By pushing their horses for as long as they dared each day, Kalan and Wrayan made excellent time. By the end of their first week on the road, they’d covered the better part of three hundred miles and were close to the border of Pentamor. Kalan was saddle sore, weary and had never been happier.
She and Wrayan travelled well together. Wrayan seemed to have forgotten she was anything other than his equal. That was an important milestone for Kalan. She had worshipped Wrayan Lightfinger for as long as she could remember, but she knew the fact that he’d known her since she was a baby might prove an impediment to their relationship. It was a foolish concern on his part, Kalan had decided for him. Wrayan Lightfinger was part Harshini, so the normal rules simply didn’t apply to him. The thief was, Kalan knew, close to fifty years old, but at an inn a few days ago, the tavern keeper had assumed he was her brother. He looked to be in his late twenties, perhaps thirty at the most. But neither Wrayan’s age, appearance, nor his profession concerned Kalan Hawksword.
True love, she was quite certain, could rise above all these minor impediments.
“We should stop soon,” Wrayan advised, jerking Kalan out of her daydream.
“What?”
“I said we should probably stop soon. We’re only about three miles from the village of Tallant Moor. It’s a pretty rough place so I’d rather avoid it, if we can.”
“If you want,” she agreed absently.
He looked at her curiously. “Is something wrong?”
“No, of course not. I was just lost in thought.”
He smiled. “Anything you’d care to share?”
“Can’t you read my mind?”
“Your mind is shielded.”
“You put the shield there, Wrayan. You can take it away, can’t you?”
“I could,” he agreed, “but that rather defeats the purpose of putting it there in the first place.”
“It must be strange, being able to read people’s innermost thoughts at will.”
“I try not to, most of the time.”
She glanced at him in surprise. “Why not? If I could read minds I wouldn’t be able to resist it.”
He frowned at her ignorance. “Believe me, Kalan, most people’s innermost thoughts are pretty murky. I’ll probe someone’s mind out of necessity. I certainly don’t do it for a bit of light entertainment.”
“You’re so frustrating, sometimes, Wrayan,” she complained. “I mean, here you are, about the most powerful sorcerer alive, and yet you barely even use your power. And here I am, a full member of the Sorcerers’ Collective, and I can’t even light a fire without a flint.”
Wrayan shook his head. “For one thing, I’m not the most powerful sorcerer alive by any stretch of the imagination, Kalan. Even if you discount the Harshini still living in Sanctuary, next to the Halfbreed, I’m almost powerless.”
“Yes, but—”
“As for you being powerless,” he cut in before she could add anything further, “your mother effectively runs the whole damn country, your twin brother is going to be a Warlord and
your half-brother will eventually be High Prince of Hythria. Your stepsister owns half of Hythria’s shipping fleet and your stepbrothers control the most comprehensive intelligence network in four nations, alongside a goodly portion of the spice trade. And let’s not forget your uncle is the current High Prince. On your family connections alone, you’ll wind up High Arrion someday, Kalan. Talk to Alija Eaglespike if you don’t think that isn’t power to burn.”
“That’s not what I meant …”
“I know,” he said, smiling at her paternally. “I just don’t want you to envy me for something you don’t understand.”
Having Wrayan look at her like that was the last thing Kalan wanted, so she decided to change the subject. “Didn’t you say we should find somewhere to stop for the night?”
“I was hoping we’d find shelter, actually,” he said, glancing up at the heavy clouds. “So we wouldn’t have to stop in the village. But I don’t like our chances.”
Kalan looked around, silently agreeing shelter was a very optimistic hope. The sun had almost set and in the chilly twilight the countryside around Tallant Moor seemed uniformly bleak. To their right, a small treeless hill fell away to a steep valley. In the distance, some way down the slope, Kalan spied a flickering light. “What about down there?”
Wrayan glanced in the direction of her pointing finger, frowning. “Looks like a farmhouse.”
Kalan smiled. “I can see why the Halfbreed accuses you of having a talent for stating the obvious, Wrayan Lightfinger.”
“I can see I’m going to have to stop telling you any more anecdotes about him,” he grumbled.
Kalan laughed. “Shall we check it out, do you think? Or is it too risky? There may be plague around.”
Wrayan shrugged. “I’ll scan the minds of the occupants from here. That should tell us if it’s safe.”
“I thought you didn’t like doing that?”
“I also said I’d probe someone’s mind out of necessity. This is a necessity, don’t you agree?”
“Shall we tell them who we are or make up a story?”
“Is who we are a secret?” he enquired curiously.
“The closer we get to Greenharbour, the more it should be,” she suggested. “Alija still thinks you’re dead. I don’t see any reason why we should disillusion her just yet.”
Wrayan considered her suggestion. “You might have a point. What shall we tell our hosts, then?”
“We could pose as husband and wife,” she said, glad her mind was shielded and Wrayan couldn’t read her enthusiasm for the idea.
“Why not brother and sister?” he asked. “Or cousins?”
“Because if there’s only shelter available in the barn,” she explained, as if he was just a little bit thick for not having worked this out for himself, “and they think we’re siblings, the chances are good you’ll wind up sleeping out in the hayloft with the husband, and I’ll end up being eaten alive by the bedbugs, sharing a pallet in the house with the wife. If we pose as a married couple, they’ll offer us shelter in the barn and we can be clean and warm and not have to worry about anything or anybody else.”
“You really do think these things through, don’t you?”
“One of us has to.”
Wrayan didn’t answer her, his attention obviously elsewhere. When he looked at her his eyes were black, the whites of his eyes completely consumed by the darkness, a sure sign he was drawing on his power.
“What can you see?” she asked, a little in awe of seeing him like this.
“They’re a young couple,” he told her “No older than you, either of them. They’re still grieving a child lost to the plague, but it’s been safe here for some time now. They’re fighting, actually.”
“About what?”
“About whether or not to have another child. He wants to start a family again straight away. She’s still grieving her lost child and can’t bring herself to contemplate the idea.”
The thought of walking into such a fraught situation and interrupting it, just for the sake of a roof over their heads for the night, suddenly didn’t seem such an attractive idea. “Maybe we should push on, Wrayan.”
“There’s not much else out here. And it’s going to rain again soon.”
“I know, but these people don’t need us intruding on their grief.”
“Any more than you or I need pneumonia.”
“Can’t you make it better for them?”
“How?”
“You’re obviously inside their minds. Can’t you simply make one of them give in to the other one?”
“Which one? The randy husband or the grieving wife?”
Kalan had the decency to look away, feeling more than a little shamefaced. “All right, so that wasn’t such a brilliant idea.”
“Interfering in other people’s lives is never as simple as it seems, Kalan.”
“Honestly, I’m beginning to wonder if this magic of yours has any practical purpose,” she complained. “I mean, if you can’t actually use it to do anything useful …”
“Define useful.”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Bending the world to your will, I suppose.”
Wrayan laughed. “You are definitely your mother’s daughter, Kalan Hawksword.”
Kalan wasn’t sure she liked the way Wrayan was laughing at her. She tossed her head indignantly and tugged on the packhorse’s lead rein, trotting on ahead until she spied a rutted wagon track further along, leading down to the faint light at the foot of the slope.
Without waiting to see if Wrayan was following, she turned onto the track and headed for the little farmhouse, wondering what was so wrong about wanting to bend the world to your will, anyway.