“Answer me. Both of you. I want to hear you say it.”
“Yes, Da.”
“Yes, Master Dorn.”
“Good. Now-”
A knock sounded on the door. Mother glided over and opened it.
Mensa, an elderly servant with a bent back, bowed to her before she ushered him into the room. He carried an iron skillet in one hand, liquid sloshing around its insides. In the other hand, he held a leather satchel.
Mother pointed to Ancel and Mirza. “Start with their boots and Charra’s paws. Then clean the floor.”
Mensa nodded and shuffled over to Ancel and Mirza as they bent to take off their boots. When they finished, Mensa reached into the satchel and removed two identical pairs of boots. He put one next to each of them and took theirs in return.
Ancel frowned but said nothing. He and Mirza slipped into their new footwear.
Charra growled when Mensa bent to take one of his paws.
“Stop it, boy,” Ancel murmured.
Charra quieted, but he stared at Mensa as the old man soaked a cloth with the clear liquid in the bucket and took his time cleaning each paw. When Mensa finished, Charra cooed. Mensa took the same cloth, got down on his knees, and wiped the trail they had left on the rugs and carpet. When he finished, he bowed and left.
Stefan looked over to Ancel and Mirza. “Now, off with you two. We have things to discuss. Mirza, I’ll be out soon to escort you home.”
“Thank you, Master Dorn,” Mirza said.
“I’ll go with him to the front,” Ancel said.
His mother nodded and they turned and left. With Charra padding behind them, they headed out into the foyer, leaving his parents to their talk.
“Do you think those animals could’ve been…I mean, with the cleaning…” Mirza peered around, anxiety radiating from him.
“I don’t know, but I’ll do as my father says, at least until he takes some men out to the glen.” Ancel did his best to hide his own doubts. “Da’s right. We shouldn’t talk about this.”
“And if it’s true?” Mirza whispered. “I mean, you know what they say about those things in the books, about who and what they hunt. We live in a town full of Matii. If they’re, you know…”
“All the shadelings in our world were destroyed during the War of Remnants. The only place shadelings can be created is in Hydae,” Ancel quoted with great conviction. “And Hydae is sealed away.” The statement brought him some semblance of calm. All the books and reports couldn’t be wrong, could they? “Whatever they were, the Council will handle it. None of it has anything to do with us, be it a feud or something else.” Ancel nodded to one of the servants as they walked through the foyer and out onto the porch.
From where they stood, Eldanhill’s lights shone a few miles below them in hazy waves of blue. Charra trotted across the porch and onto the stairs.
“Tomorrow at school, we’re going to act like none of this happened,” Ancel said. “Hopefully, it’s like my mother said. Just the mountain clans infighting again.”
“Hopefully,” Mirza repeated, his tone distant.
Ancel watched as servants and workers bustled about the estate. Those returning from last minute efforts to finish harvesting kinai trudged along, while others whipped at mules or bulls pulling drays laden with the crop toward the brick buildings that housed the fermenting equipment and the wine press. He wished everything would remain as calm and serene as it appeared, but for some reason his mind told him otherwise. The thought of wraithwolves marauding through the woods and hunting down anyone who used Mater brought a chill to his bones. He drew his ripped cloak around him.
CHAPTER 10
Ryne took one more look out to Mariel’s campfire before he decided to head home. He’d spent the last couple hours waiting outside Hagan’s Inn while the elders met. They still had not come to a decision. When Sakari joined him, Ryne said a quick goodnight to the guards. Together, they made their way past row upon row of mostly dark homes toward Carnas’ western outskirts.
The reek from clogged drains made Ryne eye the cloudless skies. Two weeks between thunderstorms was a rare event. If the weather continued, they would be forced to remove the levies from the tributary of the Fretian River that flowed close by. The still air felt as if a great creature inhaled and now held its breath. His skin prickled with the thought of that breath’s release.
Ryne’s mind was still on the weather when they arrived at his over-sized house, lamplight pooling from several windows. Wispy smoke swirled from the brick chimney, and spicy food smells filtered from within. Before he could reach the wide front door, it opened, and light flooded the road.
Vera’s buxom silhouette stood in the doorway. “We hoped you would be back in time to eat.”
“And we hoped we would get to dance for you tonight,” said Vana from somewhere in the room.
Ryne grinned as he stepped inside and embraced both women at the same time, one in each arm. “I thought you two would be going back to Hagan’s?”
“Master Hagan knows better than to ask us to work late with you out and about,” Vana said. “We overheard you say you had a summons to attend to.” She flicked her long dark tresses to one side.
Vera chimed in, “Who else would feed you before you left?” She tossed her head the opposite way from her sister, her hair falling past her shoulders.
Leaning into his hug, their heads barely reached his abdomen. They still looked as beautiful as the night he saved them from a slaver’s brutal whips. Maybe tonight he wouldn’t act shy when their bodies, which still bore the scars from their abuse, swayed as they danced the Temtesa for him. Ryne still couldn’t decide what to do about their affections, or which to choose, or even if he should. ‘A nice dilemma to have,’ Hagan often said.
While the sisters fussed over Ryne, Sakari disappeared down a lamp-lit hall toward one of the two rooms in the rear. Ryne couldn’t help the twitch of his lips. He’d tried many times, but Sakari insisted on keeping to himself.
Finished with their playful banter, the sisters vanished in the direction of kitchen. Ryne shed his boots in a corner near the front door, strode across the large room, and eased himself into a chair at the dining table with a heavy sigh. It felt good to be home.
After a moment, he stood and strolled over to one of the many bookshelves lining one wall opposite the kitchen door. Close to the shelves, a huge padded chair sat below a window looking out onto the plains and the Nevermore Heights outlined to the north. The hidden slopes brought anticipation trembling through his body and made him glance at his books. He’d received several there.
Most of the books on the shelves were detailed studies and theory on Mater from great professors of the topic like Shin Henden and Exalted Calestis. Many of them detailed different Forges, how to use essences within different elements to combine to make another element. They made it seem so complicated. He recalled his first attempt, taking water from the element of Flows and cold from the element of Streams, to make ice which was a part of the Forms but still bore properties of the other two. Soon after, he’d been required to kill, not only to replenish that which he had lost, but to appease the voices in his head. He cringed with the thought.
To him, it was all so simple. Liquid plus energy to make a solid. Solid plus energy to make a liquid. Most, if not all things, required the energy of the Streams. Take that away and it broke down to its baser components. Forging worked best on something already in existence with a source to draw upon, like pulling heat from a flame to create a fireball. Or the charge from a storm for a lightning strike. Sure, some of it could be stored, but when the essences were readily available around you, the Forging was that much more powerful. It wasn’t as if most of the elements weren’t already incorporated into each other. He remembered when he used to doubt whether the elements existed in everything, but wherever he looked in the world he saw where different essences combined for the tiniest of creations.