Wolf kept to a walk, trying to make the ride as smooth as possible for her. He could discern that she was in a lot of pain by the way her hands shook in his mane when she coughed, but she made light of it when he questioned her. As the day progressed, she leaned wearily against his neck and coughed more often.
Worse, after that one, brief conversation, she’d quit talking. Aralorn always talked.
He continued until he could stand it no more, then he called a halt at a likely camping area, far from the main thoroughfares and out of sight of the trail they’d been following. As soon as he stopped, before he could kneel to make things easier, Aralorn slid off him, then kept sliding until her rump hit the ground. She waved off his concern, breathing through her nose, her mouth pinched.
Wolf regained his human form, then turned his attention to making a cushion of evergreen boughs and covering the result with the blankets, keeping a weather eye on his charge. By the time he finished, Aralorn was on her feet again—though, he thought, not for long.
“I’m moving like an old woman,” she complained, walking toward the bed he’d made. “All I need is a cane.”
She let him help her lie down and was asleep, he judged, before her eyes had a chance to close.
While Aralorn slept, Wolf stood watch.
The night was peaceful, she thought, except for when she was coughing. It got so bad toward the morning that she finally gave up resting and stood up. When she would have reached for the blankets to start folding them, Wolf set her firmly down on the ground with a growl that would have done credit to his wolf form and finished erasing all traces of their presence.
Dawn’s light had barely begun to show before they were on their way.
Once she was sitting up rather than lying down, Aralorn’s coughing mercifully eased. It helped that today they were cutting directly through the woods, which were thinned by the higher altitude. There was no trail dust to exacerbate the problem. When her modest herb lore identified some beggersblessing on the side of the road, she made Wolf stop so she could pick a bunch. With a double handful of the leaves stuffed in her pocket and a wad of them under her tongue, she could even look at the day’s journey with some equanimity.
The narcotic alleviated the pain of her ribs and some of the coughing, although it did make it a little more difficult to stay on Wolf’s back as it interfered with her equilibrium. Several times, only Wolf’s quick footwork kept her from falling off.
Wolf decided that the giggling was something he could do without but found that, on the whole, he preferred it to her silent pain. When they stopped, Wolf took a good look at Aralorn, pale and dark-eyed from the drug she’d been using. She’d refused food, because beggersblessing would make her sick if she ate while under its influence.
The end result, he judged, was that she was weaker than she’d been when they started that morning. He had not transported them by magic because he was afraid that his father would be able to track them and find where they went. But if they continued at this donkey’s pace, it was even odds whether his father would find them before she got too sick to ride at all.
He donned his human form once again, with his scars, and after a moment’s thought added the silver mask. It was a difficult spell, and without the mask and scars, he was uneasy. He didn’t need anything distracting him.
“Wolf?” she asked.
“We’re taking another way back,” he told her, lifting her into his arms—and took them into the Northlands.
Transporting people by magic was difficult enough that most mages preferred travel on horseback or coach rather than by magic, even in the spring, when the roads were nothing more than a giant mud puddle. Transporting someone into the Northlands, where human magic had a tendency to go awry, was madness, but he aimed for the cave where he had brought the merchant the day Aralorn had joined them. That would leave them with only one day’s ride to the camp and only a few miles to travel before the ae’Magi’s magic would be hampered if he found out where they had gone.
Concentrating on the shallow cave, he pulled them to it, but something caught them and jerked them on with enough force to stun Wolf momentarily . . .
He landed on his knees in darkness on a hard stone floor. His instinctive light spell was too bright, and he had to tone it down.
He was in the cave that housed his library.
Warily, he stood up and looked around—with his eyes and his magic. Aside from the irregular oddness that had become a familiar part of working his magic in the Northlands, nothing seemed wrong.
He laid her on the padded couch and pulled his cloak over her. It would only take him a minute to let Myr know he was back.
In the castle of the Archmage, the ae’Magi sat gently drumming his fingers on the burled wood of his desk. He was not in the best of moods, having tracked an intruder from castle to hold trying to discover who would be foolhardy enough to trespass and powerful enough to get away with it.
And now he knew who it had been—and what he’d been looking for.
The room that he occupied was covered in finely woven carpets. Great beveled windows lined the outside wall behind the desk, bathing the room with a warm golden glow. On the opposite wall was a large, ornate fireplace that sat empty in deference to the warmth of late summer. In front of the fireplace, the pretty blond girl who was his newest pet combed her hair and looked at the floor.
She trembled a bit. A month as his leman had made her sensitive to his mood, which was, he admitted, quite vile at the moment.
Facing the desk was one of the dungeon guards, who held his cap deferentially in his hand. He spoke in the low tones that were correct for addressing someone in a position so much higher than his own. Though he was properly motionless, the ae’Magi could tell that his continued silence was making the man nervous. As it should. As it should.
Finally, the ae’Magi felt he could control himself enough to speak. “You saw Cain take one of the female prisoners? Several nights ago.”
“Yes, Lord.” The guardsman relaxed as soon as the ae’Magi spoke. “I remembered him from when he lived here, but I didn’t realize who it was until he’d already gone. Last time I saw him, he were all scarred up, but I ’membered meself when he were a tyke he looked a lot like you, sire.”
“And why did it take you so long to report this?”
“You weren’t here, sire.”
“I see.” The ae’Magi felt uncouth rage coil in his belly. Cain had been here, here. “Which prisoner did he take?”
As if he had to ask. Dead, she’d told him. Cain was dead. And he’d believed her—so much so that when he found someone sneaking around in his territories, he’d never even considered it might be Cain.
“That woman Lord Kisrah brought in, sir.”
There was a darned patch on the guardsman’s shoulder. It had been so well done that the ae’Magi hadn’t noticed it until he got closer. He would see to it that the guardsmen’s uniforms were inspected and replaced when necessary. No one in his employ should wear a darned uniform.
This guardsman, the ae’Magi thought, enjoying himself despite his anger, wouldn’t be needing a new uniform ever again. He took his time.
“Clean up the dust and leave me.”
Shuddering, the sixteen-year-old silk merchant’s daughter swept the ashes of the guard into the little shovel that was kept near the fireplace. She did a thorough job of it but wasted no time.
After she had gone, he sat and ran his finger around one of the burls on his desk.
“I had him,” he said out loud. “I had the bait, and he came—but I lost my chance. I should have felt it, should have known she was something more.” He thought about the woman. What had been so special about her that would attract his son?