“Wynn?” the undead rasped.
Osha wanted to shout at that thing to put Wynn down. He tried to speak, but nothing came out. Then he heard struggling behind him. He spotted the young sage, Nikolas, trying to pull himself up in the opened doorway of the third guest room. Both guards who had been in the passage were down but conscious and visibly shaken.
Besides the undead holding Wynn, only the majay-hì was mobile. Turning circles as if searching, Shade paced the passage and then rounded in a trot straight toward Wynn and Chane.
“I’m all right.... Put me down.”
At Wynn’s whisper, Osha struggled up and hurried toward her.
Chane slowly set her on her feet, though she wobbled in trying to step around him, and the undead turned as well.
Osha saw that Chane’s eyes had no color at all. He grabbed Wynn by the wrist and jerked her away behind himself as he pulled a dagger from his tunic.
“Back!” he snapped, pointing the blade at Chane.
He knew enough of such monsters—from his time with Magiere, Léshil, and Chap—to know what those colorless eyes meant. No matter what it cost him, he was not letting that thing anywhere near Wynn in such a state.
The majay-hì suddenly lunged between him and the undead.
Shade turned on Chane with a low rumble as she bared her teeth, and then Osha felt Wynn grab for his outstretched arm.
“Stop it!” she said. “Chane would never ...”
When she did not finish, Osha took one fleeting glance. She was staring at the undead, so at least now she saw what had happened.
Chane lowered his eyes and backed away, and the majay-hì’s rumble lessened.
Wynn jerked upon Osha’s arm. “Go help Nikolas ... now!”
Both guards appeared to be recovering like everyone else. Only the majay- hì had been unaffected by whatever had happened ... and Chane had succumbed in a different way. But as long as Shade was aware of the additional danger ...
Osha finally relented, retreating rather than turning his back, until he could take hold of Nikolas and pull the young sage to his feet.
Chane, his face still averted, whispered in Belaskian, “What happened?”
Osha glanced once at both guards rising. Likely the undead spoke in his own tongue so the guards and Nikolas would not understand. Any moment, those guards would have questions of their own, before or after driving everyone back into their rooms. Osha spun his dagger and flattened the blade against the inside of his wrist to hide it at the ready.
“Shade sensed a Fay,” Wynn answered quietly—also in Belaskian. “That’s all I know ... so far.”
To Osha this did not seem so bad. “Fay?” he repeated to her in Elvish. “Not an undead? I felt ... I felt as if my life was being pulled from me.”
Her eyes bleak and shadow ringed, she pivoted to look up at him. The last thing he wanted was to cause her more worry or pain.
“She said it was a Fay,” Wynn confirmed as she knelt beside the majay-hì.
How strange it was that a sacred one would be so familiar with a human.
Shade refused to be stroked or comforted, and padded away, still looking up and down the passage. Then she darted halfway past one dazed guard to peer into Wynn’s room.
“A Fay ... here?” Chane asked sharply, and his colorless eyes turned on Wynn. “Why? There are too many people present.”
“I don’t know,” she answered.
One guard jerked his sword from its sheath and pointed it at Chane. The second guard stumbled closer as he commanded his partner, “Take that wolf out of here now! And all of you ... back in your rooms.”
Before Osha could grab Wynn, she stepped between Chane and that outstretched sword.
“Shade is not dangerous to anyone here,” she argued, “but she sensed something wrong, perhaps a predator in the keep. That’s all. No one is taking her anywhere.”
It was a weak explanation, and neither guard appeared to accept it.
Osha pulled Nikolas behind himself in preparation.
“Or would you like to wake the duke or duchess and explain your actions?” Wynn went on.
Neither guard said a word. Perhaps losing control over “guests” during whatever had happened was not something for which they cared to answer in the middle of the night.
“Get that animal out of sight, and get back to your rooms,” the first guard barked, and then looked to Osha. “You two, as well.”
Osha had expected this and longed to speak with Wynn. Whatever had happened here was nothing he had ever experienced before. Apparently neither had she, and what it had to do with “Fay,” as humans referred to the sacred nature of the world, left him baffled.
“We should do as they say,” Nikolas said weakly.
The young sage did not look any better than Wynn did ... any better than Osha felt. He nodded politely to the young man, and Nikolas wearily turned in to his room.
“I am staying with you,” Chane stated.
Osha turned back and found the undead looking down at Wynn with those colorless eyes.
“No!” Osha snapped, unable to keep quiet this time. “I stay ... with Wynn.”
Chane’s expression twisted into sheer hatred.
Osha stepped in behind Wynn. That thing would not stand over her—watching her—while she slept.
“Get to your rooms!” the guard ordered.
“I’ll be fine with Shade,” Wynn said over her shoulder. “If I need you, trust me: you will hear me.”
Then she grasped the front of Chane’s shirt with one hand and whispered something Osha could not hear.
The undead turned his face away from her. An instant passed before he nodded, stepped around her, and headed for the second door.
Wynn looked to Osha. “There’s nothing to fear from him.”
Osha did not believe her and clenched his teeth as he, too, turned away. The guards watched him as he headed for the second chamber along the passage. There was nothing more for him to do except spend the remainder of the night locked away with Chane.
Unless there was something more to be done, he considered, as his thoughts turned over what had just happened to all of them.
Back inside her room Wynn felt far less certain about anything than she’d claimed to the others. Shade refused to settle and kept pacing. Still feeling sick, Wynn knelt and stopped Shade. When she placed her hand on the dog’s back, Shade was trembling.
“Are you sure you sensed a Fay?”
Shade stood there for an instant before one memory-word popped into Wynn’s head.
—Fay—
The dog began pacing again, leaving Wynn kneeling on the floor in fear and uncertainty. As frightened as she was, she could not understand why a Fay would manifest near or inside this keep and then suddenly vanish. For that matter, she still remembered the time the Fay had attacked her through trees, back in Osha’s homeland. Chap had come to her aid with a pack of wild majay-hì, including his future mate, Lily.
She hadn’t succumbed to any sickness or blacked out then, though she’d nearly died. If a Fay—the Fay—had manifested here, perhaps Shade’s presence had warned it—them—away. She, like her father, was not a normal majay-hì.
Still, that didn’t explain everything that had happened.
Chane knelt in the room’s far corner and dug quickly into his pack. He heard Osha enter and close the door, but all that mattered to him was that he found what he needed to quell the gnawing hunger inside him.
It was as if all the life that he had gained in feeding upon the deer had been torn out of him. The beast within him strained against its chains, and its starved howls and screeches tore at him inside.