“Two points,” called one of the onlookers in a gleeful voice.
She didn’t get away free though; as she jumped back, one end of his staff caught her in the diaphragm.
“Oof.” Though the blow was light, Aralorn expelled a breath of air unexpectedly.
Falhart backed away quickly, clearly worried. “Are you all right?”
She shot him a mock-disgusted look. “I said ‘oaf,’ you ox. You’re going to lose this round if you treat me like your little sister.”
“Just like to make certain my prey is feeling all right before I destroy it.” Falhart gave her a gentle smile as he circled her warily. “It’s more sporting that way. My point.”
Aralorn shook her head. “Poor babbling fool, I think I must have hit his head harder than I meant to.”
The two combatants exchanged merry grins before they went at it again. Falhart gained another point with a feint that he pulled back after she thought he was committed to the blow past the point he could alter it. In revenge she stuck her staff between his legs and toppled him to the ground.
“’Ware, down it comes,” she deadpanned in the carrying cry of an axeman felling a tree.
He caught her in the ribs as he came rolling to his feet. “Too busy being funny, Featherweight. Lost you the game.”
She shook her head in mock despair. “Beaten by a man . . . I’ll never live it down.”
Falhart patted her gently. “Poor little girl—oof.”
Aralorn removed her elbow from his midsection. “Don’t patronize me after you’ve beaten me. Losing puts me in a foul temper.”
“I’ll remember that,” said Lord Kisrah cordially, stepping onto the training grounds, Wolf at his heels. “Lady, if you would walk with me a bit? In private?”
She’d barely had a chance to warm up and had been planning on a few more rounds with Falhart before she was done. But she preferred the real battle to sparring bouts.
“Certainly, Lord Kisrah. I will leave the scene of my defeat, and my opponent can go back to accounts.”
The triumphant look faded from Falhart’s face. “Thanks for the reminder—but remember, you owe me three coppers.” He waited until she started fumbling with her purse, then he said, “Double or nothing this time tomorrow?”
He was planning something; she could hear it in his voice. “Five coppers altogether. No more,” she said.
“You’ve got it, Featherweight.” He gave in much too easily. He was planning some mischief or other.
She frowned at him, and he grinned unrepentantly. “I’d better get back to the accounts,” he said, and took his leave.
Kisrah extended his arm, and Aralorn set her staves against the stable wall before shaking her head at him. “You don’t want to touch me right now,” she said, pulling on her overtunic, sweater, and cape. “Save good manners for when I’m not sweaty.”
He gave a half bow, sending the long ribbons in his hair a-fluttering as he let his arm fall gracefully to his side. “As you wish, Lady Aralorn.”
“We could go to the gardens,” she suggested, trailing her fingers over Wolf’s ears.
Kisrah and Wolf fell in step on either side of her as she led the way to Irrenna’s pride and joy.
In the summer, the gardens were beautiful, but the winter left nothing more than frost-covered barren branches and gray stalks pressing up through the snow. The walks were swept, though, so they didn’t have to wade through the drifts.
“I know it’s chilly,” apologized Aralorn, “but no one much comes here in the winter.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So why didn’t we come here yesterday instead of riding out in the cold?”
“Because now you know who Wolf is,” she said. “I was worried how you would react. A body is much easier to hide outside the keep walls.”
He stopped walking. “I’d laugh if I didn’t think you were serious.”
“Maybe a bit,” she said. “Come, let’s move while we talk; it’ll keep us warm.” She was aware without actually looking at him that her uncle had followed them and was making lazy circles around them.
“Did you see Falhart’s face?” asked Wolf. “He thinks you threw the fight.”
“What do you think?” she asked blandly.
“I think you got cocky and lost.”
“You know me so well,” she admitted.
Kisrah gave Wolf a baffled frown. “Are you sure you’re Cain?”
Wolf tilted his head considering, then said, “I am.”
They walked for a while between sleeping flower beds. Aralorn turned her sweaty face into the cold air and paced beside the Archmage and felt grateful that there was no wind this morning.
“I have thought upon yesterday’s conversation,” Kisrah said finally. “In the end, there is only one answer. Black magic is evil. Good never breeds from evil—and I can see no good in this in any case. But I cannot remove the spell. If you are able to do so, I’ll help in any way I can. I know that Nevyn is one of the mages who added to the spell, but there is another.”
“We know the other,” said Aralorn. “My brother Gerem.”
“Gerem?”
“Sometimes magic ability doesn’t show until adolescence,” commented Wolf, answering Kisrah’s surprise.
“But Nevyn would have seen it,” said Kisrah. “He would have told me.”
Aralorn pursed her lips, and said, “Nevyn is very fond of my brother. Do you think that he would encourage anyone he cared for to go through the same abuse he suffered?”
“That’s a very serious charge,” observed Kisrah softly. “Untrained wizards are a danger to themselves and everyone around them.”
“So are trained wizards,” said Aralorn. Before the wizards she strolled with could comment, she continued blandly. “My brother cast a spell in his sleep. He didn’t have a chance to resist. My understanding, from the stories I’ve heard, is that a formal apprenticing would have protected him from such use.”
“Yes,” agreed Kisrah. “There are not many mages who can control the minds of others in such a fashion, anyway—even with black magic at their call. But given that the consequences of such control are dire, precautions are always taken. Apprentices are safeguarded.”
“You’ll have problems with my brother,” predicted Aralorn. “Nevyn is convinced that magic, any magic, is evil. I think he’s managed to persuade my brother. Most especially, shapeshifters are abominations.”
“Magic isn’t evil,” said Kisrah.
“All Darranians believe magic is evil,” said Aralorn. “Geoffrey ae’Magi believed that and embraced it. Nevyn believes it, and he’s trying his best to protect my brother. We need Gerem’s cooperation to save my father. We need you to get Nevyn to ask him to help.”
“I can get Nevyn to help,” agreed Kisrah, a bit more optimistically than Aralorn felt was warranted, but maybe he knew Nevyn better than she. “Shall we meet tonight in the bier room?”
Wolf shook his head. “This kind of black magic doesn’t require the night. You all will be more comfortable in the daylight.”
“Black magic?” questioned Kisrah sharply. “It shouldn’t be necessary to unwork the spell with black magic.”
“This spell was set with blood and death by three wizards. It will require sacrifice to unwork,” Wolf said.
“I thought that black magic couldn’t be worked in the day,” said Aralorn.
“It can be worked anytime,” answered Kisrah.
“Sometimes it works better at night,” corrected Wolf. In the shadows of the hedge, his pale golden eyes glittered with light reflected from the snow on the ground. The harsh macabre voice somehow made the barren garden something strange and frightening. “Terror can add power to a spell, and fear is easier to inspire in the night.”
Aralorn noticed that Kisrah’s even pace had faltered. Wolf only did things like this when he was in a particularly dark mood. She hoped that it was nothing more than talking about black magic that had brought it on and not something about unworking the spell to free the Lyon.
She hid her worry, and said dryly, “You sound like a ghoul, Wolf.” Her words cut through the mood Wolf had established, and the garden was merely a collection of plants awaiting spring again. “Is there something you haven’t told me about yourself?”