Wolfsbane

by Patricia Briggs

  He could have found out about her relationship with Cain while he was dreamwalking, she thought.

  “Cain did not kill Geoffrey,” Aralorn told him. “What he knows about black magic, Geoffrey taught him—as he taught you.”

  Nevyn shook his head. “No. Geoffrey was good. He helped me. It was Cain . . . in the night while Nevyn slept. I saw—I saw it all. Night after night, he called me to perform for me and to teach me . . . I showed you it all, I gave you dreams so that you would know what he was. What I did.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “What he forced me to do.”

  “I don’t remember,” she said. “I only dreamed of Wolf.” But after she said it, she wondered if it was really true. The story, Nevyn’s story, had come to her so completely while she was riding back from Ridane’s temple—could she have come up with it from some half-remembered dreams?

  “You only kept dreams of him,” said Nevyn, his voice dark and ugly. “You’re just a shapeshifting, magic-tainted whore. I’ve told him and told him, but he loves you. Loves you when he hates his magic, hates me because he can’t quit using his magic, can’t give me up altogether.”

  He laughed slyly. “But you ruined it the first time he saw the two of you together. It took him a long time to realize that your wolf was Cain—but then, Nevyn was always a little slow.”

  “You are Nevyn,” she said, but he ignored her.

  “He sent the howlaa then, on impulse. Then he worried and worried until it was killed. Stupid sod forgot that he needs Cain to free the Lyon. If the Lyon is harmed, he’ll never believe it wasn’t his fault.”

  “You knew enough about black magic to set the spell,” she said, changing the subject, because it didn’t seem helpful to try to argue with this shade of Nevyn about Nevyn’s guilt or innocence. “Why can’t you unwork it yourself?”

  “If he’d succeeded in killing Cain, I could tell Nevyn enough about it to work the spell—but he’d never be able to do it. No stomach for it, I’m afraid. Kisrah might do it, but he doesn’t love the Lyon enough.” He sounded both amused and exasperated.

  “Why try to kill Gerem?” asked Aralorn.

  “The spell needs a human death,” he said. “Gerem is already tainted by magic, and I needed someone whom Nevyn could see dead. I couldn’t leave the choice to Cain. But I don’t need Gerem anymore.” As he spoke the last word, he came up out of the chair and struck with the sword that he’d held in the shadows.

  She saw his intention in his face an instant before he moved, so she threw herself backward, and his blade missed.

  Swords, she thought as she stumbled to catch her balance. Plague it, why does it always have to be swords? She dodged another slice as she pulled Ambris.

  It was obvious from the first blow who the better swordsman was, and it wasn’t Aralorn. He had been good when she left, and he obviously hadn’t quit practicing. He might even give Wolf a run for his money. She caught the edge of his blade on Ambris and let it slide off.

  Even if she’d been able to use her good arm, she wouldn’t have stood a chance. Even if she’d been an excellent swordswoman, she would have had a problem: She was using Ambris. She didn’t want to hurt Nevyn at all—she certainly didn’t want to steal his magic. She wasn’t certain that was what would happen—Nevyn wasn’t trying for godhood as Geoffrey had been. But that was the trouble with ancient artifacts—no one really knew what they did.

  There was a game she knew, one her uncle taught her, called Taefil Ma Deogh, Steal the Dragon. Strategy and skill were necessary, but it was deviousness that determined who won and who lost. The last time Aralorn stayed with her mother’s people, she had beaten her uncle eight times out of ten.

  Devious, she thought, parrying furiously. Do the unexpected.

  She turned and ran—out the door, down the hall to the nearest empty room, and through the doorway. The room was dark, which suited Aralorn just fine. She slid Ambris into a tall, narrow vase, where she wouldn’t be immediately obvious.

  Nevyn’s sprinting footsteps were almost at the door as she gathered herself together for another shapechange. She was too weak, too many changes with too little rest between.

  Gasping a little, she centered herself and tried again. Pain seared her from toes to fingertips, but as his form appeared in the doorway, she slipped into the shape of a mouse. She huddled just behind the door as he came into the room, called a magelight, and looked briefly around. She waited until he left, then scampered out the door and back to his bedroom.

  Wolf finished the last of the painstakingly drawn ink lines on the Lyon’s face. When he was through, he looked over all of his work carefully, for he wouldn’t get a second chance. Satisfied that all was in order, he took out his knife. He should sever the bond he shared with Aralorn before he started, but the chances were too great that she’d find him before he was done. He had to wait until the last moment.

  He slid the sharp blade sideways across one wrist. Touching the tip of a fresh quill pen into the dark liquid that pooled in his wound, he began painstakingly retracing the inked lines with blood.

  In Nevyn’s room, Aralorn shifted once more to human shape, shaking and shuddering when she was done. If she survived this night, it would be days before she could do so much as light a candle with magic.

  She could hear him searching for her, quick footsteps, doors opening quietly. Her heart settled; the sweat dried; and, after a few moments, the pain of overusing her magic receded except for a nagging headache.

  She found a likely ambush spot, just inside his door. She was counting on him to believe she would have gone for help rather than come back to face him on her own.

  He neared the door, making no attempt at stealth, and Aralorn breathed as silently as she could. He walked in confidently; his first glance fell to the bed. That was all the opening she needed.

  With a war cry designed to make him start, she leapt to his back and wrapped one arm around his neck and grabbed the elbow of her opposite arm. This locked the bones of her forearms against the arteries that carried blood to his brain. The mercenaries called it a “nighty-night,” and, if she could hold it for a count of fifteen, Nevyn should drop unconscious. The first five counts would be the telling ground because after that, he would get weaker fast. Surprise counted for two, then he slammed her against the edge of the door.

  She held on, ignoring the pain for the moment, though she knew that she was going to have a vertical bruise to go with the horizontal one Falhart had given her with his quarterstaff. The second time Nevyn slammed her back, it hurt worse because he managed to catch her howlaa-wounded shoulder on the door, so she bit his ear to distract him. He tried to twist away and stumbled, which would have been all right except that it gave him an idea that she would rather he not have thought of.

  He threw himself backward on the floor, and the air left her lungs with a faint hint of protest.

  Twelve, she thought.

  He managed to bring his shoulders up and smash her head onto the floor.

  Fourteen, plague it, go to sleep.

  He repeated his previous move with such success that Aralorn was starting to feel woozy herself. Luckily, it was the last one he made.

  Lying under him, she waited to catch her breath before sending Nevyn into a more lasting sleep with the dregs of her magic. She’d never have been able to do it with him awake.

  Should have just hit him over the head, she thought when she was finished, and touched her bottom lip gently with her tongue to inspect that damage he’d wrought with the back of his head, so there’s a chance I’d have killed him. I could have lived with that.

  “Aralorn?”

  Nevyn’s body blocked her view of the door, but she knew Kisrah’s voice.

  “I suspect she’s under him somewhere, but she’s small enough that it might take us a while to find her,” observed Gerem a bit shakily.

  “Ha-ha,” she said coldly. “Never tease a person who knows enough about you for blackmail.”

  “Never get grum
py 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 somew
here 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.