Touched By Magic (The King's Wolf Saga)

by Doranna Durgin

  Oh, poor Willow! She ran on uncertain legs to intercept the gelding, standing in his path to hold her arms out wide, making a barrier of herself and her confidence.

  He could have gone around, but he dropped his haunches to take the weight of the sudden halt and then trembled before her. In one derisive movement she tore the halter and chain from his head and flung it at Wace, who had recovered enough to sit back on his heels, plainly dazed. "Get that pup out of here," Adela said, with a snarl in her own voice she'd never heard before.

  Saxe gave the Yearling a hand up, pausing to give the shaken young man a critical eye. "Go on over to the surgeon's," he said. "Maybe he can give you a poultice to keep the bruising down. Then wait for me in my office."

  "He tried to kill me," Wace said, his voice rasping. "My father—"

  "Now, Yearling!" Saxe snapped, and Wace straightened his shoulders, his steps uneven as he walked away.

  Satisfied, Adela turned to Willow. "You stand easy," she said, her voice low and soothing. "I'll take care of you in a minute." But first, she had to know Danny was all right.

  He was on his feet now, looking no less strained. And when she caught his eye, he looked away. The movement spoke volumes.

  This was not new.

  This was something he'd kept hidden from her.

  She stopped and stood across from him, a mere foot away, offering no quarter. "Tell me."

  Saxe joined her, and she suddenly realized he didn't seem at all surprised, just upset. "You knew," she said. "You knew about this. Does anyone else know? Am I the only one who doesn't?"

  "The surgeon knows," Danny said, his voice low. "He just couldn't do anything."

  "What is it?" she asked, pursuing relentlessly, even though the lost look on his face suddenly made her want to put her arms around him instead.

  He took a deep breath. "He thought maybe I'd taken too many blows to the head."

  Adela said with asperity, "The heavens know you've had enough of them."

  "I just...get lost for a moment." He glanced at her—trying to judge how she was taking it, she knew. "My head gets filled with noise, and I...just can't think past it. No, that's not entirely true. I'm learning to."

  Saxe's grim expression had not lightened. "And you'll have plenty of time to work on it, after this."

  Danny's head snapped up; his voice hit gravel. "You can't do that."

  "The hells I can't. What I can't do is send you out on patrol, knowing this could happen at any time."

  "I'm dealing with it, Saxe. If you take me off patrol, you know what kinds of rumors are going to start. My people will never know if they can trust me again!"

  "Can they trust you now?" Saxe said, biting the words off.

  Danny looked away from him. Looked defeated. "I've never been hit on patrol, Saxe. Never. It doesn't seem to happen in deep night."

  Saxe just stared at him a moment, as though he wasn't sure he could trust his First any more. Finally he said, "You'll tell me if it does."

  Danny glanced at Adela, drawing her into the promise. "I'll tell you."

  With a heavy sigh, Saxe nodded. "All right. For now." He looked after Wace, now barely visible against the weathered wood of the barn. "He's not so lucky. Politics be damned, the pup is out of the Wolves. Not even Ethne's going to argue with me on this one."

  "No," Danny agreed, some of the fire coming back into his voice. "And he'd better stay damned clear of me."

  Saxe turned to leave them, but not without one last glance at Danny, a hesitation...something he decided not to say. He looked, Adela thought, watching his shoulders as he walked away, as tired as she suddenly felt.

  Danny offered her his hand; instead of taking it, she put her arms around him like she'd wanted to do before. "There's more than one surgeon in this world. We'll keep asking."

  "Yes," he said, sounding unconvinced.

  "Danny," she said, "just how long has this been going on? Has it always been this bad?"

  His voice, although it was coming from a mouth that was so close to her ear, sounded distant. "It's not usually this bad at all," he said. "Most of the time I can just go right through it. It started....just before we lost the Resiore boy."

  She drew back and gave him a somber look. "Then we lost more than that boy last fall."

  He took her chin, a gentle grip, and looked down into her eyes, his own grey gaze still looking a little bereft. "I'm going to figure out what happened to Kavan, Dela."

  "I know," she said.

  And if you can't, I will.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter 4

  Night patrol was when the roadmen emerged, when people got lost, when trouble of all sorts crept to the surface. The king kept the rocky, pine scrub acres around the keep and town free of night wanderers, and of the trappers who surreptitiously laid their lines in forbidden areas. There were too many dogs working sheep and goats over the rocky pastures, too much stock, to chance losing one to a trap.

  It was busy, and Reandn reveled in it. Usually.

  But that night's patrol turned into a long and frustrating experience. Reandn kept such a scrutiny inside his head he was no longer sure what was normal and what wasn't. Once, on the furthest arc of his ride from the Keep, he was certain he felt something, certain he'd swayed in the saddle—even Specks swiveled his flea-bitten ears in the darkness as if to ask Reandn what was going on up there. But it faded, and he decided he'd been mistaken.

  A Wolf had to believe in himself, and trust in himself and his abilities. With a murmured oath even Specks recognized as trouble, he refused to think about it any longer.

  Instead he thought about Kavan. Even finding the boy dead, Reandn thought desperately, was better than wondering for months what had happened to him...and never knowing. By the time he rode Specks to the barn and stalked into the ready room to await the arrival of his patrol for debriefing, he was in a dangerous mood.

  Finding Saxe and Caleb waiting for him did nothing to lighten it. He stopped short, looking from Saxe's somber expression to Caleb's harried one. "What in the Lonely Hells has happened now?"

  Saxe was blunt. "Lady Cosette's favorite lady-in-waiting is missing. Adela's friend Elyn."

  Reandn closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  "No one's seen her since yesterday evening," Caleb said. "Ethne and Brant have every single Hound in King's Keep searching—for both Elyn and Kavan." He snorted. "As if we might find some convenient bit of ribbon or torn lace to show us where she went."

  "Elyn's fiance was a Hound trainee, if I heard right," Saxe said.

  Caleb nodded. "He's as frantic as Lady Cosette. Brant wants to know if the Wolves are doing a grounds search."

  "We've got one started. But I don't expect to find her." Saxe crossed his arms, daring any commentary on that candid response. "There's been too many gone missing this winter with no explanation."

  Caleb shook his head. "The boy in the woods, the kitchen apprentice who was homesick—those were both months ago, just random things."

  "Kavan?" Saxe said sharply. "And Elyn? Elyn is a circumspect young woman, Caleb. Not given to getting herself into trouble."

  Reandn nodded—Saxe was right—but his thoughts were on Adela. Elyn. Kavan.

  "We're going to take some heat for this," Caleb said ruefully. "Ardrith's Eve is hard upon us—the Northern Highborn have already come down through the pass." He gave an exaggerated shudder. "All this fuss, extra responsibility, all in hopes of a few Northies catching the eye of our local breed of Highborn, a few more alliances to hold it all together. Elyn couldn't have picked a worse time to disappear."

  "I doubt she chose to disappear at all," Reandn said, sending Caleb a frown. Let the Highborn be a little nervous. There was more at stake here than their frolicking.

  Caleb made a placating gesture. "Right, right. Of course not." But his expression remained troubled. "We're closer to the court than you Wolves. Hells, we're in the court. Spend a couple of days in my boots, and you'll understand wh
y I said what I did. Last fall, the Resiores were grumbling about seceding. They're pretty much self-supporting in those mountains, aside from luxuries—while at the same time they have resources we need." He gestured at the stove. "We'd get mighty cold if they do break away, and start charging exorbitant prices for their coal. Now they've been more or less cut off from us all winter, with plenty of time to think about that."

  Reandn just looked at his friend a moment; from Caleb's pale blue eyes to his wide, thin-lipped mouth and all the red freckles in between, there was nothing but grim sincerity. "It's gotten that bad?"

  Caleb nodded; beside him, Saxe echoed the gesture. "I've heard as much. We just can't maintain contact with them the way we used to. For what it's worth, I don't think their stab at independence will last too long. From what the Foxes tell Ethne, the Resiores haven't heard a thing from Taffoa or Rolernia since years before the magic left us."

  "Right. As soon as the Resiores realize how lonely their little niche in the mountains really is, and just how much our Keland luxuries make their lives easier, they'll be sweet-talking us again." Caleb gave an exaggerated shiver. "But Tenaebra's tits, I sure want to keep them—and their coal and timber and alsania wool—with us as long as possible!"

  Reandn couldn't argue with that, although his heart was with Elyn—and Dela.

  Caleb sighed, rubbing a hand over his eyes. "I've heard rumors that Ronsin performed real magic—magic—at Tenaebra's Eve. But with all this? He's going to have to come up with something really spectacular to distract people on Ardrith's."

  ~~~~~

  Reandn cut patrol debriefing short once he confirmed that no one had learned anything relevant to either Elyn or Kavan. He skipped breakfast and went straight to the tower, hoping to catch Adela before she went out to the barn—without Kavan, her work in the tower had diminished considerably.

  Their empty room greeted him, but Adela's riding clothes still hung in the wardrobe. She'd be back. Reandn pulled off his half-chaps and sat in their creaky old rocking chair.

  He didn't wait long. She burst into the room, pulling up short at the sight of him.

  "You're home early," she said, surprise on her face. More circumspectly, she closed the door behind her, leaning against it. In her hand she cradled...something. He couldn't tell, only that she held it as if it were fragile treasure. "I'm glad. I've been talking with Ronsin."

  He'd tell her about Elyn's disappearance and probable death...in a moment. "What'd the old man have to say?"

  A faintly regretful expression crossed her face. "He's thinking about leaving after Ardrith's Eve. I don't think he expects Kavan to return...and he doesn't think he'll get another apprentice, especially since so few people believed he really performed magic at Tenaebra's. He's feeling old, I think—and he's talking about going to Solace. It's still a teaching city, even if the schools don't center around magic. "

  Reandn didn't say anything right away. Adela leaned against the door, looking tired, her eyes a little red-rimmed. Finally he ventured, "You could put in more time with the horses. You enjoy that, and it'd be better for the horses than the work they get with the Yearlings."

  "I know," Adela said, biting her lower lip as she looked down into her cupped hand. "It's just...well, I guess I'll miss him. Even if he is mostly gruff and bother."

  "What've you got?"

  She looked up, a tear suddenly trembling on the edge of her lashes. "It's Kavan's. I found it up in Ronsin's study." She uncurled her fingers enough for Reandn to see the little scrunch of dyed, knotted string that had been Kavan's necklet. "It was getting pretty worn."

  Ardrith's graces, how am I going to tell her?

  He gestured at her to come join him in the chair—a tilt of his chin. She wiped a quick finger under her eye and joined him, sitting sideways in his lap to settle against his chest and breathing softly against his neck, her eyes and lashes damp against his skin. He put his hand over hers as her fingers ran along the length of Kavan's necklet.

  "The Hounds and Wolves are everywhere," she said. "Are they looking for Kavan?"

  "No. They're looking for someone else."

  He felt her expression change. "Not another one!"

  "Looks that way." He sighed. There was no easy way to do this. "Dela, it's Elyn."

  She stiffened. "No. No, it is not."

  "I'm sorry." How useless it sounded. "I'm sorry, love, but she's gone."

  Her body was tense against his, her voice reduced to a disbelieving whisper. "She was here just last night..."

  "She was?"

  Adela nodded slowly. "She heard about Kavan. She came to be with me awhile."

  "She stayed the whole night?"

  "She left an hour or so after midnight. I'm not sure how long after the shift bells rang..." She sat stiff within his arms, but he knew her, knew she was still fighting the horror of it. He rested one hand on her thigh while the other curved around her back, waiting for the tears.

  And he knew Elyn had been taken between their room and hers.

  ~~~~~

  Reandn held Adela until she cried, and then while she cried herself into exhaustion—which she did as she did everything, wholeheartedly. Then, exhausted himself, he carried her to the bed and lay down beside her, not bothering to do more than kick off his boots as he stretched out on top of the quilt. He fell asleep to the movement of her hands, running the length of Kavan's worn little necklet over and over again.

  When he woke, it was to the sound of evening shift bells, which rang deeper and swung on shorter arcs than the hour bells. His stomach growled, reprimanding him for missing breakfast. Adela was gone; when he glanced at the depression where she'd been, he discovered only Kavan's necklet. He'd find her for supper, he decided, and then spend the evening before the night shift learning what he could about Elyn's disappearance.

  Maybe, he told himself as he sat, rubbed his hands over his face, and reached for his boots, Elyn was even back where she belonged, and embarrassed over causing so much concern. Maybe.

  Faintly, unexpectedly, he thought he heard Adela's voice, raised in anger. From above? He pushed the second boot into place and reached for his half-chaps as he stood, listening.

  There—there it was again. Definitely in this tower somewhere. That meant Ronsin's rooms...but what in Ardrith's name would make her raise her voice at the wizard? And—had that been a touch of fear he'd heard?

  Yes.

  But his dizziness struck, and the chaps hit the floor with Reandn right behind them, gagging from the chaos in his head.

  No! Not now—not when Adela needed him—

  Reandn climbed to his feet—pulling himself up the door, fumbling it open, reeling through. As he struggled through the pressure between his ears—in his ears—and he heard Adela clearly, the buzz masking her words but not her definite fear. He bounded up the stairs, stumbling but never quite falling—and when he reached the top, she was silent again.

  Reandn flung himself at Ronsin's door, bursting into the wizard's study, a room overflowing with shelves of strange dried things and precious metal contraptions, drooping greenery and pages of thickly scripted vellum.

  None of the details drew his attention away from Adela—who stood frozen, her face drawn with fear. She clutched a forbidden metal-cased workbook in an arrested, off-balance stance that should have tipped her over...but didn't.

  Ronsin stood behind a cluttered table, annoyance on his face, his bent body straight, his straggling hair clear from a face that looked less aged and more...alive. He spared Reandn only a glance.

  Ronsin. Adela's insistent words rang in Reandn's mind. He worked magic. Even now, Ronsin's fingers moved, his gaze skipping from Adela to a thick page of careful notes sitting on the table.

  "Dela," Reandn breathed, staggering into the room, suddenly aware of the tightness in his chest. He turned on the wizard, his words a snarl. "Stop it, damn you! Whatever you're doing, stop it."

  "Surely you cannot think this is my doing." Scathing resentment sour
ed Ronsin's voice. He looked away from his notes, his hands stilled like an orator staving off applause—or the completion of a spell. "I'm an old man. My magic has disappeared, and the king allows me this tower out of pity. That's what they say, isn't it?"

  That's what they say.

  But they were wrong. Reandn had been wrong.

  Elyn disappeared here, Kavan disappeared here, the kitchen's not far away—and Adela stood frozen in time, that forbidden workbook in her arms, the one she'd just barely learned to read.

  "It was you," Reandn said, his voice dropping into the growl of its lower registers, struggling to function past the assault on his body. And somehow, you're doing this to me. "It's been you all along."

  Ronsin tipped his head in acknowledgement...without concern. "Your lovely wife figured it out first—I knew I was too bold with the woman last night. But she shouldn't have come snooping around—and with Ardrith's Eve coming up, I needed what she had. Adela will give me the same."

  "Not before I send you to the lonely hells," Reandn grated, reaching for his knife—fighting for breath, fighting his fear for Dela—fighting the way his knees tried to simply surrender and fold.

  "Ah, Wolf Justice, is that it?" Ronsin stood taller, seemed oddly...different. "I'll show you justice, pup. Justice served by an old man after a lifetime of dismissal and derision." His eyes glittered beneath their wrinkled folds. "Justice," Ronsin hissed, "is power restored."

  The humming in Reandn's ears increased beyond tolerance; he staggered, knees finally going, clutching the edge of the table—

  And then he saw the change in Adela.

  Did she waver, like the shimmer of heat over hot cobbles? Did she fade, like dissipating steam? Reandn's hand spasmed on the knife hilt as her features oscillated—and suddenly he could see the crowded shelves behind her, through her. Her skirts turned to mere veils...her face lingered, vital and alive and terrified and—