That might be the easy and therefore the wrong way, but it was a start. If something had happened, with luck Willa’s daughter had been expecting her mother, and when she did not appear, had gone searching herself—and Willa was safe in Highrock, maybe with an ague, or a sprain, or at worst a broken leg.
Nerys paused to fill a waterskin and carve off a wedge of strong sheep’s cheese from the wheel that hung in the hut. She found a net bag of fruit, too, that were soft but still good.
With water and provisions and a firm refusal to panic, Nerys set out on the path to the village. She left her pony behind. He was tired, and the path was narrow and steep. She could search it better and faster on foot.
Under the best conditions, it took most of a morning to climb and scramble and occasionally stroll to Highrock. Usually Willa stayed the day and the night and came back the next morning, though when Nerys had been with her, she had gone both ways in a day.
Nerys concentrated on finding the path and then keeping her feet on it. With no little guilt, she realized she was glad to do this. It was a distraction. It kept her from having to think about what waited for her in Emmerdale.
Maybe she should spend the rest of her life hunting down the missing. The world must be full of them. It was like being a Herald, in a way.
She could still be a Herald. Somehow. If she wanted.
“I don’t want it,” she said.
She had come to the summit of the first of three ridges. The track was narrow here and slippery with gravel and scree. A little ahead, the cliff dropped away sheer, plunging down to a narrow valley and a ribbon of river.
There was no sign of Willa here—not on the track and not broken on the rocks below. Nerys did not know whether to be relieved. The rest of the way was less perilous, but it was steep and stony, and parts of it tended to wash away in storms.
A little way past the cliff, Nerys paused to rest and breathe and sip from the waterskin. The leathery taste of the water made her think of other times she had traveled this way; somehow, without quite understanding why, she felt tears running down her cheeks.
Willa would say she had filled her cup of troubles, and now it was running over. If she closed her eyes, she could hear the warm rough voice and feel the shepherd’s presence close by her, just a little warmer on her skin than the sun.
Nerys had always been able to feel things and people when they were nearby or when they were thinking about her. She had never thought of it as magic, especially since Kelyn had it, too. It was just a thing they could do.
Up on top of the world she knew, all torn with confusion over Coryn and Kelyn and Willa’s disappearance, Nerys felt as if she had walked right out of her skin. She knew where Willa was. She could feel it, smell it, taste it. It was stone and running water and the whisper of wind in leaves.
There was nowhere like that on this track, and yet it felt as close as the next turn. When Nerys tried to focus on it, the thought that came to her was like a fold in fabric, but the fabric was the world.
Maybe the Mage Storms had touched her part of the world after all. If they had, and if Willa had fallen into the strangeness that they left, Nerys was no mage. She knew nothing of magic.
She would panic when she knew for certain. She needed her eyes for the path, but she focused her mind as much as she could, following the sense and the memory of Willa.
It could be a trap. Her gut insisted it was not. It was hard to travel in two worlds, to keep from tripping and falling on her face, even while she held fast to the thread of sensation that was all she had to guide her.
Another presence slid beneath her, lifted her up and held her steady. It was Coryn, and he neither asked nor expected permission.
The simple arrogance of it made her breath catch. But she was not a complete idiot—she needed all the help she could get.
Then something else came into focus in and through him, something clear and bright and clean that sharpened all her senses and made her immeasurably stronger. It was as if she had lived in a fog all her life and now, suddenly, she could see the sun.
She could not afford to go all giddy—or to realize what and who must be doing this. Willa was trapped in a slant of sunlight, in a bend of the path that did not exist in the world she had thought she knew. The key was in Nerys’ hand and heart, but the way was only open while the sun was in the sky.
Among these tumbled ridges and sudden cliffs, night came fast and early. It had been after noon when Nerys left the pasture; the sun had sunk visibly since. She had to hurry, which on that track was no easy thing.
She found the place where the trap had closed. It looked like nothing: a sharp bend among many on the steep path and a sudden drop where the track had washed away. A trickle of water seemed to run there, out of nowhere and into nowhere. The sun sparkled on it.
:Steady,: Coryn said, with that echo behind him. :Hold fast to me. Don’t let go.:
She knew he was not physically there, but he was present in every way that mattered. The other beyond him made a chain, and that chain bound her to the world.
She stepped through the sun’s door into madness.
Egil’s guide left him as instructed, with a clear track ahead of him and Alis’ admonitions still ringing in his ears. A small needling voice kept insisting that he had followed the wrong one, but Bronwen was well capable of handling whatever she found in the sheep pasture. Egil needed to be here.
The path was well traveled. Egil occupied himself and entertained Cynara by inviting her to dance down it. She did love the dance of horse and rider, and under the trees, in and out of sun and dappled shade, it was a wonderfully pleasant way to spend an afternoon.
It cleared his head splendidly. When the sunlight spread wide over the hill with its crown of stones, he was calm and focused and ready for whatever he might find.
It seemed at first to be nothing remarkable. A slim, dark-haired girl sat on a white pony inside the circle. The pony grazed peacefully. The girl’s eyes were closed, and her face was turned to the sky.
She looked like her mother. Even at rest she had a hint of Alis’ fierce edge.
As Cynara halted in front of the pony, Kelyn’s eyes snapped open. Her Companion—for he was that, Egil could not mistake it—stepped delicately past Egil and presented himself for mounting.
“No,” she said. “I don’t want you.”
He tossed his splendid white head and stamped. Kelyn’s face set in adamant refusal.
The pony bucked her off. On that thick turf, the damage must have been more to her pride than her backside. She stared up at the traitor in utter disbelief.
“They always side with Companions,” Egil said in wry sympathy. “Get up now and do as he tells you.”
“Do you know what he’s asking?” she demanded.
“Not specifically,” he said. “Will you enlighten me?”
“Ask her,” the girl snapped, jutting her chin at Cynara.
Egil had to admit that her complete lack of awe was refreshing. It was also not unheard of in the newly Chosen. In those first heady days, it was hard to see or hear or think about anyone but the magical white being who had come only and purely for them.
In this case, of course, that was not true. Egil did not need to ask Cynara; it was in every line of the girl’s body. “Nerys is in trouble. He wants you to help.”
“Worse,” said Kelyn. She looked ready to spit. “He wants me to stop hating her and start facing the reason why.”
“Because you’re exactly alike,” Egil said. “Everything you hate in her is everything you hate in yourself. Everything you love about yourself—in someone else, it grates horribly. That makes you wonder, and then it makes you twitch. It’s enough to drive a person out of her mind. Is that where she is? Gone mad?”