Breathing shallowly, she restricted herself to turning her head to examine her current environment. She was alone in a small clearing, surrounded by thick shrubs that quickly gave way to broad-leafed trees. She could hear a brook running somewhere nearby. The sun was high and edging toward afternoon. Mountains rose, not far away, on at least three sides. They were smaller than their Northland counterparts, but impressive enough. Also unfamiliar, at least from her angle.
The blankets in which Aralorn was more or less cocooned were of a fine intricate weave and finer wool. She whistled softly at the extravagance. Just one of them would cost a mercenary two months’ salary, and she was wrapped in two of them, with her head pillowed on a third. She should have been too warm, bundled up so heavily—but it felt good.
The bandaging on her hands and wrists was neatly tied and just snug enough to give support without being too tight. Whoever had tied it was better at binding wounds than she was—not a great feat. She didn’t bother to examine the other bandages that covered her here and there, preferring not to scrutinize her wounds in case too many body parts were missing or nonfunctional.
It occurred to her then that her eyes should belong to the category of missing and nonfunctional items. The method the ae’Magi had used to blind her had been . . . thorough. Enough so that she had not thought that even shapeshifter magic could heal her.
She shivered in her blankets. She had the unwelcome thought that it might be possible for a strong magician to create the illusion of this meadow. She didn’t know for sure, but from her stories . . . Much more likely than someone breaking her out of the ae’Magi’s dungeons. Much easier, she was certain, than it would be to heal her eyes.
She looked around, but she was still the only occupant of the clearing.
Deciding that if it were the ae’Magi who was going to show up, she didn’t want to face him lying on her back, she found a slender tree growing near her head. She pushed herself back until she bumped into it—the effort it took was not reassuring. Gradually, so as not to trigger another fit of coughing, she raised herself with the tree’s support until she was sitting up with her back against it. She waited for a minute. When she didn’t start coughing, she slid herself up the tree, the bark scraping her back despite the wrapping job someone had done—that felt real enough. Finally, she was standing—at least leaning.
She didn’t hear him until he spoke from some distance behind her. His voice was without its usual sardonic overtones, but it was still blessedly Wolf’s. “Welcome back, Lady.”
Sheer dumb relief almost sent her crashing to the ground. Wolf. It was Wolf. He, she was willing to believe, could rescue her and heal whatever needed healing. Safe.
She swallowed and schooled her face—he wouldn’t enjoy having her jump on him and sob all over him any more than she’d have enjoyed the memory of it once she got her feet safely under her again.
When she was sure she could pull off nonchalant, she turned her head with a smile of greeting that left her when she saw his face. Only years of training kept her from giving her fear voice, even that couldn’t stop the involuntary step backward that she took. Unfortunately, her feet tangled in one of the blankets, she lost the support of the tree, and fell.
Definitely cracked ribs, but not even pain could penetrate her despair.
The Archmage.
Unwilling to let her enemy out of her sight, she rolled until she could see him, which set off a coughing fit. Eyes watering from pain, she saw that he, too, had stepped back, albeit more gracefully. He raised a hand to his face and then dropped it abruptly. He waited until she finished coughing and could talk—and there was no expression on his face at all.
Aralorn found herself grateful that she was unable to speak for a minute because it gave her a chance to think. The ae’Magi’s face it might be, but Wolf’s yellow eyes glittered at her—as volatile as the face was not.
It was Wolf, her Wolf. The still, almost flight of his body told her that more than his eyes. Illusion could reproduce anyone’s eyes, but she was unwilling to believe that anyone but her knew Wolf’s body language that well.
Cain was the ae’Magi’s son, but no one had ever told her how much the son resembled the father. If the ae’Magi’s son had shown the world his magic-scarred face, the one she knew best, surely someone would have mentioned the scars. Perhaps the ae’Magi didn’t want people to remember how much he looked like his demonized son. She could believe that if he didn’t want people to comment, they wouldn’t. Her next thought was that Wolf didn’t look like a man only a few years older than Myr—a few years younger than she was. Her third thought, as her coughing slowed down, was that she’d better figure out a way to handle this—she didn’t want to hurt him again.
Before she could say anything, Wolf spoke. “If I thought that you could make it to safety alone, I would leave you in peace. Unfortunately, that is not possible. I assure you that I will leave as soon as you are back . . .”
She ended his speech with a rude word and assumed as much dignity as she could muster while lying awkwardly on the ground amid a tangle of blankets. “Idiot!” she told him. “Of course I knew who you were.” She hadn’t been certain—he’d just made her short list, but she didn’t need to tell him that. “Just how many apprentices do you think the ae’Magi has had? I know the name of every one of them, thanks to Ren. He seemed to think that information might be valuable someday. How many mages do you think would have the power to do what you did to Edom?” Two or three, she thought, but one of those was Kisrah—who had not been on her list. “Just how stupid do you think I am?” She had to pause to keep from coughing again—but he didn’t attempt to answer her question with any of his usual sarcasm, and that worried her. So she turned her defense into an attack. “Why did you hide from me again? First the wolf shape, then the mask and the scars.” She let her voice quiver and didn’t give in to the temptation to make it just a little too much. “Do you distrust me so much?”
“No,” said Wolf, and the hint of a smile played around his mouth—more importantly, he no longer looked like he’d rather be anywhere than there. “I forgot.” He waved a hand in the general direction of his face. “The scars are legitimate. I acquired them as I told you. It wasn’t until I left there . . .” Left his father, she thought. “I realized that I could get rid of them the same way that I could take wolf shape. But for a long time, it didn’t matter because I was the wolf. When I decided to act against him instead of continuing to run—all things considered, I preferred to keep the scars.”
Aralorn certainly understood why that would be. “So why change now?”
“When I got you out of the dungeon, it was necessary to appear to be the ae’Magi in order to get past the guards. I was . . . I forgot to resume the scars, the mask.” He sat beside her. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Startle. Yes, that was one way to put it.
With an expression that didn’t quite make it to being the smile she intended, Aralorn told him, “When I die of heart failure the next time you frighten me like that, you can put that on my gravestone—‘I didn’t mean to startle her.’”
As she talked, she looked at him carefully. Seeing things that hadn’t been apparent at first. His face was without the laugh lines around the eyes and mouth that characterized the ae’Magi’s. There was no gray in the black hair, but the expression in his eyes made him look much older than his father had. Wolf eyes, Wolf’s eyes they were—with a hunter’s cold, amoral gaze.
“So why didn’t I know that Cain was scarred?” she asked him.