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Orielle knelt beside Grim. His skin looked waxy, the veins stark beneath the flesh. Red-rimmed eyes fastened on her. He shuddered when she touched his shoulder. The bleeding had stopped, but the poison wracked him.
“No,” he mouthed. Then his head strained to one side as he fought another wave of poison. Veins stark on his temples, pulsing, feeding the wyre venom to every part of his body. “Not this,” he gasped.
The Lady scowled. She extended a hand—and Grim froze, locked in that painful ball.
“What have you done?” Orielle ran her hands over his locked muscles. His mouth had opened to scream, but nothing emerged, neither sound nor breath. His body no longer shuddered. “What have you done?”
“Given us a space of time. He will not distract you while we bargain.”
She scrambled to her feet, but she could not drag her gaze from him. “Is he still in pain?”
“Whatever pain he felt at the moment I stilled him. He lives. He hears. He feels nothing more than that moment. The wyre venom will advance. That I cannot stop, not unless I stop his heart.”
“It is cruel.”
“Your bargaining is cruel, for his pain will increase until he dies. Come, end this quibbling over slaves, and tell me what you will.”
She knew only one thing that Lady Skuld wanted and only one way to limit it. “You wish a wizard as a rider. Very well, I will ride three times with you, three moons for the Hunt. I will do this, Lady, after I serve my mission for the Enclave. I must serve the Enclave. I offer these three rides. I do not make a bargain.”
A predatory smile revealed those sharpened teeth. “Do you think to avoid a choice?”
Hands on hips, she tossed back her hair and tilted her chin. Sangrior’s eyes followed the glint of her sun-kissed hair. Volk scowled. He fingered the knife that he still had not sheathed. He would rather she blindly agree to the Lady’s terms. She narrowed her eyes at him, letting him know that she had his mark. Then she looked back at Skuld. Facing the Kyrgy, seeing her very alien appearance, something shrank inside her, but she gathered all the arrogance that Enclave wizards wore like a spelled cloak. “Someday, Lady, your choice may loom before me. But that day is not this one.”
The Lady pursed her lips, hiding her teeth. Her slitted eyelids hid the blackness of her eyes. “How much of your life will this mission consume?”
“I come to recruit Rhoghieri for the war at Iscleft Citadel. I come to renew the alliance between the Enclave and the Haven.”
“You are young for such a mission.”
“Nevertheless.”
“And your ArchClan gives to you this power? You are highly regarded. Your presence among my riders will impress others.”
She didn’t correct the Lady. Better that she never learn Orielle had volunteered in her sister’s stead. Better that she never learn Orielle was the weak Not-Wizard that the Lady had named her, a Not-Wizard beginning to suspect the ArchClan never intended this mission to succeed. A lie of omission was still a lie. Better to have fewer lies between herself and a Kyrgy. “You called me Not-Wizard. That is a truth greater than you know. I have not passed my wizard trials. Will you accept the offer of a Not-Wizard to ride the Hunt thrice with you in exchange for healing this Rho?”
“Volk.”
At his snapped name, the knight sheathed his knife. His cold gaze swept Orielle then dismissed her. Sangrior wanted to speak but dared say nothing. “Lady.” Volk bowed. “What have you?”
“Will this Not-Wizard be a worthy rider?”
“She killed two wyre using only elemental power. She may be ignorant, but she learns. She fears, but she fights. She does not run from danger.”
“You have impressed another of my knights. No doubt, this is how you won the Rhoghieri to you. No doubt, this is what my Sangrior sensed in you when he gave you a name of power.” Her gaze cut to the subdued knight. “A name given without permission. But he learns.”
She flicked her fingers. Sangrior flinched then straightened. His gaze fastened beyond Orielle. His jaw tightened. His shoulders squared. He became again the sword knight of that first encounter.
“So, Aiwaz Solsken will not bargain with me, but she proposes an offer in exchange for a healing. A healing this Rho needs. Look you. His veins blacken with the wyre venom.”
The jutting veins in Grim’s temples writhed black under his waxy flesh. Sweat beaded and dripped, a faint runnel of red.
“Tell me, how much time do you think three rides will consume?”
That was indeed a question. She was wary of naming any specific time in human terms, for the Kyrgy would bend the time to fit her reckoning of it. The Fae did not track time as the mundane world did. How much more different would be a Kyrgy view of days and months and years? She had risked much just in saying season.
Time.
Or event.
Ah, that was an idea. “Three Moons or until you partake of evil.”
The Lady gave her laugh, that jangling tinkle that grated edged nerves. “You parse words very carefully. Name an evil.”
Name anything, and the long-lived Lady would avoid that thing—even if it were her heart’s sweetest desire—until Orielle died waiting and watching.
“What do you call evil?” she retorted.
Again the laugh, exposing the tips of her teeth. “Oh, I will enjoy having you as a rider. Volk spoke truth when he said you fear but fight anyway. My friends will think you a peculiar rider. They will envy me.”
Lady Skuld had friends? Then Orielle realized only other Kyrgy would be the Lady’s friends, not her knights, not her riders.
Peculiar, yes. Jealous? Yes. And desperate to have what Lady Skuld had managed to win, a wizard of the Enclave.
“I will ride three times or until you do evil. Your friends may envy you for having a rider who is Enclave-trained.”
But the Lady’s expression darkened. “Enclave-trained. You abide by the wizard tenets.”
“I am bound to them.”
Thunder boomed, so loudly it shook Orielle’s bones. It drowned the Lady’s words. Sangrior recoiled. Even Volk took a step away from the Kyrgy.
“Bound by or abide by?” Lady Skuld demanded. Her eyes glittered.
“Bound.”
This time the thunder cracked open the sky for a jagged fork of lightning. A distant tree split in two, the heartwood flaming from the intense heat.
“I cannot accept someone already bound.” The Lady’s voice crackled like the fire consuming the tree’s heart. “Give the Rho to me.”
“He is not mine to give. I can only offer you what I can do.”
Her eyes slitted. “Perhaps he is not mine to heal. My knights chose to ride with me rather than go with Death, a lady more terrifying than me. Perhaps I cannot heal him, but I can extend his life. Give him to me.”
“No. I will not let him live in agony, even the half-life you offer.”
“Volk will tell you he lives a whole life.”
“Will Sangrior say that? Can either knight live without the sun?”
“They stand now in the sun.”
“But how long can they bear it? If you cannot heal the Rho, then be done, Lady. Though it grieves me, I will ease his passage.” She looked at his locked body. Sand and grit caked his leathers. Black venom tracked through his veins, rooted through his skin, invading the whole of his body. “What I learned of fighting and courage, I learned from him. He does not deserve this agony.” With nothing else to add, her arguments emptied out, she looked back at the Kyrgy.
Lady Skuld studied her, then she dipped her chin. “You are clever, Not-Wizard. You fear and fight, with power and with words. I would relish your riding with my company. In all my years I have never heard of a freely given offer to ride. This alone gives a peculiar distinction.” She drew a symbol in the Air. For long seconds it hovered, black lines in a complicated swirl, before it wisped into smoke and drifted away.
The fire in the burning tree died.
A wind kicked up, blowing their cloaks around, black and storm-purple and glacial blue. It caught Orielle’s hair and tangled it in the air. It lifted the knights’ silvery hair and streamed it behind them.
It did not touch the Lady.
“You are bound by wizard tenets. I am bound by Kyrgy law. I accept your offer, for it is freely given and worth much more than any choice. But I cannot heal him without a bargain. That is Kyrgy law. The bargain demands a risk. What will you risk, Not-Wizard?”
Cold ice cracked through her. Here, in this now, she came closer to death than all the fights with the wyre. Lady Skuld remained expressionless. Her black eyes, those knife-sharp features, the vee’d smile, all revealed that she thought Orielle’s choices limited. For Grim’s healing, she had nothing to risk but her own life.
She stared at him. Locked against pain, he could offer no help, although his stormy eyes burned into hers, desperate to repeat the No that the Lady had silenced with her spell.
She needed common ground with the Lady. What did she want that the Lady also wanted? It must be something that the Lady could not give herself. Skuld had no lack of power, but perhaps more Kyrgy laws prevented her actions.
Had Grim given a clue, when he argued with Volk last night? He’d said the sorceress brought her wyre to prey on the innocent creatures of the Wilding, a condemnation that the Lady should have acted on but had not. He’d said the Rho kept the alliance with the Lady. What had prevented the Lady from wiping out the sorceress, especially when Saircuista defected to the sorceress?
She didn’t know. She suspected Skuld would not tell her. But Orielle could still use it.
Common ground. Wyre gone. Sorceress gone.
“I will rid the Wilding of the sorceress and her wyre.”
“No, Aiwaz Solsken,” Sangrior burst out, proof that Orielle had guessed what the Lady needed but could not herself do or command her riders to do.
Lady Skuld’s hand jerked. He turned, folding into himself, then a flashing door opened, and he vanished.
His scream died when the light winked out.
The Lady flicked her hand. Volk came to her side. He watched the Kyrgy. “Tell her,” she commanded.
He bowed. He didn’t look at Orielle. “The sorceress is greater than you, Not-Wizard. She will kill you.”
“If the sorceress has me at the point of death, then Lady Skuld, you can have my life. I will take this risk for you.”
Volk reared back. Ice blasted around Skuld. The shards pricked Orielle’s exposed flesh and left a rime on Grim’s curled-up body.
“I am Kyrgy,” she shouted, and the words struck like a blizzard wind, colder than cold, filled with snowy death. “You are mundane. You are naught before me. Do you think I cannot rid this sorceress from my Wilding?”
She sparked her only spell of Fire. The tiny flame bent against the cold then grew brighter. “I know you can.” She lifted her voice, but the roaring wind died before her last word, and her call sped to the river and beyond. Lowering her voice, she held out the little flame. “But you have not removed her. I know Saircuista’s defection drives a wedge into your circle of riders. I can remove this wedge.”
Volk started at her revelation. Had he not expected her to share his words with the Kyrgy?
“Only Saircuista’s death can remove it.” Frost dripped from her words.
“Or the death of the sorceress.”
The temperature rose.
“My knights cleave to you, Solsken. Perhaps their loss of the sun gives you an advantage I had not anticipated.”
“Humans have frailties. We are not purpose-driven Fae. We are not Kyrgy of the Wilding.”
“But you would serve me, for a season?”
“Is this offer acceptable?” Orielle retorted, needing proof.
“I wish more.”
“I wish less. We both lose; we both gain.”
“So be it.” The Lady stepped to Grim’s curled body. “I will heal this Rho. You will rid my Wilding of this sorceress and her wolfen. You offered time with me, Not-Wizard. You will ride three hunts at my side. You will see how a Kyrgy keeps the wizard tenets.” Then she clapped her hands.
Blue light sparked where her hands had struck together. It shaped into a sliver, like the double-horned crescent moon. Then the center bulged, growing into the Womb Moon, fat with potential, dappled silver like the Moon that would oversee any Hunt through the Wilding.
Lady Skuld spun the gibbous orb. The light floated toward Grim and hovered over his body. She twisted her hand, much as Orielle had, up on the mountain, and the orb dropped onto his locked body. The light increased, blinding them. He screamed, the power unlocking his body, and the light streamed over him, cocooning him.
Then the Lady dropped her hand. The light poured into him and disappeared.
And Grim lay straight and painless on the sandy grit.
He scrambled to his feet. Blading his body, he blocked Orielle’s view of the Lady. “What have you done?”
“Aiwaz Solsken saves your life, Rhoghieri.” Volk stared at his Lady, she who was all his world.
“At what cost?” Grim demanded.
“Not the cost you think. She bargained neither your life nor her own. Three moons she will ride with me.” Lady Bone shook her head, her hair streaming over her shoulders, a thick silver cascade over the clinging white gown. “Will you ride beside her, Rho?”
“I will.”
She laughed, the high-pitched tinkle that set nerves on edge. “She said that she learned fighting from you. Will you help her rid my Wilding of this sorceress and her wyre?”
“Is that the bargain?” He fronted Orielle, and she couldn’t look away from his intense eyes. As soon as she nodded, he gave his assent to Lady Skuld.
“And when the sorceress defeats you and you are on the point of death, will you give me your life? Just as she swore?”
“If she goes to you, then I go as well.”
“Such devotion. May you inspire my own knights, Rho.”
Lightning flashed. Thunder rumbled. Rain poured from the sky.
And Lady Skuld and Volk vanished from the beach.
