He pulled a small, very thin piece of kidskin out of his belt pouch. “I got this from the tanner this morning.”
He closed his eyes, humming softly, folding the kidskin around the earring and tucking the resultant bundle neatly into his hands. After a moment he opened his eyes again and shook the fine leather open, displaying it for Rialla. The earring was gone, and the tattoo that had covered her cheek now covered the kidskin.
Leaning near her, he pressed the skin against her face and resumed his humming. Rialla’s cheek grew cold. When he took his hands away, she touched her cheek. Her fingers detected smooth skin where her scars should be, and her cheek felt numb.
“The tattoo?” she asked.
“Is on your face. I’ll contact you at night, when the others are sleeping. You are an empath, but you’ve spoken about being able to read people’s thoughts as well as their emotions. Can you contact me that way if you need me?”
She shook her head. “Most people I could, but I can’t even read your emotions—let alone project a message to you.”
He raised an eyebrow, then nodded with an odd smile. “No, of course you couldn’t.” He hesitated momentarily and then said, “But I know a way to help.”
He slipped his boot knife out and examined it before he ran his thumb almost casually over the finely honed edge. Rialla didn’t realize that he was working magic until he said something in a foreign tongue and touched her mouth with the fresh wound. Involuntarily she licked the blood off her lips. She felt as if she’d sipped distilled alcohol; it burned its way deep into her body, leaving her toes and fingertips buzzing and her vision blurred.
Before she had time to react, he touched the knife to the side of her neck and bent his head. She felt the soft, quick touch of his lips and the brush of his beard before he backed away. He touched her neck again briefly, this time with his fingers, and the sting of the cut disappeared. Staring at him, she touched her skin where he and his knife had touched. The wound was gone.
“Try it now,” he said and his voice sounded different to her—shadowed with magic and moonlight, though the sun still lit the trees outside the window.
She reached out to him with her gift, carefully, not knowing what difference his magic had wrought. At first it seemed as though nothing had changed. As before, she could touch him, but it was like touching a solid object with her thoughts: she could see him, but not what he was. She pushed gently, but he remained opaque. Just as she started to back away, Rialla was sucked in.
It was too far, too fast. She was dizzy, cut adrift among memories and feelings that she couldn’t distinguish from her own. She was accustomed to receiving emotions from most people, but from Tris she was getting memories, thoughts and dreams as well.
Rialla. His mindspeech seemed too strong, but it gave her something to balance herself.
Rialla pulled herself back until the contact was not so strong, his warmth soothing rather than burning. His thought-voice was tightly formed, arguing that he had communicated mind to mind before.
She had been able to reach her father in this manner, but she wasn’t used to the communication being two-way. Tris, she said, what did you do that allowed me to touch you this way?
She caught faint nuances of emotion that were quickly tucked away, but not before she caught a hint of guilt and excitement.
I’ll tell you sometime. You can contact me now?
She tested her gifts on him warily. Anytime. I don’t know how close I have to be, but this is easier than any other mindspeech I’ve ever attempted.
Sylvans speak with each other in such a manner, he said.
Like this? asked Rialla in surprise. She sent him a picture of the intimacy that this form of communication offered her—the complex emotions and thoughts that she picked up when he talked.
No, he said, startled. Can you see so much?
Sensing his unease, she withdrew even further, the memory of Laeth’s outrage at her empathic gift fresh in her mind. Usually she had no trouble leaving the subjects of her touch their privacy, but Tris’s stray thoughts tended to brush against her without warning. Finally she removed herself altogether, reconstructing her barriers until he was once again opaque.
Tris gave her a particularly enigmatic look and said, “Now if you need help, you can contact me.”
She wasn’t capable of doing more than moving her head to indicate her agreement. When the sound of a woman calling from the front room pierced the intimate atmosphere that somehow had developed, Rialla felt extremely grateful. She desperately needed time to figure out what Tris had done.
The morning dawned clear and warm. Rialla was waiting quietly when Lord Winterseine entered her sanctuary. Her face was impassive, and it didn’t change when her master set the heavy training collar around her neck.
She didn’t flinch when chain-linked metal cuffs were closed on her wrists, pulling her arms behind her. A second chain was run from the wrist chain to the collar, further restricting her movement. Winterseine attached a leather leash to the front of her collar and led her out.
It was easy not to react to the restraints; she’d had them on before and had expected Lord Winterseine to use them. What she had not expected was the hot rage emanating from the healer, though he appeared calm and remote, as he always was with the Darranian nobles. She tried to close his reaction off, before it affected her as well, but it wasn’t as easy as it should have been.
Apparently, whatever channel Tris had forged between them was not easily closed. She sent a surge of reassurance to Tris, and then tried to reestablish her privacy.
Terran gave her a hand in mounting. It was difficult under the best of circumstances to get on a horse without the use of hands. Since Rialla was distracted with the task of suppressing the persistent connection with Tris, she appreciated Terran’s help.
As they rode away, she could feel the healer’s eyes following them into the trees.
There were many Darranians who had lost everything in the wars with Reth. They roamed the forests extracting tolls from those foolish enough to venture through without sufficient force. Winterseine’s entourage was large enough to discourage most raiding parties. Besides Winterseine and his son, there were a score of fighters, more or less, and two servants—one of which was the man who Rialla suspected had poisoned Karsten. His name, she recalled, was Tamas. Apparently the dark-skinned girl was the only slave they’d brought to Lord Karsten’s hold, because Rialla was the only slave in the party. Four men rode in front, followed closely by Lord Winterseine and his son Terran. Rialla and the servants rode next, then the rest of the party.
Rialla knew that Winterseine was a formidable warrior: it was one of the reasons for his success as a slaver. Looking at his son, she decided that Terran might be as good. Certainly he bestrode his battle-trained stallion with the ease of long practice, and the easy way that he’d tossed her on her horse argued that he had strength.
Winterseine’s man Tamas held the lead rein for Rialla’s horse. Like her, he was mounted on a lighter-bred saddle horse. He wasn’t armed with anything more formidable than the heavy whip that was coiled on his saddle, but Rialla had seen such a whip wielded at Sianim and didn’t underestimate the damage he could inflict with it.
They traveled south through the rolling hills of southern Darran. Everywhere, Rialla could see the toll of the last war. Many of the farmhouses had been recently constructed over old foundations. Several times she saw the burned-out remains of dwellings that had not been rebuilt, perhaps because there was no one left to do so.