"Definitely a ward, though I’ve never encountered its like," Lieutenant Meniar went on, voice rapid and a little high. "A Symbolic casting, perhaps designed to minimise the energy cost of its maintenance, barely drawing on her unless something crosses the circle. I can’t gauge the details of the exclusion, but it would have been simplest for her to set a blanket ban."
The Lieutenant was talking to Lord Surclere, who was somehow behind Fallon. Kellian speed. Fallon didn’t even need to turn to see that he was there, could feel the tangible thunderstorm presence. How would Lord Surclere feel, to have come so far, to have the Duchess right before them, so plainly injured and exhausted—and locked behind a barrier whose energy cost might even kill her if they tried to cross it.
Lord Surclere walked into the circle. He didn’t even test the ward with a hand first, just stepped forward, leaned down, and picked up the Duchess. No doubt, no hesitation. Or perhaps he would rather burn than—but, no, Fallon thought it was simply utter certainty that the Duchess would not make a barrier that would keep him out.
The ward dissipated when Lord Surclere stepped back out of the ring of footprints, so they at least would not have to worry about the impact of its maintenance. He stopped as soon as he was outside, and just stood there, looking down at Duchess Surclere as if he could not believe that they had really found her. And everyone else stood in a circle before him, staring just as fixedly at the woman whose health had been the central concern of their journey. A single day alone.
"Throat," Kendall said, in a strangled whisper. She tugged at the blood-stained collar of the Duchess' shirt, then let out her breath on discovering not a fresh bite, but a sharp slash, dried to tacky stickiness.
This in turn broke Lieutenant Meniar out of his frozen dismay and he became all business, moving Kendall aside so he could check the Duchess over.
"Only the feet are bad," he murmured. "And I don’t like this rash. But her heartbeat’s strong." He picked what might be some rope fibres out of the red blotches that spread up her ankles, puzzled.
"Should have known she’d rescue herself." Kendall was frowning blackly. "She got out, escaped. But where from? There’s nothing here."
"Obviously more than we can see," Lieutenant Meniar said, crisply. "For now, we need to get her out of this wind, and work on cleaning up these cuts."
After which, Fallon privately hoped, they would return to Aurai’s Rest. But somehow he doubted it would be that simple.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rennyn woke to a new experience. Her husband, asleep, with his arms around her. Lying in a nest of leaves beneath a fragile pre-dawn sky, Rennyn set aside the mystery of how he came to be there at all, and allowed herself to enjoy this gift. Illidian’s heartbeat. Illidian’s steady breathing. Illidian’s warmth.
He was having a nightmare. Muscles shifted, and fingers twitched against her back. His face was barely visible in this light, but she thought that in sleep it was more expressive than his waking mask, revealing hints of anger and pain and fear.
Moving with infinite care, Rennyn lifted her hand and touched his cheek, tracing one of the grim lines that bracketed his mouth. It woke him, as she had expected, and she knew he would remember the first time she had touched him so, and the night that had followed.
His arms tightened, and for the longest time there was nothing but an embrace without need for more. Then a low grumbling interrupted, and Rennyn stifled a laugh.
"My stomach is not romantic."
"But it is here."
With him. The most important consideration, and one she had almost overlooked when she had been castigating herself for accidental commands.
Sitting up, she discovered a collection of sleepers, and blinked at Fallon, curled between two divinations and with…was that a spell to keep him silent? Sukata, sleeping propped upright, was maintaining the wards around their little camp: low-level things that would keep out life-stealers but not do more than delay stronger predators. Lieutenant Meniar, Kendall, the girl Tesin Asaka, Dezart Samarin…and there, keeping watch, Illidian’s mother, who met her gaze and nodded.
Illidian handed her what looked like a small pumpkin, which proved to be a makeshift cup. Taking it, she found that her hand had been neatly bandaged, along with her feet, with a visible buttonhole to reveal the bandages had been someone’s shirt. She was also wearing Illidian’s coat, though still with her sadly stained lounging suit beneath it.
"I see there is an exceptionally interesting story behind how you managed to find me."
"A complete absence of organisation," Illidian said, offering her a large leaf curled around several slices of cold cooked meat. "We forgot even the honey cakes."
His voice did not quite shake. A day not knowing what was happening to her had taken its toll. She leaned against his side as she ate, and they watched the sky grow lighter. Then he picked her up and took her off to a neatly dug latrine with two stripped branches suspended over it as a rough seat.
"And here I thought we’d moved past the need for you to carry me to privies," she said, after she had finished and he was taking her down to the lake to wash her hands.
"You are light-hearted today," he said, sounding pleased.
Rennyn blinked. "I suppose I am. Glad to be alive, of course, but I think it’s that…I have been trying so hard not to hate being consistently tired, and yet all the time convinced it was keeping me from solving all these other problems. But this place—I have no idea what this place is, but being tired only meant I needed to rest before starting work on rescuing the other mages." She smiled. "Though I am exceedingly glad to no longer need to tackle it alone."
He bent his head and pressed his lips to her temple and then, after she had washed in the chilly water, found a convenient tumbled wall to sit on with her snug in his lap. They had an excellent view over the lake—ethereal and still in the early morning—and were far enough from camp to not worry too much about sleepers.
"Other problems such as Earl Harkness, and preventing accidental commands?"
"Accidental commands, and removing the inherited controls. Things I theoretically could fix, if only I could devise a way to it. Earl Harkness is a different sort of matter: he’s not something for which I can produce a magical solution—not without being rather immoral." She sighed. "My supposedly carefree post-Solace life is a little full of complications like Harkness. While I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of home we can make in Surclere, I’ve never cultivated the sort of skills I’ll need to be its Duchess. I am not a negotiator or even passably diplomatic. I am not good with compromises or weighing fine moral points. So I’ve been pushing those type of problems away and trying not to think about them."
"The Ten," he said, fully aware of her reluctance in relation to their trip to Aurai’s Rest, for all she hadn’t discussed it with him.
"Yes," Rennyn admitted. "I don’t want to command the Ten to die. And yet how can I just ignore them in their half-life? And I do want—eventually—to have children with you, but that is absolutely a choice that will impact dozens of other people, and should I not take their views into account? And, oh, it’s not like I needed that blasted play to point out that perhaps it was unconscionable of me to marry you. How can I continue to put you at risk of careless commands?"
"That is a choice between the possibility and the certainty of pain. And does not take into account what I gain from you."