Sky laid his ears back and looked at Reandn from the corner of his eye, nostrils wrinkled in excessive irritation at the sight of the bridle in Reandn’s hand while wisps of his morning hay remained. Reandn offered a pat in apology and tried not to laugh out loud.
Sky. Dark bay racking horse, back hock scarred enough to give his rolling gait a slight hitch. Oversensitive, self-defensive, wanting nothing more than a rider who could see through it all and give him a steady hand. Sky, the horse who’d run himself to death at Reandn’s request, racing to keep Ronsin away from the magic that would make him more dangerous than ever.
And Sky, who’d then been healed by unicorns. A walking testament to Rethia’s success in returning both unicorns and their magic to a magic-barren land.
A testament who hadn’t finished his breakfast thank you very much, and who didn’t have the slightest interest in maintaining the dignity his unique status conferred him. He flattened his ears, flared his nostrils, and tilted his head warningly.
Reandn poked him gently in the shoulder. “Stop that.”
His bluff called, Sky’s ears flipped forward; he waited for both bridle and the treat that would follow. Reandn bridled the horse and gave him the expected chunk of rubbery old carrot, untangling Sky’s forelock from the bridle crown piece with careful fingers and an affectionate pat. There was no true guile in the bay; he was as easy to read as a signpost — if somewhat less consistent.
His saddlebags packed and bulging, winter gear tied over them, and Sky finally bridled and amiable, Reandn headed out into the cold dawn wind. His good-byes had been said, his patrol honored in the Binding ceremony, and his back pay dispensed.
Somehow he wasn’t surprised to find Saxe waiting by the keep gate — such as it was. That gate had probably never been closed, but at least it had a guard — not that the encroaching tree line would allow him time for any useful warning. Arval depended on a perimeter warning spell, Reandn imagined. He’d have been mighty uneasy in the guard’s boots.
The guard stepped away from Saxe as Reandn approached, his expression an interesting mixture of curiosity and disdain. Reandn had seen too much of that expression in the past days; Arval’s small collection of keep guards and strongarms seemed to regard him as stupid for hitting their minor, but at the same time they wondered about the man who’d dared to do it.
Saxe stood in the lee of the gate, his wool-lined collar flipped up to cover his neck and ears, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets. Just looking at him, Reandn felt the wind more strongly; he shivered, hoping for some sun once morning proper arrived. He hunched inside his own wool-lined jacket, Wolf-issue minus its patrol patch, and tucked his neck cape more snugly under his chin. He asked, “Come for some parting I-told-you-so’s?”
Saxe shook his head, but didn’t seem to take offense. “There aren’t any told-you-so’s that are worth this wind to make.” He shrugged inside the jacket. “Just came to say good-bye to a friend, and wish him well.”
“I’ll be around,” Reandn said. “Probably causing you just as much trouble, one way or the other.”
“Going to Kacey’s for a while?”
Reandn lifted an eyebrow at him. “Most people call it Teayo’s.” Kacey’s father still supervised the healing at his home sickroom, though his age and girth were starting to slow him down.
Saxe shrugged again. “She’s got a memorable personality. And Hells, when you two are in the same room, the words fly as sharp as knives. Not much like you and Dela.”
“Nothing is like me and Dela,” Reandn said instantly, his voice hard and edgy, even as he knew he wasn’t being fair. Saxe might not miss Adela in the same way as Reandn, but she’d been his friend, and he missed her all the same.
Besides, Reandn was learning that there was no equating Kacey to anyone. She was too much... her own person. Which was why he supposed they did indeed trade a frequency of sharp words — even if between and even during such moments, the depth of her affection peeked out.
Her patience might run out once he’d been tied to the area for a while. Without Teya buffering him from magic, he’d have no choice; he’d stay near the clinic simply to be near to Kacey’s adopted sister Rethia. Only Rethia’s uniquely gifted touch could keep his potentially fatal reaction to magic at bay.
Reandn twisted in the saddle, looking back at the small outbuilding that housed his — no, not his anymore — surviving patrol members. “I wish you’d let me tell them.” To really say good-bye, he meant, instead of neglecting to mention he wouldn’t be back from this particular visit to Little Wisdom.
“I’m sorry,” Saxe said, and meant it. “They need something to hold them together while they deal with the shock. By the time they learn the truth, they’ll already be separated, and already accepting that they won’t be reuniting under your command.”
“I think that’s a mistake, too,” Reandn said, and at Saxe’s frown added, “Splitting them up, and keeping them that way.”
“Teya’s the least injured of them, and she needs to advance her schooling.”
“But the rest of them? And you should keep Teya and Dakina together. They understand one another as well as pairs that have been together for a dozen years.”
“As well as you and I?” Saxe said wryly. “I suppose you’re right. I’ve seen that in them, these last few days. I’ll keep it in mind — but that’s all I can promise.”
Reandn scowled. Sky shifted beneath him, lifted a hoof to paw the ground, and thought better of it. “What’s going on, Saxe? You never used to sacrifice your Wolves for anything.”
Saxe raised his eyebrows, then shook his head, careful to keep his collar closed to the wind. “Nothing changes, does it, Danny? You’ve never paid enough attention to Keep affairs.”
Nothing changes? Reandn snorted. Only Dela’s death, the return of magic, the new remote patrol... and now the loss of it.
Saxe spoke right over his reaction. “That’s not truly just, given that you’ve been remote for so long. But you could have kept better track. You should have. The Resiores are a mess.”
“Nothing new about that.”
Saxe shook his head, still hunched within his collar. “It’s never been like this. Not since the magic came back.”
“There’s a surprise,” Reandn said dryly, and suddenly — for a moment — they were a team again, commiserating about the way Keep affairs made a Wolf’s job harder.
Saxe gave him a rueful grin. “Half of the Resioran Highborn embrace magic and Keland, and half of them want to break away for Geltria, where the unicorns run thin and so does the magic. The people fall evenly on both sides, and the merchants — who are, as ever, fussing over Keland tariffs and taxes — do a good job of keeping them all stirred up.”
“We’ve got good people in the Resiores, Saxe. They’ll get things settled.”
“Maybe.” Saxe shoved Sky’s head away as the gelding inspected his ear. “But no one really believes it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have taken in that unofficial Resioran representative last fall.”
Reandn absently lifted a rein, recapturing Sky’s attention. “Why did you? Two factions, one representative... sounds like trouble, to me.”
“I wish you’d asked me earlier, when I was standing somewhere warm,” Saxe said, tugging his collar closed. “You’re right. It could be trouble. But we had to do something, and accepting an official ambassador seemed like the best thing. Once the pass opens up again, we’ll have to do everything right if we’re to avoid war. Goddess grace, so far Geltria is just waiting to see how things play out. Sooner or later, they’ll join the fray.”
The tension in Saxe’s red, wind-bitten face spoke loudly enough, giving Reandn a glimpse of the difficulties his friend faced — difficulties he certainly hadn’t made any easier.
Not that it would have stopped him from unleashing bitter fury on the minor.
Saxe said, “Do you really think we’d have given Arval authority over your patrol if his support wasn’t absolutely critical? We’re not going to be able to handle the changes in both Keland and the Resiores if men like Arval don’t do everything — and I mean every-damn-thing — in their power to help us.”
Reandn grinned, wry around the edges. “Then I’m lucky I’m not stuck in that cell.”
“Don’t forget it,” Saxe said, meaning it. “I fought for you, Danny. But there’s just too much at stake. I had to give Arval something.” He shook his head. “Take the quiet roads, Danny. If you can find them.”
“If I can find them,” Reandn said. He ducked into his neck cape, knowing well enough that Saxe didn’t refer to the physical road before him, and lifted one gloved hand in a final salute. Sky flicked back an ear; Reandn gave him an infinitesimal squeeze of leg. Gratefully, Sky popped forward in his odd hop-start and settled into a quick, steady rack.
~~~~~
Kacey grappled with wet sheets in the stiff breeze of the afternoon. It was the first time in ten days that the sun had hit the clothesline, and she’d be bloody-damned if she’d miss the chance to get things clean and dry without hanging them all over the house.
Quite a sight it was when the sickroom was full up with late winter ills. Thank the goddess — either one, Kacey didn’t care — that as her father Teayo had slowed, they’d hired a part-time cook along with their new healer apprentice. Maybe it was time to get someone to help with the chores around here, too. Kacey would never be a gifted healer like her father Teayo, or as inspired as Rethia. But she ran an excellent sickroom, and she had the exacting hand to prepare medicines and herbs — and she knew her limits. All crucial skills for a woman in a healer’s house.
Rethia was more help than she’d once been — no longer inexorably caught in her own private world. Even now she stirred the next batch of sheets in their giant cauldron.
Farren had just given them a new spell to make fireless heat, and then spent days tutoring their young and fumbling healer-mage to use it. It was, Kacey thought, one of the few truly useful spells to reach their household since magic’s return. Not that she didn’t enjoy seeing chameleon shrews and unicorn sign, but they weren’t of much help when there was laundry to wash and not quite enough wood gathered.
The noise of wind-snapped sheets and bandages filled her ears; her hair blew into her mouth and eyes and her wet fingers grew clumsy in the cold. Slender Rethia would be shivered into uselessness by now. Kacey was chilled enough, despite two layers of sweaters over her tunic and under one of her father’s huge wool shirts. Unlike Rethia, she had plenty of her own padding, but she was still glad enough when the last long bandage dangled from the clothesline. She left the basket and turned for the house — only to discover that she wasn’t alone, and probably hadn’t been for some time.
There, in the lane that wound between the trees between the main road and the large open yard of the house and barn, stood Sky. Reandn sat in the saddle, reins long and looping, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, grinning that lopsided grin that always made Kacey go a little soft inside — though at the same time she had to fight the urge to shake the expression right off his face.
She’d never really come to understand that one.
“Damned Wolf!” she cried at him, nonetheless closing the distance between them with some speed. “Always sneaking up on people.”
Reandn dismounted, keeping the grin. “Only the ones who aren’t paying any attention. No matter how I ask him, Kacey, Sky does insist on putting his feet down. Never fails to make noise.”
“Damned noisy laundry then,” she said promptly, and gave him a hug. His arm settled comfortably around her shoulders, giving her a little squeeze as he flipped the reins over Sky’s head and they walked up toward the barn together. “We weren’t expecting you,” she said, and stopped, giving Reandn a narrow-eyed look. “You’re all right, aren’t you? You haven’t done anything to get your allergies flared up?”
“I’m fine,” Reandn said, lifting both hands in a mercy plea despite the fact that one was still over her shoulder and the other was in Sky’s face. The horse snorted in irritation.
Kacey didn’t reduce the intensity of her gaze. Something was up. It showed in his eyes, where everything always showed.
Rethia came running out of the house, her face reddened by the heat of the laundry cauldron, wearing nothing more than the shapeless light tunic and kirtle she’d donned for the chore. “Reandn!” she cried. “I knew I felt you coming!” She flung her arms around his neck, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and then stepped back to give him space.
One of her wise moments, Kacey thought. Reandn had never quite reconciled himself to the fact that Rethia had restored the magic he’d fought so hard to keep out of Keland — or to the fact that he’d considered killing her to prevent it. Such irony that it was Rethia and Rethia alone, with her unicorn-gifted magic, who could soothe Reandn’s allergy to the magic that otherwise would have killed him.
“What do you mean, you felt him coming?” Kacey asked, suddenly hearing the words. Rethia had felt him from the steamy kitchen, when Kacey hadn’t known he was practically within arm’s reach? That hardly seemed fair.
“Like a scent on the current of magic,” Rethia said, and smiled. “Everyone’s is different; I can feel where Father is right now, if I think about it. Can’t you?”
“Of course we can’t,” Kacey said.
Reandn’s arm tightened around her shoulder. She glanced up and discovered him grinning again. “Just another one of those Rethia things.”
As if he had to tell her about Rethia things. She’d been living with her foster sister since she’d been fifteen and Rethia was six, dammit. But she sighed, recognizing that her snappishness came from being unable to reach out to her father — no, be honest, to Reandn — when Rethia did it so easily that she took it for granted and had never until this moment mentioned anything about it. No, it wasn’t fair. So be it. “Rethia,” she said, “You’re going to freeze.”
Indeed, Rethia was already shivering. “Hurry up with the horse,” she said. “I’ll have some hot tea waiting.”
“Make sure Tellan makes a sickroom check, too,” Kacey said. “Some of them will need a trip to the bathroom by now.”
“He was doing it when I left,” Rethia said over her shoulder, already heading for the house, hugging herself for warmth. “Oh, I never thought I’d miss that laundry! Hurry!” She ran the rest of the way back, heading around for the kitchen door at the back of the house.
“I’m colder just watching her shiver,” Reandn said, removing his arm to tug Sky’s girth loose. “Late spring we’re having this year.”
Kacey gave him a little push toward the little barn. “Stall that strange horse of yours and let’s get inside, then.”
But Reandn just looked at her a moment, easily absorbing the nudge. Then he carefully reached out a hand to extract the hair that had blown into her mouth — yet again — and tuck it behind her ear. “Don’t change,” he told her, and led the horse away.
Kacey stared after him, and wondered just what, under the surface — for so much of Reandn lay under the surface — that was supposed to mean.
~~~~~
Reandn withstood the scrutiny of Rethia and her little frown. “You’re back early, especially if that medicine is doing any good. Is it?”
Reandn shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. I haven’t been exposed to direct magic of late.” But he understood her confusion — what she really meant to say. Why are you back so soon?
They sat around the kitchen long table, the one place in this house where Reandn truly felt at home. The huge kitchen was always busy — full of pungent boiling herbs, cooking meals, stewing laundry — and it served as the social nexus of the home. Compared to this kitchen and the sickroom, the rest of the house was quite small — a great room with small sleeping chambers off the back, and the loft where Rethia slept.
There was the small barn, of course, and the several outbuildings, all of which held tools with which he was more than personally familiar. Reandn was all but certain that Teayo made serious effort to save chores for his regular if infrequent visits. It surprised him that he didn’t mind — but that didn’t keep him from muttering when he was repairing shingles on a hot day, or from contriving to look miserable when he forked new hay into the barn and bothered the faint, all-too-normal allergies that everyone seemed to have when immersed in hay.
That was how Kacey had thought to try mixing thick herb extracts for his reaction to magic. She’d dosed him after work on one particularly dusty wagon and he’d noticed a slight effect on the undertone of magic thrumming in his head.
That undertone had become a permanent part of his life the day Rethia retrieved the unicorns. Untreated, it grew into a disorienting, dizzying roar, while his chest tightened and his lungs labored — until eventually, he could no longer breathe at all. It had happened once — once he’d almost been in the Heavens with Adela and their adopted son Kavan. Reandn fingered the fine white line that slashed diagonally across his left palm, a reminder of that day. For a while, he’d sought a death that would reunite him with Adela — Tenaebra’s death. Life had eventually recaptured his attention... but death no longer scared him, and it made him more reckless than he might have been.
Rethia gently appropriated his hand, tracing her finger along the scar. “She doesn’t come back so often any more, does she.”
Reandn didn’t even ask. Of course Rethia knew. She always knew. He took his hand back and curled it around the warm tea mug, feeling the clink of Adela’s ring against the fired clay. “Not so often, no.” She’d warned him it would be like that, during those last few sweet moments together when he hadn’t quite died.
Kacey shifted on the bench seat opposite him, never comfortable at the thought of Adela’s presence. Her face had gone red with warmth, though she’d already stripped off her extra layers — as had he. Tendrils of hair curled damply on her cheeks.
She was pretty, Kacey was — though Reandn didn’t think she knew it. It was the sort of pretty that had crept up on him slowly until one day it suddenly seemed obvious. But she was always too busy glaring at her short stubby fingers, and hiding her figure — well-padded, but hardly shapeless — under oversize shirts and loose trousers, and he doubted it had ever seemed obvious to her.
Rethia was watching him, watching as if she knew... something.
“Better get me before your laundry boils to mush,” he suggested.
She gave him a wiser look than he liked before cupping her hands around either side of his head, fingers touching above his nape. Reandn closed his eyes for the moment when the world gave a sudden little lurch, and then the noise retreated to a faint whisper he heard only if he went looking.
He opened his eyes to Rethia’s inquiring expression. “I don’t think you can do that often enough. Especially now... I’ve gotten too accustomed to a patrol wizard who can shield me from things.” Even now, he felt the spell on the cauldron working against him — and it was only then he noticed that the thing was boiling without a fire beneath it.
And then he saw the look on Kacey’s face, and realized that she hadn’t missed the import of his words. “I knew something had happened,” she said. “I knew it. Is she dead, Dan? What was her name, Teya?”
Reandn gave a short and bitter laugh. “No. She’s one of the very few left alive.”
Kacey stiffened. Back by the cauldron, Rethia dropped the claw-footed clothes ladle, ignoring the fact that it immediately sank into the steaming garments.
“Tellan,” Kacey called into the house, not taking her eyes off Reandn. “Come turn this heat off.” In a more normal tone, she added, “I have the feeling we’re done with laundry for the day.”
~~~~~
The cook arrived, was introduced as Lydda, and promptly set about cooking a bland supper for the sickroom occupants. Neither Kacey nor Rethia seemed to have reservations about speaking freely in front of the woman, but Reandn found himself watching her until he realized she was simply too absorbed in her task — and making too much of her own noise — to care what they were saying at the other end of the long kitchen.
And so he told Teayo’s daughters what had happened. Rethia simply watched him with the even, unnerving blue and brown gaze to which he’d finally grown accustomed; Kacey frowned most of the time. She’d met most of the patrol — though not Teya — when Reandn brought them in to get rid of the lice with which they’d managed to infect one another. That had been midway through winter... not so very long ago.
When she frowned over Arval’s broken nose, he knew what that was about, too, though she forbore to say anything out loud. And as the kitchen filled with the smell of baking bread and the cook propped open the back door to let the heat out, Reandn told them he was no longer a Wolf, and let the statement settle into silence.
After a moment, Kacey narrowed her eyes at him. Big and brown and often full of sparks, those eyes were entirely too perceptive. “You’re just sitting there,” she said. “I’d have thought I could’ve predicted how you’d feel about this — about losing them all, and about Arval, and about getting kicked out of the Wolves. But you’re just sitting there, and I can’t tell. How do you feel about it?”
Trust Kacey not to make the obvious assumption, but to ask the same question he’d been asking himself all the way from Arval’s keep. Rethia just smiled her quiet smile, and that figured, too.
They’d both know if he was lying, so he gave them the only truth he had. “I’m not sure.”
Rethia nodded as if it made perfect sense to her, and got up to join the cook. For her, the conversation was over; she knew what she needed to know. Whatever that was.
Not so Kacey. “You don’t know?”
Frowning, Reandn stared into his empty mug. Escaped tea leaves plastered themselves to its rough glaze, giving him something to look at. No. I don’t know. His life as a Wolf had changed so much since those days in King’s Keep when he’d had Adela and Kavan, his rank as Wolf First, and a predictable pattern of days and seasons. When Adela had once challenged him to imagine what it would be like if he suddenly lost his place in the Wolves, and he’d been unable even to consider it.
Kacey made a hmph of a noise, and Reandn only then realized he’d ignored her entirely.
Well, perhaps not entirely. Just out loud. “I... “ he said, and then got lost again, unable to find words he was willing to say.
“You.” Kacey repeated dryly, half-mocking him but mostly just giving up. “Fine. What’re you going to do now?”
For the first time Reandn realized how he’d come to take Teayo’s little haven for granted. “I was hoping... I’ve got some thinking to do, and it’s safe here.”
From the magic, he meant, for even if he inadvertently ran into it, he’d have Rethia’s healing touch nearby. Besides, he’d lay odds they had another round of chores heaped up and waiting for him.
Kacey did roll her eyes, then. “Of course you can stay here,” she said. “Rethia’ll sleep with me, and you can have the loft — considering how full the sickroom is, and what it’s full of. That’s not what I meant.”
“No,” he agreed, understanding that, now. She was asking another one of the things over which he hadn’t been able to gather his thoughts.
“It’d be natural enough to hire out at a private keep, I suppose. If you could find someone who didn’t mind blunt words.”
He showed teeth in a not-smile, an expression that had once taken her aback but to which by now she was well accustomed. “I’m more concerned about finding someone who hasn’t been seduced into flinging magic around.”
She scowled, but it wasn’t at him. “That... won’t be easy.”
Rethia dipped into the conversation from where she stirred what smelled like bean soup. “People with your allergies used to be a great asset, Farren told us once.”
“That was in court, Rethia,” Kacey said, tucking her hair behind her ear again, her face less flushed now that Lydda’s open door had eased the heat. She glanced at Reandn.
He looked away, feeling an unaccustomed chagrin. Born of a camp-follower, shoved in as King’s Keep kitchen help as soon as he was old enough to turn a spit... he’d been teased and scorned until he’d proven he could fight back. And then he’d been ignored — at least until he’d earned his way into the Wolves — a happenstance rare enough to be called unheard of, for the Wolves came from higher born blood than that.
How was he supposed to feel about the Highborn? And, more importantly, how was he supposed to change those feelings now, when he was a man grown?
He wasn’t. He couldn’t. And Kacey knew it just as well as he did. He glanced at her, finding exasperation — but finding it tinged with affection.
“I know,” Rethia said. “But still...” And then she tilted her head, looking toward the sickroom as if she could see through walls. “Kacey,” she said, putting the long-handled soup spoon aside.
Kacey stood up. No one was surprised to hear Tellan calling for her an instant later, his adolescent voice breaking mid-way through her name and holding an urgent tone. “You’ll stay here for as long as you want, that’s all you need to know for now. My father will keep you busy enough.” As she left the room, Rethia on her heels, she gave him a little grin. “You can start by checking that laundry. In this wind, it just might be dry!”
~~~~~
Reandn jammed a narrow, post hole shovel into the ground and left it there long enough to take off his jacket and toss it over the remaining fence section. Willow, once Dela’s and now Rethia’s horse, stuck his head out of the end stall and stretched it almost to the barn door, eyeing the sunny paddock with longing. From within, Sky snorted impatiently, kicking at the stall.
“Watch that hock!” Reandn hollered at the barn. “It’s your own fault you’re in there!” Which it was. Sky had never come to terms with being gelded late in life; he’d been pestering the black mare mercilessly. A little flirt from the black mare, a little posturing from Sky — and a squeal or two later, a splintered fence.
The laundry survived. The fencepost didn’t.
At least the ground had thawed enough to take the bite of the shovel. Reandn dropped the new fencepost into place, holding it upright as he trickled rocks in around it, then kicking the dirt back in the hole and tamping it down. Ten days of these chores and he’d kept his body moving and his mind clear — not thinking about the patrol, the magic... the loss.
Definitely not thinking about the loss.
He was an anomaly, a man trained to elite standards of physical arts who couldn’t travel far from Rethia’s healing touch — who, if he took a direct hit from strong magic, might not even make it back to receive that touch.
And yet he felt a growing itch... a need for more. Staying here, trading off chores to slink around behind Rethia’s protection... it wouldn’t serve for long.
He slipped out of the paddock and away from its boot-sucking mud, and circled the outside of the fence line to double-check the other posts.
Sly magic pushed against his ears. He stiffened, instantly understanding — someone nearby worked magic... and they worked it on him. Not a great magic, not something that posed any real threat, but magic.
The intrusion instantly kicked his temper into dangerous territory. He turned a slow circle, searching — from the woods beyond the paddock to the dark entrance of the barn to the lane and front clearing of the house to the bulk of the sickroom to —
Movement caught the corner of his eye. A medium-sized figure darted from the corner of the barn into its darkness; the horses snorted and the Sky kicked his stall again. The magic flared into something stronger; Reandn staggered a step at the sudden disorientation, and continued his silent approach to the barn. The spell, whatever it was, had no discernable outward effect.
But the clamor of magic beat at him, and he reached the barn with only one thought — make it stop. Stumbling into darkness, he followed the magic straight to its source. Past the stalls and their restless horses, right through to the storage niche at the other end of the barn.
By the time he saw the revealing flash of a light tunic, Reandn moved on anger alone — and when he grabbed that tunic, he brought them both to his knees in a clatter of falling pitchforks and shovels.
The spell-user loosed an astonishing shriek of fear that hit Reandn’s ears almost as hard as the magic.
“Shut up!” Reandn shouted back. The spell-user babbled incomprehensibly, the magic spiraled into agony, Reandn’s chest tightened — and his anger exploded. He jerked the spell-user into the barn aisle and then slammed him against a stall without bothering to get up from his knees. As if he could. The feel of magic bobbled uncertainly — and then the irritated mare slammed her hoof into the stall behind the spell-user’s head.
With a strangled grunt, the spell-user went limp. The magic flickered away.
Reandn let the unresisting body fall to the packed dirt of the aisle floor and ended up on his hands and knees, waiting for weakness to fade.
“Dan?” Kacey called, her voice close but uncertain. “What’s going on? Tellan? Danny? Where are you?”
“In here,” Reandn told her, not knowing or truly caring if he was loud enough to hear.
Evidently he’d gotten her attention. “Tellan!” she cried, running the last few steps into the barn. Reandn looked up at her, discovering that he could see again. Yes, Tellan. The youth made a disoriented noise, alarm and apologies all at once.
It gained him little sympathy from Reandn. “Tellan,” he growled, while Kacey crouched over the apprentice, quickly checking him for injuries. “You’re lucky I didn’t kill you, you little idiot. What the Hells did you think you were doing?”
“You did this to him?” Kacey said, her quick glance accusing. Then she frowned, taking in Reandn’s appearance, looking back at Tellan. “You were using magic out here?
Reandn’s voice came out as a low growl. “He used some kind of spell on me.”
“On you?” Kacey looked down at Tellan again, but whatever she meant to ask, she cut short at Tellan’s vague response. “What did you do to him?”
“Scared him.” Reandn sat back on his heels, letting his head tilt back while he took a deep breath and waited for the last effects of the magic to fade. “Your mare kicked the stall behind his head. I think it befuddled him.”
“Wonderful. Help me get him outside — I want to take a better look.”
Reandn grumbled, but he climbed slowly to his feet as Kacey pulled Tellan up far enough to shove a shoulder beneath his arm. Reandn grabbed the boy by the back of his trousers; together, they hauled Tellan to the bright splash of sunshine outside the barn. Reandn dropped his half of the apprentice and slid down the side of the barn. The light made his head hurt, and he closed his eyes and decided there would be no more fence post repairs this day.
Kacey ran her fingers through the hair on the back of Tellan’s head. “Not even any swelling,” she said. “With any luck he’s just shaken up. You look worse than he does, Dan — you’re as pale as the sunshine.”
Reandn fought the urge to rest his head against his upraised knees. His legs felt a little too long, and not in the least capable of holding him up. “Didn’t you tell him to keep his magic to himself around me?”
“Only ten or fifteen times,” Kacey said, and added pointedly, “About as often as I’ve told you to keep your temper around me.”
“Am I losing my temper at you?” Reandn raised an eyebrow at her and then decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
Kacey didn’t hesitate; her words were sharp. “That’s not what I said, Reandn.”
He covered his face with his hands and said through them, “Just find out what he was doing, will you? I want to know why he was using magic on me — and I want to know why it got so out of hand.”
“Did you hear that?” Kacey said, her voice just as sharp as she turned to Tellan. “I know you’ve had the wind knocked out of you, Tellan — but you’re all right, and you’re certainly listening. Best speak up!”
There was no brooking Kacey in this mood. Moving his hands just far enough to shade his eyes rather than cover them, Reandn looked over at the boy.
Tellan was pale, all right — but then, he always looked pale to Reandn. He was an awkward youth, and it wasn’t the sort of awkwardness he would outgrow. His turned-out feet were too big, his shoulders were narrow, and his movement was graceless and often downright clumsy. He had the patchy beginnings of a beard which needed to be shaved, but far too many active blemishes on his face to do it. He struck Reandn as the sort who would never excel at his craft, but who would nonetheless be quietly indispensable.
Reandn leaned toward him and said, “If you don’t talk, boy, I’m going to put you in the stall with that mare.”
Kacey made a face but let the threat stand. Tellan opened his eyes, scootched away from Reandn until he bumped into Kacey — and realized with visible shock that she wasn’t going to protect him. He blurted out, “I was just painting you!”
Reandn exchanged a glance with Kacey; she looked as puzzled as he felt. “You were doing what?”
“Painting him.” Realizing that Reandn wasn’t imminently prepared to haul him into the mare’s stall, Tellan straightened a little. “So I’d know where you were all the time.”
Kacey looked at Reandn, and all he could do was shrug. “But Tellan, why in the heavens?” she asked. “You have strict orders not to work magic near Reandn — and here you were, working it on him.”
“It was only a little spell,” Tellan said, mumbling again. “I didn’t think he’d know.”
“You thought wrong.” Reandn’s anger started to rise again. “And what the bloody Hells were you thinking, throwing all that magic at me? Don’t try to tell me that was any little painting spell.”
Tellan quickly shook his head. “I didn’t mean to do that, I really didn’t. Something happened in the middle of the spell and I lost the structure of it — and then it got out of control, and you were chasing me and I —”
“That’s all right, Tellan,” Kacey said, cutting off the inquisition as though she’d suddenly gotten full. “I know the look he gets when he feels magic, and it’s enough to frighten anyone. Go inside and lie down for a few moments. My father mentioned something about taking you with him this afternoon.”
Tellan’s face brightened, though his glance at Reandn held lingering wariness. Reandn suddenly realized the boy was waiting for his permission. He nodded.
Considering the alacrity with which Tellan moved, he wasn’t all that stunned by his experience after all. Reandn leaned his head against the barn, resting his forearms across his knees. Kacey shifted around to put her back to the barn, sitting close enough so their shoulders touched. She said, “I guess he can’t scent people out like Rethia does. Maybe no one can.”
“Why the Hells was he trying to keep track of me in the first place?” Reandn grumbled.
Kacey made an indecipherable noise, and Reandn glanced at her to find an expression of mixed affection and exasperation. “Why do you think he wanted to keep track of you, oh Wolf-who-stalks-where-he-will? You frighten him!” She shook her head when he just looked at her. “You’ve got a reputation, Dan. You’ve earned it, too.”
“For goddess’ sake, I’d never hurt that boy.”
“You just almost did.”
Reandn stared off toward the retreating apprentice. “I can’t not protect myself.”
“I didn’t mean that. I just meant...” she trailed off, frowning. “I don’t know what I meant. Just try to understand sometimes, will you?” She climbed to her feet, brushing off her visibly damp posterior; her knees and shins bore soggy splotches as well. “Besides, if you pay attention, you’ll see it’s when you’re protecting someone else that you get yourself into so much trouble.”
She left him then, walking back to the house as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Reandn stared at her back until she was nearly to the sickroom door, and then shouted after her, “I can’t not do that either!”
“I know,” she said over her shoulder, far too airily to suit him. “That’s why we all love you anyway.” And then the door closed behind her.
Reandn let his head fall back against the barn once more, groaning and glad there was no one to hear it. Women. What made it worse was that he was certain that the entire exchange had made sense to her.
From inside the barn, Sky blasted a mighty whinny at him, demanding the mare, demanding to be outside, demanding something other than what he had. Reandn waved him away, as if the horse could see or care, and suddenly realized just how much of the damp ground had seeped through the seat of his pants.
Might as well take a look at those other fence posts after all.
~~~~~~~~~~