Raven's Strike

CHAPTER 3

Not letting herself look back, Seraph walked briskly through the storm-tattered camp that covered their fields, ignoring the people who scuttled out of her way. She stared at the ground to spare them her gaze until she made it into the woods that bordered the farm.

What had she been going to do?

She stood where she was for a long moment.

She had to protect… by Lark and Raven, she was power-sick. Couldn’t think clearly.

The warding. She should reset the warding. Slowly she made her way to the place where the warding had been and knelt in the dirt.

There are two ways to set wardings. The voice of her old teacher was as clear as if he’d been standing over her shoulder. For a night a warding can be a simple thing, a rope that surrounds the tents and wagons and keeps them safe. But for any longer, or where dangers are greater, a warding is best worked as a chain with interconnecting links, each subtly different from the one before so that if one link fell, the others will still be effective guards.

She pressed her hands into the soil and began, ignoring the ugly whispering voice that tried to coax her to keep the power she held. If she could kill a troll with a whisper, how great was the good that she could accomplish with what she now held?

Her hands tingled as she carefully drew a curved line. She’d never held such power.

Only as the terrible rush of the troll’s death died away did she really understand how old it had been. She felt his age in the burn of magic that was not lessened even when she set wards that should keep out the shadowed for generations.

She feared that just relaying the wards would not be enough to absorb so much so she began to feed it into the forest. Too much, and she’d harm as much as she helped, but a slow trickle of magic should not cause a problem.

Gradually the discipline of redrawing the wards absorbed her. Mathematical and artistic at the same time, they required enough of her attention that the part of her that desired the rush of power was reduced to murmurs she could ignore.

She became aware of him gradually, a pale form grazing quietly beside her. The pattering of the light rain was accompanied by the grinding of teeth and grass. The familiar, peaceful sound helped somehow, and she became aware of a deep inner contentment.

She was home.

She finished the link she was working and sat back, fisting her hands against her lower back as she stretched.

“You don’t look well,” she said.

“One of the tainted creatures attacked the priest,” replied the pale horse who was Jes’s forest king. His voice was velvety and very deep. “I saved him, but it was a near-run thing. Karadoc’s not young by Rederni standards, and he’s ill even yet. Without a priest, fighting the shadow-tainted has been draining, even with the help of your daughter.”

She absorbed what he said and sorted through questions. The slowness of her thoughts told her that she was far from free of power-sickness yet.

“The troll wasn’t the first of the shadow-tainted creatures to come here?” she asked. She didn’t need Lehr or Jes to tell her that the troll had been tainted. Unlike the mistwight, trolls were shadow-born, creatures whose only purpose was to destroy and kill.

“No, there were other things, too, things I haven’t seen since the Fall, though none as dangerous as the troll. They come to destroy and feed the Shadowed.”

Seraph stilled. “I had hoped that we were wrong. You are sure there is another Shadowed? That Volis couldn’t have set up a summoning spell?”

The horse snorted. “Creatures like that troll would only come to the call of a Shadowed.” He rubbed his nose on his knee.

“You mean the Shadowed is here?” asked Seraph, then shook with the rebellion of her magic as her control of her emotions wavered. She took in deep, even breaths until everything settled down.

The forest king waited until she was through before he said, “Not now, I don’t think. But he has been here. He left behind a rune in the old temple that was triggered a few weeks ago.” He lifted his head to scent the air, then shook his mane and turned his attention back to her. “I don’t pay enough attention to the town. If Karadoc hadn’t called me when the first of the creatures appeared, it might have taken me too long to find the rune on my own. As it was, other than destroying the rune, I could do little for them in the stone of the town, so I called them here, where your wards could do some of the work while I took care of the tainted things. I wasn’t expecting the troll, so I used myself up healing the priest and driving away the little things. A troll…” He sighed. “A normal troll would not have been too difficult, but that one… Your wards kept him mostly away from the villagers until today.”

“There was a rune in the temple,” Seraph said.

“To awaken and draw those things that bear the collar of the Shadowed,” the forest king explained. “The priest took me to the temple, and we destroyed the rune. Not soon enough.”

Runes were solsenti wizardry mostly. Seraph was only marginally familiar with the theory behind them—though there were a few useful ones that she used sometimes. She did know that they could be drawn and set to wait until something triggered them. The temple had only been built this past winter, though, so the Shadowed had been in Redern sometime since then.

A number of the Path’s wizards had come with Volis, the wizard-priest she’d killed in the new temple in the village. The other wizards kidnaped Tier, then left for Taela. The Shadowed could have been among them.

Perhaps the mistwight that killed the smith’s daughter had been drawn from whatever place it had been hidden and was traveling toward Redern. After the forest king stopped the call it settled in the smith’s well. Unhappily, she wondered how many other creatures were even now preying upon defenseless villages—maybe that was what Benroln had been called to fight.

The burn of power slowed Seraph’s thoughts, and she returned to her wardings. The forest king followed her when she moved, grazing while she worked.

Darkness fell under the trees, though she could see patches of light where the trees were thin. The birds quieted as they settled in for sleep, but there was music coming from the farm. She smiled; let more than two Rederni get together, and there would be music.

She examined the progress of her magicweaving critically and was satisfied. Her thoughts were a little clearer than they’d been, and the wards were strong and tightly woven.

“Tier told me once that he thought Jes’s forest king shared a number of traits with Ellevanal,” she told the horse casually.

Ellevanal was the god worshiped by the mountain peoples, including the Rederni. Though today was only the second time Seraph had seen him, Jes had spent his summers exploring the woods with a creature he’d called the forest king since he was old enough to run.

“Bards see things that others do not,” agreed the forest king, taking another bite of grass.

“What would the Rederni say if they saw their god of forests eating grass?” asked Seraph.

“They are not Travelers,” replied the god after he’d finished chewing. “They would not see what you do.”

She laughed despite herself. “Now that’s a properly mystical answer.”

“I thought so,” he said. “But it is true for all of that.”

“Gods do not look haggard and sick to their worshipers?”

“You don’t believe in the gods,” Ellevanal said. “How would you know what they do or don’t do?” The teasing note fell from his voice. “They say that the Travelers don’t believe in the gods because they killed theirs and ate them.”

“I’ve never heard that.”

“Of course not,” said Ellevanal. “You are a Traveler who doesn’t believe in gods.”

“How long have you been here, guarding the forest?”

The horse raised its head and tested the wind, his rib cage rising and falling as if he’d been racing rather than quietly grazing at her side an hour or more. There was mud on his legs and belly.

“A long time,” he said. “Before the Shadowed King came and laid waste to the world. Before the Remnants of the Glorious Army of Man arrived here after the Fall and found safe harbor here, naming me god in their gratitude.” Then he cast her a roguish glance. “Before the unthinkable happened, and Tieragan Baker was born Ordered and upset the Travelers’ world.”

“He hasn’t upset the Travelers’ world,” she said.

“Hasn’t he?” The horse snorted and tossed his head. “Wait and see what an Ordered Rederni may do. Already word of you is windborne, and some will come seeking you to destroy what you may become.”

Seraph raised an eyebrow at him.

He dropped his head slyly. “A god may speak in riddles if He will.”

She shook her head at him and went back to work because the power had begun singing to her again. The forest king went back to eating.

When she came to a place where she could see the farm she was reassured to note that the camp was orderly and relaxed.

A group of men were restringing tent lines and hanging the muddy fabrics over them. Another group was setting up fires for cooking—so many people could not be fed out of her kitchen. She didn’t see any of her family, but there was a cheerful energy to the way the villagers moved that told her that no one had been seriously injured: and there was music.

“If you are a god,” Seraph said, “shouldn’t you have been able to take care of a troll far better than we did?”

“But I am only a small god,” said the horse, sounding amused. “I could not destroy the troll—not that troll, which was a minion of the Shadowed and escaped the Fall to live centuries more than a troll ought, and still keep my priest alive. Death doesn’t relinquish its rightful prey lightly, and healing is not my province.”

“Why didn’t you let him die?” she asked, though she had no desire for Karadoc’s death. “No one has ever said that the priests of Ellevanal are immortal.”

He laughed in soft huffs at her tart tone. “He is an excellent skiri player, which priests seldom are. Most of them are more given to things of the spirit rather than cleverness of the mind.” The picture of a priest playing a board game with his god struck Seraph as extremely odd, but before she could ask him about it, the forest king’s voice became serious. “There are no others to take his place. His apprentice will be fine in a few years, but I needed my priest now.”

The rain had stopped, and rising warmth turned the moisture in the grasses to fog where the last light of the sun peeked through to light the small clearing where the god stood. Steam rose from the white horse’s flanks and ribs, ribs that were a good deal less prominent than they had been when he’d first joined her.

“You’ve been feeding,” she said.

The horse set his nose in a knee-high clump of grass and ripped some from the ground. He raised his head and chewed pointedly.

Seraph shook her head at him. “No grass pads ribs so quickly.”

“Where do you think the power that you’ve been feeding into the forest goes?” He laughed, again. “Before the first of Rederni’s Bards was born here, I was little more than a very old stag who wandered about. But a Bard is a very powerful thing, if subtle. There may be more than one reason that the Travelers never stay long in one place.”

Seraph stared at him. Of course Tier wasn’t the only Bard born to the Rederni, not with the way music flowed through them like blood.

“You feed off magic?” she said, setting aside the question of more Ordered solsenti.

“Did I say that?” asked the horse. “I would never lie to you, Raven. I feed off the land only.” His eyes lit with wicked laughter at her huff of frustration. “Careful, Raven. Anger and magic are a volatile combination. I don’t understand it completely myself.”

“What do you understand?” she asked.

“Travelers have not come here in a long time,” he said. “Not since the Fall and seldom before that. Only when you came to live here with Tier did I notice there is something about the Orders that makes the land… more alive. It is not magic, not that I can tell. There.” He tossed his head. “I have told you as much as I know. The forest is my realm, and its secrets belong to me. Travelers belong to no gods and, I think, they have more secrets than most.”

He stayed with her until she completed the circle, then wandered away, swishing his tail in mild irritation at an impious bug.

Seraph staggered almost drunkenly to her feet, sympathizing with Tier, as her knees throbbed, and her back ached. She’d worn a hole in her pants, but that didn’t matter. Now that they were home she’d have to go back to wearing Rederni skirts.

As Seraph picked her way tiredly down the slope toward home, Jes ran up. She heard him before she saw him because he was chanting softly, “I found her,” as he ran.

He was laughing when he stopped just in front of her. “I found you,” he said. “I found you before Lehr.”

She touched his shoulder lightly. “You did at that. Is everyone all right?”

He nodded and fell into step with her. “Hennea sent us out. She said it should be safe to find you now. She said if someone didn’t, Papa was going to undo all the good she managed to do for his knees by coming out here himself.”

Seraph remembered the troll’s fist closing around Tier’s legs. “Is he all right?”

Jes nodded. “He grumbled about his knees, so they must be fine.”

Seraph smiled. “So they must.” If he’d been really hurt, not a word would have crossed his lips. “And Rinnie?”

“She’s asleep next to Papa, who’s singing with Ciro. She has a bump on her head and a bruise on her shoulder about this big—” Jes held his hands apart to show how big, and Seraph hoped he was exaggerating, though that wasn’t one of Jes’s faults.

“Lehr was jealous of her,” he said. “He said he’d never had a bruise that big. I have though. Remember the time I fell off the barn? That was a bigger bruise than Rinnie’s.”

“I hope none of us ever gets a bruise that big again.”

Jes nodded. “Me, too. Here comes Lehr. I found her first, Lehr. I’ll see you at home.” Jes slipped off in the darkness, leaving Seraph alone with Lehr.

“Once I quit trying to track you and began to follow the sound of Jes’s voice you weren’t hard to find. Jes is happy to be home,” said Lehr. “You look tired, Mother. Are you all right?”

Seraph nodded. “Fine. Just a little worn, I’m not used to handling so much magic. Jes said your father and Rinnie aren’t hurt much?”

“They’re fine—just a bit bruised and battered,” agreed Lehr, and something inside of Seraph relaxed. “Ciro made Papa tell everyone the story of what happened while we were gone.”

Ciro, the tanner’s father, had been a close friend of Tier’s grandfather, and had helped Tier learn to love music. Not that Tier had needed much encouragement.

“Ciro said he was going to make Papa’s story into a song. Then they got in a contest to see who’d come up with the funniest verses.” He turned his attention to the rough ground they were walking on for a moment, then said, “They’ve been having trouble here for the past few weeks. The troll was the worst of it, but there’ve been goblins and other things.”

“The forest king found me while I was trying to get rid of the troll’s death magic,” said Seraph. “He told me the wizard-priest, Volis, had done something to call the servants of the shadow. Hennea and I must have missed that while we were going through the temple. Karadoc stopped the summoning, but he was hurt.” She glanced at her son.

Lehr nodded. “He’s staying in the house right now.” He cleared his throat. “He’s been staying in your room. Papa said to leave him there tonight. He looks pretty bad, pale and bruised, but they carried him out for the music, so he can’t be as bad as he looks.”

Seraph was tired, her clothes were wet, and she’d been looking forward to sleeping in her own bed. “Karadoc’s not a young man anymore. If he’s hurt, he’d better stay in our bed until they move back to town—which shouldn’t be too long. The forest king told me Karadoc helped destroy the rune that summoned the tainted beasts here. The troll should be the end of it. I’d imagine tomorrow or the next day they’ll all be back in Redern.” She hoped.

“Jes will be glad to hear that,” said Lehr. “He took one look at Aunt Alinath and hid behind Hennea.”

“She took care of Rinnie for us,” said Seraph, and stumbled over a branch she hadn’t seen.

Lehr took her arm. “I know. But she’s never known how to treat Jes.”

“She wouldn’t have been so bad if Jes hadn’t gone out of his way to be at his worst with her.”

Lehr snorted. “Papa says the same of Aunt Alinath and you.”

There was a small gathering of people in front of the house, where someone had lit a small bonfire despite the damp. Tier, one knee tightly bound and stretched out in front of him, was playing the lute he’d brought back from Taela. Rinnie was wrapped up in a blanket and had fallen asleep with her head on Tier’s unbound knee.

Ciro had a small drum out, and he and Tier were singing together. The old man’s voice was as true as it had ever been, and Tier… Seraph had always thought that he had the most adaptable voice she’d ever heard. He could sing love songs in a tone of warm butter and sugar, then switch to harsh war songs in a voice that could cut stone. Right now he gave the old singer the melody and took a descant, softening his tone to flatter Ciro’s—which hardly needed enhancing.

Just outside of the firelight, Seraph stopped. “Have you checked for a taint of shadow among the Rederni?” The Shadowed could be someone they knew.

Lehr nodded. “Hennea had both Jes and me do it. But not even Uncle Bandor shows any signs. Hennea said that like as not, if anyone had been tainted, they wouldn’t have been able to cross your wardings—and all of the village is here.”

“Good.” She hadn’t really been worried someone would have been tainted, though she probably should have been. And the Shadowed had been able to hide what he was from Lehr and Jes until the very last moments of their chase. It might be that he could hide himself from her sons.

It was, she thought, unlikely that the Shadowed was someone she knew from the village. She put thoughts of the Shadowed aside for another time, when she was less tired.

Tier’s voice wavered when he saw her, and he fell silent, stopping the strings of the lute with his hand. After a few beats Ciro stopped, too.

“Is something wrong?” Ciro asked.

Tier shook his head, but kept his eyes on Seraph. “I’m just tired tonight. I’ll leave the music to you for now.”

“If Karadoc has our bed, we’ll need to look for somewhere else to sleep,” murmured Seraph, so she wouldn’t interfere with Ciro’s music. She bent down to touch Rinnie’s face, then looked up into Tier’s. Even in the dark, he looked pale and drawn—his knees must be hurting him.

“Somewhere private,” agreed Tier. “But the house is full.”

Seraph took a good look at the sky, but the storm had passed by. “I might be able to come up with something. Lehr, can you find our bedrolls and my pack? And make certain you, Hennea, Jes, and Rinnie have someplace to sleep.”

He nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

He was as good as his word and handed Seraph both bedrolls before Ciro had finished his second solo piece.

“Rinnie still has her bed in the house, I’ll carry her in,” Lehr kept his voice soft, though Ciro was between songs. “The rest of us now have claim to space in the barn. Do you need more help, Papa?”

Tier levered himself to his feet and shook his head. “As long as we’re not going too far, I’ll be fine.”

Seraph nodded to Lehr and bent to kiss the top of Rinnie’s head. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she told her son.

She led Tier behind the house where the land rose to a narrow flat shelf of meadow that was surrounded by short trees and bushes. Tier was limping badly, Seraph winced inwardly with him at every step.

She set the bedrolls on top of a rock where they shouldn’t get too wet, but stopped him when he bent to unroll his. “No. Wait a moment, and I’ll have something better for us.”

She set down her pack and took out the bag that held her mermori. Sorting quickly, she found Isolde’s mermora and sank the sharp end into the ground. She stepped back and murmured the words that would call the ancient house of Isolde the Silent.

There was a pause, as the magic organized itself. She could feel the familiar weave of Hinnum’s spells unfolding as they remembered the pattern of Isolde’s dwelling, rebuilding rooms long since rotted by time. She felt as much as saw the house re-form in the shelter of the woods behind her house.

Isolde’s had not been among the larger dwellings belonging to the Colossae wizards, though it was bigger than the house Tier had built Seraph. The front of Isolde’s house was designed to please the eye, covered with decorative brickwork. The sides were flat and plain—so flat that Seraph was certain it had shared walls with neighboring houses rather than standing free. The contrast between gracious facade and flat sides made it look a little odd, especially standing alone in the woods instead of on a busy city street.

“We can sleep here tonight,” she said.

“I thought you didn’t do that,” said Tier, though he followed her up the front stairs and through the ebony door.

“It can be dangerous,” she said, though most of her attention was on her husband’s slow progress. “This is an illusion—a very good illusion—but if the weather is unpleasant, you can freeze to death without ever knowing it. But the rain has stopped, and we’ll use our own blankets for warmth.”

“So why didn’t we use it to sleep in while we were on the trail home?” Tier asked.

“Magic, any magic, tends to attract the attention of a variety of nasty creatures that I’d rather not wake up to,” Seraph answered, moving a chair that Tier might have had to step around. “And the illusion is good enough you can’t hear if anything comes prowling. Tonight—well, there was enough magic here to call anything looking for it, so Isolde’s house isn’t going to make any difference. With my wardings fresh, I don’t think there’s much that’ll get through. We’ll be safe and private here.”

The house was lit with small lanterns. Tier limped behind her through the sitting room and into the smallest of the bedrooms. There was less personality here than in the other bedrooms. Seraph had always assumed it was a guest room, and felt more comfortable in it, less an interloper and more a guest.

“It seems wrong to put these dirty blankets on that bed,” Tier said.

She could see his point, the bedding was pristine white. “It’s all right. The dirt won’t be there next time the mermora is called.”

Tier shook his head, but he loosened the tie on his blankets and unrolled them on the bed. Seraph could see that more than his knees were bothering him tonight.

“You’re hurting,” she said. “Strip down and let me see.”

It was a mark of how tired he really was that he followed her brisk commands without a word of teasing. She turned up the light on the bedside table so she could see better.

He moved slowly and she saw, in addition to the new damage to his healing knees, his left shoulder was hurt. When he was finished she walked around him once to assess the damage with an eye educated by three children who climbed trees and barns and other things more suited to birds than humans.

“Nothing a few days’ rest and a good hot bath won’t fix,” she said at last with relief. No matter what Lehr had said, Tier’s obvious soreness had worried her. “Lie down, and I’ll see what I can do,” she said.

He sat on the bed with a grunt of relief, and she helped him swing his legs up.

“Now,” she told him, after she’d stripped off her wet outer clothing. “I’m going to see if I can’t make you more comfortable. If you tell Brewydd about this, I’ll never hear the end of it. Pain is your body’s way of telling you that you need to rest, or you’ll do permanent harm. Nothing I can do will make you heal faster, but I can take away the pain for the night.”

She touched the arches of his feet, then the ankles, working slowly up with just a breath of magic. When she touched his knees, his whole body relaxed.

“That feels wonderful,” he breathed.

“It’ll feel better before I’m done,” she said, kissing him softly on the mouth. “But you’ll curse me in the morning when I release the magic.” She slid her hands up the outside of his thighs and over his hips.

“Have I told you I love you today?” he asked, eyes closed in bliss.

“You’re just afraid of what I’ll do to you if you don’t,” she said absently, her attention on the magic that she threaded carefully over his hurts.

He opened his eyes and put a hand under her chin. “I’m not afraid of you,” he said, tugging her down for another kiss, this one carnal and knowing. “I love you,” he said, when she lifted her head.

She found her lips curving upward on their own before she turned back to her work. “The forest king told me the shadow-tainted creatures were called by a rune in the temple. He said the only one who could have created the rune was a Shadowed.”

“Ah,” said Tier. “I know you were hoping against this.”

She paused in her spell casting, blowing a stray hair that had escaped its braid out of her eye. “A Shadowed brings sorrow behind him in a blanket of death.”

“Is the Shadowed a return of the Unnamed King?” asked Tier.

“No,” she said. “He’s a man who enslaves himself to the Stalker and takes power and immortality as his pay.”

“There have been others?”

She nodded, tracing a faint scar on Tier’s chest that he’d gotten fighting the Fahlarn before she’d met him. It came from a near-mortal wound that Tier seldom talked about. “A few.”

“The Stalker is the thing that the wizards of Colossae imprisoned by destroying their city.”

Seraph flattened her hand, warming it on his skin. “They didn’t destroy the city, Tier. They sacrificed it.”

He shifted restlessly under her hand. “You’ve told me that before. You mean they killed everyone who lived there except the wizards who cast the spell.”

“Yes and no.” It was an old story, but it wasn’t one Travelers talked about much. “Every morning, Alinath gets up and the fires are lit in the bake ovens, just as your family has done since the bakery was built centuries ago. The whole village has tasks that have been performed every day—rituals of living. There is power in that, Tier, just as there is power in the spark of life that is the heart of the difference between your body and a clay pot. The wizards extracted the power of everyday rituals, of generations of living, as well as the deaths of their families and friends who had trusted them. The mages killed the people whom they loved, and there was power in that, too, more than death by itself would have brought. They used all that power and knew it wasn’t enough to destroy their creation, only keep him in check.”

“What does the Stalker want?” asked Tier, ever the storyteller. “What did it do to frighten the wizards into killing their families?”

“The Traveler word that translates into Common as Stalker also means the death of the prey that is stalked—not for food, but for the sheer love of destruction.” She shrugged unhappily. “That’s all anyone knows of it—just that the Colossae wizards named it the Stalker, then destroyed their lives in order to contain it.”

“The Unnamed King nearly destroyed humankind.”

Seraph nodded. “Mistwights live on small prey. They don’t play with their food like a cat might. The tainted one we found was deliberately terrorizing the smith because it enjoyed it. So perhaps the Stalker drives those who serve it to terrible deeds. Certainly death follows the Shadowed and those who are tainted.”

“You said Benroln was shadowed,” said Tier.

She nodded. “It’s unusual. Most of the shadow taint we Travelers see is still damage done by the Unnamed King.”

“How did it happen?”

“I thought at first it was Volis who did it,” she told him. “He was certainly tainted himself—as were all the Masters of the Path. But my old teacher, Arvage, told me once that he thought the Stalker was constrained from forcing his will upon others, a constraint not faced by the Shadowed for some reason. If that is true, then it was the Shadowed who was responsible for the taint that stained the Path wizards and Benroln.”

“What is the difference between a man who is shadow-tainted and one who is the Shadowed?”

“A taint is imposed upon you,” Seraph said. “It takes little sins—buried resentments and angers—and builds upon those until they are pulled to the forefront. Bandor hit your sister—peace, Tier, it wasn’t his fault. I was just using that as an example of how much tainting can change a personality. If you fight the taint, it will eat away at you until you are little more than a beast and can no longer hide the madness. The Masters lived with it for years as far as I can tell.”

“And the Shadowed?”

“We don’t know how they are made. If we did, we might be able to stop it from happening again. All of the Shadowed have been wizards. I think they have to contact the Stalker in some fashion, perhaps there is a spell written in a solsenti book of magic somewhere. Or perhaps the Stalker is able to call a wizard who is suitable for his purposes. In any case the Shadowed willingly sacrifices the lives of people around him in order to gain power and immortality. I don’t know what the Stalker gains, or what it wants beyond death and destruction. Maybe that is enough. People who are tainted gradually grow mad over a period of a year or even just months, but the Shadowed doesn’t.”

Tier was quiet, and after a moment, Seraph resumed her task of relieving his pain. It didn’t take much magic, just finesse.

She touched a reddish splotch on his ribs that would be a bruise tomorrow and eased it with a caress of magic. Even battered as he was, she loved his body, sinewy and tough, bearing scars of war both old and new. When she’d finished with the spellworking she let her fingertips linger on his skin, trailing them over him slowly.

She had him home. Home and safe at last.

Her fingers trailed lower, and he caught her hand, murmuring, “If you want us to sleep tonight, I’d suggest you lie down beside me instead of petting.”

She straddled his hips, the fabric of her underclothes a thin veil between her skin and his.

“Mmm,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like you are interested in sleep just yet.”

He laughed, a belly laugh that didn’t quite make it out of his mouth.

“Don’t move,” she said, bending down until her lips just brushed his. “You might hurt yourself if you move.”

A long, satisfying while later, Tier said, “I’ve missed that.”

“Me, too,” she said. Reluctantly, she rolled out of the bed and dimmed the light. “It won’t go out all the way. None of the mermori rooms can be completely darkened—I think it has something to do with the nature of the illusion.”

“That’s fine,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you a bit, and if it were dark, I don’t think I could stay awake.”

“Oh?” She took her own bedroll out and spread the blankets over Tier before climbing back in beside him. With a sigh, she curled against the warmth of his body and yawned. “Talk fast.”

“Tell me about Hennea,” he said.

She lifted her head, but the light was behind him, and she couldn’t see the expression on his face. “Hennea?”

He laughed. “If you could hear your voice. I’ve just noticed an odd thing or two, and since our son is so interested in her—I’d like to know more about her.”

She settled back against him. “Odd things like what?”

He laughed. “You tell me about her first,” he said. “Then I’ll tell you what made me ask.”

“She’s a Raven of the Clan of Rivilain Moon-Haired,” Seraph began tentatively. “That’s a common heritage among Travelers. Last I heard, there are three or four of Rivilain’s clans in the Empire and several outside. She came to us—” She stopped. “Do you want me to go through the whole history? I’ve told it to you already.”

“Tell me again, please,” he said.

She shrugged. “She came to us because she’d figured out that the Path had you and had taken you to Taela. She’d watched them kill her lover. She wanted revenge, and she wanted to stop the Path.”

“But she didn’t come directly to the farm on her own,” he said.

“Right. She’d gone up to the place where you had supposedly died first. She was on her way here when the forest king put her to sleep, then sent Jes to bring her here.”

“The forest king didn’t want her in his realm?” asked Tier neutrally.

“I don’t know what he wanted,” said Seraph. “You ask him, and see if you can get a straight answer. If the forest king had thought she meant harm, I don’t think he’d have bothered getting Jes to bring her here.”

Tier didn’t argue, so Seraph relaxed back against him again. “She helped me teach the boys what they could do while we were on our way to Taela. She saved Jes.”

“You didn’t tell me about that. How?”

“Do you know what a foundrael is?” she asked.

“No… wait. Isn’t that the Guardian thing you told me about? The one that was supposed to keep the Guardian under control, but it drove them insane instead.”

She nodded. “There were ten of them originally—nine now. Benroln—I told you how his clan was one of the ones who were preying upon solsenti. He felt he had reason enough for it; solsenti had killed his father and the rest of the clan’s Order Bearers. He thought he could force me to help him by taking Jes and holding him with a foundrael. While I dealt with Benroln, Hennea managed to destroy the foundrael.”

“Not an easy task?” Tier’s voice was neutral.

Seraph shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried it.”

“Just how powerful is Hennea?” he asked.

“I don’t know. There’s no measuring stick for magic”—she frowned and continued irritably—“though solsenti wizards seem to think there ought to be. Training means as much as power, really—though less for Ravens than for wizards who don’t bear the Order. She’s been well trained; you can see it in her demeanor. People say ‘self-contained as a Raven,’ and that centered peacefulness of hers is what they’re referring to.” She couldn’t keep the wistfulness out of her voice.

Tier heard it because he rubbed her nose playfully. “You do controlled well enough that most people don’t think you have a temper at all. Now, me, I enjoy a good screaming fight once in a while.”

She laughed. “You do not. I have a miserably hard time picking a good fight with you.” She waited a heartbeat or two. “So what do you think of Hennea?”

“How old is she?” he asked.

It was not what she expected him to say, though it seemed to bother Hennea that she was older than Jes.

“I don’t know,” she told him. “She looks about ten years younger than I am. Twenty-four or — five maybe? Their age difference is less than ours.”

He rolled until his shoulder was under her head. “I think she’s a good deal older than she appears.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s in her eyes. When my eyes aren’t reminding me of her apparent age, I feel that she is an old, old woman.”

Seraph thought about what he’d said for a moment.

“The control that Ravens strive for usually only belongs to the very old,” she told him. “I’ve seen it in other Ravens besides Hennea, though I’ve never managed to get it right.” People thought Seraph cold, she knew, but it was so hard to keep her emotions at bay—and if she didn’t, she would be very, very dangerous for everyone. Magic required a cool head, and her temper was too easily lit. “Hennea’s control is the reason, I think, that Jes can tolerate her touch when most people bother him.”

“Magic can make people live longer,” said Tier. “I once met a seventy-year-old wizard who looked no older than forty.”

“Wizardry, yes, but, as I told you, the Orders don’t work like that. Healers like Brewydd can perhaps extend their lives, but not past reasonable limits.”

“You said that wizardry runs in the Traveler clans,” said Tier. “Could Hennea be a wizard, too?”

Seraph sat up, crossed her legs, and stared at his face in the dim light. “You seem awfully certain that she’s old.” Owls could tell when someone lied, but that was as far as their truth-seeing went—or so she’d always supposed.

“It’s just a feeling,” he said half-apologetically.

“All of the Raven Bearers are wizards,” she told him. “Just as all Guardians are empathic. So, yes, Hennea is a wizard as well. But a Raven restricting herself to magic without using the Order… it would be like stuffing cotton in your ears to sing, Tier.”

“I know difference between wizards and Ravens is that wizards use ritual magic and Ravens don’t have to,” said Tier. “But I’ve seen you use rituals.”

Seraph nodded. “Right. Wizardry is knowledge, and Raven is intuition. That’s true as far as it goes, but it’s really just the end result of the difference rather the real difference. It’s like saying the difference between a dog and a cat is that a dog is obedient and a cat independent.”

“Can you explain it to me?”

She thought a moment. “I have a very loose analogy. Imagine magic is a bakery that allows only some people in to make bread. These people can neither smell nor taste.”

“Hard to bake bread that way,” commented Tier.

“Very hard. But they manage because they study the recipe books very carefully and learn to measure each cup of flour, each grain of sugar.”

“Solsenti wizards.” Tier took one of her hands and played with her fingers.

“Right. Now a few of these wizards were given a ring that allowed them to smell and taste.”

“And the ring is called the Order of Raven.”

“That’s right.”

“But they could take off the ring.”

Seraph rolled her eyes in exasperation and began speaking rapidly. “Only with caustic soap that burns. And the bakery is hot, so hot that some people die of it. Others learn to deal with the heat and manage to stay there a very long time—but only because all they do is bake bread, and they cannot leave or stop baking or they will die—those are the wizards who live centuries. But the ring protects you from all of the heat.”

He threw an arm around her waist and rolled her under him as he laughed. “All right, all right. No Raven would think of working wizardry, and Ravens don’t live for centuries.”

“That’s right,” said Seraph, burying her face against his neck. “So Hennea is not a century-old wizard—nor is she the Shadowed. We would know—Jes would know.”

Tier rolled to his side and was still for a while. She thought he’d fallen asleep and was halfway there herself when he spoke again.

“If Hennea joined you to help bring down the Path, why is she still here? Why isn’t she looking for her clan to rejoin them? You said that the Path didn’t kill them all, only her Raven lover.”

Seraph started to answer him, but he continued. “It was Jes who made me question it. I think if she felt she was free to go, she would have left us as soon as she could simply because of Jes.”

“What do you mean?” Seraph asked frowning. Tier was better with people than she was, but she was certain Hennea was attracted to Jes. “She likes Jes.”

“She loves him,” he said, with a certainty Seraph didn’t feel. “Which is why she would leave if she could.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” She hated it when Tier did that. She didn’t doubt he was right—he usually was correct about people—she just hated it when he went out of his way to be obtuse, which was why he did it.

Tier grinned, his teeth flashing in the dimly lit room. “Not to you, my love. You take the world and shake it into a form that suits you. Most of us have too much self-doubt. She’s worried about him. Not just that he’s too young, but that he is Guardian. He’s in the middle of a change—you must have noticed it.”

“Yes.” Seraph sternly repressed the fear that thought caused her. “He switches back and forth more often, and it’s faster.” She said the next part fast as if that could keep it from being true. “And I don’t think the Guardian ever leaves entirely anymore.”

“Jes, as Guardian, is the one who told us what lived in the smith’s well,” he told her. “He told me he smelled it. Has Jes ever encountered a mistwight?”

Seraph’s fingers started to play nervously with the blankets. “Not that I know. There aren’t any around here, and we didn’t run into any on the way to Taela.”

“That’s what I thought. I asked him how he knew, and the Guardian deliberately switched to our Jes just long enough to tell me he didn’t know, then switched back.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I think that if the Guardian had told me he didn’t know, he would have been lying.”

“The Guardian knows things that Jes doesn’t know?” Seraph groped for Tier’s hand; when she found it she held it tightly. “That’s not a good thing. If Jes is to survive, he and the Guardian have to be one.” That’s what her father had told her Guardian brother anyway.

“I’ll talk to him,” said Tier, as if talk could solve all problems.

Seraph let it make her feel better anyway. For Tier, talk solved a lot more problems than it ever had for her.

Tier tugged her until her head was on his shoulder, then pulled the bedding over her shoulders.

Hennea loved Jes. Seraph was fairly certain that Jes felt the same way, though it was sometimes difficult to tell.

“She’s never said so much, but I don’t think she has anywhere else to go,” Seraph told him. “I don’t know what Jes said to her to get her to come with us, though Lehr told me that at first she was going to go with Benroln. I know what would make her stay, though.”

“What is that?”

“Duty. She’s a Raven, Tier. She has responsibilities that supersede love and family. Somewhere out there is a Shadowed who wants to destroy you, my love. Doubtless he is hunting you down—and it is her duty to be here for the kill.”

Tier laughed, bouncing her head gently. “His or mine?”

“Go to sleep, you,” she scolded, to hide her worry.

When she and Tier approached the house the next morning, the priest was sitting on the porch bench with his eyes shut.

“You look tired, Karadoc,” said Tier, waving at some people who’d shouted greeting to him from the fields, where they were taking down tents.

Karadoc’s bright brown eyes opened. “You’re a fine one to talk. From the way you’re walking, I’d say you’ve bruises to rival mine.”

Tier tilted his head toward the fields. “Is it safe for them to return to Redern?”

Karadoc smiled, a secret, pleased smile. “Ellevanal tells me that the village is safe, so I’ve told everyone to start packing. You’ll have your home back to yourselves by nightfall.”

Karadoc’s prediction was a little optimistic, and Seraph and Tier spent another night in Isolde’s mermora house. The villagers were more interested in celebrating their victory than in returning home. Then, too, Seraph thought, they were a little nervous about returning to the village. It would be a while before Redern felt safe to them again, despite Karadoc’s assurances.

“Thank you again for watching Rinnie for us,” said Seraph, as she helped Alinath gather her things from the corner of the house where Lehr and Jes usually slept.

It was the afternoon of the second day since they’d returned home, and Seraph was hopeful that they’d all sleep in their own beds tonight. To that end she’d sent her children and Tier out to encourage the stragglers to return to Redern.

“Rinnie is a joy,” said Tier’s sister, folding a shirt neatly and setting it into a pack. “Until we came here, she helped us in the bakery.” She paused. “Thank you for finding my brother. If you and the Travelers hadn’t found him, he’d be dead.”

Seraph shrugged uncomfortably. She didn’t know what to say to Alinath. The old animosity had faded, but she wasn’t certain what to replace it with.

“Tier is resourceful,” she said at last. “Did he tell you he had the Emperor asking him for advice?”

Alinath smiled, and the relief in the expression told Seraph that she was finding this no easier than Seraph herself. “Yes, he said something about it, but I thought he was exaggerating.”

Seraph shook her head. “No. I’ve never heard him exaggerate about anything he’s done—usually just the opposite.”

“Really?” Alinath thought about it a moment. “Did he really take all the young thugs and turn them into an army for the Emperor?”

“They’re still thugs. Most of them anyway. But they adored Tier and fought for the Emperor for his sake. Tier has a way with young men.”

“Speaking of young men,” said Alinath, “have you noticed the way that half of the village girls are swooning over Lehr? He’s a hero for fighting and killing that troll.”

“He and most of the men in the village,” said Seraph dryly. “And I killed the troll.”

Alinath grinned; the expression looked a lot like Tier’s. It wasn’t one that Seraph had seen on Alinath’s face before—but then Alinath had seldom been happy in Seraph’s presence since Seraph’s marriage to Tier. “No one is going to chide you for using magic this time. But I doubt you’ll have anyone swooning over you either.”

Seraph stole Rinnie’s favorite expression and rolled her eyes. “Probably run the other direction. It took them twenty years to forget about the time I almost flattened the bakery—do you suppose it’ll be twenty years before they forget the troll?”

Alinath put the last of Bandor’s shirts in the pack. “I don’t think they’ll ever forget,” she said seriously. “But I don’t believe that is necessarily a bad thing that they are reminded you are not just a farmer’s wife.”

“That is what I am.”

“No.” Alinath tied the pack and lifted it. “You are a Traveler, a Raven of the Clan of the Silent.”

“The Clan of Isolde the Silent,” corrected Seraph. “I am also Seraph Tieraganswife. Isolde’s clan is dead these twenty years and more. I have been Rederni for longer than I was a Traveler.”

“Seraph,” said Alinath. “You have always been Traveler—and Raven, too. We’ve known that since the day you almost flattened the bakery, all of us—even Tier.”

She picked up her bags and left Seraph alone.

After a moment, Seraph shook off the effects of Alinath’s words. Alinath wasn’t Tier, with his fearful accuracy where people were concerned.

Seraph had given up her Traveler heritage and exchanged it for Tier and for her children. True, the time she’d spent in Benroln’s clan this summer had been comfortable, like taking out a shirt stored for years and finding that it still fit. But here was where she belonged.

But she still wore Traveler’s clothing rather than Rederni skirts.

With brisk movements, Seraph stripped the bedding from the bed for washing. She started for the ladder, then turned around. The room was small and spare, a third the size of the cell that Tier had occupied in the palace in Taela. It was the room in which her children had been born.

In a few weeks it would be harvest season. There would be no harvest this year, but that was all to the good because there was the Shadowed and the problem of the Ordered gemstones. Traveler business that had to be taken care of before she settled down and became just a Rederni wife again.

Then, no more magic except the seasonal strengthening of the warding.

“This is my home,” she said aloud to counter the feeling of suffocation that made her chest tight. “I belong here.”

Leaving Tier and her sons to expedite the villager’s exodus—Tier restricted to a supervisory role—Seraph recruited Rinnie to help clean the house and take inventory.

“It’s a good thing you’ve been taking care of the garden while we were gone,” Seraph said, scrubbing at a new stain on the floor. “I was worried we’d have to send Tier to Leheigh for supplies, but with the garden we’ll be all right.”

“Aunt Alinath, Uncle Bandor, and I came out once a week.” Rinnie climbed onto a table so she could get a better view of the cupboards. “The bakery is hard work. I see why Papa decided that he’d rather farm.”

“Farming is hard work, too,” said Seraph. “And the bakery brings in a lot more money.”

“But at the bakery you have to be inside all the time.” Rinnie pulled a jar out of a cupboard and peered inside it. “I missed Gura and Skew and the garden.”

“But not us?”

Rinnie grinned. “I missed you, too. Next time you go on an adventure, I get to go.”

“It looked to me like you had your own adventure,” Seraph observed.

“Mother, Cormorants aren’t any good for anything,” Rinnie all but moaned, setting the jar aside. “Look at how Papa, Jes, Lehr, and you fought that troll. All I could do was rain on him.”

“The Orders are all different,” said Seraph. “We met another Cormorant—did your father tell you? He made a lot of money by manipulating the weather. He’d pick a wealthy village and let it dry out for a month or two, then have them pay him to make it rain.”

Rinnie straightened up, aghast. “Travelers are supposed to help people, Mother.”

“And so I told him,” said Seraph serenely. “He doesn’t do it anymore.”

Rinnie grinned. “I wish people would listen to me when I tell them things, the way they listen to you.”

The door banged open, and Jes came in. “They’re gone, we’re back,” he said in one breath. “We took them to Redern. I’m glad they’re gone.”

Seraph raised her eyebrows. “Boots?” she suggested gently. “I’ve just swept the floor, and I have no plans to do it again soon.”

He backed rapidly out of the house and sat on the porch. “Everyone kept touching, touching, touching. ‘Hello, Jes.’ They’d say. ‘Good to have you back.’ Touch. Touch. Touch.”

“I’m sorry. You should have asked them not to touch you.”

“Hennea said, ‘Stop touching the man, you fools. It hurts him.’ and they stopped touching me.” He pulled off a boot and looked up with a pleased expression.

“Hennea yelled at them?” Seraph asked surprised.

He shook his head. “No, she just said it very firmly. But she can touch me. I told her so.”

“In front of everyone?” asked Rinnie, horrified.

Seraph was hard put not to laugh.

Lehr and Gura stepped up on the porch on the tail end of Jes’s story.

“Hennea blushed and walked off,” Lehr said. “Papa laughed and told Jes it wasn’t polite to tell a woman she could touch him while other folk were listening in. Everyone congratulated Jes on finding such a pretty girl.”

“Poor Hennea.” Seraph tried to suppress her smile.

“Papa told us to tell you he was staying in town tonight to help Aunt Alinath and Uncle Bandor. He’ll be back after baking tomorrow morning. The bakery was in pretty rough shape. It looks as though something besides the troll took a run through town.”

“Is everything all right?”

Lehr nodded. “The bakery looked like a pair of kids went through and tried to make the worst mess they could. One of the pots of breadmother was tipped over, but Papa says he thinks they can save it. If not, it’s a local one, and Alinath can bargain with the beermaster for more.”

“What about Hennea?”

Lehr grinned again. “I expect she’ll be along. I don’t know where she went, but she’ll be over her embarrassment by now.”

“Where is she going to sleep?” asked Jes.

“You and I can go get a couple of poles from the barn,” Lehr said after a moment. “We can frame off Rinnie’s alcove and put up sheeting. Rinnie and Hennea can sleep behind it. Papa was talking about doing that this year for Rinnie anyway.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Seraph. “There’s an old mattress out in the barn, I think. All it needs is stuffing. You might as well put your boots back on, Jes.”

Jes heaved a sigh and shoved his foot back in his boot. “Off shoes, Jes, you’ll dirty the floors. Then on shoes, Jes, I’ve work for you.”

“It’s for Hennea,” Lehr reminded him.

Jes sighed again and retied his boot.