| |
Grim came from the left. He looked rumpled, unshaved and tired. The gaol had no windows, but he’d only suffered it a night and a half-day. If he were wise, he’d slept rather than confront the boredom of darkness and no interaction.
He braced a hand on the wood inside the doorframe. Narrowed eyes looked her up and down. “You hurt? Then tell me all. I heard Brok was enjoying two wraiths.” He lifted a quizzical eyebrow. “And you interrupted them.”
Orielle flushed, the same intensity as at Lillias’ insinuation. Grim’s information would come from gossip. She could imagine how the story had spiralled. “I sensed sorcery. And I think it’s more properly said that two wraiths were sucking the life from him.”
“Two wraiths? One wasn’t enough for Brok?”
His sarcasm kept her from taking offense. The sly tone also assured her that Grim hadn’t changed. Nothing had stolen him away. The day’s old beard looked scruffy, but his eyes were bright between the slits of his eyelids.
“I didn’t choose to battle these wraiths. I didn’t expect them, especially when they were ... well. They attacked when I tracked the sorcery. I destroyed one. The other escaped. We tracked it upstairs ... and found Brok’s wife.”
He grimaced. So, the stories carried that news as well. She didn’t have to repeat the worst of it. When she closed her eyes, she still saw Zairantze, hands crossed on her breast, the tear frozen in her lashes.
“I heard the healer tended both you and Brok.”
“Only him. The wraiths stole his life essence. Two of them.”
“He might have enjoyed that death.”
“Enjoy or not, he would still be dead,” she retorted.
The sentry reacted, his head knocking against the wall. Rubbing the back of his head, he shifted over a few steps, giving them a semblance of privacy.
“If you heard all that,” Orielle grimaced at the idea of gossip, “other people did as well. Or were you privileged to hear the gossip first?”
Grinning, he eyed the gate top to bottom. “I wouldn’t say privileged. One of the earliest to hear.”
“And you thought I was wounded in the battle?” She snorted, as much for Grim as for the sentry and those who would hear the gossip of their meeting. “Have you not learned that I’m a better fighter than that?”
“You have a tendency to jump into trouble.”
Orielle accepted that. Grim had saved her from the wyre’s prime when she was foolish enough to offer Come out and play. “If you thought I was wounded, other people would as well. Will they think my power is also weak?”
He shrugged. He surveyed her the way he had the gate. “The wraiths didn’t hurt you? That’s good.”
She leaned close to the gate. She surveyed the iron bars and cross-pieces but could see no weakness. The sentry could hear their every word; she and Grim weren’t whispering. Yet touching the gate would trigger the wards, and Orielle didn’t wish to discover the repercussions. “How are you?”
He lifted his scruffy face to the brilliant sun. “Enjoying the daylight.”
The room behind him was night-dark. The walls were fitted tightly, admitting no light. If the shed had a window, it was shuttered. She wanted to grip his hand, touch his arm ... but she dared not break the wards that sealed the lock-up. The gaol. That was what it was, no matter what the Haveners called it. “Do they not leave the door open during the day? You could enjoy the sunlight then.”
“They opened up to give me water and supper. This morning they opened the door for more water and a hard roll and boiled egg then stew at mid-day.”
“Is that all?” This gaol was no better than a dungeon. Worse, for a dungeon used torchlight. The Haveners left him in absolute darkness.
“And to allow your visit. I amused myself this morning by inspecting my cell. Four walls. A pallet in the center. I tripped over that last night. A covered bucket to relieve myself. Nothing else. It is a lock-up.” He sat cross-legged on the dirt-packed floor.
She mimicked him. Then she leaned over her knees and splayed her fingers on the ground, a bare inch from the gate’s bottom cross-piece. The iron had its own ward, a repellent power that buzzed her fingertips. Not the prickly pain of sorcery. It felt like a reduced version of her own ward spell.
Grim imitated her, pleasing her. They smiled, comrades re-connecting, and something more firing the heat of their gazes.
Orielle hadn’t dared investigate her feelings for Grim on the journey. She had hoped to explore their connection when they reached the Haven. Her disappointment when he’d gone to the gaol had concerned her more than the wraiths’ attack.
“No touching,” the sentry snapped. “Mind the wards.”
She didn’t move. “We aren’t disturbing them.” She considered a Shield spell. That use of power would only be necessary if they discussed something secret, not just private. Alerting the sentry with the Shield wouldn’t help their causes, his of release, hers of alliance. She scooted an inch closer and lowered her voice. “No one has told me any specifics about this hearing.”
“None to know. Ah, you’re remembering Enclave hearings or a royal audience. We aren’t that formal. Rho don’t abide ceremony. This won’t even be like a report to a Citadel officer. The elder cites the charge—.”
“Charge?” That sounded criminal, with penance planned. A criminal hearing would be much more formal than he suggested, with dire consequences.
“What they say I’ve done wrong. Leaving the Haven without the elder’s permission, which would be minor if not for Tobit’s second charge, that I left before we cleared the wyres’ lair.”
“And this happened two years ago?”
“The time doesn’t matter. Abandoning the Haven when the community needed a fighter against attack, that’s serious. I had thought we cleared the lair. We’d killed all 13 wyre, ten males and 3 females. That’s the usual size of a lair outside its territory. My father died in the last attack. His pyre kept me here extra days. Then I left. It was past time for me to leave. I didn’t mention my leaving to Tobit. He was Earth mentor when my father gave me permission, during a hearing, before the first wyre attack. We hadn’t voted on my father’s replacement for Air mentor or on the new elder. I have reasons I’ll tell at the hearing. We’ll see if they care, or if Tobit’s after trouble.”
Orielle winced. She glanced at the sentry and wondered how sharply he could hear. Was the man allied to Tobit? Or was he simply of the community?
Last night, when Tobit grieved with Brok, she thought Grim’s friend was also Tobit’s man. Yet something Lillias said contradicted that. She tried to recall the words, but they had flown. Perhaps Orielle had only received an impression rather than heard something.
She wanted to know if the Haveners allied themselves based on a mentor’s power or if they followed bloodlines or used some other arcane method. That question needed to come later. Grim had ended his explanation with a more concerning detail. “Why would Tobit want trouble?”
He shrugged. His gaze flashed to the sentry even though the man was down the exterior wall, out of sight. If the sentry reported to Tobit, Grim had a reason to say nothing.
“Tobit fought at Iscleft Citadel against Frost Clime. Did you know?”
“I knew he was village-born and raised and that he’d been away for a long time. Years. I knew he came back with a warrior in tow. Comrades, he said, and that they’d saved each other’s lives.”
“A bit more than comrades.”
Grim lifted a shoulder. “Don’t know much else.”
“How did he become elder? For that matter, how did he become Earth mentor? If he were recently returned after years away, why did they elevate him?”
“He’d been back a few months, a season or two, I think, long enough that everyone knew he was the best wielder of Earth.”
“His friend Hackett has no power.”
“Doesn’t matter. Choice of the individual, voted by those who wield that element.”
Similar to the clan alliances, although Enclave clans also had ties through bloodlines and friendship. Clan Letheina was Air and Water, but her grandfather had chosen an Earth clan rather than ally to his sister the ArchClan. Galfrons had wizards of all elements, but Drakon Clan was pure Fire.
Orielle tossed her hair back. She could puzzle that out later. “Seems odd to me. Tobit is back only a few months then becomes not just a mentor but the Haven’s elder.”
“You think something else is involved?” he murmured, too soft for the sentry to hear.
She shrugged. “Just odd. I thought he was horrible to you and then to me, but he grieved with Brok. And Hackett has been friendly and helpful. I thought Lillias was friendly, but she’s become—hostile is too strong a word.”
“When was she hostile?”
“Not hostile. It’s not that strong. She wasn’t ... friendly, just now, when she and Surrect questioned me about the wraiths and sealing Brok’s dwelling.” Orielle felt her tension ease as she shared that concern with Grim. She had known him only a handful of days, but last night and this morning she’d missed talking over her troubles, over details that concerned them both. She didn’t need a solution, just someone to listen and ask questions and prod her at the right moment. “Surrect wasn’t hostile either. He treated me as if I were an irritation. Lillias implied that I had brought the wraiths into the Haven. I discovered them. I didn’t ally with them!”
“And you defeated them.”
“One escaped.”
“Enough of a victory that the mentors had to admit that one of the sentinels was under attack. The Haven’s under their leadership. They are to keep a watch on the community. Yet they didn’t know a woman had been killed by sorcery to form a portal that admitted wraiths who were preying upon a sentinel.”
Grim had boiled down the events to their salient worries. What more could she say? Her mission should drive what she said and thought and did. Since their arrival, all too often she wanted to forget she had a reason to come to the Wilding and to this Haven and attempt to sway the leadership. Her mission had enabled her to meet Grim. She could not start any dissent. She would lose long before she won any forward steps.
Waiting for her reply, Grim tilted his head. He likely guessed everything that flew through her mind. His mouth quirked. “Nothing to add?”
“You are well informed.”
“The whole village is talking. Everyone will want to attend your hearing. You’re no longer just a wizard seeking an alliance, escorted by a Rho who once lived here and abandoned the Haven. You saved Brok and fought evil for us. That should win your bid for an alliance.”
“It should, shouldn’t it? If the mentors don’t accuse me of bringing the wraiths. Lillias—.” Remembering the sentry, she stopped.
“You didn’t. You couldn’t have. Brok’s woman was the portal, and everything I’ve heard says that she disappeared days and days ago. She must have been murdered when she disappeared. You hadn’t crossed the border into the Wilding then.”
“Grim ... Brok was heart-broken.”
He didn’t respond.
Orielle shifted her hands back from the gate. He withdrew more slowly. “At your hearing, Grim, will you bring up the wyre that we fought? No one wanted to discuss the wyre with me, even though I told them that we had killed seven of the lair.”
“Two sentries left this morning to investigate the bend of the river where we fought. They’ll confirm that during the hearing.”
“Unless the remaining wyre attack them. Six remain. They will want vengeance.”
“There’s that. You ready for your hearing?”
“I’ve rehearsed the reasons for the alliance every day since I left Mont Nouris. After the past days, I can add the wyre and the gobbers and the wraiths, how no one in the Haven is safe and secure as long as Frost Clime is a growing force. The Haven cannot wait to remove the threat of the remaining wyre and the sorceress before they commit to the alliance.”
“Or send anyone to Iscleft Citadel to battle Frost Clime.”
“Tobit will oppose that. Hackett told me that Commander Ferro is a fool, and Tobit no doubt thinks the same. I’m beginning to agree with that opinion. Do you think the Kyrgy would fight against Frost Clime?”
That idea startled Grim. He frowned as he gave it serious consideration. “I think a Kyrgy would not want to fight any element of Frost Clime.”
Orielle remembered Lady Bone’s reluctance to fight the sorceress who had come with the lair of wyre. Sorcery gave the wyre power to shift out of the moontime. She’d seen the eldritch green energy limning their claws, hovering in their eyes.
“You’re not considering an alliance of wizards with Kyrgy, are you? The Fae might rebel.”
“The Kyrgy were once part of the Fae.”
“Dark Fae. An alliance would be like welcoming a dangerous enemy to your hearth, all to defend against a lesser enemy. The Kyrgy will devour you.”
“Do you think the Kyrgy are more powerful than the sorcerers and wyre of Frost Clime? Why, then, was Lady Bone reluctant to go against the sorceress?”
“Wrong question, Orielle. You don’t understand how dangerous the Kyrgy are.” He refused to say more. He turned their conversation to an explanation of mentors and the other Haveners, even describing the sentinels to her.
And the afternoon advanced toward evening and the hearings.
