A Wind in the Night

Chapter One

More than a half moon later and many leagues south from Calm Seatt, two days out from the port of Soráno, Magiere stood on the deck of the Cloud Queen and stared out over the ocean as wind pulled at her dark hair. Behind her, she heard a too-familiar squabble begin again.

“Paolo!” a female voice squeaked. “Look at what you’re doing. You’re wasting half that fish.”

“If you can do better,” someone answered, “I’ll take Alberto and go play rings ... and you can gut these all by yourself!”

Magiere shook her head and turned from the rail. A trio of young people sat on the edge of the large central cargo hatch, where they were attempting to clean and slice up a pile of fish for the ship’s cook. What had the cook been thinking in giving that task to these three?

Nearest to Magiere was a small boy named Alberto, and sitting beside him was a boy of about thirteen called Paolo. Both were now part of the ship’s crew. But the final member of the trio was the female scolder, who wasn’t part of the crew.

Wayfarer, once called Leanâlhâm, was only a passenger, like Magiere.

Even dressed in her faded maroon pullover and threadbare pants, Wayfarer was a beautiful girl, about sixteen years old. Beautiful even for her own kind, though perhaps more so to some humans’ eyes ... especially the boys’.

Wayfarer’s eyes had the unearthly largeness and slight slant of her mother’s people, the an’Cróan, but where the an’Cróans’ larger irises were amber, hers were the color of the dark, damp leaves and needles of the forest. Likewise, her hair was nearly brown rather than the white blond of elves. The reason for both oddities was that she was a quarter human.

Magiere’s eyes lingered with the usual mix of affection and worry on the girl, for in all that had happened before now on this voyage, Wayfarer was now her charge and Leesil’s.

The girl looked up to find Magiere watching her.

“Magiere,” Wayfarer implored, “would you come show Paolo what to do? Since he will not listen to me ... and is ruining perfectly good fish.”

In a way, such a firm request, tainted with a little ire, was a miracle unto itself. Not long ago, it had been a challenge to get the girl to speak at all. However, Magiere did not particularly relish the thought of jumping in the middle of this argument.

“I’ve got it,” a familiar voice called from the stern.

A slender figure jogged out of the aftcastle door to below, and a different affection flooded Magiere. Even after their years together, she still sometimes just stopped to take in the sight of Leesil.

With oblong ears less peaked than a full-blooded elf’s, he shared other traits with his mother’s—and Wayfarer’s—people of the eastern continent. Beneath a ratty green scarf wrapped around his head, strands of silky white-blond hair hung around his narrow, tan face. Beardless like full-blooded male elves, he was average height for a human, though short by an’Cróan standards, unlike Magiere, who was nearly as tall as he was. Even on the ship, he wore his old scarred-up hauberk with its iron rings.

While Magiere wore a hand-and-a-half, long-bladed falchion sheathed on her hip, and a white metal battle dagger at her back in a sheath, a pair of strange-looking winged punching blades hung in their odd sheaths from Leesil’s belt, strapped down against his thighs.

In the spring breeze, Magiere’s shirt clung to her beneath her studded leather hauberk. Pushing back her black hair, she knew its bloodred tint probably showed under the bright sun. Everyone here was now accustomed to that, just as she had grown used to her overly pale skin sometimes stinging under the bright sun’s glare.

Leesil’s amber-irised eyes, so subtly slanted, looked down at the trio. “What is ... problem?”

His grasp of Numanese, the more common language of this continent, was still questionable, but it was the only language Paolo and Alberto spoke.

“She says he’s ruining that fish,” Alberto answered in his small voice, jutting his short chin at Wayfarer.

“Am not!” Paolo added.

Magiere agreed with Wayfarer: there wasn’t much left of the fish that Paulo held.

Leesil knelt between the boys and eyed Paolo. “Give me knife. I show ... take out bones.”

With a sigh, Paolo surrendered his knife, and the argument ended.

Magiere raised her eyes and spotted the final two members of her group coming out of the aftcastle door. The one in the lead was nearly a head taller than anyone on board.

Coarse white-blond hair with streaks of gray among the strands marked him as old for an an’Cróan. He was deeply tan, with lines crinkling the corners of his mouth and his large amber-irised eyes, which at times never appeared to blink as he watched everything. But the feature that stood out most was the four pale scars—as if from claws—that ran at an angle down his forehead and through one high and slanted feathery eyebrow to skip over his right eye and reach his cheekbone.

Neither Magiere nor Leesil could pronounce his full an’Cróan name, so they’d shortened it to simply Brot’an.

Among the Anmaglâhk, that caste of assassins who viewed themselves as guardians of the an’Cróan, he was one of a few remaining “shadow-grippers,” the masters of the caste’s skills and ways. But Brot’an no longer wore his caste’s garb of forest gray hooded cloak, vestment, pants, and felt boots. Instead he wore simple breeches and a weatherworn jerkin—more scavenged human garb, like Wayfarer’s. Unlike the girl, who was merely trying to blend in among human cultures, the old assassin had an additional reason for his change of attire.

Brot’an was at war with his own caste, but to Magiere he was still an anmaglâhk. If she forgot that for even an instant, there were always those scars on his face to remind her.

“Another disagreement?” he asked, frowning slightly as he observed Leesil and the young ones.

“A squabble,” she answered.

“My people’s children do not ... ‘squabble.’” His eyes narrowed a little, as if Paolo and Alberto were a bad influence on Wayfarer.

“She’ll miss them when we have to leave,” Magiere countered.

“Perhaps.”

A deep growl pulled Magiere’s attention. Behind the tall shadow-gripper stood a large silver-gray wolf, almost bluish in the bright day.

Chap was taller than any wolf, for he wasn’t one. His body was that of a majay-hì, but he was different from even them and his mate, Lily, as was his daughter, Shade, though in a different way. He was a Fay spirit born years ago by his own choice into a majay-hì pup—a new Fay-born in the body of a Fay-descended being. And his daughter, Shade, shared half of that strangely mixed heritage.

Chap was also Magiere and Leesil’s guardian and guide—and an overbearing know-it-all. He also hated Brot’an, and he had a long list of reasons for this, which resulted in his penchant for watching the old assassin nearly all the time.

The dog rounded the old assassin and came closer to Magiere.

—Paolo is ... good ... for Wayfarer— ... —He ... lets her ... be a girl—

Those words rose in Magiere’s mind as Chap called them up in pieces from various memories he had seen in her over time. This was his new method of “speaking” to her, Leesil, or Wayfarer, though he never did so with Brot’an, as far as Magiere knew. Chap found he could never get inside the old assassin’s thoughts.

“I know,” she answered. “But once we reach Soráno, we’ll have to find a new ship.”

Brot’an was accustomed to her speaking aloud to Chap and to hearing only her half of the conversation. He looked ahead, out over the waves, and added in Belaskian, “How long to Soráno?”

“About two days. That’s what one of the sailors told me.”

“Is there no way to change Captain Bassett’s mind? We were fortunate to have found this ship traveling all the way to il’Dha’ab Najuum. It may be difficult to find another in a smaller port.”

Magiere agreed with the latter part, and it worried her, but she shook her head. “Bassett won’t change his mind.”

Brot’an had to know this, so asking was pointless and not at all like him. Magiere had learned well that Brot’an rarely did anything without a purpose.

They all had to reach il’Dha’ab Najuum, the westernmost kingdom of the Suman Empire, as quickly as they could. That was the first place where they might begin trying to locate the orb of Air. Magiere, along with Leesil and Chap, had already secured two of the five orbs—Water and Fire—while Wynn had secured a third, that of Earth. Chap had hidden the first two, and no one else knew where. Wynn had sent the orb of Earth to a place of safety in the dwarven underworld.

Only Air and Spirit remained to be found, but it wasn’t even that simple.

Most Aged Father, the insane leader of Brot’an’s forsaken caste, had learned of the existence of the orb of Water. The decrepit patriarch had sent a team of anmaglâhk after Magiere to take the orb or learn its location. Back in the small port town of Drist, the team had caught up and murdered half the crew of the Cloud Queen. Even after the ship and remaining crew had been freed, the captain “requested” that Magiere and her companions disembark at the next port.

She couldn’t blame him. Death seemed to follow her, Leesil, and Chap wherever they went. However, at that thought, she eyed Brot’an again. Then Leesil rose from his crouch and came striding over, leaving the young trio hard at work.

Magiere half smiled at her husband. “Crisis averted?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know how much of that fish will be usable. The cook must have been drinking again last night. Can’t see how else he would let those three clean and fillet the catch for him.”

She looked into his amber eyes and knew what he was thinking. For the first time, Wayfarer was gaining some sense of comfort ... of belonging. In two days’ time, at the most, they would rip her away from people—humans—she’d come to know without fear, and she would again be forced among unknown humans.

“It’ll be all right,” Leesil said quietly.

Magiere doubted that, though their mission would continue just the same. They had to keep any orbs from falling into the wrong hands. She watched Leesil for a moment, as he was ever her anchor, and then she glanced over at Wayfarer.

Poor girl ... only two more days.

As evening fell, Wynn Hygeorht knew it was time to leave the solitude of her little room at the Calm Seatt branch of the Guild of Sagecraft. She had an errand she could no longer put off.

Glancing down, she grimaced slightly at the sight of the still-unfamiliar robe of midnight blue that she now wore in place of her gray one. Her wispy, light brown hair hung loose, but she decided not to bother braiding it back.

“Come, Shade,” she said, and opened the door to step out.

A long-legged, charcoal-colored dog resembling an oversized wolf hopped off her narrow bed and padded out after her, and in the passage’s dim light, Shade’s fur turned pure black. It only made her glittering, crystalline blue eyes stand out even more as she twitched her long, pointed ears. Wynn reached down to stroke her companion’s large head.

The past half-moon had felt very, very long.

Though the guild had been Wynn’s home all of her life, events of recent days—and nights—had left her feeling trapped here as she struggled to find buried answers when too often she wasn’t even sure of the questions.

Leaving the old castle’s barracks, now a dormitory housing apprentice and journeyor sages, she trudged across the cobbled central courtyard with Shade as they headed for the large building on the northwest side. This entire four-towered castle had once housed the royals of the nation of Malourné, but many, many years ago it had become the residence for the founding branch of the Guild of Sagecraft.

Wynn stopped in the middle of the courtyard as she tried to find any reason to put off the errand a little longer.

“Do you need to ... do your evening business?” she asked, looking down at Shade. “Should we take a little side trip into the trees in the inner bailey?”

Shade understood, for she was no ordinary dog—or wolf. She was one of the majay-hì. Her kind was descended from wolves of ancient times inhabited by the Fay during the war at the end of the world’s Forgotten History. The descendants of those first Fay-born became the guardians of the an’Cróan elves, barring all but their people from the vast Elven Territories on the eastern continent.

Due to a plan hatched by Chap, Shade’s father, she had traveled across the sea to the central continent to protect Wynn. She rarely left Wynn’s side ... willingly.

Shade huffed twice for no in answering.

Wynn sighed heavily. “All right, then.”

Her steps were much slower and shorter as they moved on, and all of the problems Wynn had been avoiding too long came boiling up in her head.

Just over a half-moon ago, several of her closest companions had sailed south in search of the orb of Air. Wynn had opted to remain behind in order to search the guild’s vast archives for any clue to the location of the last and fifth orb, the one for the element of Spirit.

So here she was, by her own choice, and so far making pathetically little progress.

To complicate matters, her superiors, with one exception, were bitterly opposed to her taking any action at all. Only Premin Hawes, the head of Metaology, had offered willing assistance. As a result Wynn had been forced to leave the order of Cathology, whose members wore gray robes, and put on a robe of midnight blue in pretending to have joined the order of Metaology.

It was all wearying, and, worse, she hadn’t remained behind entirely alone.

Two members of the original group, aside from Shade, had remained as well. One she’d planned for and one she hadn’t, and both were now guests of the guild.

Wynn shuffled another step and then another across the courtyard until she stood before the side door of the large northwest storage building, which housed laboratory chambers below it and guests’ quarters upstairs.

Shade huffed and let out a grumbling whine.

“All right, I’m going!” Wynn whispered sharply. “Stop pestering me.”

With no more reason to delay, she opened the door and, letting Shade slip past her, stepped inside. As they reached the passage’s far end and the switchback stairs up to the guest quarters, Wynn slowed to a stop on the midpoint landing in the turn up the next short flight of steps.

She could not stop thinking of the two men—housed in separate quarters above—who had both been waiting to hear from her for the past several nights. She wasn’t sure she felt up to talking to either of them, not when she was so aware of the hostility that always crackled between them. Wynn found she couldn’t take another step, and, unbidden, her thoughts stretched back to the overwhelming night when Osha had appeared in the courtyard—and Chane had tried to stop him from entering.

After that tense, tangled moment, too many things had happened that were all a fuzzy blur in her head. She’d managed to arrange a room for Osha, which had not been too difficult. The sages of her branch had strong connections to the elves of this continent, the Lhoin’na, for there was another guild branch among them. Some of Wynn’s peers, having never met any an’Cróan from the far eastern continent, found Osha an alluring curiosity.

Chane made no secret of his feelings: Osha’s presence had not been part of the plan and was not desirable. The following days and nights hadn’t been easy.

Neither Chane nor Osha had much to occupy him, and both had too much time to dwell on the other’s close, unwanted presence. It hadn’t helped that both had to be lodged in the same building, on the same floor, almost right across the passage from each other.

Wynn was desperate to discover the slightest hint to the location of the orb of Spirit. In part, throwing herself fully into that task, spending days in research or working with Premin Hawes to decipher very few clues, was an excuse to avoid facing either Chane or Osha.

Something pushed the back of Wynn’s leg, and she spun to look down at Shade.

“Don’t start again!” she whispered. “This is hard enough without you butting in.”

So far she had learned nothing for all her efforts. At first, every dusk she’d quickly checked on both Chane and Osha to give them some report of what she’d been doing. Mostly that was to make them think she was too busy for anything more. Those visits had become less frequent, for she had nothing to tell them ... and the less she had to tell them, the more they might start raising other, more personal matters.

This could not go on.

With a labored sigh, Wynn took the last steps to the upper passage lined with narrow doors, three on each side. She looked to the first on the right and then to the second on the left a little farther down. When Shade whined, Wynn looked down, but the dog wasn’t beside her. She found that Shade was still standing on the stairs behind her.

Shade glanced left and right, likely at those same doors, and then looked up at Wynn.

—Maybe ... not ... talk ... Chane ... Osha ... tonight—

In addition to other unique abilities, Shade could call up words out of Wynn’s memories to communicate with only her. Wynn nearly choked in frustration, for only a moment ago the dog had been pushing her onward.

“Will you make up your mind?” she whispered. “It is hard enough for me to do so.”

—Wynn come ... have dinner ... instead—

Reaching down, Wynn stroked Shade’s head. “Not yet,” she answered, but she stood there at a loss about whom to see first. At the rattle of a door’s lever, she turned her head.

The first door—Chane’s door—pulled sharply inward, banging against the chamber’s inner wall, but it wasn’t Chane who stepped out.

A girl in tan robes, a mere initiate, stormed out with a loud, exasperated exhale and an overloaded pile of books in her arms.

She was only about twelve years old, and her little nose and ivory cheeks were smattered with faint freckles. Two equal braids held back her dark blond hair and framed a too-haggard, grumpy pout for such a young one. She wrestled with keeping the books balanced while pulling the door closed with a petulant slam.

“Kyne?” Wynn said. “What are you doing so late in Ch ... Master Andraso’s quarters?”

Kyne peered over her stack of books. Brief surprise at the sight of Wynn quickly returned to her irritable pout at the mention of Chane. But all of that irritation suddenly vanished again in a wide-eyed smile.

“Shade!” the girl cried out gleefully.

Wynn heard what sounded like a groan from the dog.

Kyne looked up at Wynn, and her little frown returned. “I’m supposed to be teaching him ... or at least that’s what he asked.”

Wynn’s mouth tightened. “Yes, I am aware of that.”

Some time ago Chane had asked Kyne of all people for help in learning to read the Begaine Syllabary, the complex symbols used by sages for recording anything in any language. At first Wynn had been stunned by this, though she knew Chane had a growing interest in all things related to guild methods. Full command of the syllabary was first on his list, and Kyne had learned it more swiftly than any initiate Wynn had ever encountered. Obviously Chane had deduced something similar.

Wynn had helped in the arrangements, as initiates weren’t allowed to do such things, especially for an outsider. Plus the girl had the time to tutor him, since often her own lessons seemed too simple for her. The guild had some public schools, though those weren’t for adults and had nothing to do with the workings of the guild. And Wynn had also been able to offer a special enticement that had quickly gained Kyne’s agreement.

Wynn cringed slightly, not daring to glance back at Shade.

This wasn’t the appointed time for Chane’s lessons. Kyne had agreed to rise well before dawn and teach “Master Andraso” before her own day began.

“He wanted extra time,” Kyne grumbled, rolling her bright brown eyes. “He says we are going too slow, but all the questions ... and questions! He should be quiet, listen, and practice like I tell him. Begaine is not so hard.... I can read it!”

“I see,” Wynn said, but she wondered why Chane was in such a hurry.

Kyne’s expression suddenly changed again as she scurried right past Wynn—right at Shade—with that wide smile breaking free once more.

“Could I take her outside now?” she called, and leaned so close that Shade began shifting away. “Does she need to ... do her business?”

This was the enticement Wynn had used to get Kyne to help Chane.

It had seemed the safest way at the time, rather than involving an actual apprentice, let alone a full sage, in one of the orders. From almost the first time the girl had seen a real majay-hì, right here on the guild grounds, she had been utterly smitten with Shade.

Shade had been somewhat unwilling to participate at first. Kyne would bring her water in the large common hall or take her outside to ... do her business. Eventually Shade had relented—to a point.

If nothing else, Kyne was the only other person Shade tolerated for long at close proximity or as something that took her from Wynn’s side. The dog didn’t like interacting with anyone but Wynn—or Chane as necessary. And as much as Kyne knew that majay-hì were far more intelligent than mere animals, she was only a girl a bit too caught up with glee in tending a supposedly magical “pet.”

Kyne was barely as tall as the peaks of the dog’s high ears.

“Do you need to out go now?” Kyne asked Shade this time.

Shade let out a rumble that almost worried Wynn, and then the majay-hì spun to lope off down the stairs. Kyne rushed to follow, pausing once on the landing.

“Wait for me!” she called after Shade, and quickly looked up at Wynn. “And tell him not to ask so many questions. He needs to listen!” The girl rushed around the corner out of sight. “Shade! Please!”

Wynn groaned in knowing she’d probably hear about this later from Shade. Then she found herself alone, staring at Chane’s door. Any amusing images of the poor child trying to tutor him vanished. Once again she was back to her original dilemma about whom to go see first.

No doubt Chane had heard everything that had just happened outside his room. That made the choice for Wynn.

Chane Andraso watched the door of his quarters and grew impatient until a knock came. He had heard Kyne complaining in the corridor, and, at the girl’s gleeful squeal concerning Shade, he knew there could be only one other person outside.

Striding over, he opened the door, and Wynn stood on the other side ... but there was no sign of Shade. He glanced down the passage toward the stairs.

“Kyne took her out,” Wynn said.

Though Kyne’s tutoring him in the syllabary had been Chane’s idea, he was still uncertain about the “compensation” Wynn had offered the young sage-to-be. Foremost, Shade was a fully sentient being, useful in her ability to protect Wynn ... and other things. She was not a child’s playtime companion.

And, second, on several occasions he’d gone out into the courtyard and noticed that when Shade was alone with Kyne, the dog lost all semblance of good sense or manners and ran as she pleased and ignored any instructions. The child was forced to run after her, calling out her name.

It was all very ... undignified.

In addition, he had wanted Shade present tonight to help him press Wynn on several matters. But as he backed up to let Wynn follow him inside, all thoughts but her fled from his mind. He still hadn’t become accustomed to the sight of her in that midnight blue robe, but the dark color suited her well. She hadn’t bothered braiding her wispy light brown hair tonight, and it hung loose around her pretty olive-toned face to hang past her shoulders. Her eyes were bright and warm and intelligent all at the same time.

She was so short that she could stand under his chin.

Chane had never thought himself capable of anything resembling contentment. The closest he had ever come was in her company, especially when he was alone with her.

“Did you uncover anything today?” he asked, forestalling other concerns.

The near-soundless rasp of his own voice suddenly bothered him more than usual. Some years past, Magiere had severed his head; he had become whole again only through someone else’s arcane means. But his voice had never healed and likely never would.

Still silent, Wynn shook her head and glanced around at his sparsely furnished room. He required little besides a bed, a desk, ink, quills, paper, and the books he was studying.

“No,” she finally said, “and I spent all day in the archives.”

She sounded strained—and uncomfortable—as if she did not want to be here.

Chane clenched his jaw for an instant. “As I told you ... I think the archives are a waste of your time. You and Hawes should focus on the scroll.”

Wynn looked up at him and nearly snapped, “Premin Hawes has other duties. She can’t spend all of her time playing nursemaid and tutoring me in using my mantic sight.”

“I do not want you using your mantic sight,” he shot back.

He quickly regretted that, considering that her mantic sight was required to read the scroll. They both fell silent for a long moment.

“The scroll is still the more likely option,” he said quietly.

He knew he was right, just as she did. He also knew there were issues with his perspective on this matter. Several years ago he had by happenstance stumbled upon that scroll containing a hidden and possibly prophetic poem written by one of the first thirteen vampires to walk upon the world. The verses contained metaphoric clues to the locations of the five orbs, or at least as somehow known long, long ago by the author.

And the poem had been written in the fluids of an undead and then covered with dark ink.

Wynn was the only one who could read those obscured verses.

She had once faltered in an unschooled use of a thaumaturgical ritual, and the taint of that failure had left her afflicted with mantic sight—the ability to see traces of the Elements, or at least Spirit, in all things. Once she invoked her sight, she could also see the absence of Spirit, such as in the fluids of a physical undead used for the poem hidden beneath the ink. But the aftermath was dangerous.

Wynn became dizzy and nauseated, sometimes even disoriented, and she could maintain her sight for only a short time without becoming more intensely ill. Worse, even when she wished to end her mantic sight, she could not. Someone like Premin Hawes was required to step in and help her. Strangely enough, Shade as well could sometimes help Wynn with this, but only if Wynn did not push such a session too far or too long.

So far Wynn had managed to recover and translate some useful phases, including one sentence that might bear on their current task.

The Wind was banished to the waters within the sands where we were born.

Premin Hawes reasoned that the “we” was a reference to “the Children,” those first thirteen undead—vampires—who had once served the Ancient Enemy itself. It was reasonable to assume that “Wind” corresponded to the orb of Air, for the other elemental metaphors in the poem, five in all, equally hinted at the other orbs. As to “sands,” this might refer to the great desert that spanned the continent between the northern Numan and Lhoin’na lands and the Suman Empire to the south. Hawes asserted that the climate there had changed in a thousand years and what was now a desert might have once been water, at least partly.

It was shortly thereafter when Magiere and those with her escaped from Calm Seatt to head toward il’Dha’ab Najuum. One of their first tasks upon arrival was to contact a ranking sage of the guild’s third branch, the Suman branch: Domin Ghassan il’Sänke, a domin of Metaology.

No one knew whether he would help or not, but il’Sänke favored Wynn, and he was quite possibly the only one who could help find the lost resting place of the orb of Air. Wynn, Shade, and Chane had remained behind in the hopes of launching their own search for the orb of Spirit.

And so far Wynn had uncovered nothing new of use.

The only clues she’d ever found had come from the scroll.

“We need something soon,” Chane said. “Perhaps you could ask Hawes to ... let you try the scroll again.”

Premin Hawes was cautious about Wynn using her ability too often. In truth, Premin Hawes was not as cautious as was Chane—or Shade—but he was desperate for something—anything.

Wynn took a slow breath. “I’ll ask her.” Then she turned away. “I should go and ... check on Osha.”

Chane almost grabbed Wynn’s arm.

That elf—an’Cróan, onetime assassin, interloper—should have left with Magiere. And yet Wynn insisted on being solicitous, checking on him.

It was intolerable.

“If something had changed for him, you would have heard of it,” he began, trying to find anything to dissuade her. “So why bother if you have nothing new to tell him ... or me?”

Chane only half regretted those words, as Wynn halted halfway to the door. When she did not turn to look at him, he no longer regretted them at all. Then he heard her tired sigh.

“He is all alone here,” she said, still not looking at him. “He doesn’t have anyone here besides ...”

She did not finish, so he did so for her.

“Besides you?” he nearly hissed. “And that is likely as he wishes it, planned it.”

Wynn started to turn. “Chane, we have more important matters to—”

Suddenly, he did not want to hear any more and pushed past her, opening the door to step out. “I will go check on Kyne and Shade. Someone needs to watch over them, so the girl is not run ragged.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Chane reached the stairs, never answering Wynn, and he did not hear any footfalls coming after him.

Osha—“a Sudden Breeze”—heard words, out in the passage, between Wynn and the little human girl who came before dawn each day to that undead’s chamber. He had almost stepped out of his room but then changed his mind, waiting to see whether Wynn came to him or ...

She went to that monster instead.

How she could, or why she let that little girl do so, was unbelievable. All he could do was wait in silence for her to come to him last. She would, eventually, now that she had finally returned again.

Osha spent much time in this room. His tall body, white-blond hair, long features, and slanted amber eyes brought too many curious stares from the sages here. And then the questions began, as if the sages were prodding and poking him with their words, some of which he did not understand. In another life so recently lost, he had hidden himself away inside the forest gray cowl of an anmaglâhk. Now he dressed like a human traveler, in a human world he did not understand.

Over the past half-moon, he had begun to question his choice to remain here, to protect Wynn in her efforts as she had once protected him ... from that same creature now lodged in the room across the passage.

Nothing had transpired as he had envisioned at the moment in which he found her again.

Nothing was like it had been once before.

More than two years ago Osha had accompanied Wynn, as well as her companions and his jeóin and teacher, Sgäilsheilleache, into the ever-frozen heights of the Pock Peaks of the eastern continent. He had helped the best that he could in their search for what he now knew as the orb of Water. At the time he had been an anmaglâhk in training, and his mentor, Sgäilsheilleache, had sworn guardianship to Magiere, Leesil, and Wynn.

Osha had stood true to the promise of guardianship ... perhaps most especially for Wynn.

That had grown into something more, though his own kind might have found this loathsome.

While on a ship near the beginning of that journey, Wynn had asked him about himself, about his dreams, and, in all his life no one else had ever done so. It had been almost startling. Once they returned to land and began the climb into the snow-covered peaks, the journey became grueling and so long that customs soon broke for the sake of survival.

In the freezing nights with nothing but a thin tent for shelter, Wynn had slept on his chest, wrapped inside his cloak, allowing him to keep her warm. He had scavenged food for her and melted down water for them to drink, and, when threatened by enemies, she had run to him, seeking protection beneath his arm.

It meant something to him—more than he could put into words.

She was nothing like the humans that he—his people—hated and feared. Later she had tried to teach him how to dance at Magiere and Leesil’s wedding. No one had ever paid him so much notice.

When he had finally been forced to leave, to catch one of his people’s ships waiting nearby in hiding, she had walked to the docks of the noisy and smelly city of Bela with him. And even when they had said farewell, and he had reluctantly turned away through the crowd ...

Wynn had run after him, thrown herself at him, and kissed him.

Even now Osha could still feel the soft press of her small mouth.

Then Wynn was gone, running off along the docks. He had no choice but to leave for the ship that would take him home, along with the journal she had given to him to deliver to Brot’ân’duivé.

Too much had happened since then—too much blood spilled, too much forced upon him ... too much taken from him.

For one foolish moment more than a half-moon ago, he had been reunited briefly with Wynn. He had thought if he could only remain with her, all his pain would cease and the world might make sense once again.

Nothing had come about as he had envisioned.

Wynn had changed. He had changed. And, worse, he was now forced to accept that dead-pale thing waking each night across the passage.

How could Wynn expect this of him?

Osha heard a door open and then voices, though he missed what was said. At the rasping of that thing in the passage, heavy footfalls rushed away down the stairs. Still he waited, knowing that he would hear ...

A knock sounded on his door.

He hesitated, glancing at an object lying at the foot of his bed. Slender and long, wrapped in canvas and left on the floor, as if to be hidden even as a known burden—it was unwanted. His longbow leaned against the wall by the door, ever ready along with a quiver of black-feathered arrows. He had few other personal possessions.

And the soft knock came again.

Osha stepped quickly this time and opened the door.

Wynn, wearing the strange night-blue robe instead of her proper gray one of the past, stood outside in the passage. Though she looked at him, this lasted only an instant before she dropped her gaze and asked him something in his own tongue.

“Are you going to the common hall for dinner?”

Though she spoke his language surprisingly well, she still had a strange way with some words. She always asked about his eating habits, and it had taken time for him to understand that this was her way to avoid saying anything that meant something ... to him.

Obviously that thing across the hall had upset her again—as the vampire had a habit of making her life difficult. Why did she tolerate his presence?

Osha wanted to speak only of the past—their past together. He wanted to ask her what it had meant to her, what it still might mean. But it was now clear that this was the last thing she wanted.

Instead she wanted to know what had happened to him after she had left him on the docks.

Why had he left the Anmaglâhk?

How had he gotten the burn scars on his wrists?

Why was Brot’ân’duivé at war with his own caste?

What was happening among the an’Cróan?

Why had Osha left his home again and traveled halfway across the world to this continent, and why had Brot’ân’duivé brought Leanâlhâm as well?

And then, worst of all ...

What was wrapped inside that canvas lying at the end of his bed?

All that she wanted to speak of were the things he no longer wanted to think upon. So they talked about little else but meals.

“Yes, I will go,” he answered. “Will you come?”

Sometimes, if she did not have duties with the strange one of cold eyes, Premin Hawes, she would go to the common hall and eat with him. He should cherish even that little ... He should have.

She did not answer, and, as so often happened, her eyes strayed to the long, wrapped object on the floor. He tried not to tense, hoping she did not ask about it again. He had not even looked upon what was hidden in there since he had landed on the far side of this continent in following Brot’ân’duivé.

Wynn’s gaze shifted to his bow and quiver. She smiled slightly.

“You’ve become a good archer since ... since before. How did that happen?”

An innocent question, but it was another way to press him to talk about the few years between their journey to the Pock Peaks and now.

“Many things have changed since ... before,” he said, echoing her own slip, her reference to a past that he wished she would acknowledge. “You once tried to teach me to dance,” he countered against her evasion. “I still do not know how.”

He spotted the slight wince of Wynn’s left eye before she turned away.

“I need to see Premin Hawes, as we have more work to do,” she said, this time in her own tongue. Her pace quickened, as if she could not bear him to say anything else. “I wanted to see if you’d eaten, so you’d best go down to dinner.”

Osha stared down the passage long after Wynn had vanished. Much as he wanted to, he did not follow her.