Wolfsbane

TEN

Aralorn was slipping choice bits of mutton to Wolf when Falhart came up behind her.

“If Irrenna catches you feeding that wolf at the table, she’s likely to banish him outside,” he said.

She shook her head, holding down another piece. “As long as we’re discreet, she’ll leave him in peace. She doesn’t want a hungry wolf roaming the castle. He’ll just go into the kitchens to be fed—and there she’ll be, without a spit boy. It might take the cook several days to replace whomever he ate, not to mention the fuss.”

Falhart gave Wolf a wary glance, then began to laugh. “Scourge on you, Aralorn, if you didn’t have me believing it. Which brings me to my mission. I have a half dozen youngsters and a few not so young who’ve been approaching me all dinner to see if you would give us another story.”

“An audience,” said Aralorn, scraping the last of her dinner onto a small bit of bread and popping it into her mouth. “See, Wolf, some people appreciate me.”

He didn’t seem to hear her, lost in thought as he’d been since they’d gotten back. If she could take back what she’d said to Kisrah, she would have—not that Kisrah didn’t need to hear it. She would have bitten her tongue off, leaving Kisrah believing his version of Geoffrey ae’Magi the rest of his life, rather than hurt Wolf.

Despite his apparent disinterest, Wolf trailed her as she left to greet her audience and made himself comfortable at her feet.

Kisrah was not there, though she knew he’d returned from their ride. She didn’t see Gerem, either, but Freya and Nevyn were seated on a bench against the wall, just close enough to hear.

She chose her story primarily for Wolf, something light and happy that should appeal to the rest of her audience as well. As laughter warmed the room better than any winter fire, Wolf rested his head on her lap with a sigh.

When Aralorn awoke the following morning, she found a red-tailed hawk perched on the back of a chair near the fireplace, preening its feathers. Wolf was gone.

“For a man who was worried about showing himself among humans, you certainly are volunteering your time generously,” she said severely.

The hawk fluttered his feathers noisily into place. “He said you’d probably be grumpy when you woke up. I can’t say I approve of your choice of mates, niece.”

“Your own choice being superior,” she said.

The hawk bobbed its head and squawked with laughter, and the chair rocked dangerously beneath him. “True, true,” Halven chortled as he settled back down.

“Wolf told you we were married?” asked Aralorn.

“Yes, child,” said the hawk. “And he asked me to tell you to amuse yourself. He’s off to find the ae’Magi.”

“Did he say which one?” Aralorn stretched. It had taken Wolf a long time to get to sleep last night even though she’d done her best to tire him.

“Which one?” Her uncle cocked his head at her. “There is only one ae’Magi.”

Aralorn pursed her lips. “We’re not certain that’s true.” She told Halven the things that Wolf had told her about his father and the dreams that she, Gerem, and Kisrah had experienced. After a brief hesitation, she told him of Wolf’s relationship to Geoffrey ae’Magi and exactly how the last ae’Magi had died. She didn’t easily give up information—except when that information might be vital. She had a feeling that they might need help before this was over, and her uncle would be a lot of help if he so chose.

Halven made an odd little sound that Aralorn couldn’t decipher, but the incredulity in his voice when he spoke was clear enough. “So you think that a human mage who is dead is walking in the dreams of a shapeshifter and the newest human Archmage, and they are not able to stop it? The dead have very little power over the living unless the living grant that power to them. I can think of a half dozen more likely things—including the return of the Dreamer.”

“I was able to take control of my dreams,” said Aralorn. “And Kisrah loved Geoffrey and welcomed him. I don’t think Gerem has any defenses against magical attacks.” Someone—Nevyn—should have seen to it that Gerem had started training a long time ago.

She looked away from the hawk as she worked out some things she’d never put together before. “The dreams I was given were true dreams, Uncle. At first, whoever sent them to me had tried to alter them, but I was able to see through to the true memories. The dreams concerned things that only the ae’Magi and Wolf knew about.”

“How do you know Wolf didn’t send the dreams?”

“It was not Wolf,” she said.

“Where was he when your father was enspelled?” Her uncle’s voice was somber. “If his father was a dreamwalker, can you say for certain he is not? He wouldn’t necessarily even know he was doing it. You’ve seen how his magic escapes him.”

Aralorn snorted. “If you knew Wolf, you would understand just how stupid it is to accuse him.”

She tried to think how to put into words something that was so clear to her that it was almost instinctive. “First, he would never involve other wizards in his spellcasting. He doesn’t trust anyone except maybe me that much. He would never—not ever—voluntarily share as much of his past as I saw in that dream. I knew him for years before he would admit to being anything but a wolf.”

“I think that it is a better possibility than a dead wizard,” said Halven. “Humans just don’t interact with the natural world well enough to do anything after they are dead.”

Aralorn digested that comment for a minute. “You mean shapeshifters do?”

The hawk gave its version of a laugh. “Not to worry. Most people who die don’t linger to torment the living.”

“The only other explanation that we’ve come up with is that the Dreamer has awakened,” she told him.

Halven made a derisive sound.

“Do you have another explanation?” she asked.

“What about another dreamwalking wizard? A living dreamwalker might be able to do what you have described,” he said.

“I’m told it’s a rare talent,” said Aralorn.

“Not rarer than a dead human mage who is making everyone tap to his tune,” said Halven. “Have you figured out why someone decided to attack the Lyon?”

She shrugged. “As we discussed earlier, it is probably to get me here. There are any number of people after Wolf, and some of them know that where I go, Wolf is not far behind.”

“To get Wolf here and do what?” asked Halven. “What do they want?”

She frowned at him. “To kill him.”

“You don’t know that,” Halven said. “Maybe they only need you.”

She laughed ruefully. “I don’t die easily. And other than as bait for Wolf, I can’t think of a reason any wizard would want me.”

“If they kill you, they kill him,” he reminded her.

“Only since day before yesterday,” she said. “And how did you know about that?”

“After I objected to finding my niece in a man’s bed, Wolf told me Ridane’s priestess married you.”

“You couldn’t care less if I was sleeping with the sheep,” she said tartly.

“He didn’t know that. You didn’t invite me to the wedding.”

“I didn’t know for certain that I was going to go through with it until we were there. I had to do something,” she told him, trying to stem the defensive tone that wanted to ease into her words. She’d known that she was making him more vulnerable—she was certainly more easily killed than he. But her reasoning still stood. “You said he had a death wish, and I believe you.”

“So you tricked him into the death goddess’s binding?” asked her uncle. There was, she thought, a certain admiration in his tone. “That’s the reason for your sudden marriage. He’ll take more care of himself now.”

“Uhm,” she said. “I haven’t told him about the side effect of being married by Ridane.”

“He doesn’t know?”

“He wasn’t raised next to Ridane’s temple,” she answered. “She’s not worshipped many places anymore. The gods have been quiet for a long time.”

Two beady eyes stared at her unblinkingly. “What good is marrying him going to do if he doesn’t know that his death will kill you also? You’ve undercut the very reason for the marriage.”

She started to defend herself, but a slow smile caught her unexpectedly. “Not really.”

The marriage itself, she thought, had accomplished what she had sought to enforce with the bond the priestess had set between them. From the awed tone in Wolf’s voice when she’d asked him if he’d marry her to last night when, after they’d retired to this room, he’d brought his pain to her and allowed her to help him forget. She was still a little stiff from the methods they’d employed.

Her uncle waited for a moment, and when she didn’t continue, he said, “Just make sure you don’t die before you tell him.”

She grinned. “I’ll try to keep that from happening.” She threw back the bedcovers, restless with prebattle nerves. She knew how to deal with those. “Rather than wait around for Wolf, I’m going to visit Falhart and persuade him to fight with me. You’re welcome to come if you’d like.”

She found Falhart, finally, in the accounting room, slaving over the books. As she walked into the little room, she heard him swear, and he began to scratch out what he’d written.

“Why don’t you find someone who likes those things?” asked Aralorn with a certain amount of fellow feeling. Give her a scroll of stories or a five-volume history, and she’d devour them, but account books were a whole different kettle of fish. Somewhere in the volumes stacked neatly against the walls was a large number of accounting sheets in her own poorly scribed hand.

Falhart looked up and scraped the hair from his eyes. “No one, but no one, likes to keep the accounts. Father, Correy, and I switch off, and this is my month.” He eyed the hawk on her shoulder, nodded at it, then focused on the pair of staves she carried in one hand.

She grinned. “Want to play, big brother? Bet you a copper I can take you two times out of three.”

“Make it a silver, and I’ll do it,” he said, pushing back his chair. “But I get to use my staff.”

She shook her head at him. “Your staff is fine, but someone has given you an inflated idea of what they pay us mercenaries, Hart. I’ll go three coppers and not a bit more.”

“Three coppers isn’t enough to make it worth my time,” he said.

“I guess you’ll just have to stay here and do the books then,” replied Aralorn with a commiserating pat on his arm. “Come on, Halven, let’s see who else we can find.”

“All right, all right, three coppers it is,” grumbled Falhart, then he brightened. “Maybe I can find someone else to lay a bet with.”

Aralorn examined his bearlike form and shook her head as she started for the training grounds. “And who are you going to find who will bet on a woman against a brute like you?”

“You did,” he pointed out.

“Yes, but I’ve fought you before.”

They faced off in the old practice ground. It was cold, and the sand was packed hard, though the snow had been swept away. Once they started fighting, the cold wouldn’t matter. Aralorn wielded one of her staves while Falhart held a quarterstaff half again as large and twice as thick as hers. Halven had opted for a better perch on the corner of the stable roof.

“You’re sure you don’t want to use a quarterstaff as well?” Falhart asked, watching her warily.

“Only a brute like you gains an advantage wielding a tree,” she replied. “It’s all right, though; you’ll need all the advantages you can find, big brother.”

Falhart laughed and tossed his staff lightly in the air. “You may have learned something in the past ten years, Featherweight. But so have I. What are the rules for this bout?”

“Three points,” said Aralorn. “Any hit between the shoulders and waist is good. Arms, head, and below the waist doesn’t count.”

“Right,” said Falhart, and he struck.

His swing had more speed than a man of his size had any right to have. Aralorn stepped respectfully out of its path and tapped him gently on the temple.

“Zap,” she murmured as she darted away, “you’re dead.”

“No point,” grunted Falhart, sweeping at her knees.

Rather than avoiding the sweep, Aralorn stepped lightly on the center of the quarterstaff between his hands and vaulted over his back. She touched her staff to his back twice in rapid succession before he had time to turn, and quickly bounced away.

“Two points,” called one of the onlookers in a gleeful voice.

She didn’t get away free though; as she jumped back, one end of his staff caught her in the diaphragm.

“Oof.” Though the blow was light, Aralorn expelled a breath of air unexpectedly.

Falhart backed away quickly, clearly worried. “Are you all right?”

She shot him a mock-disgusted look. “I said ‘oaf,’ you ox. You’re going to lose this round if you treat me like your little sister.”

“Just like to make certain my prey is feeling all right before I destroy it.” Falhart gave her a gentle smile as he circled her warily. “It’s more sporting that way. My point.”

Aralorn shook her head. “Poor babbling fool, I think I must have hit his head harder than I meant to.”

The two combatants exchanged merry grins before they went at it again. Falhart gained another point with a feint that he pulled back after she thought he was committed to the blow past the point he could alter it. In revenge she stuck her staff between his legs and toppled him to the ground.

“’Ware, down it comes,” she deadpanned in the carrying cry of an axeman felling a tree.

He caught her in the ribs as he came rolling to his feet. “Too busy being funny, Featherweight. Lost you the game.”

She shook her head in mock despair. “Beaten by a man . . . I’ll never live it down.”

Falhart patted her gently. “Poor little girl—oof.”

Aralorn removed her elbow from his midsection. “Don’t patronize me after you’ve beaten me. Losing puts me in a foul temper.”

“I’ll remember that,” said Lord Kisrah cordially, stepping onto the training grounds, Wolf at his heels. “Lady, if you would walk with me a bit? In private?”

She’d barely had a chance to warm up and had been planning on a few more rounds with Falhart before she was done. But she preferred the real battle to sparring bouts.

“Certainly, Lord Kisrah. I will leave the scene of my defeat, and my opponent can go back to accounts.”

The triumphant look faded from Falhart’s face. “Thanks for the reminder—but remember, you owe me three coppers.” He waited until she started fumbling with her purse, then he said, “Double or nothing this time tomorrow?”

He was planning something; she could hear it in his voice. “Five coppers altogether. No more,” she said.

“You’ve got it, Featherweight.” He gave in much too easily. He was planning some mischief or other.

She frowned at him, and he grinned unrepentantly. “I’d better get back to the accounts,” he said, and took his leave.

Kisrah extended his arm, and Aralorn set her staves against the stable wall before shaking her head at him. “You don’t want to touch me right now,” she said, pulling on her overtunic, sweater, and cape. “Save good manners for when I’m not sweaty.”

He gave a half bow, sending the long ribbons in his hair a-fluttering as he let his arm fall gracefully to his side. “As you wish, Lady Aralorn.”

“We could go to the gardens,” she suggested, trailing her fingers over Wolf’s ears.

Kisrah and Wolf fell in step on either side of her as she led the way to Irrenna’s pride and joy.

In the summer, the gardens were beautiful, but the winter left nothing more than frost-covered barren branches and gray stalks pressing up through the snow. The walks were swept, though, so they didn’t have to wade through the drifts.

“I know it’s chilly,” apologized Aralorn, “but no one much comes here in the winter.”

He raised an eyebrow. “So why didn’t we come here yesterday instead of riding out in the cold?”

“Because now you know who Wolf is,” she said. “I was worried how you would react. A body is much easier to hide outside the keep walls.”

He stopped walking. “I’d laugh if I didn’t think you were serious.”

“Maybe a bit,” she said. “Come, let’s move while we talk; it’ll keep us warm.” She was aware without actually looking at him that her uncle had followed them and was making lazy circles around them.

“Did you see Falhart’s face?” asked Wolf. “He thinks you threw the fight.”

“What do you think?” she asked blandly.

“I think you got cocky and lost.”

“You know me so well,” she admitted.

Kisrah gave Wolf a baffled frown. “Are you sure you’re Cain?”

Wolf tilted his head considering, then said, “I am.”

They walked for a while between sleeping flower beds. Aralorn turned her sweaty face into the cold air and paced beside the Archmage and felt grateful that there was no wind this morning.

“I have thought upon yesterday’s conversation,” Kisrah said finally. “In the end, there is only one answer. Black magic is evil. Good never breeds from evil—and I can see no good in this in any case. But I cannot remove the spell. If you are able to do so, I’ll help in any way I can. I know that Nevyn is one of the mages who added to the spell, but there is another.”

“We know the other,” said Aralorn. “My brother Gerem.”

“Gerem?”

“Sometimes magic ability doesn’t show until adolescence,” commented Wolf, answering Kisrah’s surprise.

“But Nevyn would have seen it,” said Kisrah. “He would have told me.”

Aralorn pursed her lips, and said, “Nevyn is very fond of my brother. Do you think that he would encourage anyone he cared for to go through the same abuse he suffered?”

“That’s a very serious charge,” observed Kisrah softly. “Untrained wizards are a danger to themselves and everyone around them.”

“So are trained wizards,” said Aralorn. Before the wizards she strolled with could comment, she continued blandly. “My brother cast a spell in his sleep. He didn’t have a chance to resist. My understanding, from the stories I’ve heard, is that a formal apprenticing would have protected him from such use.”

“Yes,” agreed Kisrah. “There are not many mages who can control the minds of others in such a fashion, anyway—even with black magic at their call. But given that the consequences of such control are dire, precautions are always taken. Apprentices are safeguarded.”

“You’ll have problems with my brother,” predicted Aralorn. “Nevyn is convinced that magic, any magic, is evil. I think he’s managed to persuade my brother. Most especially, shapeshifters are abominations.”

“Magic isn’t evil,” said Kisrah.

“All Darranians believe magic is evil,” said Aralorn. “Geoffrey ae’Magi believed that and embraced it. Nevyn believes it, and he’s trying his best to protect my brother. We need Gerem’s cooperation to save my father. We need you to get Nevyn to ask him to help.”

“I can get Nevyn to help,” agreed Kisrah, a bit more optimistically than Aralorn felt was warranted, but maybe he knew Nevyn better than she. “Shall we meet tonight in the bier room?”

Wolf shook his head. “This kind of black magic doesn’t require the night. You all will be more comfortable in the daylight.”

“Black magic?” questioned Kisrah sharply. “It shouldn’t be necessary to unwork the spell with black magic.”

“This spell was set with blood and death by three wizards. It will require sacrifice to unwork,” Wolf said.

“I thought that black magic couldn’t be worked in the day,” said Aralorn.

“It can be worked anytime,” answered Kisrah.

“Sometimes it works better at night,” corrected Wolf. In the shadows of the hedge, his pale golden eyes glittered with light reflected from the snow on the ground. The harsh macabre voice somehow made the barren garden something strange and frightening. “Terror can add power to a spell, and fear is easier to inspire in the night.”

Aralorn noticed that Kisrah’s even pace had faltered. Wolf only did things like this when he was in a particularly dark mood. She hoped that it was nothing more than talking about black magic that had brought it on and not something about unworking the spell to free the Lyon.

She hid her worry, and said dryly, “You sound like a ghoul, Wolf.” Her words cut through the mood Wolf had established, and the garden was merely a collection of plants awaiting spring again. “Is there something you haven’t told me about yourself?”

He flattened his ears in mock irritation, and said direly, “Much. But if the thought of my late sire’s ghost has failed to touch your undeveloped sense of prudence, nothing I have done will accomplish that either.”

Aralorn watched Kisrah’s expression out of the corner of her eye and was satisfied when humor replaced the unease that had been in his face earlier. The gods knew that Wolf was not a soothing man to associate with, but there was no need to worry Kisrah at this point.

“Tomorrow morning, then?” said Kisrah. “At first dawn?”

Aralorn nodded. “Tomorrow.”

“Kisrah,” said Wolf. “What did you kill to work your spell?”

“A Uriah,” he said uncomfortably. “I had intended to use my own blood—it should have been enough. I was working the spell in the basement workroom when a passageway door opened, and the Uriah came stumbling in. It must have escaped the Sianim mercenaries who took care of cleaning up the Uriah Geoffrey left scattered about. I killed it, and the spell slipped my control and used the creature’s death instead of my blood.”

“Ah,” said Wolf. “Thank you.”

Kisrah nodded and turned on his heel with every sign of a man escaping.

“Uriah,” said the hawk after Kisrah was gone, settling on the top of a trellis that bore the thorny gray vines of a climbing rose. “Human sacrifice. Aralorn, I begin to believe what you told me this morning. Maybe I have been underestimating human mages.” He stared coldly down at Wolf.

“How did you know what the Uriah are?” asked Aralorn.

“Human mages are very good at warping things unnaturally,” said Halven. “Any shapeshifter looking at a Uriah can see the true nature that human magic has perverted. Only a human mage could be so blind as to not understand his own work. Why didn’t you tell him that he’d made your task more difficult?”

“I would rather the secret of their making die with my father,” Wolf said. “I do not expect that Kisrah would be anything but repelled—but he might tell others or write it down for someone to discover.”

“Ah,” said Halven. “Sometimes it is a good thing that human mages are so blind, and some knowledge is best lost. But Kisrah’s ignorance has caused you trouble.” Halven sighed. “I had better help you control your magic, Nephew. So much of your magics require balance—of which Kisrah has some, you have little, Gerem has none, and Nevyn has less than that.”

“He’s in worse shape than I am?” asked Wolf, sounding surprised, but Aralorn thought it was more because Halven named him nephew than her uncle’s assessment of Nevyn.

Halven laughed. “Nevyn has been broken and badly mended. Your spirit is strong as an oak, wolf-wizard. It may be a bit battered, but as long as you don’t misdirect it, you’ll be fine.” He cocked his head at Aralorn. “There is something different since your marriage. You may be right.”

“She’s right about what?” asked Wolf.

“You keep out of this, Uncle,” snapped Aralorn. “Wolf, can we talk of this later?”

She could have sworn that there was laughter in Wolf’s eyes, but it was gone almost before she saw it. She couldn’t think of anything they’d said that he would find funny.

“If you’d like,” Wolf said.

“I can’t do anything about the nature of the sacrifice,” said Halven. “I can’t do anything about Nevyn. But I think I can help you with your magic problem. Aralorn, haven’t you taught him to center?”

“I can’t center,” she said, exasperated. “Just how do you expect me to teach someone else? Besides, centering is more of an exercise in ...” Her voice trailed off as she realized what she was going to say.

“Control.” Her uncle’s voice was smug. “We need someplace warm and private.”

“We can work in my room,” suggested Aralorn. “That would allow us some privacy and warmth as well.”

“I’ll meet you there,” said the hawk, taking flight.

“Wolf,” said Aralorn, once they were alone.

“Yes?”

“You haven’t worked black magic since you left your father’s home, have you?”

“No.”

Aralorn tilted her face into the sun, though she felt no warmth on her skin. “I don’t know a lot about human magic, but I do know that good seldom comes from evil. I don’t want you to hurt yourself to save my father.”

“Aralorn,” said Wolf, “you worry too much. I have worked such magic before.”

“And chose not to do it again, until now.” She turned a rock over with the toe of her boot and kicked it into the snow.

“This is not your doing, Lady. It is my father’s work.”

“Would you work black magic if it were not my father?” she asked.

“Would he be ensorcelled if he weren’t your father?” he returned. “We’d best not keep your uncle waiting. I’ll be all right, Aralorn.”

Wolf is the only expert I have, thought Aralorn. If he says there will be no harm in it for him . . . He’d never tell her if there was.

Frowning unhappily, she started back for the castle, with Wolf padding by her side.

Aralorn lay on the bare floor of her room and reconsidered calling her room warm—without the rugs to cover it, the floor was icy. Halven was taking Wolf through some basic meditation exercises, things she’d learned the first summer she’d spent with him.

In honor of the lesson, her uncle had taken on the shape of a venerable old man, with a rounded face and belly—someone to inspire confidence, she supposed.

Wolf, to Aralorn’s surprise, had left the mask off. Halven had already seen the scars, of course—but Wolf used the mask as much for a shield as he did to cover his scars.

“Now, stop that,” her uncle admonished Wolf, in tones Aralorn would bet tomorrow’s winnings against Falhart that no one had used on Wolf in a very long time, if ever. “I don’t want you to do anything to the wood—just feel it. See the growth patterns, the years where water was hard to come by and the years where it was abundant. Feel the difference between the old oak of the original floor and the plank of maple that someone used to replace an old board—yes, that’s the one. Let yourself feel how much easier magic slides through the oak than it does through the maple. Aralorn, an exercise does no good unless you do it.”

“Yes, sir.” She grinned, obediently losing herself in the pitted surface of the wooden floorboards.

There was almost a sensuous pleasure in working with the wood. Oak had a sparkle to it that always made her feel as if she ought to glow with joy while she worked with it. Not that she could do much more with it than look. A few shapes, some basic spells, and a little inventive lock picking—that was about as far as her command of magic went. That didn’t mean that she couldn’t enjoy it for its own sake.

“Now that you know the wood beneath you, children, I want you to concentrate on yourselves. Feel the texture of the floor against your skin, the fabric that separates you from the support of the wood. Ideally, of course, there would be no fabric, but I understand that you humans are sensitive about exposing your bodies. As I discovered in training Aralorn, the distraction of the clothing is less by far than the distraction of not wearing any at all.”

“Not to mention it’s warmer this way,” murmured Aralorn, her eyes still closed.

“Enough, child. I am the teacher here. You will merely listen and absorb my wisdom.”

“Of course. I shiver at your feet in humble awe at the—”

“Kessenih”—he interrupted—“would be happy to take over the training of you; I believe that she offered to do it the last summer you came to us.”

Kessenih, as Aralorn recalled, had wanted to peel the skin from her feet and make her walk back to Lambshold—who’d have thought she’d have gotten so upset over a chicken egg in her shoe?

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

Halven had changed, she thought. He’d always been cold to her, though he’d sponsored her training. After a moment she decided it could be that she, herself, had changed. As a child, she’d always been too much in awe of Halven to tease him. She’d never been able to relax around him, but now . . . everything crystallized, like a wooden puzzle that suddenly slid into shape.

It felt odd seeing herself in the way she had always been able to look into wood, to feel her heart beat and know why it did. Like an outsider, she could see into the fears and petty angers, touch the bond that tied her to her mate.

“I’ve got it ...” It startled her so much that she sat up and lost it again, but she laughed anyway.

“So you did,” said Halven, sounding pleasantly surprised. “See if you can explain it to Wolf. Sometimes two talk better than one.”

“What did you find?” asked Wolf.

“My center,” she said, sounding as shocked, as elated as she felt. “I’ve always been able to sense it well enough that I can use magic, but it was never clear. Like being in a boat and knowing that there’s water under me, but not being in the lake myself.”

“So this time you fell in?” Wolf sounded amused.

Aralorn grinned at him. “And the water was superb, thank you.”

“You,” said Halven to Wolf, “have no sense of center at all, that I can see. Without centering, it is impossible to be grounded—to be aware of yourself and your surroundings at a level where it is safe to work green magic. If we can get you there, then having your magic run amok should no longer be a problem.”

He ran a hand down his beard. “For human magic, this is not necessary—you control the magic with your thinking self. Like working a logic problem, with just a touch of artistry to give it form. Green magic is just the opposite. Your . . . emotions, your needs, generate the magic with just a touch of conscious control. Aralorn has been working half-blind for most of her life, and you are wiggling puppet strings without knowing which string is connected to which puppet.” He looked pleased with his analogy, savoring it for a moment before turning back to Aralorn. “You found it once—do it again.”

It took her a while before she could do it reliably, but once she had it, Halven went back to work on Wolf.

If it had been difficult for Aralorn to relax into her center, it was nightmarish for Wolf. Control had been his bulwark for most of his life, a defense against the things he had done and what was done to him. Unless he could give it up, he would never be able to control his magic: a paradox he understood in his head, but not in his heart, where it mattered.

It made for a long afternoon. By the end of it, he was sweating, Halven was sweating, and Aralorn was exhausted, but Wolf came out of it with a better sense of self, if not precisely his center. An achievement that left Halven nodding grudgingly.

“At least,” he said, helping Wolf to his feet, “you know that there are strings on your fingers now. If you don’t know what they do, you can elect not to tug on them.” He sounded almost as tired as he looked.

“Thank you,” said Wolf.

Halven smiled slyly. “Couldn’t do less for my sister’s daughter’s mate, now could I?” He slid from old man to bird shape. “I expect you to keep her in line.”

“How?” asked Wolf, amused.

Halven let out a bark of laughter. “Don’t know. I’ve never seen it done. Open the shutters now, and I leave you children to your rest.”

“Well,” Aralorn said after Halven had left, “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”

Wolf gave her what might have been a wolfish smile without his scars, looking more relaxed than she’d ever seen him. “I could eat a sheep.”

“You think so?” she said thoughtfully, pulling on her boots. “I’m not so sure; the local shepherds are awfully quick with their arrows.”

He laughed, changing gracefully into wolf shape.

Most of the family was already eating when they made it to the great hall. Aralorn slipped into her old place between Falhart and Correy. Nevyn, sitting directly across from her, pointedly didn’t look up when she sat down. Freya shrugged apologetically once and otherwise ignored her husband’s distress.

“. . . when I came out of the village smithy, there was my meek and ladylike wife screaming at the top of her lungs.” Falhart stopped to eat a bite of food, giving Aralorn a quick view of his wife on his other side with her head bowed and a flush creeping up her cheekbones.

“I thought something was wrong and was charging to the rescue when I realized what she was saying.” He cleared his throat and raised his bass rumble to a squeaky soprano. “Three geese, I tell you! I need three. I don’t want four or two—I need three. I don’t care if they are mated pairs. I am going to eat them, not breed them!” Falhart laughed.

Aralorn was too tired to join in the usual family chatter and picked at her food. The familiar scents and voices, some deeper now than they had been, were soothing.

She let her eyes trail across her siblings with the magic she’d been working all day. She’d occasionally been able to use her magic to look deeply into a person, but never for more than a moment or two.

It was an odd experience, her senses interpreting what her magic told her sometimes as color—Falhart radiated a rich brown that warmed those around him. Irrenna was musical chimes, clear and beautiful. Even though he sat at the far end of the table, Aralorn could feel Gerem’s magic flickering eagerly, vibrating on her skin like the wings of a moth. One of the little children, a toddler, had it, too. She’d have to remember to tell her father . . . She turned abruptly and caught Nevyn staring at her.

Wide-eyed, she saw what Halven had meant when he’d said that Nevyn was broken and poorly mended. She had no experience to interpret what she saw, but it was like looking at a tree split by lightning. As the thought occurred to her, that’s what she saw, as if an illusionist had superimposed the image over Nevyn’s human form. One side of the tree struggled to recover, but the branches were gnarled, and the leaves were edged with an unhealthy gray. The other side was black and burnt.

Nevyn pulled his eyes away, but that didn’t release Aralorn from the vision. Sharp teeth closed on her hand, and she dropped her eyes to see Wolf beneath the table, glowing like lightning. Dazed, she blinked her eyes rapidly, only to see the bright wolf imposed on her eyelids.

Wolf growled, and Aralorn took in a deep breath and set her magic aside.

“You are quiet tonight,” said Correy in her ear. “Have you found out anything more about Father?”

His tone was conversational, so he hadn’t noticed her doing anything unusual.

“Enough to be hopeful,” she said, striving for a normal tone.

“Do you know who might have done it?” asked Freya.

Warily, Aralorn looked at her, but she saw only the face that Freya had always shown her.

Aralorn shrugged and, because she was thinking about what had just happened rather than paying attention to the conversation, she said more than she should have. “I think so, but he is dead now—so knowing who he is doesn’t do us much good.”

“Who?” asked Irrenna from the head of the table, her voice sharp.

Aralorn put down her knife and fork. “No one it would be healthy to accuse at this point. When I’m more certain of my facts, I’ll tell you. I promise.”

Irrenna looked at her narrowly for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll hold you to your promise.”