“I know,” she answered. “But once we reach Soráno, we’ll have to find a new ship.”
Brot’an was accustomed to her speaking aloud to Chap and to hearing only her half of the conversation. He looked ahead, out over the waves, and added in Belaskian, “How long to Soráno?”
“About two days. That’s what one of the sailors told me.”
“Is there no way to change Captain Bassett’s mind? We were fortunate to have found this ship traveling all the way to il’Dha’ab Najuum. It may be difficult to find another in a smaller port.”
Magiere agreed with the latter part, and it worried her, but she shook her head. “Bassett won’t change his mind.”
Brot’an had to know this, so asking was pointless and not at all like him. Magiere had learned well that Brot’an rarely did anything without a purpose.
They all had to reach il’Dha’ab Najuum, the westernmost kingdom of the Suman Empire, as quickly as they could. That was the first place where they might begin trying to locate the orb of Air. Magiere, along with Leesil and Chap, had already secured two of the five orbs—Water and Fire—while Wynn had secured a third, that of Earth. Chap had hidden the first two, and no one else knew where. Wynn had sent the orb of Earth to a place of safety in the dwarven underworld.
Only Air and Spirit remained to be found, but it wasn’t even that simple.
Most Aged Father, the insane leader of Brot’an’s forsaken caste, had learned of the existence of the orb of Water. The decrepit patriarch had sent a team of anmaglâhk after Magiere to take the orb or learn its location. Back in the small port town of Drist, the team had caught up and murdered half the crew of the Cloud Queen. Even after the ship and remaining crew had been freed, the captain “requested” that Magiere and her companions disembark at the next port.
She couldn’t blame him. Death seemed to follow her, Leesil, and Chap wherever they went. However, at that thought, she eyed Brot’an again. Then Leesil rose from his crouch and came striding over, leaving the young trio hard at work.
Magiere half smiled at her husband. “Crisis averted?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know how much of that fish will be usable. The cook must have been drinking again last night. Can’t see how else he would let those three clean and fillet the catch for him.”
She looked into his amber eyes and knew what he was thinking. For the first time, Wayfarer was gaining some sense of comfort ... of belonging. In two days’ time, at the most, they would rip her away from people—humans—she’d come to know without fear, and she would again be forced among unknown humans.
“It’ll be all right,” Leesil said quietly.
Magiere doubted that, though their mission would continue just the same. They had to keep any orbs from falling into the wrong hands. She watched Leesil for a moment, as he was ever her anchor, and then she glanced over at Wayfarer.
Poor girl ... only two more days.
As evening fell, Wynn Hygeorht knew it was time to leave the solitude of her little room at the Calm Seatt branch of the Guild of Sagecraft. She had an errand she could no longer put off.
Glancing down, she grimaced slightly at the sight of the still-unfamiliar robe of midnight blue that she now wore in place of her gray one. Her wispy, light brown hair hung loose, but she decided not to bother braiding it back.
“Come, Shade,” she said, and opened the door to step out.
A long-legged, charcoal-colored dog resembling an oversized wolf hopped off her narrow bed and padded out after her, and in the passage’s dim light, Shade’s fur turned pure black. It only made her glittering, crystalline blue eyes stand out even more as she twitched her long, pointed ears. Wynn reached down to stroke her companion’s large head.
The past half-moon had felt very, very long.
Though the guild had been Wynn’s home all of her life, events of recent days—and nights—had left her feeling trapped here as she struggled to find buried answers when too often she wasn’t even sure of the questions.
Leaving the old castle’s barracks, now a dormitory housing apprentice and journeyor sages, she trudged across the cobbled central courtyard with Shade as they headed for the large building on the northwest side. This entire four-towered castle had once housed the royals of the nation of Malourné, but many, many years ago it had become the residence for the founding branch of the Guild of Sagecraft.
Wynn stopped in the middle of the courtyard as she tried to find any reason to put off the errand a little longer.
“Do you need to ... do your evening business?” she asked, looking down at Shade. “Should we take a little side trip into the trees in the inner bailey?”
Shade understood, for she was no ordinary dog—or wolf. She was one of the majay-hì. Her kind was descended from wolves of ancient times inhabited by the Fay during the war at the end of the world’s Forgotten History. The descendants of those first Fay-born became the guardians of the an’Cróan elves, barring all but their people from the vast Elven Territories on the eastern continent.
Due to a plan hatched by Chap, Shade’s father, she had traveled across the sea to the central continent to protect Wynn. She rarely left Wynn’s side ... willingly.
Shade huffed twice for no in answering.
Wynn sighed heavily. “All right, then.”
Her steps were much slower and shorter as they moved on, and all of the problems Wynn had been avoiding too long came boiling up in her head.
Just over a half-moon ago, several of her closest companions had sailed south in search of the orb of Air. Wynn had opted to remain behind in order to search the guild’s vast archives for any clue to the location of the last and fifth orb, the one for the element of Spirit.
So here she was, by her own choice, and so far making pathetically little progress.
To complicate matters, her superiors, with one exception, were bitterly opposed to her taking any action at all. Only Premin Hawes, the head of Metaology, had offered willing assistance. As a result Wynn had been forced to leave the order of Cathology, whose members wore gray robes, and put on a robe of midnight blue in pretending to have joined the order of Metaology.
It was all wearying, and, worse, she hadn’t remained behind entirely alone.
Two members of the original group, aside from Shade, had remained as well. One she’d planned for and one she hadn’t, and both were now guests of the guild.
Wynn shuffled another step and then another across the courtyard until she stood before the side door of the large northwest storage building, which housed laboratory chambers below it and guests’ quarters upstairs.
Shade huffed and let out a grumbling whine.
“All right, I’m going!” Wynn whispered sharply. “Stop pestering me.”
With no more reason to delay, she opened the door and, letting Shade slip past her, stepped inside. As they reached the passage’s far end and the switchback stairs up to the guest quarters, Wynn slowed to a stop on the midpoint landing in the turn up the next short flight of steps.
She could not stop thinking of the two men—housed in separate quarters above—who had both been waiting to hear from her for the past several nights. She wasn’t sure she felt up to talking to either of them, not when she was so aware of the hostility that always crackled between them. Wynn found she couldn’t take another step, and, unbidden, her thoughts stretched back to the overwhelming night when Osha had appeared in the courtyard—and Chane had tried to stop him from entering.
After that tense, tangled moment, too many things had happened that were all a fuzzy blur in her head. She’d managed to arrange a room for Osha, which had not been too difficult. The sages of her branch had strong connections to the elves of this continent, the Lhoin’na, for there was another guild branch among them. Some of Wynn’s peers, having never met any an’Cróan from the far eastern continent, found Osha an alluring curiosity.