helped her at last.
She came out of her trance slowly, gradually becoming aware of Wolf’s head in her lap, the unusual warmth of the stones beneath her, and the wild, surging magic that filled the room.
“Crap,” she said. She’d called upon too much magic and released the power that had been bound in Wolf’s spell.
She swung her gaze around to look for the reason that the walls were still standing. Kisrah stood before the darkness that was the entrance to the room. His feet were braced and his arms held wide. Gerem stood just behind him, gripping his shoulder with one hand in a position that even Aralorn recognized as “feeding.”
“Wolf?” she said, shaking him with her good arm. “Wolf, wake up.”
“Good idea,” muttered Kisrah, “We’re not going to be able to hold this back much longer.”
Aralorn took the hint and quit being so gentle. “Wolf,” she barked with force enough to please a drill sergeant. “You’ve got to wake up, love. We need you.”
He stirred this time and opened his eyes, frowning at her in puzzlement. He started to speak, and his eyes widened as his senses told him what was going on.
“Gods,” he growled, sitting up a little too abruptly.
She caught him before he could fall back and held him while he closed his eyes against the dizzying weakness of extreme blood loss. Since his weight hit her bad arm with a certain amount of force, she was feeling a bit dizzy herself.
“What did you think you were doing?” he rasped. “You know better than to interrupt a spell in progress.”
“Hmm,” she agreed. “Deathsgate and back, remember? You shouldn’t have tried this.”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Kisrah politely, though his voice sounded a little strained. “Not to break in on a personal moment
or anything, but do you suppose you could give me a little advice, Wolf?”
“Hmm,” said Wolf. “I suppose ‘run’ won’t work?”
Kisrah laughed, which was a mistake.
Power lit the room with a faint red haze, and the temperature went from warm to hot in an instant. Aralorn felt the surge in magic so strong that it hurt. The smell of scorching cloth filled the room, and the stones gave off an odd grumbling noise. Sweat gathered on Kisrah’s face, and Gerem was looking almost as drained as Kisrah.
“Your magic held it in check while you were unconscious,” said Aralorn urgently. “Green magic, Wolf. Can you call it again?”
In answer, green magic slid over her skin in a caress, then spilled over the imminent spell like oil over boiling water. Gently, it worked its way between the spell and Kisrah’s magic.
Wolf vibrated in her arms, shaking with the control that it took not to fight for domination over the green magic.
“What in the name of ...” murmured Kisrah, relaxing his stance. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Green magic,” replied Wolf in a strained voice. “It scares me, too. But I think it will work.”
“ ‘Think’?”
Wolf’s scarred lips writhed into a semblance of a smile. “Would you rather I said ‘hope’?”
As Wolf took up the reins of the magic, Kisrah relaxed and ran his hands through his hair, leaving it an untidy mess. Actually, thought Aralorn with exhaustion-born whimsy, he looked quite different from his usual self, his lemon-colored sleeping trousers setting off pale skin stretched over a swordsman’s muscles, his feet bare.
“Now what do we do?” he asked.
“Well,” said Wolf, “at this stage the spell can’t be banished, for it has already been given a taste of that which was promised. Can you feel the hunger? So what we do is bring it into completion.” He turned to Aralorn, who was already shaking her head, but she was too weak to do anything more. “I love you, dear heart. If you love me as well, you’ll allow me this. Someone must die tonight—I won’t allow my father to kill again and not do something about it.”
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