Kisrah didn’t say anything.
Aralorn spread her hands to show they were empty, the universal sign of truce. “If you want to ride by yourself a bit—the horse knows the way back to the keep. We can leave you.”
Kisrah hesitated, then nodded. “If you would, please. That might be best.”
“Well?” asked Aralorn.
Wolf, who’d shifted in front of Kisrah into his four-footed form for travel, shook his head. “I don’t know. It depends upon which he loves best, my father or the truth.”
He put on a brief burst of speed that precluded talk. Like Kisrah, she thought, he wanted a moment to himself.
The wind had picked up again as they’d ridden back onto less sheltered ground. It was not enough to send her shrieking for cover, but it was a near thing. It spoke to her in a hundred whispers that touched her ears with bits and scraps of information directly out of her imagination.
“Wolf?” she asked, when the sound grew too much.
“Ump?”
“Wizards have their specialties, right? Like the farseer who works for Ren.”
“Ump.”
A conversation takes two people, one of whom says something other than “Ump.” She thought about letting him be. His past was a sensitive topic, and she and Kisrah, between them, had all but beaten him over the head with it. The wind carried the sobs of a young child, bringing with the sound a hopeless loneliness that chilled her to the bone in an echo of her dreams of Wolf’s childhood. She tried again. She remembered a story about the gaze of the howlaa driving a man mad; too bad she hadn’t recalled that before she looked into its eyes.
“What is Kisrah’s specialty?”
“By the time a mage becomes a master, he has more than one area of expertise.”
“You knew him before that,” she persisted. “What was his field?”
“Moving things.”
“Like translocation?” asked Aralorn.
“Yes.” Wolf sighed heavily and slowed. “But he worked more with objects and delicate things—like picking locks or unbuckling saddle girths.”
“No wonder Father likes him,” she observed, relieved that he’d decided to talk. “Saddle girths and horseshoes have lost as many battles as courage and skill have won. What was Nevyn’s specialty?”
“Nevyn?” said Wolf. “I don’t know that I remember. By the time he got to Kisrah, he was in pretty rough shape—and the two of them didn’t really spend a lot of time with my father, in any case. He is fortunate he went to Kisrah; if he’d come to my father, he’d have been a babbling idiot for the rest of his life—I thought at the time that it looked like it might go either way.” His voice reflected the indifference he’d felt at the time, showing Aralorn how badly he’d closed down because she’d reminded him of what he’d once been.
“I hadn’t realized it had been so bad for him.” Aralorn pulled her scarf from the pocket she’d stashed it in and wrapped it around her ears. This conversation hadn’t helped either of them as much as she’d hoped it would. It hadn’t distracted her from the voices, nor had it restored Wolf’s mood. “I guess he was lucky to come out of all that with only a few quirks about shapeshifters.”
The wind swayed the larger branches now and sent odd bits of snow to swirl in place.
“Come on,” said Wolf. “See if that old fleatrap can move out a little; no sense wasting what’s left of the day playing in the snow.”
TEN
Aralorn was slipping choice bits of mutton to Wolf when Falhart came up behind her.
“If Irrenna catches you feeding that wolf at the table, she’s likely to banish him outside,” he said.
She shook her head, holding down another piece. “As long as we’re discreet, she’ll leave him in peace. She doesn’t want a hungry wolf roaming the castle. He’ll just go into the kitchens to be fed—and there she’ll be, without a spit boy. It might take the cook several days to replace whomever he ate, not to mention the fuss.”
Falhart gave Wolf a wary glance, then began to laugh. “Scourge on you, Aralorn, if you didn’t have me believing it. Which brings me to my mission. I have a half dozen youngsters and a few not so young who’ve been approaching me all dinner to see if you would give us another story.”
“An audience,” said Aralorn, scraping the last of her dinner onto a small bit of bread and popping it into her mouth. “See, Wolf, some people appreciate me.”
He didn’t seem to hear her, lost in thought as he’d been since they’d gotten back. If she could take back what she’d said to Kisrah, she would have—not that Kisrah didn’t need to hear it. She would have bitten her tongue off, leaving Kisrah believing his version of Geoffrey ae’Magi the rest of his life, rather than hurt Wolf.
Despite his apparent disinterest, Wolf trailed her as she left to greet her audience and made himself comfortable at her feet.
Kisrah was not there, though she knew he’d returned from their ride. She didn’t see Gerem, either, but Freya and Nevyn were seated on a bench against the wall, just close enough to hear.
She chose her story primarily for Wolf, something light and happy that should appeal to the rest of her audience as well. As laughter warmed the room better than any winter fire, Wolf rested his head on her lap with a sigh.
When Aralorn awoke the following morning, she found a red-tailed hawk perched on the back of a chair near the fireplace, preening its feathers. Wolf was gone.
“For a man who was worried about showing himself among humans, you certainly are volunteering your time generously,” she said severely.
The hawk fluttered his feathers noisily into place. “He said you’d probably be grumpy when you woke up. I can’t say I approve of your choice of mates, niece.”
“Your own choice being superior,” she said.
The hawk bobbed its head and squawked with laughter, and the chair rocked dangerously beneath him. “True, true,” Halven chortled as he settled back down.
“Wolf told you we were married?” asked Aralorn.
“Yes, child,” said the hawk. “And he asked me to tell you to amuse yourself. He’s off to find the ae’Magi.”
“Did he say which one?” Aralorn stretched. It had taken Wolf a long time to get to sleep last night even though she’d done her best to tire him.
“Which one?” Her uncle cocked his head at her. “There is only one ae’Magi.”
Aralorn pursed her lips. “We’re not certain that’s true.” She told Halven the things that Wolf had told her about his father and the dreams that she, Gerem, and Kisrah had experienced. After a brief hesitation, she told him of Wolf’s relationship to Geoffrey ae’Magi and exactly how the last ae’Magi had died. She didn’t easily give up information—except when that information might be vital. She had a feeling that they might need help before this was over, and her uncle would be a lot of help if he so chose.
Halven made an odd little sound that Aralorn couldn’t decipher, but the incredulity in his voice when he spoke was clear enough. “So you think that a human mage who is dead is walking in the dreams of a shapeshifter and the newest human Archmage, and they are not able to stop it? The dead have very little power over the living unless the living grant that power to them. I can think of a half dozen more likely things—including the return of the Dreamer.”
“I was able to take control of my dreams,” said Aralorn. “And Kisrah loved Geoffrey and welcomed him. I don’t think Gerem has any defenses against magical attacks.” Someone—Nevyn—should have seen to it that Gerem had started training a long time ago.
She looked away from the hawk as she worked out some things she’d never put together before. “The dreams I was given were true dreams, Uncle. At first, whoever sent them to me had tried to alter them, but I was able to see through to the true memories. The dreams concerned things that only the ae’Magi and Wolf knew about.”