In Wynn’s time in the Farlands of the eastern continent, she’d journeyed with these three in search of an artifact once wielded by the Ancient Enemy of many names. Their journey’s last leg ended in the far south of the region, in the high, desolate range of the Pock Peaks. There they’d finally uncovered the artifact—the orb—as well as those old texts that had given Wynn nothing but misery since returning home. She and her companions carried away what they could, and upon their return to the new little guild branch in Bela, Wynn had been given the task of bearing those texts safely back to Calm Seatt.
Magiere, Leesil, and Chap had sailed with her, bringing the orb. Their journey encompassed the better part of a year. They stayed together until the city of Calm Seatt loomed into sight and then parted ways. Wynn’s companions—mostly Chap—had decided the orb was too dangerous to bring to the sages. So they’d left to find a place of hiding for it against those who might seek it out.
Wynn still missed them. Magiere, Leesil, and Chap had become more than friends to her. They were like blood ... like family. She was lonely for them, and Chane knew it.
He’d wanted so badly to read her journals, and she understood his reasons, but each time he returned one and took another, he grew more silent, tense, and matter-of-fact. Even worse, he feigned ignorance if she asked why. His darkening mood might have nothing to do with the journals, but she doubted it.
And to make matters worse, he kept returning to the topic of Sau’ilahk.
Sau’ilahk was gone—Wynn knew this. She’d seen the end, and Chane hadn’t. She’d described every detail to him that she could, though she couldn’t explain the influence of Chuillyon or the Stonewalkers upon the wraith any more than he could.
But he hadn’t seen it happen.
Chane was many things to Wynn. He’d appeared at some of the worst times in her life, when it seemed no one else could protect her. He’d thrown himself in front of her and done whatever he deemed necessary to make certain nothing got past him. But he was a vampire, one of the higher forms of the undead, known in some cultures as the Noble Dead. By any account, as a predator of the living, he went too far at times in defending her.
Much as Wynn trusted him as an ally, how could she dare feel anything more than that? Still, she wished she understood him better. Was he worried about their journey or about their limited chance of blind success? Or was it what else they’d pieced together in their time in Dhredze Seatt? Between more passages she’d translated from the ancient texts and a scroll in Chane’s possession, they’d uncovered a deeper burden.
Magiere, Leesil, and Chap had not carried off the only orb.
The Enemy had created five for some unknown purpose, one for each of the Elements of Existence. The one Wynn’s friends possessed was likely that of Water, and they were somewhere to the north of this continent, trying to secure it in secret.
At the great war’s end, the Enemy had given thirteen vampires known as the Children the task of scattering the five orbs into hiding. A thousand years later, it seemed the orbs still existed ... somewhere ... the last tokens of a war so few believed had ever happened at all. The Enemy now had minions—old and new—on the move, seeking the orbs again.
Wynn suspected one orb might still be in Bäalâle Seatt. If so, she had to find it before any other servants like the wraith reached it first.
Shade finished the last of the fish and whined for more.
“You’ll not become a glutton like your father,” Wynn said, stroking the dog’s head. “Time for your language lessons.”
Shade scooted backward on her rump, flattening her ears with a low snarl.
“Shade ... no more arguing.”
Wynn’s head suddenly filled with a chaos of her own memories. In each image, she was touching Shade and communicating by sharing mental pictures. But the rushing cascade made her head pound.
“No ... no memory-speak,” she said. “You will learn words, even if I have to pin your ears back to hear them.”
Like her father, Chap, and other majay-hì, Shade communicated through memories with her own kind via touch rather than any form of speech. Wynn called this memory-speak. Shade’s father was unique, for he could speak words into Wynn’s head. Both father and daughter could also raise another being’s own memories so long as they had line of sight. But, unlike Chap, Shade couldn’t speak words in Wynn’s head.
In place of this, Shade could send her own memories to Wynn when they touched. She could also share memories she’d picked up from others. To Wynn’s knowledge, no other majay-hì and human could do this.
“Shade, come here,” she said.
Shade curled her jowls, and the pink tip of her tongue flicked out and up over her nose—just like Chap used to do.
Wynn exhaled.
“I barely tolerated that from your father. Don’t think I’ll give you half as much. Come here!”
Recently, Shade had made a slip. Wynn had uncovered that her young majay-hì guardian indeed understood spoken words—to a point. Shade couldn’t speak, but she could listen, and she’d been doing so without anyone knowing it. She was going to listen now, and learn.
Shade abruptly launched straight from a squat.
Wynn lurched back in surprise, but the dog only hopped to the bed, turning a full circle before settling. Shade curled up, facing away, toward the stone wall.
Wynn scrambled to her feet. “Don’t be obstinate.”
Shade resented being forced to communicate like “jabbering” humans, but Wynn was determined to expand the dog’s vocabulary. The grueling process of memory-speak might be all right for fluent majay-hì accustomed to nothing else, but it wasn’t efficient enough for Wynn.
Wrestling an animal bigger than a wolf would’ve made a sensible person hesitate, and yet ... it didn’t stop Wynn from grabbing Shade’s tail.
Shade whipped her head around with a snarl.
Wynn didn’t let go. “You wouldn’t dare.”
Then Shade’s ears stood straight up. She looked across the room, rumbling low as her ears flattened again, and she scrambled up to all fours.
Wynn released Shade’s tail and turned around, looking to the door.
“Chane?” she called. “Is that you? Come in.”
The door didn’t open, and Shade’s rumble turned to an open growl of warning.
Before Wynn looked to the dog, the wall to the door’s left appeared to shift. She backed up until her calves bumped the bed.
Gray wall stones bulged inward, as if something pushed through them.
Wynn rushed for the corner beyond the door and grabbed the staff. She ripped the leather sheath off its top, exposing the long sun crystal, and thrust it out toward the rippling wall stones.
Something like a cloak’s hood overshadowing a face surfaced out of the wall. Thudding footfalls landed upon floor stones, and a cloaked and stout hulk stood within the room, easily twice as wide as Wynn, but no taller. An overbroad hand swiped back the hood, and a stocky dwarf glowered at her, eye-to-eye.
Wynn’s initial fright turned to anger. “What are you doing here?”
Ore-Locks cast one glance toward Shade, who was still growling. Beardless, something uncommon for male dwarves, his red hair flowed to the shoulders of an iron-colored wool cloak. He looked young, perhaps thirty by human standards, so likely sixty or more for a dwarf. Wynn knew better still.
Ore-Locks was older than that due to his life among the Hassäg’kreigi—the “Stonewalkers” of Dhredze Seatt.
“Why do you still delay departure?” he asked, ignoring her question.
She clenched her teeth. He’d left his own sect, determined to join her in search of Bäalâle Seatt, but she didn’t trust him. He was an even darker complication beyond dealing with the council.