Ron Collins
It was nearing high sun when Nwah and Darkwind stopped to rest at a spring filled with cool water.
A breeze ruffled fur across Nwah’s shoulders. The air was growing thick, and the riverbed smelled of the metallic heat peculiar to baking rocks. To the east, the forest grew dense with tall oak and majestic sumac. Behind them only a few clouds marked the sky, low on the distant horizon.
The end of their travel was drawing near. Oris, east of Valdemar, was less than two days out. They would find Maakdal’s pack soon, and then she would be at her new home. The idea, now so close, brought anxiety. Maakdal would take her in, of course he would.
But what if he didn’t?
Males are all so fragile.
The thought made her flash to Kade, who was back at his studies in Haven by now. Though he’d been supportive of her, Nwah knew her decision to leave Haven had hurt him. She could tell from the dour nature of the emotions that came over her whenever she focused on him.
She hoped he was doing better now.
Nwah lapped at the sweet water pooled in the dark eddy. The spring was cool against her tongue. She felt it all the way through her body.
Darkwind, who had been training her Gift as he escorted her, walked to the edge of a boulder that stretched an arm’s reach over the currents. He sat down to rest, drawing his knees up toward his chin as he unstopped a skin. Vree, his Bondbird, was stretching her wings and scouting ahead in the open sky. True to her word to the princess, Nwah had worked hard to learn from him as they traveled, and Darkwind had often praised her. Now he seemed unhappy, or at least disconcerted. She suspected he was disappointed in her performance in last night’s lessons.
It wasn’t her fault, though.
She could access the ley-lines and form magic, but her personality was not suited to deal with the delicate nature of the things Darkwind was trying to teach her. She had been working hard. Hard enough that she heard his lessons in her dream state, and woke up with echoes of his voice in her ears, but she told him again and again that the intense concentration required to control the eddies that remained behind as she opened and closed gates was just not in her nature. Nevertheless, he remained adamant that she learn these things.
:It needs to become reflexive,: he said late in the evening. :A Mage gets only so much time to concentrate, and in emergencies you can’t waste a moment on these fundamentals. Learn this, or larger magics will consume you.:
She had snapped then.
She blamed it on fatigue. Never in her life had Nwah attempted to learn so much so quickly—and that included days when she and her denlings were pups at her mother’s side.
:I am the one who called out the great horde!: she’d said too sharply, recalling earlier castings that had saved her life as well as Kade’s. :I think I know how to deal with big magics.:
Darkwind had been silent ever since, and she discovered she liked a silent Darkwind even less than a talkative one. The intensity of his disappointment strained her senses. Made her feel less comfortable in the forest, and as the forest was her home, that meant something bigger than she’d first thought. If she wanted to feel paranoid and insecure, she could have done that back in Haven.
She didn’t like feeling shunned.
:Are you all right?: she said as she curried her coat. The jaunt this morning had been brisk, and with her thirst now sated she felt a not unpleasant burn in the muscles of her legs and back.
“I am fine,” Darkwind replied. His communication, made aloud rather than through Mindspeaking, felt distant.
:You haven’t spoken all morning.:
“Perhaps you could learn something from that.”
:How can you teach me anything when you won’t even talk to me?:
:Why should I teach you when you refuse to learn?:
Nwah stewed, licking her chops in something that wasn’t anger so much as a sense of desperation. They were coming to the end of their trip, and he wasn’t finished. She guessed that was why he was driving her so hard.
Darkwind broke the moment by rolling to his knees, then reaching his skin down to fill it with water.
He teetered on the edge of the rock. His lanky arm reached down.
She felt the water then. Felt the smell of the current as a slow pressure against her tongue. Air current against the hair of her neck was sweet, and she recalled a day as a young kyree when she was playing with brother Edwan. Recalled a jump into a spring such as this, the cool water rising and splashing to her belly as she ran in it, yapping and playing, and the way time seemed to stand still in that most delicious way.
The urge came over her in an instant, and she could not resist.
The ley-line was so close and Darkwind’s brow was furrowed in such a serious manner.
The stream called to her, and Nwah answered, opening the flow and touching energy that tasted warm like those memories. She let it build to that perfect instant, then pushed against that water below Darkwind’s outstretched skin.
A rushing wave of the stream rose from the surface.
“Hey!”
Nwah came out of her spell to see Darkwind sitting back on his haunches, soaked, with rivulets of clear water rolling off his long hair. “What was that for?”
Despite herself, Nwah burst out laughing.
:I’m sorry!: she finally gasped. :I just . . . I just couldn’t help it.:
Darkwind glanced at the waterskin, which had been perhaps half filled, but was now losing its contents fast. His expression, at first dark, seemed to lighten as he watched her try to rein in her joy. Then he, too, laughed. :I’m sorry, too.:
:Sorry for what? I’m the one not learning fast enough.:
:You are working hard. I need to credit you for that.:
:It’s still not enough, though, is it?:
:No. It’s not. And it won’t ever be enough until you decide you can do something you’ve never done before.:
Nwah gave a confused whine.
Darkwind stood on the rock face and shook out his wet arms.
:You did just close the ley-line properly,: he said. :Without even thinking about it.:
A feeling of accomplishment crept over her. :I did, didn’t I?:
Her basking was interrupted by a wave of water that rose from the spring and suddenly splashed over her. She leaped aside, but was too late to avoid having her pelt soaked.
:What was that!:
Darkwind still stood on the rock, but was now grinning from ear to ear, the faint aroma of magic clinging to him. :You’ve still got a lot to learn,: he said with a wink that made her think of Edwan again, rainbow-tinted droplets dazzling from his coat in the sun. :At first I thought I was going to need to find a trainer in Oris to complete your progress, but now I’m not so sure. What do you say we dry off and talk about it as we head on?:
:That sounds like a plan.:
:No more silliness, though, all right? I need you to focus.:
:All right,: Nwah said. She wasn’t so sure about that, though. She liked this side of Darkwind. He liked it, too. Despite his protestations, she could tell.
As Darkwind dried himself, Nwah felt a new sense of power growing in her. A feeling of certainty, or rightness, she hadn’t had before.
He was right about her, though she most certainly could not have said why.
She had been afraid of herself. Worried she was somehow lesser, fearing, for example that the nuances it took to close the ley-line properly were beyond her ability. Before Darkwind came along, she had never had anyone dig into her Gift, so she had always been free to ignore certain truths. But there were things inside her Gift that scared her in ways she couldn’t describe. Things she worried might overpower her if she let herself release them again. It had happened before. When she’d called the horde, it had nearly drained her. She could feel that truth now.
And Darkwind was making her face these things. He was demanding she hold every piece of this Gift in her mind as if she could control them all, exposing her fears one by one as he worked through the many elements of this Gift with her.
Until now, fear of failure made it easier to pretend she couldn’t learn, but Darkwind expected more from her.
Accept her fears and deal with them.
The idea made her feel stronger somehow.
Standing there, drying in the heat of the sun alongside Darkwind, she understood him better—saw his distance at times as his own protective device, saw his insistence on her efforts as his way of helping her become the Mage she was born to become.
She felt good.
She had a goal now: do her best to make sure Darkwind didn’t need to find any other to train her. If she focused, she knew she could do it.
So, who knew what silliness the future might bring?
• • •
Kade was having trouble concentrating when the sensation from Nwah washed over him.
He was sitting in the shade of an old tree in a quiet part of Companion’s Field, with a heavy old book he’d taken from his history classroom on his lap. It was getting late enough in the morning that he was now sweating through his light greens. The tree bark was sharp against his back, and there was always a beetle crawling up his ankle or some noxious bug buzzing in his ear.
He was tired, too. He hadn’t slept at all last night, choosing to burn his candles down in hopes of somehow coming to understand the depths of intrigue between Valdemar and Hardorn over the ages—a topic that seemed twisted in as many knots as there were sharp spots on the gnarled roots of this tree.
He hadn’t slept much for several days, really. Ever since he’d returned from his trip to save Nwah, it was like every instructor at Collegium had made it their personal goal to drive him into the ground.
It was so bad he was falling asleep in classes and missing assignments.
Now his mind was popping like grease on a skillet.
He really did need to get a better understanding about the historical relationship between Haven and Hardorn—which was what all the other students were chattering on about. There was going to be a public challenge on the material tomorrow, and the more he studied on the subject the less he seemed to understand. He’d missed Herald Kath, who was teaching the course, give the assignment, probably because he was so tired from being up working on moss medicines the night before—which was another bit of schooling that seemed just out of his touch. He wouldn’t even have known there was going to be a challenge match coming tomorrow if he hadn’t overheard several others agreeing to meet to cover items they would need to know.
Which is why Kade was sitting at the base of a tree, studying now, rather than riding with Leena over the sun-draped Fields.
Sensing a rush from Nwah, however, he put his head back against the bark and let the moment settle. He breathed in the warm air, feeling the familiar comfort of the kyree’s touch, then let the breath out, fighting the losing game of trying to relax.
Nwah had been happy. That much, at least, was good.
Leena, his Companion, crossed from the grassy grounds of Companion’s Field to stand beside him. She’d obviously seen him take a break from his study and wanted attention.
She pressed her warm head against Kade’s shoulder and gave a gentle chuff.
:What was that?: she asked.
:What is what?: Kade responded sharply, shutting the thick tome with a dull thud.
:A moment ago,: she replied. :You smiled. What was that about?:
:It was nothing.:
She quivered the muscles over her neck to show she was displeased by his dismissiveness, then flicked her tail.
She’d made him come here today—though he knew he should have anyway.
The link between Companion and Chosen was the most important thing in a Herald’s life—certainly of greater priority than studying for a history challenge. But he couldn’t help himself. Every time he considered giving up and admitting failure, he saw the mocking faces of the other students—who had been hounding him for, well, for as long as he’d been accepted into the halls of the Collegium. He was from the forests, they were not. He was unschooled in society life, they held judgments—especially from those wearing the blue uniforms of the unaffiliated.
Leena told him not to worry over it and that it would pass. They didn’t really know him, and they were likely even jealous of the advanced nature of his Gift.
He tried, but he couldn’t do that.
Kade felt his difference every time he was around any of them, especially those Blue uniforms who were not afraid to let him know they were of higher standing. It didn’t stop there, though. He heard snickers all around.
Making fun of him was a joke everyone could share. If he didn’t study hard, the challenge would embarrass him even further. Which was exactly why he couldn’t take his mind off the challenge. It was bad enough to be ridiculed behind his back, but he couldn’t stand the idea of looking the fool in public.
He was now officially beginning to wonder what happened to Chosen who failed out of their Heraldic studies.
Still, Leena deserved better.
And it was true that simply being with her made the weight lighter.
He steeled himself and took an overly dramatic breath.
:It was Nwah,: he finally said. :She played some kind of trick on Darkwind, and it made her laugh.:
:What kind of trick?:
:I’m not sure. All I got was an image of Darkwind laughing and being soaking wet on the banks of a river of some kind. I’m guessing he was being his usual Darkwind self, and she threw water on him.:
Leena sounded a delightful tone that Kade knew as a laugh.
:I wish we’d been there,: she said. :I’d give up apples for a week to see Darkwind doused.:
:Yeah.:
Distant birdsong filled the moment of silence that passed between them. The sense of Darkwind’s surprise lingered on Kade’s mind and made him fight a smile of his own.
:It’s going to be okay, you know?: Leena said. :Your studies. They are hard now, but you’ll make it.:
:I wish I had your confidence,: he replied. :I dreamed of being here for so long, but it’s so much harder than I imagined it would be.:
His expression returned to a frown as he turned back to his book.
Rather than letters and maps on the page, though, he saw the expressions of his schoolmates as they laughed at him. He closed the book again and leaned his head back against the tree. They were all so quick. He was just a nobody from the forest.
He gave a sardonic laugh and returned to his work.
• • •
Behind Kade now, Companion Leena pawed at the ground of Companion’s Field.
In the weeks since they last returned to Haven, Kade had been particularly distant. He blamed it on his Collegium coursework and the laboratories they required—but she also understood there was more to it than overwork and academic anxiety.
Kade and Nwah were Lifebonded. This was the first time they’d been truly apart.
On top of coursework that seemed so suffocating, Leena felt his anxiety over Nwah in his every moment. Pain of loss takes its time to heal, she’d heard from the Queen’s Companion Caryo herself, but Kade was in no mood to hear the truth—that Nwah had not left him at all, but that she had instead left Haven, a place of business and progress that was anathema to a wild spirit like the little kyree’s.
At least she’d gotten him out of the House and the Library for a few moments.
The air was nice outside her stables, and it was warm in the sunshine. The nook was a good place to relax, open to the sky and set apart from the more hectic pace of life Haven, and the Collegium in particular, often provided. It was one of several such grounds built within Companion’s Field, but this was her favorite because it was sweet with budding cherry blossoms and alive with the buzz of bees.
Kade paid no attention, though.
The sight of him still focused so intently on that book—finger tracing positions across the page, legs crossed in the grass underneath, cascading locks of his thick hair hiding his gaze from the outside world—was enough to give a Companion a complex.
She huffed.
Again, nothing.
He needed a break.
The lighthearted moment between Nwah and Darkwind had lifted her own mood, though, as well as his. She opened her nostrils wide and took in a draught of cherry blossoms.
Yes, she thought. Her Chosen could work up his own Darkwind-like brooding. And like Nwah’s escort, perhaps he needed to adjust his manner, too.
Perhaps Kade needed one of those moments of his own.
She wasn’t so sure she could pull it off on her own, but luckily she knew a couple of coconspirators who could probably be convinced to help her out.
• • •
When the sun hit its high point, Kade decided he’d had enough frivolity.
“It’s time to go in,” he said, clapping the book shut.
At least this time Leena didn’t argue with him. Instead, she simply accompanied him back to the Collegium—which, since he took her silence as a form of condemnation, bothered him even more.
He wasn’t getting anything done here, though.
Too many distractions. Leaves rustling, birds flitting from branch to branch. Leena hovering over him like a worried mother. He wished she could see that.
Instead, she seemed particularly smug now. As if she had a secret she wasn’t going to share. He tried to sense her mood, but he got little in return.
Fine. If she was going to play scorned Companion, so be it.
:Study well,: she said when they arrived at the gate to the Healer’s Collegium, butting her forehead against his shoulder in the way she liked to do when they parted.
At first, he wasn’t sure if she was doing that just to make him think she was better than him, or to send some other message. But a moment later his better wits returned. He was going to apologize for his behavior, but by the time he’d come to his senses, she had already begun her return trip to Companion’s Field, and to chase her down would be more embarrassing than things already were.
Gods, but he was screwing up all over the place.
So instead of chasing after Leena, Kade stood at the doorway listening to the sound of her retreat as it rang over the grounds, feeling about as heavy as the tome in his arm. He shouldn’t blame her for being mad, but there just wasn’t anything else for him to do except face the fact that he couldn’t handle the coursework here. He couldn’t keep going like this. Studying in every spare moment, reciting facts while he prepared his part of the meals the cook was preparing that night, dozing in class. Everything was coming to a head.
He was so tired.
If it weren’t for the fact that he kept hearing of the assignments from other students as they were leaving the session, he wouldn’t even know he had work to do.
Everyone—including himself—knew he was dumb.
He just wanted to avoid proving it in public.
The flash of joviality from Nwah earlier in the day had reminded him of better times, but it also served to make things worse. He missed the little kyree more than he could say, but he didn’t want her to know that. Now the idea of Nwah out playing in the water and the sun made his own situation just that much more depressing.
Resigned, he closed the door and headed toward the library, trying to focus.
Hardon . . . he thought. Ancar’s treachery . . . Eastern Empire . . . Grand Duke Tremane. . . .
Politics was the worst.
Since it was between class times, the library was busy. Even Herald Kath, he saw, was toiling away in a corner he held all to himself. The sight of him made Kade want to hide away, so he skirted the area just to ensure the instructor wouldn’t pop a surprise question for whatever reason at him.
He took an isolated carrel in a far nook of the library floor as far away from his teacher as possible, and placed the tome against one of the thick walls built to provide focus—sliding it under a shelf that would hold other books and being certain to avoid jostling the can of quills and the well of ink that sat in the opposite corner. It was dark enough in the corner that he considered lighting the candle, but that could wait for now.
He then went to the shelves and found three others. Geography and Mathematics would be next, then would come an assignment on proper use of mints in medicinal applications. He didn’t have a moment to waste.
He collected a few other tomes and a loose manuscript on his way back, enough that they filled his arms and made it a bit awkward to fit them into the carrel.
He opened the geography book first.
He liked that subject, at least. It appealed to the way his mind held pictures, and he always enjoyed looking at maps because they made him feel somehow bigger than he was. For a moment he let his mind play on an illustration of the region—and let himself focus on the Pelagirs where he had come from, far to the south.
What was his father doing now? Farming still?
And his mother?
His gaze traced a path out of those woods and across the map to take in the path he and Nwah had traveled. It seemed somehow both longer and shorter than he remembered it.
Why was he here? He’d never had any plan. Simply to live in the forests and keep working with the liverwort and bloodroot there. Play with herbs and scents. Fix things. That was all he’d ever had on his mind. But he’d grown up, and now there were people and books and lessons to learn.
For a moment, he remembered the earthy scent of the forest and the feeling of Nwah out hunting in the woods.
“Master Kade?” a voice came from behind him.
“Yes,” he said even before he turned.
As he swiveled in his chair, he saw two youths he recognized as children of the Head Cook—the older a boy of maybe eight, the younger a girl—both wearing heavy pants that fell to their knees (good for playing in) and billowy shirts. He wished he’d remembered their names.
The boy’s expression seemed deadly serious, the girl’s wide-eyed and full of mischief.
Each held a large, open-throated decanter made of thin brass. The sound of water sloshing echoed from both.
“Hello there,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
The brother’s face took on a wily expression.
“You can tell Leena she owes us both a ride!”
Then, with the trilling screams and cackling laughter of youth, the brother and sister team reared back and dumped the water over him. In an instant he was soaked, and the children were running away, decanters clattering against the floor where they’d been tossed aside like so much ballast.
Kade got up to chase but tripped over the chair, which tumbled to the floor with a crash that stopped whatever studious activity that hadn’t already been stopped by the sound of the kids’ laugher. By the time he was back on his feet, the children were already turning the corner and leaving the library.
He stood there, very much wet and dripping, and feeling more embarrassed with every moment as the other students stared at him. As if simply appearing in his place, Herald Kath was suddenly there, too, stepping between tables near him.
A chill crossed over Kade’s skin that he could pretend was due to the movement of air across his wet arms. At least he wasn’t tired anymore.
“What was that about?” Kath said.
“I don’t—” Kade was about to say he didn’t know, but then he did know. The kids’ message and the idea of a soaking said it all. Kade shook off droplets that snaked down his arms, recalling the sensation of a drenched Darkwind. “I think my Companion was making a statement.”
Kath pressed his lips together. “Leena is a patient Companion. What have you done to warrant such a message?”
Kade shrugged. “I guess I haven’t been as attentive as I needed to be.”
“And why would that be?”
The air went out of him, and he felt the truth of the moment as starkly as the brace of water he’d received to the face. He couldn’t keep the charade up any longer. It was time to fess up.
“I needed to be ready for tomorrow’s challenge, Herald. But you might as well fail me because I can’t do it all. It’s all just too much for me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The challenge you assigned the class. I’ve been working on the material all week, but I just can’t do it.”
“Challenge?”
“Yes, sir. It’s tomorrow, isn’t it?”
The Herald’s face grew suddenly lighter. “I see,” he said. “And who told you there was a challenge tomorrow?”
“I thought you did.”
“No, Kade. I think you heard that from someone else, and I can make a few guesses as to who that might be. But rest assured, we’ll be having no challenge tomorrow.”
Kade’s relief was palpable.
Then came the burning chill of anger. All that work. He flashed on the collection of students, three Blues and a pair of Greens, whispering about the challenge. One had glanced his way, then given a nervous twitch of a lip as if he wasn’t supposed to have heard them. They had duped him. Muscles tensed up his back, and he felt heat in his cheeks.
“No challenge?” His voice trailed off, still filling with this new reality.
“Let me see your texts,” Instructor Kath said, looking over Kade’s shoulder to the pile behind him.
Kade righted the chair, then gathered the books.
Herald Kath sorted through them each, one after the other, snorting here and there, and making derisive noises that Kade worried were pointed at him. “Well,” the instructor finally said, holding up the last tome—a book on northern geography. “It appears your nemeses have helped you out.”
“Helped me out, sir?”
“The extra work you’ve been doing has been so difficult because it covers material you were likely to be assigned next year. That you were able to absorb it at all is a mark on your side of the ledger, I’d say.”
Kade took it in.
“I’ll give you a few days good rest, but I think an assessment is called for. Assuming you show you’ve mastered your learning—which I would guess you have, even though you don’t believe it—I’ll strongly consider advancing your training’s timetable.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Well, if you don’t then I expect you’ll at least fly through it when you get there.”
“That would be . . . marvelous,” Kade said, suddenly feeling his fatigue catch back up to him.
Kath put the books back onto the table. “You’re dead on your feet, boy. I’ll put these back where they belong. I’d suggest you get dried off and head out to the Field.”
“I’ll do that, sir. Thank you. But let me put the books back. I pulled them. It’s mine to return them.”
Herald Kath smiled. “You’re a good student, Kade. You’re going to make a fine Healer sooner than you think. And don’t worry about the others. You’ll outgrow most of them soon enough.” A touch of distance came to his gaze then, and his lips formed a comfortable smile. “In the meantime, I’m thinking we might just have a challenge tomorrow after all. It would probably do well if you were to read the twelfth page of that history tome you’ve been toting around before you go to sleep tonight.”
Kade smiled, then, too. “I’ll do that, sir.”
He picked up the books and got to work.
For the first time in weeks, he felt as though he might manage to make it through his training, and he couldn’t wait to see Leena giving the cook’s kids their rides.
• • •
Nwah was padding through a clearing in the forest when a sensation of warmth came from Kade—strong, and surprising enough that a small wheeze escaped her throat.
“What was that?” Darkwind said.
:Nothing,: she replied. :Just a thought.:
But it wasn’t nothing. It was Kade. Beautiful Kade, who she knew would always be with her even as she knew they would often be apart. She had been worried about him, fearful that he’d taken their situation too hard. He was human. Not kyree like Nwah. Though he’d lived his life in the wilds, he did not have the blood history of a family in the wilds running through his veins. Nwah understood Kade could not leave Haven, just as she understood she could not be there, but Kade would grapple with this truth for a long time, perhaps even forever.
Kade was finally happy today, though, and that was a start.
She came to the crest of a ridge in the woods, watching Darkwind climb behind her.
:I’m wondering,: she asked when he arrived. :How you manage times when you have to be away from Elspeth?:
:Poorly,: he said, smiling with an expression that let her see inside him. :But that’s a different kind of Gift, now, isn’t it? Sometimes life plays little pranks on us all. But we are who we are, and the times we can be together make everything else worth it.:
Nwah huffed.
Yes, she thought as Kade’s essence settled. That made sense.