C H A P T E R T H R E EAll the way back to Marisa Pines Camp, Dancer strode along, slender shoulders hunched, his usually sunny face clouded, his body language discouraging conversation. After a couple of tries, Han gave up and was left to wrestle with his questions alone.
Han knew nothing of wizardry beyond his mother’s dire warnings. Did it come on in childhood or not until much later? Did it require amulets like the one that seemed to weigh down his bag? Did wizards need schooling, or did charmcasters have an inborn knowledge of what to do?
Most of all, how was it fair that some people had the power to make others do their bidding, to create fires that couldn’t be put out, or turn a cat into a hawk, if the stories could be believed.
To break the world nearly beyond repair.
The clans had magic too—of a different sort. Dancer’s mother, Willo, was Matriarch of Marisa Pines Camp, and a gifted healer. She could take a dry stick and make it bloom, could make anything grow in her hillside fields, could heal by touch and voice. Her remedies were in demand as far away as Arden. The clans were known for their leatherwork, their metalwork, their tradition of creating amulets and other magical objects.
Bayar had made much of the fact that Dancer had no named father. How did he know that, and why did he care? The way Han saw it, Dancer didn’t need a father. He was totally embedded in the clan, surrounded by aunts and uncles who doted on him, cousins to hunt with, everyone connected by blood and tradition. Even when Willo was away, there was always a hearth to welcome him, food to share, a bed to sleep in.
Compared to Dancer, Han was more the orphan, with only his mother and sister and a father dead in the Ardenine Wars. They shared a single room over a stable in the Ragmarket neighborhood of Fellsmarch. The more he thought on it, the more Han felt sorry for himself—magicless and fatherless. Without prospects. Mam had told him often enough he’d never amount to anything.
They were about a half mile from camp when Han realized they were being followed. It wasn’t any one thing that caused him to think so: when he turned to inspect some winter burned seed pods at the side of the trail, he heard footfalls behind them that stopped abruptly. A squirrel continued to scold from a pine tree long after they’d passed. Once he swung around and thought he saw a flash of movement.
Fear shivered over him. The wizards must have doubled back after them. He’d heard how they could make themselves invisible or turn into birds and strike from out of the air. Ducking his head just in case, he looked over at Dancer, who seemed absorbed in his own gloomy thoughts.
Han knew better than to allow an enemy to choose the time and place of an attack. Just as he and Dancer rounded a curve of the hill, he gripped Dancer’s arm, pulling him off the trail, behind the massive trunk of an oak tree.
Dancer jerked his arm free. “What are you…?”
“Shhh,” Han hissed, putting his finger to his lips and gesturing for Dancer to stay put. Han loped back the way they came, making a big circle so as to come in behind any pursuers. Yes. He glimpsed a slight figure clothed in forest colors gliding from shadow into sunlight up ahead. He put on speed, lengthening his stride, thankful that the wet ground absorbed the sound of his footsteps. He was almost there when his quarry must have heard him coming and cut sharply to the right. Not wanting to allow the charmcaster time to conjure a jinx, Han launched himself, crashing into the intruder and hanging on as they rolled down a small slope and splashed into Old Woman Creek.
“Ow!” Han banged his elbow against a small boulder in the creek bed and lost his hold on the charmcaster, who twisted and wriggled and seemed incredibly slippery and soft in unexpected places. Han’s head went under, and he sucked in a lungful of water. Coughing, half panicked, he pushed himself to his feet, slinging his wet hair out of his eyes, worried he’d be jinxed before he could act.
Behind him, someone was laughing, gasping with merriment, scarcely able to speak. “H-H-Hunts Alone! It’s still too cold for s-swimming.”
Han swung around. Dancer’s cousin Digging Bird sat in the shallows, her mop of dark curls plastered around her face, her wet linen blouse clinging to her upper body so the light fabric was rendered nearly transparent. She grinned at him shamelessly, her eyes traveling up his body in turn.
He resisted the temptation to duck back under the freezing water. His face burned, and he knew it must be flaming red. It took him a minute to get his voice going. “Bird?” he whispered, mortified, knowing he would never hear the end of this.
“Maybe we should change your name to Hunts Bird,” she teased.
“N-no,” he stammered, raising his hands as if to ward off a curse.
“Jumps in the Creek? Red in the Face?” she persisted.
That was all he needed. Clan names constantly changed to fit until you were grown and thought to be stable. You might be Cries in the Night as a baby, Squirrel as a child, and Throws Stones as an adult. It was always confusing to flatlanders.
“No,” Han pleaded. “Please, Bird…”
“I’ll call you whatever I want,” Digging Bird said, standing and wading to the shore. “Hunts Bird,” she decided. “It can be our secret name.”
Han stood there helplessly, waist-deep in the water, thinking she was the one who needed a new name.
He and Bird and Dancer had been friends since he could remember. Every summer since he was small, Mam had sent him up from the city to live at Marisa Pines. They’d camped together, hunted together, and fought endless battles against imaginary enemies throughout the Spirit Mountains.
They’d studied under the ancient bow master at Hunter’s Camp, chafing at the requirement that they build a bow before shooting it. He’d been with Bird when she took her first deer, then burned with envy until he got his. When he did, she’d taught him how to slow smoke the meat so it would last through the winter. They were twelve at the time.
They played hare and wolf for days on end. One of them—the hare—would set out through the woods, doing his or her best to throw the other two off, by walking over solid rock or wading miles in a streambed or detouring through one of the high-country camps. If one wolf found the hare, then they’d walk together until the third player found them.
Bird was great to travel with. She found the best campsites—sheltered from the weather and defensible. She could build a fire in the middle of a rainstorm and find game at any altitude. Many nights they’d shared a blanket for warmth.
The three of them had tasted hard cider for the first time at the Falling Leaves Market, and he’d washed the sick from Bird’s face when she drank too much.
But these days he always felt awkward around Bird, and she was the one who had changed. Now when he walked into Marisa Pines Camp, she was likely to be sitting with a group of other girls her age. They would watch him with bold eyes and then put their heads together and whisper. If he tried to approach her, the other girls would giggle and nudge each other.
He’d once owned the streets of Ragmarket, and people made sure to get out of his way. He’d had his share of girlies, too—a streetlord could have his pick. But for some reason, Bird always put him off-balance. Maybe it was because she was so damnably good at everything.
When they were younger, wrestling in the creek would have been prelude to nothing. Now every word between them crackled with meaning, and every action had unintended consequences.
“Bird! Hunts Alone! What happened? Did you fall in the creek?” Dancer had appeared at the top of the slope.
Bird squeezed water out of her leggings. “Hunts Alone threw me in,” she said to her cousin, a little smugly.
“I thought you were someone else,” Han muttered.
Bird swung around to confront him, her face darkening. “Who?” she demanded. “Who did you think I was?”
Han shrugged and waded to shore. That was another thing. Where once they’d finished each other’s sentences and all but communed mind to mind, now Bird had become unpredictable, given to bizarre fits of temper.
“Who?” she repeated, hard on his heels, intent on prying it out of him. “You thought I was some other girl?”
“Not a girl.” Han yanked off his boots and dumped the water out of them. At least some of the mud had washed off. “We ran into some charmcasters in Burnt Tree Meadow. They spooked the deer, and we got into an argument. When I heard you following us, I thought you were one of them.”
She blinked at him. “Charmcasters,” she said. “What would charmcasters be doing up here? And how do I look like one, anyway?”
“Well. You don’t,” Han said. “My mistake.” He looked up, and their eyes met, and he swallowed hard. Bird’s cheeks colored a deep rose, and she turned to Dancer.
“What words did you have to say to a jinxflinger, cousin?” she asked.
“None,” Dancer said, shooting a warning look at Han.
“We would’ve each taken a deer if not for them,” Han felt compelled to say, then was immediately sorry when Bird looked at him and raised her eyebrows. Bird always said that a deer in the smokehouse was worth a whole herd in the woods.
“So what happened?” Bird asked, leaning forward. “Was something burning? I smelled smoke.”
Han and Dancer looked at each other, each waiting for the other to speak. “They set fire to Hanalea,” Han said finally. “The charmcasters.”
“So you confronted them?” Bird said, leaning forward, looking from one to the other. “And then what?”
“Nothing happened. They left,” Dancer said.
“Fine,” Bird said, angry again. “Don’t tell me anything. I don’t care anyway. But you’d better tell Willo about it, at least. They shouldn’t be in the Spirits at all, let alone setting fires.”
Han shivered. The sun had gone and he was covered in gooseflesh. In past days he’d have stripped off and laid his wet clothes out to dry. He glanced over at Bird. Not anymore.
“Let’s go on to Marisa Pines,” Dancer said, as if he could read Han’s mind. “They’ll have a fire going.”
The sky had clouded over, and a chill wind funneled between the peaks, but the brisk six-mile walk kept Han’s blood moving. Bird’s lips were blue, and Han thought of putting an arm around her, to warm her, but it would have been awkward on the narrow rocky trail. Plus she might only snap at him again.
The dogs greeted them when they were still a half mile from Marisa Pines. It was a motley pack—rugged, long-haired sheepdogs, wolf mixes, and spotted flatland hounds bought at market. Next came the children, from solemn round-faced toddlers to long-legged ten-year-olds, alerted by the dogs.
Most had straight, dark hair, brown eyes, and coppery skin, though some had blue or green eyes, like Dancer, or curly hair, like Bird. There had been considerable mixing of Valefolk and clan over the years. And Valefolk with the blue-eyed, fairhaired wizard invaders from the Northern Isles.
But almost no direct mixing of wizard and clan. Wizards had not been allowed in the Spirit Mountains for a thousand years.
Questions flew from all directions, in a mixture of Common and Clan. “Where have you been? How did you get all wet? How long are you staying? Hunts Alone, will you sleep in our lodge tonight?” Even though Han came often to Marisa Pines, girls a year or two younger than him still dared each other to run up and touch his pale hair, so different from their own.
Bird did her best to shoo them off. One especially aggressive girl yanked out a strand of his hair, and Han stomped after her, scowling, pretending to chase her. That sent her and her friends scurrying into the woods, their laughter sieving through the trees like sunlight.
“What’s in the bag? Do you have any sweets?” A tiny girl with a long braid made a grab for his backpack.
“No sweets today,” Han growled. “And keep off. I’ve got a bag full of blisterweed.” Excruciatingly conscious of the amulet in his bag, Han protected it under the curve of his arm. It was as if he had a large poisonous snake in there, or a goblet too fragile to touch.
By the time they came within sight of the camp, they had a large following.
Marisa Pines Camp stood sentinel at the pass that led through the southern Spirits to the flatlands beyond. It was large, as clan camps went—perhaps a hundred lodges of varying sizes, built far enough apart so they could be added onto as families grew.
The camp was centered by the Common Lodge—a large building used for markets, ceremonies, and the feasts for which the clans were famous. Close by the Common Lodge stood the Matriarch Lodge. Dancer and Bird lived there with Dancer’s mother, Willo, Matriarch of Marisa Pines, and a fluid mix of friends, blood relations, and children fostered from other camps.
Marisa Pines prospered as a center for commerce, given its strategic location. Handwork from camps throughout the Spirits flowed into the camp, where brokers shopped its famous markets and funneled clan-made goods to Arden to the south, to Tamron Court, and to Fellsmarch down in the Vale.
Relations between the clans and the queen might be strained these days, but that did not staunch the thirst of flatlanders for upland goods—silver and gold work, leather, precious stones set into jewelry and decorative pieces, handwoven yard goods, stitchery, art, and magical objects. Clan goods never wore out, they brought luck to the owner, and it was said that clan charms would win over the most resistant of sweethearts.
The Marisa Pines clan was known for remedies, dyes, healing, and handwoven fabrics. The Demonai were famous for magical amulets and their warriors. The Hunter clan produced smoked meats, furs and skins, and nonmagical weapons. Other camps specialized in nonmagical jewelry, paintings, and other decorative arts.
Too bad it wasn’t a market day, Han thought. On a market day they’d have got no attention at all. Which would’ve been fine with Han, who was growing tired of explaining his sodden clothes. It was a relief to duck through the doorway of the Matriarch Lodge and escape the relentlessly rattling tongues.
A fire blazed in the center of the lodge, hot and smokeless. The interior was fragrant with winterberry, pine, and cinnamon, and the scent of stew wafted in from the adjacent cooking lodge. Han’s mouth watered. Willo’s house always smelled good enough to eat.
The Matriarch Lodge could have been a small market, all on its own. Great bundles of herbs hung from the ceiling, and casks and baskets and pots lined the walls. On one side were paints and dyes and earthenware jars of beads and feathers. On the other were the medicinals—salves and tonics and pungent potions of all kinds, many rendered from the plants Han gathered.
Hides stretched over frames, some with designs painstakingly drawn on them. Three girls about Han’s age huddled around one of them, their sleek heads nearly touching, brushing paint onto the leather.
Hangings divided the room into several chambers. From behind one curtain, Han could hear the murmur of voices. Patients and their families often stayed over so the matriarch could tend them without leaving the lodge.
Willo sat at the loom in the corner. The overhead beater thudded as she smacked it against the fell of the rug she was weaving. The warp stretched wide and winter-dark, since weavers worked a season ahead. Willo’s rugs were sturdy and beautiful, and people said they kept enemies from crossing your threshold.
Still shivering, Bird disappeared into one of the adjacent chambers to change into dry clothes.
Willo laid down her shuttle, rose from the bench, and came toward them, skirts sliding over the rugs. Somehow, Han’s resentment and frustration faded, and it was a better day.
Everyone agreed that the Marisa Pines matriarch was beautiful, though her beauty went deeper than appearance. Some mentioned the movement of her hands when she spoke, like small birds. Others praised her voice, which they compared to the Dyrnnewater, singing on its way to the sea. Her dark hair fell, beaded and braided, nearly to her waist. When she danced, it was said the animals crept out of the forest to watch. She was a crooner, who could speak, mind to mind, to animals. Her touch healed the sick, soothed the grieving, cheered the discouraged, and made cowards brave.
When pressed, Han had trouble even describing what she looked like. He guessed she was in a category all on her own, like a woodland nymph. She was whatever you needed her to be to find the best in yourself.
He couldn’t help comparing her to Mam, who always seemed to see the worst in him.
“Welcome, Hunts Alone,” she said. “Will you share our fire?” The ritual greeting to the guest. Then her gaze fastened more closely on Han, and she raised an eyebrow. “What happened to you? Did you fall into the Dyrnnewater?”
Han shook his head. “Old Woman Creek.”
Willo looked him up and down, frowning. “You’ve been in the mudpots as well, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Well. Right.” Han looked down at his feet, embarrassed that he’d been so careless with Willo’s beautiful boots.
“He can have my flatlander breeches,” Dancer offered. He studied Han’s long legs. “Though he’ll show some ankle, I guess.”
Like most clan, Dancer owned the minimum one or two pair of leggings and one pair of breeches to wear into town. He’d be happy to give up the breeches. Dancer wore the uncomfortable flatlander garb under protest anyway.
“I think I have something that will work.” Willo crossed to the assembly of baskets, bins, and trunks that lined the wall. She knelt next to one of the bins and dug through clothing. Near the bottom she found what she was looking for and pulled free a pair of worn breeches in a heavy cotton canvas. She held them up and looked from Han to the trousers and back again.
“These will fit,” she proclaimed, and handed them to him, along with a faded linen shirt that had been laundered into softness. “Give me the boots,” she commanded, extending her hand, and for a moment Han was afraid she intended to take them back for good. She must have seen the panic in his face, because she added, “Don’t worry. I’ll just see what I can do to clean them up.”
Han tugged off his muddy boots and handed them over, then ducked into the sleeping chamber to change clothes. He stripped off the wet leggings and shirt and pulled on the dry breeches, wishing he could wash the mud off his skin. As if his unspoken wishes caught the ear of the Maker, Bird pushed the hangings aside and entered with a basin of steaming water and a rag.
“Hey!” he said, glad he’d got his trousers on. “You could knock.” Which was stupid, really, because there wasn’t any door.
She’d changed out of her wet trail garb into skirts and an embroidered shirt, and her wet hair was drying into its usual intriguing tangle. Han still had his shirt off, and she kept staring at his chest and shoulders as if she found them fascinating. Han looked down to see if he’d got mud smeared under his shirt as well. But he was clean there, at least.
Bird plopped down on the sleeping bench next to him, setting the basin on the floor between them. “Here,” she said, handing him a chunk of fragrant upland soap and the rag.
Rolling his breeches above his knees, Han soaped the rag and washed the mud from his bare feet and lower legs, rinsing in the basin. Then he began scrubbing his arms and hands. The silver cuffs around his wrists kept turning when he tried to wipe them clean.
“Let me.” Bird picked up a boar-bristle brush, gripped the cuff on his left wrist, and took the brush to it. She leaned in close, getting that familiar frown on her face that said she was concentrating. She’d used some kind of scent—she smelled like fresh air and vanilla and flowers.
“You should take these off if you’re going to get into the mud,” she grumbled.
“That’s helpful,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You try to get them off.” He tugged at one of them to demonstrate. It was a solid three-inch-wide band of silver, and too small to slide over his hand. He’d had them on ever since he could remember.
“You know they’ve got magic in them. Otherwise you’d have outgrown them by now.” Bird used her fingernail to dig out some dried mud. “Your mother bought them from a peddler?”
He nodded. It must’ve been during some prosperous time in the past, when there was money to spend on silver bracelets for a baby. When they weren’t living hand-to-mouth, as Mam always said.
“She’s got to remember something,” Bird persisted. She never seemed to know when to leave off. “Maybe you could find the peddler who sold them to her.”
Han shrugged. They’d had this conversation before, which he mostly got through by shrugging. Bird didn’t know Mam. His mother never came to the camps in the mountains, never shared songs and stories around a fire. Mam didn’t like to talk about the past, and Han had long ago learned not to ask too many questions, lest she slam her switch down on his fingers or send him to bed without supper.
The clans, they were all about stories. They told stories about things that had happened a thousand years ago. Han never tired of listening to them over and over. Hearing a familiar clan story was like sliding into your own bed on a cold night with a full belly and knowing you’d wake up safe in the same place.
Bird released his one hand and picked up the other. Her fingers were warm and soapy and slippery. “These symbols must mean something,” she said, tapping the cuff with her forefinger. “Maybe if you knew how to use them, you could—I don’t know—shoot flames from the palms of your hands.”
Han was thinking he was just as likely to shoot flames from his rear end. “They look clan-made to me, but Willo doesn’t know what the symbols mean,” Han said. “And if she doesn’t know, nobody does.”
Bird finally dropped the subject. She rinsed off his hands and wrists and used the hem of her skirt to dry them. Pulling a small jar from her pocket, she uncorked it and smeared something onto the silver with her fingers.
He tried to pull away, but she had a tight grip on his wrist. “What’s that?” he asked suspiciously.
“Polish,” she said, rubbing the silver with a dry rag until it shone. She rubbed polish onto the other cuff. Han submitted, though he didn’t really want to call attention to them these days.
“Are you coming to my renaming feast?” Bird asked abruptly, her eyes still focused on her work.
He was surprised by the question. “Well, I’d planned to. If I’m asked.” It had never occurred to him that he wouldn’t be. Bird’s family was prominent among the clans, since she was niece to the Marisa Pines matriarch. Bird’s coming-of-age would be celebrated with a huge party, and Han had been looking forward to it.
She nodded once, briskly. “Good.”
“It’s still a month away, right?” For Han, a month was an eternity. Anything could happen in a month. He never planned more than a day or two ahead.
She nodded again. “For my sixteenth name day.”
Finally letting go of his hands, Bird dropped her own into her lap. She extended her bare toes out from under her skirts, studying them. She wore a silver ring on her right small toe.
“Have you decided on your vocation?” Han asked.
Among the clans, boys and girls to the age of sixteen were expected to train in all skills, from hunting and tracking and herding and use of weapons to weaving and metalworking and healing and singing.
At sixteen they were reborn into their vocations and began apprenticeships. Everyone was required to have a trade, though clan notions of a trade were more flexible than in the city.
For instance, storytelling was a trade.
When Han realized Bird hadn’t answered, he repeated, “Have you decided on a trade?”
Bird looked up at him. “I’m going to be a warrior,” she said, giving him a steely eye as if daring him to object.
“A warrior!” He blinked at her, then blurted, “What does Willo say?”
“She doesn’t know,” Bird said, digging her toes into the rug. “Don’t tell her.”
Willo might be disappointed, Han thought. Having no daughter of her own, she probably hoped Bird would follow her as matriarch and healer. Even though Bird wasn’t exactly the nurturing type.
“How many warriors does Marisa Pines need?” he asked.
“I want to go to Demonai,” Bird said, hunching her shoulders.
“Really?” Bird was aiming high. The Demonai warriors were legendary fighters and hunters. It was said they could survive in the woods for weeks on wind and rain and sunlight. That one Demonai warrior was a match for a hundred soldiers.
Personally, Han thought they were an arrogant lot who kept to themselves and never cracked a smile and tried to make you think they were privy to secrets that you would never know.
“Who are you supposed to fight?” Han asked. “I mean, it’s been years since we’ve had a war in the uplands.”
Bird looked annoyed at his lack of enthusiasm. “They’re spilling enough blood down south,” she said. “Refugees have been flooding into the mountains. There’s always a chance the fighting will spread up here.” She sounded almost like she hoped it would.
In the chaos following the Breaking, Arden, Tamron, and Bruinswallow had broken away from the Fells. Now the flatlands to the south were embroiled in an incessant civil war. Han’s father had signed on as a mercenary soldier, gone south and died there. But there had been peace in the north for a millennium.
“Willo’s worried,” Bird went on when Han didn’t respond. “Some wizards are saying that they let go of power too easily, that it’s time to return to having wizard kings. They think wizard kings could help protect us against armies from the south.” She shook her head, looking disgusted. “People have such short memories.”
“It’s been a thousand years,” Han pointed out, and received a scowl in return. “Anyway, Queen Marianna wouldn’t let that happen,” he added. “Nor would the High Wizard.”
“Some people say she’s not a strong queen,” Bird said. “Not like the queens in the past. Some say the wizards are gaining too much power.”
Han wondered who “some people” were, who had all these opinions. “Anyway, aren’t you afraid of getting killed? Being a warrior, I mean?” He couldn’t help thinking of his father. How different his life would be if he were still alive.
Bird snorted in disgust. “Don’t tell me there’s not going to be any war, and then warn me I might get killed.”
The thing was, Han knew Bird would make a great warrior. Though she hadn’t Han’s muscle, she was better with a bow than he was. Better at woodcraft. Better at tracking. She could look over a broken landscape and know where the deer lay hidden. She was better at anticipating the moves of a possible enemy. She’d outfoxed him all his life.
And there was nothing she liked better than stalking things.
He looked up to find her watching him, as if eager for a response.
“You’ll make a great warrior, Digging Bird,” he told her, grinning. “It’s perfect. Good choice.” He took her hand and squeezed it.
She beamed at him, blinking back tears, and he was amazed that his approval meant so much to her. He was even more amazed when she leaned over and kissed him on the mouth.
She stood, picked up the basin, and ducked out between the hides.
“Bird!” he called after her, thinking that if she was in a kissing mood, he was happy to oblige. But by the time he got the word out, she was gone.
When Han returned to the common room, Bird was gone, and Willo and Dancer were sitting knee to knee on the floor, talking. If they weren’t arguing, they were close to it. Han faded back into the doorway, embarrassed, not wanting to interrupt. But he could hear everything they said.
“Did you expect me to just stand by while they burned up the mountain?” Dancer was saying, his voice trembling with anger. “I’m not a coward.”
Han was shocked. No one ever spoke that way to Willo.
“I expect you to remember that you are only sixteen years old,” Willo replied calmly. “I expect you to use common sense. There was no point in confronting them. What did it accomplish? Did your bravery put the fire out?”
Dancer said nothing, only looked furious.
She reached out and stroked his cheek. “Let it go, Dancer, as I have,” she said softly. “This isn’t like you. A grudge against wizards will only get you into trouble.”
“They weren’t much older than me and Han,” Dancer countered stubbornly. “Haven’t you said that wizards have to be sixteen to go to Oden’s Ford? And didn’t you say they aren’t allowed to use magic until they get some training?”
“What wizards are allowed to do and what they actually do are two different things,” Willo said. She stood and moved to the loom, fussing with the warp. “Who were they? Do you know?”
“The one was called Micah,” Dancer said. “Micah Bayar.”
Willo was looking away from Dancer and toward Han, so he saw the blood drain from her face when Dancer said the name. “Are you sure?” she asked, without turning around.
“Well, pretty sure.” Dancer sounded confused, as if he’d caught something in her voice. “Why?”
“He’s in Aerie House. That’s a powerful wizard family,” Willo said. “And not one to cross. Did they ask your name?”
Dancer lifted his chin. “I told them my name. I said I was Fire Dancer of Marisa Pines Camp.” He hesitated. “But he seemed to know me as Hayden.”
Willo closed her eyes and shook her head slightly. Her next words surprised Han. “What about Hunts Alone?” she asked. “Did he speak? Do they know his name?”
Dancer cocked his head, thinking. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t remember him introducing himself.” He laughed bitterly. “They probably won’t remember anything but his arrow, aimed at their black wizard hearts.”
Willo swung around, facing Dancer, so Han could no longer see her face. “He turned a bow on them?” she said, her voice cracking on the word bow.
Dancer shrugged. “The one called Micah, he had an amulet. He was jinxing me. Hunts Alone made him stop.”
Han held his breath, waiting for Dancer to tell Willo that Han had taken the amulet, but he didn’t.
Willo sighed, looking troubled. “I’ll speak to the queen. This has to stop. She needs to enforce the Nǽming and keep wizards out of the mountains. If she doesn’t, the Demonai warriors will.”
This was astonishing, Willo talking about what the queen needed to do. She made it sound as if speaking to the queen was an everyday thing. She was the matriarch, but still. Han tried to imagine what it would be like, meeting the queen.
Your Exalted Majesty. I’m Han Plantslinger. Mud-digger. Former streetlord of the Raggers.
Willo and Dancer had moved on to another topic. Willo leaned forward, putting her hand over Dancer’s. “How are you feeling?”
Dancer pulled his hand free and canted his body away. “I’m well,” he said stiffly.
She eyed him for a long moment. “Have you been taking the flying rowan?” she persisted. “I have more if you—”
“I’ve been taking it,” Dancer interrupted. “I have plenty.”
“Is it working?” she asked, reaching for him again. As a healer, she used touch for diagnosis and for healing itself.
Dancer stood, evading her hand. “I’m well,” he repeated, with flat finality. “I’m going to go find Hunts Alone.” He turned toward the doorway where Han was lurking.
“Tell him to eat with us,” Willo called after Dancer.
Han was forced to beat a hasty retreat, ducking back into the sleeping chamber, so that was all he heard. But for the rest of that day, all through the evening meal, and sitting by the fire afterward, the conversation weighed on his mind.
He studied Dancer on the sly. Could he be sick? Han hadn’t noticed anything before, and he noticed nothing now, save that Dancer seemed less animated, more somber than usual. But that could be left over from the afternoon’s confrontation and the argument with his mother.
Han knew rowan, also called mountain ash. He gathered the wood and the berries, both of which were used in clan remedies. The wood was said to be good for making amulets and talismans to ward away evil. Flying rowan was especially valuable at clan markets. It grew high in the trees, and Han had learned better than to try to pass off regular rowan as the treetop kind. To the clan, anyway.
Willow had asked, “Is it working?” Had someone hexed Dancer? Were he and Willo worried that someone would? Was that why Dancer had a grudge against wizards?
Han wanted to ask, but then they would know he’d been eavesdropping. So he kept his questions to himself.