by Dawn Cook
“Wolves of Ash,” Yar-Taw whispered, and she met his pleased gaze. “You have it. You have the balance perfectly! Retain too much heat, and the source is destroyed. Use a field not strong enough, and it escapes.”
Alissa dropped the field. She slumped, her heart pounding from the effort.
Yar-Taw glanced behind him to the unseen shelter. Voices raised in song were coming from it. They made her and Yar-Taw seem all the more isolated. “Very good,” he said, a smile turning up the corners of his thin lips. “Don’t think you have it entirely, though. When done correctly, you won’t be out of breath, and you won’t be sweating.” He reached around the low fire and put a long hand on her shoulder. “But very good.”
The presence of his hand was heavy on her. Talon chittered a warning, but Alissa didn’t resent his touch, feeling in it the same emotion of pleased instructor she felt from Useless. “Thank you,” she whispered, and his hand fell away.
“Come back to the shelter?” he said as he stood. “I’m afraid the gathering has all the signs of degrading into one of Beso-Ran’s three-day festivals. He has brought out his latest attempt at ale.” He shook his head and beat the sand from his Master’s vest. “I think he has it this time. There might be more than a few sleeping on the ground tonight. It’s been too long since we’ve had anything to celebrate.” He extended a long hand to help her rise.
Alissa cringed and remained unmoving. How could she just go back? She had walked away from them in the middle of an argument.
Yar-Taw’s hand dropped. “Don’t be ashamed. You weren’t the one pacing dramatically back and forth. Actually, I’m impressed,” he added as he looked over the dune toward the shelter. “Usually when Keribdis pins her eyes on someone, she twists their words against them until they lose their temper.” He smiled. “You walked away, infuriating her.”
Alissa watched Yar-Taw’s smile waver from the fire’s heat. She had made Keribdis angry by walking away? That, Alissa thought wickedly, had possibilities. No one could find fault with her for not arguing with Keribdis. And if it irritated the woman . . .
Yar-Taw dug the tip of his boot into the sand. “She expects you to be on the beach tomorrow,” he said in warning. “If you aren’t there, she’ll use it against you.”
“She’s not my teacher,” Alissa said as she traced Talon’s markings with a finger.
“Don’t think of it as teaching. Think of it as evaluating,” he said. “Everyone wants to know what wards you have and what they need to be careful implementing around you.”
She said nothing. She wasn’t going to be on the beach when the sun came up. She would get drunk first. Alissa stiffened, blinking with the idea. She could. It had taken Connen-Neute all of a few moments. How hard could it be?
“Strell has promised to tell us of Connen-Neute’s return to sentience,” Yar-Taw said, pulling her gaze back to him. “He’s already gained the attention of half the conclave with his music. I can see why you brought him. He’s very good at subtly twisting emotions.”
A puff of amusement escaped her. Strell had three winters to practice on her. She imagined he would soon be friends with most of the Masters, if Connen-Neute’s fascination with music was any indication. She was the only one having troublefitting in. “Um, you go ahead,” she said, adding as Yar-Taw arched his eyebrows, “I want to . . . try a larger field.”
He seemed to relax. “As long as you aren’t avoiding us. Keribdis isn’t the only one in the conclave. There are more than a few who are anxious to meet you. Ah, but I would suggest you keep your skills in pyre fields quiet.”
Alissa nodded. “It wouldn’t help at all, would it.”
Yar-Taw glanced at the shelter, a faint smile visible in the starlight. “No. It wouldn’t.”
She bobbed her head. “I won’t be long.”
Apparently satisfied, he headed back up the dune with a slow gait enforced by the loose sand. Alissa watched him disappear. Trusting Talon to warn her if anyone else showed up, she bent her thoughts back to the fire. It would be nice to be proficient in a skill most Masters hadn’t bothered to cultivate. She would prove she was as good as they were, regardless of having been born to a mother who had never ridden the wind.
19
Yar-Taw settled himself atop one of the abandoned tables of food at the outskirts of the noise, watching Keribdis fume as the balance of the conclave shifted. Though almost everyone was clustered about Strell as he related how Connen-Neute was returned to sentience, there was an almost visible division. Two decades ago, there would have been none. Keribdis knew it as well as he, and he wondered if that was the cause for the tension within her occasional laugh.
Keribdis always had a reason for what she did, even if it made no sense to him. She was being more unreasonable than usual with Alissa, and Yar-Taw hadn’t figured out why yet. The collective desire to return home wasn’t Alissa’s doing. There had been mutterings for the last three years about going back. Not knowing the way, they were marooned as surely as if they lacked wings. But with a boat and a crew who knew the way, Yar-Taw thought Keribdis’s reluctance to return didn’t rest on safety but pride.
Going back would be an admission that Talo-Toecan was right when he refused to allow her to instigate a continent-wide catastrophe to decrease the human populations. Still, that was no reason for Keribdis’s immediate animosity toward Alissa. The girl seemed nice enough. Most everyone else appearedwilling to accept her into their small family with little more than a cursory glance. They had several hundred years to form an opinion of her. No need to rush it.
There was a small disturbance as Keribdis rose. She motioned for her followers to stay before making her way to him. Not surprised, Yar-Taw shifted a jug of Beso-Ran’s ale to make room for her on the table beside him.
Keribdis didn’t look at him as she arranged her Master’s vest carefully about herself. He kept his eyes upon Strell as he gestured dramatically, his eyes mirroring the mystery of his tale. Yar-Taw wondered how much of the man’s claim that he had given Alissa a living memory to follow through time instead of a septhama point was true. Yar-Taw frowned. The plainsman knew a worrisome amount of Master lore for a commoner.
Keribdis pointedly cleared her throat, and Yar-Taw took a slow breath. Here it came.
“What is she doing?” Keribdis asked, her voice cruel. “Crying in the dark?”
Yar-Taw allowed himself a small laugh. “Hardly. She’s practicing her, ah, fields.”
“She’s still hiding,” the older woman said darkly.
Breaking his gaze from the piper, Yar-Taw’s turned to her. “Can you blame her? She is little more than a child. She crossed an ocean to find us and is now probably wondering why. What wind ripped your wing, Keribdis? Talo-Toecan taking on your instruction duties is no reason to browbeat the girl. Silla has been exposed to nearly as much, most of it your fault.”
“It’s hard enough raising an orphan,” she said defensively. “It’s harder when I have to do it with all of you using wards as if you have no arms to lift wood or fingers to turn a page.”
“If you’re finding your parental duties onerous, there are plenty who would take that task for you,” Yar-Taw said, knowing Keribdis would rather die than allow another to raise Silla. She was the daughter Keribdis was too proud to have with Talo-Toecan, and she loved the girl more than she loved herself. Perhaps, Yar-Taw mused, that was what was bothering Keribdis. That her protégée had someone other than Keribdis to spend her day with?
Keribdis said nothing, her long fingers laced about her drink with a deceptively loose grip.
Yar-Taw could tell she was shaking inside, but from what? “And what about Silla?” he asked, testing the air currents, as it were. “Have you thought about her?”
A flash of fear showed in her eyes, then vanished. “What about Silla?”
Excitement went through Yar-Taw. Was this all it was? He could quell this in an evening. “The two have been dream-touching for some time,” he said. “They’re friends a
lready. What is Silla going to think if you keep attacking Alissa for no reason other than that she seems to have a lot of wards?”
Keribdis’s thin shoulders eased. “Yes. You’re right. I’ll— I’ll be more understanding.”
Yar-Taw stifled his frustration. Her admission was too quick. It wasn’t Silla’s and Alissa’s friendship. It was something else. “Please don’t tell me this is because she managed to ride Tidbit,” he said, thinking it would be like Keribdis to fix upon something as trivial as that.
She frowned. “I’m not angry about my horse.”
“Then what?” he asked.
Brow furrowed in thought, Keribdis took a breath to explain, then held up a finger as if to say, Wait. Yar-Taw followed her gaze across the shelter to where Alissa had eased out of the dark. Looking proud but unsure of herself, the young woman sat at the outskirts, cross-legged upon a wide bench. The kestrel on her shoulder stared at them, and Yar-Taw felt uneasy.
A smile blossomed over Alissa as Strell caught her eye. Lodesh, too, turned to her, alerted to her presence by the piper’s sudden interest in the crowd. Immediately the Warden rose to join her. The flow of Strell’s words bobbled, and a brief frown crossed the plainsman’s face. Yar-Taw went slack in thought. What, he wondered, is this?
“Something’s wrong,” Keribdis said, her jaw tightening.
Yar-Taw ran a hand over his chin, hoping the woman would come out with what was bothering her before it was too late for him to head it off. “There’s nothing wrong with Alissa,” he said slowly. “She is a transeunt. You have to make some allowances. She’s so much like us that the little quirks she has from her upbringing seem twice as obvious.”
Keribdis frowned. “That’s not it,” she said. “Something is wrong.” She glared at Yar-Taw as he took a breath to protest. “There is something wrong with her!” she said, hushed but intent. “Look at her thought signature,” she added. “Listen carefully.”
Yar-Taw made a mental search, easily finding Alissa beside the Warden where his eyes told him she would be. “I don’t sense anything,” he said, deciding Alissa’s thought signature was rather nice: bright and warm like a field of lace flowers at noon.
“Don’t look. Listen,” Keribdis said. The anger had disappeared, leaving the woman much more attractive. Her eyes were bright with solving a puzzle, and Yar-Taw felt a pang go through him. Once, she had always been like that. “Hear it?” Keribdis said, her usual temperament softened. “It’s almost as if—” She looked up, her face going frightened. “It’s almost as if there’s an echo.”
“An echo? What would cause that?” Yar-Taw asked, genuinely concerned.
“I’ve only seen it once before. I think—” Keribdis cut her thought short, shifting the fabric covering her knees. “I don’t know yet, for certain,” she finished, but Yar-Taw thought she was lying.
20
“Adance!” someone shouted, and Lodesh smiled. It had been far too long since he had heard a Master’s voice raised in so much enjoyment. “Play us a dance, Strell. A Piper of the Hold is a grand idea! Beso-Ran can make ale, but he can’t play a tune any more than he can fly.”
The rest of them cheered or laughed, their concerns about Alissa soothed by Strell’s tales of her woebegone exploits. The piper was better at this political game than Lodesh would have given him credit for. And Strell would be obliged to play a dance tune lest he ruin the Masters’ collective good mood. Masters loved to carouse, and he had known it would be only a matter of time until someone wanted to dance. Lodesh felt a jolt of anticipation.
“Alissa,” Lodesh said, shifting so his thigh touched hers. She stiffened, and he smoothly moved to put space back between them. “I don’t care what any of them think,” he said, his voice tinged in amusement.
“I do,” she whispered, her voice distant and airy.
“I don’t know why. They’re a bunch of overpompous, shortsighted, wind-starved, ancient busybodies,” he said as he pulled a pitcher close. “Give me some time, and I’ll bring them around. I can change even Keribdis’s mind.” He topped off his cup and took a sip, making a satisfied noise. “No one else but Redal-Stan could do that.”
Alissa shakily proffered her own cup made of stone. She had made the small cup earlier from her thoughts when he refused to fill one of the larger glasses with ale. Too much ale did not make for nimble feet, and he did so want to dance with her.
Smiling, Lodesh took the stone cup out of her hand and set it on the table behind them. “Let’s dance?” he said slyly. He had retained his grip on her fingers, and he pulled on them.
“No,” she said, blinking at him. Moving slowly, she brushed the hair out of her eyes, needing to do it twice to manage it. “I want to go to sleep. Where—where’s my bed?”
Lodesh grinned. “It’s the ale,” he said. “A quick dance will get your blood flowing. Wake you up again.” And remind you of our dance under the mirth trees, he thought to himself.
“No. I want to sleep.” She looked over his shoulder into the night.
“Nonsense.” He stood and pulled on her hand. “You haven’t possibly had enough to slow your feet, much less put you to sleep.”
“Lodesh, stop.” Her eyes were suddenly wide. “I can’t dance. I don’t think I can stand up.” She blinked, looking pale in the warded lights at the ceiling behind a strung net.
“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for Strell to play something we could dance to?” Lodesh said merrily. Grinning, he pulled her to her feet. Alissa took a deep breath as she rose. Her head swung down to her chest and rose back up in a smooth, unbroken movement. Wide-eyed, she stared at him. Her befuddled state had vanished with a shocking suddenness.
Lodesh felt his stomach drop. This wasn’t Alissa. It was Beast. “Burn me to ash . . .” he whispered. Gripping her shoulder, he glanced over at the Masters pushing benches and tables aside to make a dance floor.
“Something’s wrong with Alissa,” Beast said through Alissa, clearly near to panic. “I think she’s sick. She isn’t thinking right, and she fell asleep without me. I’m scared—”
“Hush,” Lodesh whispered as he sat her back down. His eyes roved the crowd to see if anyone had noticed. Strell had begun to play, and he breathed a sigh of relief as all eyes turned to him. He gave Beast a worried smile. “Alissa is all right,” he said. “I think she’s inebriated.”
The frightened look in Alissa’s gray eyes eased. “Inebriated?” Beast seemed to mouth the word, making it sound almost respectable with her odd accent. Her stance changed as she lost her alarm. She became softer, yet a core of strength ran through her. It made her artlessly alluring, and Lodesh’s pulse quickened. He had forgotten this aspect of Beast. Wolves, he had to marry this woman. Strell wouldn’t know what to do with her.
Still gripping her shoulder, Lodesh gestured for Connen-Neute. He was clustered in the shadows with Silla, having stolen Talon from Alissa earlier with a piece of dried meat, and was now shamelessly using the bird to get to know Silla. Connen-Neute was watching them suspiciously, probably remembering what happened the last time Lodesh and Alissa danced. Lodesh glanced at Alissa as a bittersweet memory surged through him. He had all but proposed, but fear had stayed his hand. If he had, things would have gone differently. He knew it.
Connen-Neute whispered something to Silla. Passing Talon to the delighted young woman, he stood and circled his slow way around the crowd. The Masters had begun to cheer the few dancers on. Someone had a drum, and it was beating into Lodesh like a second pulse.
“All right,” Lodesh said. “When Connen-Neute gets here, we’ll get you to your bed.”
“I don’t want to sleep,” Beast protested, gazing up at him. “I want to dance. I want to dance with you, Lodesh.” She smiled, making Alissa’s gray eyes smolder.
Taken aback at the sudden change, Lodesh dropped his grip on her shoulder.
“Dance with me?” she asked as she leaned into him.
Connen-Neute came alongside, his long face pin
ched in worry. “How could you let her drink her tracings into the ground?” he said as Lodesh disengaged himself. Turning to Alissa, he added, “Come tomorrow when your head is exploding, you’ll be wishing you had confronted Keribdis instead.”
“This wasn’t my fault,” Lodesh said indignantly. “She only had one drink. How was I to know what it would do to her? And besides, we have a bigger problem.”
“Good evening, wingmate,” Beast said, her smile turning seductive.
Connen-Neute stiffened. “That’s not Alissa,” he whispered, glancing fearfully at the Masters cheering Beso-Ran as he cavorted like a stallion on Ese’ Nawoer’s field.
Lodesh grimaced. “I know. You take one arm, I’ll take the other.”
“What are you doing here?” Connen-Neute asked, aghast. “You promised.”
Beast’s stance shifted from seductress to lost child with an unsettling quickness. “She went away too fast. It wasn’t right. I got scared.” She swallowed hard. “I don’t feel well.”
Lodesh scanned the shelter for the easiest way out, his stomach tightening as he found Keribdis staring at them. “The Wolves should tear me apart,” he said softly. “We have to get her out of here. Let’s go the back way so we don’t have to go by Keribdis.”
Beast took a breath. “She’ll make Alissa kill me,” she wailed, fortunately unheard.
“Hush!” Lodesh clenched his jaw. “Can you walk?”
Beast regally extended her hands for help, and they pulled her to her feet. She stood stock-still until she found her balance. “My feet aren’t listening to me fast enough,” she said.
Lodesh grunted. “That’s a new one,” he said, not trusting she was as steady on her feet as she appeared. “All right, right foot first.” He glanced over Alissa’s shoulder to see Keribdis distracted by Strell’s music. “We’ll get you to your bed, and you can enjoy torturing Alissa for this tomorrow.”
At Beast’s nod they started their hesitant way to the dark beyond the shelter. Lodesh wasn’t sure how they were going to manage the sand, but perhaps once out from under everyone’s eyes, he and Connen-Neute could carry her. He took a breath in relief when he felt the open sky over them rather than the thatched roof. “There,” he whispered. “Almost there.”
