It felt odd seeing herself in the way she had always been able to look into wood, to feel her heart beat and know why it did. Like an outsider, she could see into the fears and petty angers, touch the bond that tied her to her mate.
“I’ve got it ...” It startled her so much that she sat up and lost it again, but she laughed anyway.
“So you did,” said Halven, sounding pleasantly surprised. “See if you can explain it to Wolf. Sometimes two talk better than one.”
“What did you find?” asked Wolf.
“My center,” she said, sounding as shocked, as elated as she felt. “I’ve always been able to sense it well enough that I can use magic, but it was never clear. Like being in a boat and knowing that there’s water under me, but not being in the lake myself.”
“So this time you fell in?” Wolf sounded amused.
Aralorn grinned at him. “And the water was superb, thank you.”
“You,” said Halven to Wolf, “have no sense of center at all, that I can see. Without centering, it is impossible to be grounded—to be aware of yourself and your surroundings at a level where it is safe to work green magic. If we can get you there, then having your magic run amok should no longer be a problem.”
He ran a hand down his beard. “For human magic, this is not necessary—you control the magic with your thinking self. Like working a logic problem, with just a touch of artistry to give it form. Green magic is just the opposite. Your . . . emotions, your needs, generate the magic with just a touch of conscious control. Aralorn has been working half-blind for most of her life, and you are wiggling puppet strings without knowing which string is connected to which puppet.” He looked pleased with his analogy, savoring it for a moment before turning back to Aralorn. “You found it once—do it again.”
It took her a while before she could do it reliably, but once she had it, Halven went back to work on Wolf.
If it had been difficult for Aralorn to relax into her center, it was nightmarish for Wolf. Control had been his bulwark for most of his life, a defense against the things he had done and what was done to him. Unless he could give it up, he would never be able to control his magic: a paradox he understood in his head, but not in his heart, where it mattered.
It made for a long afternoon. By the end of it, he was sweating, Halven was sweating, and Aralorn was exhausted, but Wolf came out of it with a better sense of self, if not precisely his center. An achievement that left Halven nodding grudgingly.
“At least,” he said, helping Wolf to his feet, “you know that there are strings on your fingers now. If you don’t know what they do, you can elect not to tug on them.” He sounded almost as tired as he looked.
“Thank you,” said Wolf.
Halven smiled slyly. “Couldn’t do less for my sister’s daughter’s mate, now could I?” He slid from old man to bird shape. “I expect you to keep her in line.”
“How?” asked Wolf, amused.
Halven let out a bark of laughter. “Don’t know. I’ve never seen it done. Open the shutters now, and I leave you children to your rest.”
“Well,” Aralorn said after Halven had left, “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”
Wolf gave her what might have been a wolfish smile without his scars, looking more relaxed than she’d ever seen him. “I could eat a sheep.”
“You think so?” she said thoughtfully, pulling on her boots. “I’m not so sure; the local shepherds are awfully quick with their arrows.”
He laughed, changing gracefully into wolf shape.
Most of the family was already eating when they made it to the great hall. Aralorn slipped into her old place between Falhart and Correy. Nevyn, sitting directly across from her, pointedly didn’t look up when she sat down. Freya shrugged apologetically once and otherwise ignored her husband’s distress.
“. . . when I came out of the village smithy, there was my meek and ladylike wife screaming at the top of her lungs.” Falhart stopped to eat a bite of food, giving Aralorn a quick view of his wife on his other side with her head bowed and a flush creeping up her cheekbones.
“I thought something was wrong and was charging to the rescue when I realized what she was saying.” He cleared his throat and raised his bass rumble to a squeaky soprano. “Three geese, I tell you! I need three. I don’t want four or two—I need three. I don’t care if they are mated pairs. I am going to eat them, not breed them!” Falhart laughed.
Aralorn was too tired to join in the usual family chatter and picked at her food. The familiar scents and voices, some deeper now than they had been, were soothing.
She let her eyes trail across her siblings with the magic she’d been working all day. She’d occasionally been able to use her magic to look deeply into a person, but never for more than a moment or two.
It was an odd experience, her senses interpreting what her magic told her sometimes as color—Falhart radiated a rich brown that warmed those around him. Irrenna was musical chimes, clear and beautiful. Even though he sat at the far end of the table, Aralorn could feel Gerem’s magic flickering eagerly, vibrating on her skin like the wings of a moth. One of the little children, a toddler, had it, too. She’d have to remember to tell her father . . . She turned abruptly and caught Nevyn staring at her.
Wide-eyed, she saw what Halven had meant when he’d said that Nevyn was broken and poorly mended. She had no experience to interpret what she saw, but it was like looking at a tree split by lightning. As the thought occurred to her, that’s what she saw, as if an illusionist had superimposed the image over Nevyn’s human form. One side of the tree struggled to recover, but the branches were gnarled, and the leaves were edged with an unhealthy gray. The other side was black and burnt.
Nevyn pulled his eyes away, but that didn’t release Aralorn from the vision. Sharp teeth closed on her hand, and she dropped her eyes to see Wolf beneath the table, glowing like lightning. Dazed, she blinked her eyes rapidly, only to see the bright wolf imposed on her eyelids.
Wolf growled, and Aralorn took in a deep breath and set her magic aside.
“You are quiet tonight,” said Correy in her ear. “Have you found out anything more about Father?”
His tone was conversational, so he hadn’t noticed her doing anything unusual.
“Enough to be hopeful,” she said, striving for a normal tone.
“Do you know who might have done it?” asked Freya.
Warily, Aralorn looked at her, but she saw only the face that Freya had always shown her.
Aralorn shrugged and, because she was thinking about what had just happened rather than paying attention to the conversation, she said more than she should have. “I think so, but he is dead now—so knowing who he is doesn’t do us much good.”
“Who?” asked Irrenna from the head of the table, her voice sharp.
Aralorn put down her knife and fork. “No one it would be healthy to accuse at this point. When I’m more certain of my facts, I’ll tell you. I promise.”
Irrenna looked at her narrowly for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll hold you to your promise.”
ELEVEN
The castle was quiet in the early-morning hour they’d chosen for their meeting. She and Wolf got to the bier room before dawn, more because she was too nervous to sleep longer than anything else. The guards had gotten used to her coming and going at odd hours, though this morning’s portal defender had given an odd look to the hen she’d stolen from the kitchen coop.
Wolf told her that he might need it if he decided to break the spell right then. Wolf hadn’t had to catch the blasted thing, of course.