Wolfsbane

THREE

Aralorn walked to the great hall, with Wolf ghosting beside her, once more in lupine form. When she’d told him he didn’t have to accompany her, he had merely given her a look and waited for her to open the door. When he wanted to, the man could say more with a look than most people managed with a whole speech.

She’d searched through the clothing still in her closet, trying to find a long-sleeved dress that would cover the scars on her arms. The dresses were all in beautiful condition (many having never been worn), but the fashions of ten years ago had tight sleeves that she could no longer fit into thanks to a decade of weapons drills. She’d settled for a narrow-skirted, short-sleeved dress and ignored the scars.

The room was crowded, and for a moment she didn’t recognize anyone there. Ten years had made changes. Some of the crowd were tenant farmers and gentry who held their manors in fief to her father; but from the number of very tall, blond people in the room, Aralorn thought most of them were her family, grown up now from the ragtag bunch of children she remembered.

Wolf received some odd looks, but no one asked about him. It seemed that mercenaries would be allowed their eccentricities.

She smiled and nodded as she waded through the crowd, knowing from experience that the names would sort themselves out eventually. Usually, she was better at mingling and chatting, but this wasn’t just work, and the black curtain that hung in the far corner of the room held too much of her attention.

In the alcove behind the curtain, her father’s body was laid out in state—awaiting the customary solitary visits of his mourners. Visits where the departed spirit could be wished peacefully on his way, old quarrels could be put aside, and daughters could greet their fathers for the first time in a decade.

She’d seen him now and again, the last time at the coronation of the new Rethian king. But I was working, and he never recognized me under the guises I wore.

“Aralorn!” exclaimed a man’s voice somewhere behind her.

Aralorn gave herself an instant to collect her scattered thoughts before she turned.

The young man slipping rapidly through the crowd wasn’t immediately identifiable, though his height and his golden hair proclaimed him one of her brothers. She hesitated for a moment, but realized from his age and the walnut-stained color of his eyes who he had to be—the only other boy near his age had blue eyes. When she searched his features she could see the twelve-year-old boy she’d known.

“Correy,” she said warmly, as he came up to her.

Wordlessly, he opened his arms. She wrapped her arms around him and returned his hug. The top of her head was well short of his shoulders in spite of the torturously high heels on her shoes.

“You shrank,” he commented, pulling away to reveal a twinkle in his dark brown eyes.

She stepped back so she wouldn’t strain her neck looking at him. “Back less than a day, and already I’ve been insulted twice for my size. You should have more respect for your elders, boy.”

“Correy—” A female voice broke into the conversation from somewhere over Aralorn’s left shoulder. “Mother’s looking for you. She says you forgot to get something that she needed for something else, I forget what. I can’t believe that you are wearing a sword; Mother will pitch a fit when she sees that you’re wearing a weapon to Father’s wake.” A tall, exquisitely groomed woman of somewhere around thirteen or so tripped past Aralorn without so much as a glance and stopped at Correy’s side.

Correy rolled his eyes, looking for a moment much more like a boy of twelve than a grown man. With a smile for Aralorn, he reached out a brotherly arm and snagged the immaculately clad girl around the neck and pulled her to his side. “You won’t recognize this one, Aralorn, as she was only four when you left. Lin has set herself up as the mistress of propriety at Lambshold. She wants to go to court and meet the king. I think she envisions him falling desperately in love with her.”

The girl, only inches shorter than her brother, struggled out of his hold and glared at him. “You think you’re so smart, Correy—but you don’t even know that you shouldn’t wear swords at a formal gathering. Mother’s going to skin you alive.”

Correy smiled, ignoring her wrath. “I meant to tell you that black looks exceptionally well with your hair.”

“You really think so?” Lin asked anxiously, suddenly willing to listen to her brother’s previously dismissed judgment.

“I wouldn’t say so else, Lin,” he said with obvious affection.

She kissed his cheek and drifted off, taking little notice of her long-lost sister.

“I apologize for her rudeness ...” began Correy, but Aralorn smiled and shook her head.

“I was fourteen once, myself.”

He smiled and glanced down casually at Wolf, but when he met the solemn yellow gaze, he started. “Allyn’s toadflax , Aralorn, Mother said you’d brought your pet, but she didn’t say he was a wolf.”

He knelt to get a better view, careful not to crowd too close. “I haven’t seen many black wolves.”

“I found him in the Northlands,” said Aralorn. “He was caught in an old trap. By the time he was healed, he’d gotten used to me. He still comes and goes as he pleases. I didn’t know he’d accompanied me here until he showed up in the courtyard.”

“Hey, lad,” crooned Correy, cautiously extending his hand until he touched the thick ruff around the wolf’s throat.

“You don’t have to be quite so careful. He’s never bitten anyone yet . . . at least not for petting him.”

There were too many people in the room for her to worry about the purposeful steps that approached her from behind, but she did anyway. Hostility always had that effect on her.

The man striding toward them was dark-haired and dark-eyed, the epitome of a Darranian lord. Not as handsome as Wolf—who was half Darranian and looked it—and less dangerous-looking, though he had something of Wolf’s grace when he moved. Nevyn, she thought with a touch of resignation accompanying her nervousness.

He stopped in front of her, close enough that he was looking down, forcing her to look up to meet his eyes. “You profane this gathering by your presence, shapeshifter.”

“Nevyn,” she greeted him courteously.

From the corner of her eye, she noticed Wolf pull away from Correy and slink toward Nevyn, his lips curled back from his fangs.

“Wolf, no,” she said firmly, hoping he would listen.

Yellow eyes gleamed at her, but the snarl disappeared as he trotted back to her side.

When she was certain Wolf was not going to do anything rash, Aralorn turned her attention back to Nevyn; but the distraction had done her good—and that might have been Wolf’s intention all along. He was a subtle beast. Prepared now, she examined the Darranian sorcerer. The years had been kind to him, broadening his shoulders and softening his mouth. The shy anxiety that had plagued him had faded, leaving behind an intense, handsome man who looked prepared to defend his family from her.

“I am truly sorry you feel that way,” she said. “But the Lyon is my father, and I will stay for his burial. For his sake, I bid you peace. If you feel it necessary, perhaps we could discuss this in a less public forum.”

“She’s right, husband,” said a firm voice, and a woman, slightly taller than Nevyn, materialized to Aralorn’s left. In Freya, Lin’s promise of beauty was fulfilled. Thick red-gold hair hung in glorious splendor to her slender hips. Her belly was gently rounded with pregnancy, but that robbed her figure of none of its grace. The dark blue eyes that glanced a quick apology at Aralorn were large and tilted. “This is neither the time nor the place for this conversation.”

“Freya,” said Aralorn, smiling, “it’s good to see you again.”

Mischievousness lit the younger woman’s smile as she patted her husband’s arm before she left him to hug Aralorn. “Don’t stay away so long next time, Featherweight. I missed you.”

Aralorn laughed, grateful for the change of topic. “I missed you, too, Puff.”

Correy gave a crack of laughter. “I’d forgotten that name. None of the youngsters got nicknames once you’d gone.”

“Maybe,” said Freya, her eyes twinkling as she folded her arms and puffed out her cheeks in the manner that had given her the once-hated appellation, “I didn’t miss everything about your absence.”

“If I remember Irrenna’s letters correctly, your child is due this spring, right?” asked Aralorn.

Freya nodded and started to say more, but Irrenna, emerging from whatever social emergency had been keeping her at a distant corner of the room, called Aralorn’s name.

Hurrying forward, Irrenna pressed a kiss on Aralorn’s cheek. “Come, dear, the alcove is empty, so you can pay your respects to your father.”

Although she knew the smile on her face didn’t change, Aralorn felt a cold chill of grief. “Yes, Irrenna. Thank you.”

She followed her stepmother’s graceful form through the crowd. They paused here and there for introductions—Irrenna had taken refuge from her grief in the social amenities called for at any large gathering.

Wolf ventured ahead and found a corner near the black curtain where he was unlikely to be stepped on and settled quietly. Aralorn murmured something polite, squeezed Irrenna’s hand, and continued to the curtained alcove on her own.

The black velvet was heavy, and it shut out a great deal of the sound from the outer room. Incense burned from plates set at the head and foot of the bier, leaving the room smelling incongruously exotic. She let the curtain settle behind her before stepping farther into the little chamber.

It was unadorned except for three torches that were ensconced on the stone walls, sending flickering light to touch all but the narrowest shadows. On the opposite side of the round room was a thick wooden door that was used to take the body to the burial grounds outside the keep. It was a small chamber, with space for only eight or ten mourners to cluster around the gray stone bier that held sway here, a private place.

The man on the stone slab didn’t look like her father, though he wore the same state robes she had seen him in at the Rethian king’s coronation. Aralorn’s lips twitched when she remembered he’d been thieving sweet cakes out of the kitchens. Green and brown velvet embroidered with gold. She touched the rich cloth lightly with her fingertips. He had been an earthy man; it was fitting that his burial clothing reflected that.

“You should have died in battle, Father,” she whispered. “Sickness is such an inglorious way to die. The minstrels are already singing ballads of your ferocity and cunning in battle, did you know that? They’ll make up a suitably nasty foe to have dealt your mortal wound just to satisfy their artistic souls.”

The stone of the raised bier was cold on her hips, surprising her because she hadn’t realized she had stepped closer. “I should have come sooner—or stopped you at court when I saw you there. I’m a spy, did you know that? What would you have done if the scullery maid, or the groom who held your horse, shifted into me? Would you have had me tried as a traitor to Reth? Sianim’s mercenaries aren’t Reth’s enemies until they are paid to be. You know I would never betray Reth’s interests for my adopted home.”

To Aralorn, touch was as much a part of talking as the words themselves. Almost without conscious thought, she bent forward, cupping her hand on his flaccid cheek . . . and stilled.

She had touched dead people before—a lot of them. She had even touched a Uriah or two, who were dead-but-alive. Her shapeshifter blood did more than allow her to change shape and light fires; it made her sensitive to the patterns of life and death, decay and rebirth.

Beneath her fingertips, the pulse of life was still present—and it didn’t have the fragility of someone near death. Despite his appearance, her father seemed to be merely sleeping, though he did so without breath or color in his face.

“Father?” she said softly, her pulse beginning to race with possibilities. “What is this that you have gotten yourself into?”

She searched for sorcery, human or green, but her magic found nothing. She began to sing softly in her mother’s tongue. Singing allowed her to focus her magic, letting her see more than just the Lyon’s still form.

She had never been hungry for the power that magic could bring, so she’d never done much besides learn how to reshape her face, change into a few animal forms, and open locked doors. This was entirely different, but she had to try something.

She struggled for a while before she was able to discern the pulses and rhythms of his life; more difficult still was finding the underlying organization that was at the heart of all life. Just as she thought she found the Lyon’s pattern, something dark bled through. She sought it, but it faded before her searching, as if it had never been. Deciding it might have been a fluke of her inexperience, Aralorn returned to her original search. As soon as her concentration was elsewhere, the darkness returned.

This time it caught at her magic as if it were a living thing. Startled but not alarmed, Aralorn stopped singing. But the connection between her magic and the shadow didn’t dissolve. Creeping up through her magic, the darkness touched her. As it did, pain swept through her, raking her with acid claws.

“Wolf,” she croaked, meaning to call out, but her voice was only a hoarse whisper as she fell to her knees.

Lying just outside the curtained alcove, Wolf listened to Aralorn’s singing and wished he couldn’t feel the stirring of green magic at her call. He didn’t know what she was doing, but he sent a thread of silence around the curtain, hiding the sound of her music from everyone except him.

No one needed to know that she called magic, not when so many here disapproved of her. He’d seen the looks that Aralorn had ignored. She chose to believe that they did not hurt her, but he knew better.

The pads of his feet tingled, and the air thickened with the sharp, clear presence of Aralorn’s magic. He shifted irritably but stilled when the singing stopped. Abruptly, Wolf surged to his feet, trying to put a name to the change he sensed. Then, faintly, he heard her call his name.

He bolted under the curtain to find Aralorn curled on her side, and the magic in the air so strong it almost choked him—not Aralorn’s magic; hers never stank of evil.

“Eavakin nua Sovanish ven,” he spat, straddling Aralorn as if his physical presence could ward off the attack of magic. At the end of his speaking, the dark magic reluctantly faded back from Aralorn. He shaped himself into his human form: He could work magic whatever shape he took, but there were some spells that he needed his hands for.

“Kevribeh von!” he commanded as he gestured. Rage twisted his voice as it could not touch his fire-scored face. “She is mine. You will not have her.”

As suddenly as it had come, all trace of the magic that had attacked her disappeared. The chamber should have retained a residue of it—he could detect the traces of his own spellwork—but the shadow magic was gone as if it had never been.

Wolf moved aside as Aralorn began to push herself up.

“Wolf,” she said urgently, “look at him. Look at my father and tell me what you see.”

“Are you all right?” he asked, crouching down beside her.

“Fine,” she said dismissively, though at the moment she seemed to be having trouble sitting up. He helped her. “Please, Wolf. Look at my father.”

With a curt nod, Wolf turned and approached the bier.

Aralorn wrapped her arms around herself and waited for his answer. When Wolf stiffened in surprise, she clenched her hands into fists. He set his right hand over the Lyon’s chest as he made a delicate motion with his left.

Remembering what had happened to her when she had used magic, Aralorn said, “Careful.”

It was too late. Even without her magic, she saw the unnatural shadow slipping from under the Lyon’s still form to touch Wolf’s hand.

“Plague it!” Wolf exclaimed, using Aralorn’s favorite oath as he stumbled back from the bier, shaking his hand as if it hurt.

The shadow vanished from sight as quickly as it had come.

“Are you all right?” asked Aralorn, staggering to her feet. “What is it?”

Wolf walked slowly around the stone pedestal, careful not to touch it. He frowned in frustration. “I don’t know. I can see it, though, when it moves. It seems to have a limited range.”

“Is it a spell of some sort?”

Almost reluctantly, Wolf shook his head.

“It’s alive then,” said Aralorn. “I thought it might be.” The hope she’d been clinging to left her. The life that she’d sensed had been the shadow-creature and not her father at all.

Of course the Lyon was dead. She sucked in a deep breath as if air could assuage the hurt of departing hope.

The sound brought Wolf’s gaze to her, his amber eyes glittering oddly in the flickering light. “So is your father.”

“Wolf?” she whispered.

The rattle of the brass rings that held the heavy curtain over the door gave brief warning before both Correy and Irrenna burst in. Wolf dropped his human form for the wolf more swiftly than thought. If one of the intruders had looked sharp, they would have caught the final touches of his transformation, but their attention was on Aralorn, still sitting on the floor.

“Are you all right?” asked Irrenna anxiously, surveying the dust on Aralorn’s dress and the dazed expression on her face.

“Actually, yes,” replied Aralorn, still absorbing the certainty that Wolf had given her. “Much better than I was.” Then she smiled, accepting the improbable. She might have been mistaken, but Wolf would not have been.

“I apologize then,” said Correy, clearly taken aback at her cheerfulness. “I saw your wolf scramble under the drapery, and I thought something might be wrong. That door”—he gestured to the oaken door that led to a small courtyard—“is usually kept barred, but I could have sworn I just heard a man’s voice.” Though his words were an explanation for the discourtesy of interrupting a mourner, his voice held a dozen questions.

Aralorn shook her head. “No one came in from the courtyard. I have noticed this room can distort sound—it might be the high ceiling and the narrowness of the room.”

Wolf gave her a glance filled with amusement at her storytelling. She patted him on the head and climbed laboriously to her feet.

“You look as if your visit with Henrick did you some good,” commented Irrenna after a moment. “I’m glad you are more at peace.”

Aralorn smiled even wider at that. Trust Irrenna to be too polite for bluntness.

“Well”—Aralorn paused, almost bouncing with excitement—“I’m not certain ‘peace’ is quite the right word. I would say joyous, exuberant, and maybe exultant—though that might be pushing it a bit. I wouldn’t be too hasty about burying Father tomorrow—he might not be best pleased.”

Her brother stiffened, drawing himself up indignantly, but Irrenna, who knew her better, caught his arm before he could say anything.

“What do you know?” Irrena’s voice was hushed but taut with eagerness for all that.

Aralorn spread her arms wide. “He’s not dead.”

“What?” said Correy, his voice betraying his shock.

Irrenna took a step forward and peered closely into Aralorn’s face. “What magic have you wrought?” she asked hoarsely.

At the same time, Correy shook his head with obvious anger. “Father is dead. His flesh is cold, and there is no pulse. I don’t remember that your humor lent you toward cruelty.”

The smile dropped from Aralorn’s face as if it had never been. “You’ve been listening to Nevyn.”

Irrenna stepped between them, shaking her head. “Don’t be absurd, Correy. If Aralorn says that he lives, then he lives. She wouldn’t make up a story about this.” She drew in a tremulous breath and turned back to Aralorn. “If he is not dead, why does he lie so still?”

Aralorn shook her head. “I’m not certain exactly, except that there’s magic involved. Has Father annoyed any wizards lately?”

Irrenna looked thoughtful for a moment. “None that I know of.”

“You think Father’s ensorcelled? Who do you think did it? Nevyn?” asked Correy. “I know death when I see it, Aralorn. Father is dead.”

Aralorn looked at him, but she couldn’t read his face. “I don’t know Nevyn anymore. But the man I knew would never have put everyone through all of this.”

“You are certain it was a human mage?” asked Irrenna. She’d reached out to touch the Lyon’s hand.

“Have you been having difficulty with the shapeshifters?” asked Aralorn.

“Father’s been working with them to improve the livestock.” Correy was still stiff with distrust. “But last month, something burned out a crofter’s farms on the northern borders of the estate, one of the places where they’d been conducting their experiments. All that’s left are the stone walls of the cottage, not even the timbers of the barn. Father said he didn’t think it was the shapeshifters, but I know that they’ve been nervous about dealing with humans.”

Aralorn nodded her understanding. “I haven’t had time to look very closely at the spell holding the Lyon. I can check if it was a shapeshifter’s doing or a human mage’s.”

She took a step forward to do just that, but Wolf placed himself foursquare before her.

“I can do it without using magic,” Aralorn said, exasperated. She’d momentarily forgotten, in her excitement, that her family would think it odd that she explained herself to her wolf. Ah well, she could hope that they would chalk it up to the stress of the moment. She needed to see the Lyon. “All I want to do is look. The shadow-thing only came out before when magic was being patterned.”

“What shadow-thing?” asked Correy.

“I don’t know,” Aralorn said. “Something odd happened when I was using magic.”

Reluctantly, Wolf stepped aside. Aralorn managed another half step before Wolf again stepped between her and the bier; this time his attention was all for the shadows under the silent form laid out on the stone table. He growled a soft warning.

“What is it?” asked Irrenna.

Aralorn narrowed her eyes, catching a flicker of movement in the shadow under the Lyon’s still form. She moved around Wolf and reached out, watching the shadow stretch away from her father’s fingertips and slide toward hers.

Wolf took a mouthful of the hem of her dress and jerked his head. If she’d been wearing her normal clothes, Aralorn would have caught her balance. As it was, the narrow skirt kept her legs too close together, and she fell backward on the cold floor again. This time she bruised her elbow.

“Plague it, Wolf—” she started, then she heard Correy’s exclamation.

“What is that?”

Irrenna gasped soundlessly, and Aralorn turned to look. The shadow was back, rising over the top of the bier as if it had form and substance. Wolf crouched between her and the thing, his muzzle curled in a soundless snarl.

Aralorn pushed herself away from the shadow to give him more room. As she distanced herself, the shadow shrank, until it was nothing more than a small area under her father where the torchlight could not reach.

“I think,” said Aralorn thoughtfully, getting to her feet, “that we need to seal this room so no one comes in. There must be some plausible explanation we can give them. It’s a little late to start talking about quarantine for an unknown disease, but ...”

“Why didn’t that happen before?” asked Correy. “There have been any number of people who have been around Father’s ...” He hesitated a moment, staring at the bier, then he smiled, a great joyous smile. “... around Father after he was ensorcelled.”

“That’s a good question,” said Aralorn briskly, with a nod that acknowledged his capitulation without gloating over it. “It was dormant until I worked some magic when I first noticed Father wasn’t as dead as he appeared. The magic might have triggered it. Regardless of what it is and why it didn’t act sooner, it certainly seems to be active now.”

“I propose that we tell everyone as much as we know,” suggested Correy in a reasonable tone of voice. “We’re not Darranians to be frightened of a little magic—but wariness comes with the territory.”

Aralorn was nonplussed for an instant, then a slow smile lit her face. “I’ve gotten used to fabricating stories for everything—I’d forgotten that sometimes it is possible to tell everyone what’s really going on—it is good to be home.”

The activity around the bier room had attracted the attention of several people in the great hall. When Correy drew back the curtain, Aralorn saw that Falhart was standing near the opening with a slender woman who could only be his wife, Jenna. Nevyn and Freya were there, too.

Correy glanced around the room with an assessing eye. Impatiently, he grabbed a pewter pitcher from a surprised servant and dumped the liquid it contained onto the floor. With a boyish grin, he took the empty vessel and flung it against a nearby stone pillar. The resultant clamor had the effect of silencing the room momentarily.

“Good people,” bellowed Correy, though the effect was somewhat marred by the silly grin on his face. “I am here to announce that my father’s interment has been indefinitely postponed because of a slight misconception on our part. It seems that the Lyon lives.” He had to wait a moment before the noise level dropped to where he could be heard. “My sister, Aralorn, has determined that it is some ensorcellment that holds Father in thrall. I will send to the ae’Magi at once for his aid. Until he arrives, I would ask that no one enter the chamber.”

“You say the shapeshifter wishes no one to enter?” Nevyn’s face was pale. Freya touched his arm, but he shook himself free of her hand.

“I say no one enters,” snapped Correy.

“There is a trap of some sort,” said Aralorn before matters between the two men worsened. “I have neither the skill nor the knowledge to deal with it. I fear that anyone without safeguards would be in danger of ending up in the same state as my father.” She bowed her head formally at Nevyn. “As you are far better trained than I, you are free to enter or not as you wish.”

Nevyn gave a shallow nod but didn’t move his eyes from Correy. “I would like to verify her opinion.”

“Fine,” said Correy.

“Have a care,” murmured Aralorn, as Nevyn brushed past her to enter the smaller room.

Aralorn looked at Wolf and gestured after Nevyn. He sighed loudly and ducked through the curtain behind the human mage.

While Irrenna dealt with the questions thrown at her, Falhart picked up the dented pitcher and handed it to Correy with a brotherly grin. “Never thought to see the day that my courtly brother dumped good ale on the floor in a formal gathering.”

Correy took the pitcher with a sheepish smile and shrugged. “It seemed . . . appropriate.”

Falhart turned to Aralorn. “Well, Featherweight, you did it again.”

She raised her brows. “Did what?”

“Managed to put the whole household in an uproar. You even turned Correy into a barbarian like ourselves. Look at all the work you caused the servants: This room will smell like a brewery for a se’night.”

Aralorn drew in her breath and puffed out her chest and prepared to defend herself. Before she could open her mouth, she was engulfed in Falhart’s arms.

“Thanks,” he said.

When Falhart set her down, Correy picked her up in a similar fashion, then gave her to an older man she recognized as one of the Lyon’s fighting comrades—and she wasn’t the only woman passed from one embrace to the next. From there the gathering took on the festiveness of Springfair.

Out of the corner of her eye, Aralorn saw Wolf find a place under one of the food-laden tables. Knowing from his actions that Nevyn was safely out of the curtained alcove, she relaxed and enjoyed herself.

Nevyn had no intention of working magic while under the watchful eye of Aralorn’s companion, who had inexplicably followed him.

He usually loved four-footed beasts of all kinds, but the cold yellow eyes of the wolf gave him chills. Would it have followed him if it were only a pet wolf as she claimed? Was it some relative of hers? He couldn’t tell the shapeshifters from any of the other creatures of the forest.

After completing a brief inspection of the room, Nevyn rejoined the guests. He would return to the Lyon when everyone was gone.

The tenor of the evening had changed during the short time he’d been gone. The quiet, hushed crowd had grown boisterous and loud, forgetting, in their joy at Aralorn’s news, that the Lyon still was in danger.

Nevyn watched his wife dance with Correy for a moment, but he was uncomfortable with the noisy crowd. He disliked strangers and gatherings of people. Not even eleven years in Lambshold had managed to change that. Without so much as a touch of envy, he watched the others celebrate: He liked knowing that so many people cared for the man who’d been a much better father to him than his own.

Smiling faintly, he turned and left the room, taking care to leave unseen. If Freya knew he’d gone, she would follow him—not understanding that he wanted her to enjoy herself. He loved her more because they were different, and had no desire to change her.

The smile grew more comfortable on his face as he took the servants’ stairs to reach the suite he shared with his wife. He felt better than he had for a long time. Aralorn’s discovery took a large portion of the weight of responsibility off his shoulders. He’d dreaded the thought that he would have to stop the burial himself despite the assurances he’d received to the contrary.

He felt guilty for what had been done to the man he loved as a father. But that would soon be over as well. He also hadn’t wanted to hurt Aralorn, and she would be hurt when she realized that she was responsible for her father’s condition: She was too smart not to make the connection. At least she wasn’t in any danger, not now.

He truly believed that she was something unnatural—even evil—but part of him still had a tender spot for the funny, teasing girl who had welcomed him to Lambshold. For that child’s sake, he hoped this would soon be over. He’d hurt her tonight. He hadn’t meant to, but he had to remind himself what she was lest he begin to forget the terrible things that magic could do no matter how good the man wielding it.

He entered his bedroom with a sigh of relief. One of his cats jumped down from the chair it had been sitting on to strop itself against his leg.

Nevyn stripped off his formal dress, leaving it where it fell. The cat mewed imperatively, and he picked it up before lying down in the bed he shared with Freya.

“Problems, Nevyn?” whispered an accentless voice in Darranian from the shadow-laden window alcove.

Nevyn jumped, still unused to the way the mage could appear out of nowhere. “My lord,” he greeted him. “I was just thinking. It happened as you said it would. Aralorn discovered the spell, though she managed to stay out of the trap as you feared she might.” He was glad of it, he thought with unusual defiance.

The sorcerer emerged from the alcove and stood in the light of the single candle Nevyn had left burning. He was taller than Nevyn and moved like a warrior despite the wizard’s robes he wore. His hair was the same color as the black cat that rested on Nevyn’s lap. His eyes were cobalt blue.

“Don’t fret,” he said, his voice matching the perfection of his face. “She could only escape because he was there.”

Nevyn shook his head. “I saw no one enter the room but Aralorn, Irrenna, and Correy.”

“Nonetheless,” said the other man again, “it was his magic that stopped the banishan from completing its work. That you did not see him enter is hardly surprising. My son is capable of great magics. There is a door into the bier room—a lock would be no barrier to a mage of his caliber.” He paused, then snapped his fingers. “Of course,” he said softly. “I should have thought . . . The girl, Aralorn, has been known to travel quite often with a large black wolf. Was he there?”

“Yes,” answered Nevyn. “What does that have to do with her escape from the trap, my lord ae’Magi?”

The other man looked thoughtfully at Nevyn. Then he smiled. “Since my son’s attempt on my life, I no longer hold that title—it belongs to Lord Kisrah, who holds the Master Spells. You may address me as Geoffrey, if you like.”

“Thank you,” said Nevyn.

“My son is the wolf,” said Geoffrey. “It is some effect of the combination of my magic and his mother’s that allows him to take that shape as if it were his own. Be careful when he is about.”

Nevyn nodded. “I’ll do that.”

“Thank you.” Geoffrey smiled. “You look tired now. Why don’t you sleep. Nothing more will happen tonight.”

Nevyn found that he was more tired than he remembered. He was asleep before Geoffrey left the room.

In her bedchamber, Aralorn stepped behind the screen to remove the torn dress and the shoes as well. Pulling her toes up to stretch her protesting calf muscles, she listened to the sounds of Wolf stirring the coals in the grate.

“Did you get a good enough feel for the spelling to tell if it was a human mage who attacked my father?” she asked, pulling a bedrobe off the screen and examining it, curious. It was the shade of old gold embroidered with red, and the needlework was far finer than any she had ever done. “I couldn’t get close enough to tell.”

“I don’t know,” replied Wolf after a moment. “The magic in that room didn’t feel like human magic—at least not always. Nor did it feel the way green magic does.” There was a pause, then he continued in a softer voice. “There’s black magic aplenty, though. It might be some effect of the corruption that makes it difficult to say whether it is a human or one of your kinsmen responsible.”

“Most everyone here is a kinsman of mine,” she said, and wrapped the robe around herself.

She sighed. The robe was unfamiliar because it quite obviously belonged to one of her sisters. The sleeves drooped several inches past her hands, and the silk pooled untidily at her feet. She felt like a child playing dress-up.

“If it is human magic, Nevyn is the most obvious culprit.”

Reading her tone, Wolf said, “You find that so far-fetched?”

“Let’s just say that I’d suspect the shapeshifters—I’d suspect myself—before I’d believe that Nevyn harmed my father,” she said, standing on her toes without appreciably affecting the length of fabric left on the ground. “Me, yes—but not my father. When Nevyn came here . . . something in him was broken. My father accepted him as one of us. He bellowed at him and hugged him, and Nevyn didn’t know what to make of him.” Aralorn smiled, remembering the bewildered young man who’d waited to be rejected by the Lyon as he’d been rejected by everyone else. “Nevyn wouldn’t hurt my father.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“Tomorrow,” she said, “I’d like to find my mother’s brother and see what he has to say. If he did this, he’ll tell me so—my uncle is like that. If not, I’d like him to take a look at the shadow-thing. He’s familiar with most of the uncanny things that live here in the mountains.”

She tried rolling up the sleeves. “By the way, did you ward the alcove to keep curiosity seekers out, or are we relying on Irrenna’s guards?” The soft fabric slid out of the roll as easily as water flowed down a hillside.

“I set wards.”

Deciding there was nothing to be done about the robe, Aralorn stepped around the screen. Unmasked and scarred, Wolf set the poker aside and turned to face her. He stopped and raised an eyebrow at her, his eyes glinting with unholy amusement.

“You look about ten years old,” he said, then paused and looked at her chest. “Except, of course, for certain attributes seldom found in ten-year-olds.”

“Very funny,” replied Aralorn with all the dignity she could muster. “Some of us can’t magically zap our clothing from wherever we put it last. Some of us have to make do with what clothing is offered us.”

“Some of us can do nothing but complain,” added Wolf, waving his hand at her.

Aralorn felt the familiar tingle of human magic, and her robe shrank to manageable size. “Thanks, Wolf. I knew there was a good reason to keep you around.”

He bowed with a courtier’s flair, his teeth white in the dim light of the room. “Proper lady’s maid.”

Aralorn snorted. “Somehow,” she said dryly, “I don’t think you convey the right air. Any Lady worthy of her title would not let you close enough to tie her laces . . . untie perhaps, but not tie.”

Wolf walked by her on the way to the bed and ruffled her hair. “I prefer mercenaries.”

She nodded seriously. “I’ve heard that about you wizards.”

She was drifting contentedly off to sleep snuggled against Wolf’s side when he said, “I’ve been assuming this was a spell, but it could be something the shadow-creature is doing to him.”

She moaned. “Sleep.”

He didn’t say anything more, but she could all but feel him thinking.

“All right, all right,” she groused, and rolled over onto her back with a flop. “Why do you think it is the shadow-thing holding my father?”

“I didn’t say that,” he corrected. “But we know nothing about it, or about the spell holding your father. You’re the story collector. Have you heard any stories about a creature who holds its victims in an imitation of death?”

“Spiders,” she answered promptly. She was very awake now. For some reason she’d assumed that since the Lyon was still alive, he’d stay that way until she and Wolf figured out how to rescue him.

“You know what I mean,” Wolf said. “Is there something that uses magic to bind prey as large as a human?”

“No,” she said, then continued reluctantly, “not explicitly—but there are a lot of strange creatures I don’t know much about. The North Rethian mountains were one of the last places settled. Many of the old things were driven here from other places as humans moved in. Supposedly, the Wizard Wars destroyed most of the really dangerous ones—but if the dragon survived, other things might have made it as well. That leaves a lot of candidates, from monsters to gods.”

“Gods?” he asked.

She tapped his chest in objection to the sneer in his voice. Wolf, she had long ago realized, was a hopeless cynic. “If the Smith built weapons to kill the gods, there must have been gods to kill. I’ll have you know that this very keep was cursed once. Family legend has it that one of the Great Masters who began the Wizard Wars razed a temple dedicated to Ridane, the goddess of death, before erecting his own keep here.” She lowered her voice and continued in a whisper. “It is said that Her laughter when he died was so terrible that all who heard it perished.”

“Then how did anyone know that She laughed?” Wolf asked.

She poked him harder. “Don’t ruin the mood.”

His shoulder shook suspiciously, but he was quiet. She settled back against him, slipping her hand under his arm.

“My uncle,” she said, “told me that the shapeshifters lived in these mountains before humans ever came this far north. They were driven into hiding here by a creature they called the safarent—which translates into something like big, yellow, magic perverter.” She waited for his reaction.

“Big, yellow, magic perverter?” he said, his voice very steady, making the name even more ridiculous.

“Sort of the way your name, in several Anthran dialects, would translate into hairy wild carnivore which howls,” she replied. “Would you prefer the Great Golden Tainter of Magic?”

“No,” he said dryly.

“Anyway,” she said, happy to have her attempt to amuse him succeed, “the shapeshifters were already hiding when humans came. It’s probably why they survived here and nowhere else.”

“So what happened to the . . . safarent?” asked Wolf, when Aralorn didn’t continue.

“Probably the Wizard Wars,” she said. “But the stories are pretty vague.” She closed her eyes and hugged his arm to still her fears. “I’ll get my uncle to look at the Lyon tomorrow.”

Wolf grunted and began nibbling at the soft place behind her ear, but she was too worried about her father to follow his mood.

“Wolf,” she said, “do you think I should try my sword? It might be able to rid us of that shadowy thing, or even break the spell that holds my father.”

Carrying an enchanted sword wasn’t the most comforting thing to do. It intimidated her to the point where she tried to ignore it most of the time. Since she’d used it on Wolf’s father, she hadn’t even practiced with it—though she carried it with her always so that no one else picked it up.

Wolf nipped her ear sharply and rolled her on top of him, shifting her until he could see her face.

“Ambris, once called the Atryx Iblis,” he said thoughtfully.

“Magic eater,” she translated.

“Devourer sounds much more impressive,” he said, “if we’re still debating translations. That name is the only thing we really know about it, right?”

“What do you mean? There are lots of stories, not about the sword, I grant you, but the Smith’s weapons—”

“—cannot be used against humankind,” he broke in.

“They were built to defeat the gods themselves: the black mace, the bronze lance, and the rose sword. ‘Only a human hand dare wield them—’ ”

“ ‘—against the monsters of the night,’ ” she said completing the quotation. “I know that.” Then she thought about what he’d said. “Oh, I see what you mean. You think the stories might be wrong.”

“My father was a monster, but he was a human monster. You, my sweet, are not human.”

“Half,” she corrected absently, “and I’m not so certain about your father. Other than your Geoffrey and a few Uriah, I don’t think I’ve ever actually ever so much as wounded anyone with it. I seldom use it except for training, where the idea is not to cut up your opponent. For real fighting, I use weapons I’m more competent with. Wolf, if your father was human, Ambris shouldn’t have worked against him.”

Wolf tapped his fingers absently on her rump with the rhythms of his thoughts. “Perhaps the Smith’s interpretation of human was broader than ours. He might have included half-breed shapeshifters as human. My father was trying to become immortal like the gods—maybe he succeeded far enough that the sword could be used against him.”

“For the spell holding my father, it doesn’t matter what its capabilities, does it? I’m not going to try and kill anyone with it—just break a spell. It did break through the ae’Magi’s wards—”

“No, it didn’t.”

She sat up then so she could look at him. “What do you mean?”

“Ah,” he said. “You wouldn’t know. My father’s wards protected him by preventing any weapon from doing physical damage. Magical damage is more difficult to guard against by warding, and he believed that he was more than capable of protecting himself from magical attack. Your sword never did draw blood. The wards stayed there until his magic died.”

He threw back the covers, set her off him, and arose. “There’s an easy way to see if it can break spells as well.”

He pulled a small bench to a clear spot in the room and made a few signs in the air over it. Stepping back, he shook his head. “We might as well test it against a more powerful spell, since that is what we will be facing.” He made a few more gestures. “Now nothing should be able to touch this bench.”

Still tucked warmly under the covers, Aralorn snickered. “The Bench No Axe Could Touch Nor Rump Rest Upon,” she intoned, as if it were the title of some minstrel’s song.

“At least not until the magic wears off in a week or two,” said Wolf. “I’ve worked a series of spells on this bench. Do you want to try your sword on it?”

Aralorn left the warmth of her bed and found Ambris where she’d tucked it under the mattress before attending the gathering. Unsheathing it, she watched the reflected glow from the fire shine on the rose-colored blade.

It was small for a sword, made for a young boy or woman rather than a full-grown man. Except for the metal hilt, it could have been newly forged—but no one made swords with metal grips anymore. After the Wizard Wars, when most of the mages were dead, metal hilts hadn’t been much of a problem. Being connected to a dying magician by metal was a very bad idea. Now hilts were made of wood or bone, and had been for the past few centuries as the mageborn slowly became more numerous again.

The metal hilt hadn’t worried Aralorn when she’d chosen it from the armory before she’d left Lambshold. She’d always been able to tell mageborn from mundane. The sword had been the right size and well balanced, so she’d taken it. For years, she’d carried it, never realizing that she held anything other than an odd-colored, undersized sword fit for an undersized fighter.

She approached the bench and examined it thoughtfully.

“It won’t attack back,” said Wolf, apparently amused at her caution. “You can just hit it.”

She gave him a nasty look. She always felt awkward with the blasted weapon even though years of practice had made her almost competent. The recent change in their relationship had made her, to her surprise, a bit shy around him. She wanted to impress him, not remind him just how poor a swordswoman she was.

Experimentally, she swung the sword at the bench. It bounced off as if propelled, the force of it almost making Aralorn lose her grip. Shifting her stance, Aralorn tried simply setting the sword against the warding. The repelling force was still there, but by locking her forearms and leaning into the sword, she managed to keep it touching the spell. She held it there for a while, before she gave up and let the sword fall away.

“You need to follow through better,” said Wolf with such earnestness that she knew he was teasing.

Aralorn turned and braced both hands on her hips and glared at him, but not seriously. “If I required your opinion, I’d give you over to my father’s Questioner and be done with it.”

He raised his eyebrows innocently. “I was only trying to help.”

She snorted and spun, delivering a blow to the bench that should have reduced it to kindling, but it did no damage at all.

“I don’t think it works this way,” she said. “It’s not heating up at all, and when I used it on the ae’Magi, it was so hot I couldn’t hold it.”

“All right,” said Wolf. “Let’s try this. I’ll try to work a spell on you while you hold the sword up between us.”

Aralorn frowned. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you being a little rash? If that’s why it killed your father, then it could do the same to you.”

He didn’t say anything.

She had a sudden remembrance of the look on his face as he’d called lightning down upon himself in her dream. It was only a dream, she told herself fiercely.

“Plague take you, Wolf,” she said as mildly as she could. “It’s not important enough to risk your life over. If it won’t work on the spells, it can’t help us here.”

“It might work against the shadow-thing we both saw,” he said. “Then perhaps you and I could examine the spells holding your father more closely.”

“Fine,” she said. “Then we’ll try it on that. Do you want to go down now?

Wolf shook his head. “Wait until morning. There are a lot of creatures who are weakened by the rising of the sun—and I’m tired.”

Aralorn nodded and slid Ambris back into the sheath before storing her in the wardrobe. She watched Wolf release the spells he’d laid on the bench, creating quite a light show in the process. Reaching out with the sixth sense that allowed her to find and work magic, she could feel the shifting forces but not touch them—what he was using was wholly human in origin.

Later, when the banked fire was the only light in the room, Aralorn snuggled deeper into Wolf’s arms.

It will be all right, she thought fiercely.

Late in the night, long after the inhabitants of the castle had gone to sleep, a man emerged from the shadows of the mourning room and stepped to the curtained alcove that contained the slumbering Lyon, his path lit by a few torches left burning in their wall sconces. He pulled back the curtains and started to step into the room but found himself unable to do so.

He placed a hand on the barrier of air and earth that Wolf had erected.

“Yes,” he said softly, “he is here.”

The warding would keep out human visitors, but he was something more. The tall, robed figure dissolved into the darkness and reappeared inside the room. Before he materialized completely, a shadow slipped from the side of the man on the bier.

“Ah, my beauty,” crooned the intruder. “It’s all right. I know, you were never meant to face his powers. I forget things now. I had forgotten that he could take the form of a wolf, or we would have been ready for him.” The shadow stroked against his legs like a cat, emitting squeaks and hisses as it did so. “Hold the Lyon fast, little one. We will force them to come to us.”