Chane turned his attention back to the cup.
The fluid within it had doubled, brimming near the lip, and it was so dark red it appeared almost black. As always, he was relieved and revolted by the sight, for he knew what awaited him in drinking the conjured fluid. The first time, Welstiel had warned him with only two words: Brace yourself.
Chane downed half of the cup’s contents. For a moment he tasted dregs of ground metal and strong salt.
Then he gagged and collapsed.
His body began to burn from within.
Too much life, taken in such a pure form, burst through his dead flesh and swelled into his head. Jaws and eyes clenched, he curled upon the earth until the worst passed and his convulsions finally eased.
In feeding this way, it would be a half moon or more before he needed to do so again.
He slowly pushed himself up with his arms and sat staring at the shriveled husk of the young stag. He waited until his false fever subsided. Then he pulled a small bottle from the pack, poured in the remaining liquid from the cup, stoppered the bottle, and carefully packed everything away.
Strong and sated, in control of his senses, he headed back for camp, leaving the carcass where it lay. He smelled—heard—the sizzling fish long before he arrived.
Dawn was not far off.
However, when the campfire came into sight through the trees, he saw only Wynn and Osha huddled by the fire in close and quiet conversation. Both Nikolas and possibly Shade must be asleep in one of the makeshift tents.
Chane purposefully crushed a fallen branch under his boot heel.
At the snap of wood, Wynn looked back and up. “Did you ... ?”
“I am fine.”
He stepped fully out of the trees as Wynn turned her back to him to look at Osha. The elf merely stared into the fire. And as Chane passed by, he could not help noticing the sudden disappointment on Wynn’s oval face, as if he had interrupted something that she wanted back.
Chapter Ten
The next few nights proved awkward. Wynn had hoped that time together would push Osha and Chane into a grudging acceptance of each other, but if anything the tension between them increased, and, worse, the farther south they traveled, the more Nikolas withdrew from everyone.
Wynn began to worry more about him than about Chane or Osha. Nikolas looked more disheveled and haunted each day. She often had to place food in his hands before he remembered to eat.
When Nikolas had first arrived at the Numan branch of the guild, she’d been off with Domin Tilswith, trying to lay the foundation of a new guild branch on the eastern continent. And then she’d gotten tangled up with Chap, Magiere, and Leesil. Only when she returned to Calm Seatt a year ago did she meet Nikolas Columsarn for the first time, though she’d been too wrapped up in fighting with her superiors to learn much about him. What few comments he’d made had led her to believe he was an orphan—and perhaps he was—but it had surprised her to learn his adopted father was a master sage, let alone the counselor for a duchy in Witeny.
Wynn sat on the bench as the wagon rolled along the rocky coastal road with Chane silent at the reins. Suddenly there was Nikolas climbing up on her other side to kneel on the bench’s end.
“We’re getting closer,” he said. “I know this area well.”
To make things more crowded, Shade shoved her head in on Wynn’s other side and jostled Chane’s elbow as she started sniffing the air.
“How far?” Osha called from the wagon’s back.
“We’ll reach Beáumie Keep tomorrow night,” Nikolas answered, his tone making it sound like a sentence after a trial.
Wynn grew frustrated on the now-crowded bench and tilted back her head to look up at the fading stars. “Dawn isn’t far off. Perhaps we should make camp.”
“I have been looking,” Chane answered.
And then Osha was at Wynn’s back and pointing out over her head. “There.”
Wynn grabbed Shade’s muzzle to shove the dog back. “Would you all please give me some room?”
As Nikolas and Osha returned to the wagon’s back as well, Wynn saw the outline of a grove in an open space beside the road. Chane turned the horses before she said anything, and soon they were all busy setting camp—all except for Nikolas, who sat on a downed tree as he stared up the road.
Wynn had had enough. She needed to know more about what they were heading into. Chane, tending to the horses, was a good distance off.
“Osha, could you gather some firewood? I’ll get Nikolas to help me with the tents.”
Osha raised an eyebrow, casting a doubtful glance at Nikolas, but he nodded and headed off into the woods. Wynn pulled a heavy folded canvas out of the wagon’s back.
“Nikolas,” she called, “come grab these stakes and give me a hand.”
He jumped slightly as if startled. By the one cold-lamp crystal she’d ignited and left on the wagon’s bench, his eyes looked a bit glassy. But, after gathering stakes and rope, he came to her. Shade leaped out the wagon’s back to follow them.
“The ground looks most even here,” Wynn said, kneeling down.
“What do I do?” he asked quietly, just standing there beside her.
Through the darkness she studied the white streaks in his hair.
“Nikolas ...” she began, ignoring the tent stakes. “Premin Hawes asked me to deliver some texts to your father, so we’ll probably be staying at the keep for a few nights before heading back. I’d like to know more about the place. Besides your father and the duke, who else lives there?”
This seemed an innocent enough question with which to begin, but he winced as if she’d asked something painful. Wynn took one furtive glance at Shade and wondered if the dog caught any errant memories suddenly rising in the young sage. In spite of invading Nikolas’s privacy, Wynn rather hoped so.
“Nikolas?” Wynn prompted.
He hung his head, and his straight hair fell forward. “The duchess.”
“The duchess? Then the Duke Beáumie—your friend—is married?”
“No.”
Wynn frowned. “His mother?”
“His sister,” Nikolas whispered. “Sherie.”
That last word, a name, came out almost too quiet to hear. Before Wynn could figure out how to ask for more about this new detail, Nikolas went on. “My father and Karl ... they promised me ... I would never have to come back.”
Wynn put aside everything about her assignment, the orbs, or possible minions of the Ancient Enemy on the move. She grasped Nikolas’s forearm and pulled him down to kneel beside her.
“What happened?” she whispered. “I won’t tell anyone else, but please tell me, whatever it is. I can see what it’s doing to you.”
Shade slipped in close and sat down. Wynn carefully released her hold on Nikolas’s arm, and as she dropped her hand into her lap, she let it slide down to touch Shade’s paw.
An image flashed into Wynn’s mind.
She saw a beautiful girl, perhaps sixteen years old, with a serious expression. A mass of blue-black hair fell down her back and shoulders. Her dress was made of dark red velvet, which set off her pale skin and brown eyes.
Inside that memory passed by Shade directly from Nikolas, Wynn glanced downward, seeing through Nikolas’s eyes into the past moment. Her—his—hand was tightly clasped with the girl’s.
“Did something happen between you and ... Sherie?” Wynn asked.
Wordlessly Nikolas nodded, the white streaks in his hair shimmering under the moon. She waited quietly, hoping Chane would take his time with the horses.
“We grew up together,” Nikolas whispered. “Me, Sherie, and Karl.”