Telyn clucked to Bessa as the mare navigated a particularly rocky patch in the road, her small wagon bouncing over the rough terrain. The hard-packed earth had not seen the benefit of rain in over a week. The sky was just beginning to show the first signs of twilight, the sun sending the last glorious beams of golden light slanting through the trees before it settled behind the hills.
She had been traveling the Wood for nearly two weeks since the solstice, stopping at each small village. In the remote settlements, the tenants were already well aware of the fact that magic was once more rising in the Wood. Telyn spun the tale of how it had come about almost nightly to groups of rapt listeners, carefully keeping the identity of the seed-voice to herself and focusing instead on the men of the Tauron who had been entrusted with this tremendous responsibility.
Her ultimate destination was Ilparien, where she would keep her promise to a certain young warden and give them a rousing tale of Cormac’s bravery in battle and in magic.
Telyn had been unable to keep from teasing her friend, and had slightly embellished the version she shared with the wardens after his formal induction into the Tauron Order.
“But that isn’t really how it happened!” Cormac had protested, his face red.
“Oh, it isn’t?” Telyn mused, her eyebrows raised. “Get used to being a hero, my friend. Once I tell your village, it will be compounded tenfold. They will have it that you performed the feat all by yourself, and the rest of us will be forgotten!”
The Tauron guild house was rapidly becoming a school of magic as the nine magians—a word that meant both ‘sorcerer’ and ‘teacher’ in the old language—tested their burgeoning talents. Telyn wondered how they would each come to terms with their newfound power. She had cautioned them mightily, knowing better than most that magic was full of consequences, and that a shadowed side existed beyond the bright potential of these newly restored gifts.
Telyn found her training in heartspeaking and shielding had rewarded her with a level of control that she had never known, but the Gwaith’orn had also given her a gift. The full knowledge of what she could accomplish with her own unique powers had been bestowed upon her, and it was a humbling and sometimes frightening prospect. She knew that someday, it would lead her from the Wood and back into the Three Realms.
Perhaps the most comforting knowledge of all was that it could protect her from Vuldur and his paid assassins. When the delegation came to Cerisild for their state visit in a few weeks, Telyn planned on being there. The secret that she had learned from King Amorion’s private letter to Gwidion would soon become known, and she wouldn’t miss that intrigue for the world.
* * * *
There was a keening sound from somewhere ahead that seemed to be heard more in her mind than in her ears. With a grin, Telyn recognized the noise as the initial attempts of a seedling Gwaith’orn to join the resonance.
She pulled Bessa to a halt when the sound drew level, and climbed carefully out of the wagon, watching where she stepped. Telyn found the seedling perhaps twenty feet from the road, at the farthest root span from what had once been a silent Gwaith’orn. It was now simply a tree, its life essence transferred into the keening sapling that stood knee-high to the bard. She looked up at the old tree respectfully, noting that the white branches were darkening with a scale of brown bark.
The new, sentient trees were growing more rapidly than any other seedlings in the Wood. Even in their fledgling state they were unmistakable; the upper half of the shoot was bone-white, with tiny, star-shaped leaves unfurling.
Telyn no longer needed to touch the Gwaith’orn to make contact with them, but seedlings were a different matter. They were not yet powerful enough to speak aloud, although aware enough to listen and to participate in the chorus of the Wood. She knelt and stroked the delicate sapling with one finger, smiling at the rudimentary images it sent in welcome.
It tried again to join the resonance, its keening slightly out of tune with the rest of the Gwaith’orn. Telyn let a soft note swell in her throat, singing to the sapling, and heard it shift its tone to match hers and blend into the mighty chord that filled the forest.
She acknowledged its gratitude and rose. It would have eventually been able to discover its voice for itself, but Telyn felt obligated to guide them whenever she stumbled across a seedling, standing young and alone in the Wood.
She patted Bessa’s rump as she climbed back into the wagon. She still had an hour’s daylight to find a suitable campsite. Mithrais would come to her tonight, riding the crest of magic as he had once ridden the resonance.
“Let’s go, my girl.” Telyn encouraged Bessa with a gentle slap of the reins. “We want to be camped before sunset.”
The thought of her lifemate’s company caused her heart to soar, and demanded music. Telyn gave Bessa her head as the mare began to walk forward, and opened the weatherproof box beneath the seat, drawing out her new harp: a lovely, sinuous thing darkly polished and delicately inlaid with a mosaic of leaves on the soundboard.
She propped the harp against her breast and touched fingers to the strings, sending a ripple of music into the air and hearing it answered in the resonance as her song magic blossomed. Telyn began to play a song of joy, raising her voice in celebration, and this time, the Wood sang with her.
The End