'What I think,' said The Unknown. 'And you think too, Ilkar, is that Denser is most likely in contact with Erienne. After all, few enough know his signature, let alone can guess or have worked out his likely whereabouts.'
'That presupposes Erienne to be not too far distant,' said Ilkar, nodding nonetheless.
'A meeting was always inevitable,' reasoned The Unknown.
'A bit convenient though, isn't it? I mean, we show up here in the middle of basically nowhere and Erienne drops a message in after weeks of nothing?'
The Unknown shrugged. T think we've been together long enough not to believe in coincidence or convenience. Erienne left Denser a letter knowing he would try to find her and that we would help him, should he ask. If her need for him has grown, she'll try to find him now too. It just makes sense for them to meet where she believes he will come to.'
'Clever lady,' said Ilkar.
'I never doubted it,' said The Unknown. He straightened and looked back down the small rise into the centre of Greythorne. 'Some horsemen arrived last night. Cavalry by the order of the hoofbeats. We should find out who it is.'
'Dordovan, no doubt,' said Ilkar, scowling.
The Unknown nodded. 'In all probability. We can show them the bodies of their colleagues, can't we? When Denser comes round, we'll go and look. Just keep your ears open and your eyes sharp. It's looking like we aren't on the same side. All right?'
'Mummy! Mummy!' Lyanna's repeated screams woke Cleress before Aviana's urgent message reached her tired mind. The Al-Drechar's house was dark as she came to but even as she fought for focus in mind and eye, she heard the urgent speech of Guild elves and the snap of Ephemere's voice ordering calm.
But as Cleress emerged into the corridor from her room, a shawl about her shoulders, feet rammed into sandals, night dress floating about her skeletal frame, it was clear Herendeneth was anything but calm.
Outside, a wind howled down the wood-panelled passageway, rattling the pictures hanging on the walls and ruffling the rugs underfoot. Behind Cleress as she limped towards the guest wing where Lyanna slept, a vase crashed to the floor and the breaking of glass echoed from a distant part of the house.
Ahead of her, Ephy had stopped at a set of doors and was speaking to a Guild elf, Cleress couldn't make out who. She saw him nod, bow slighdy and hurry back up the passage towards her.
'Ephy!' called Cleress. Ephemere turned, her face grey and anxious.
'Let Aronaar help you,' she replied. She opened a door but the
wind snapped it shut, the dull bang reverberating along the corridor. Ephemere frowned.
Aronaar trotted up to her, deep green eyes tight with recent sleep, shirt and trousers hurriedly put on. He was barefoot.
'Thank you,' said Cleress, leaning gratefully into him, taking the weight from her stiff and painful right knee.
'You set the pace, my Lady,' said Aronaar, inclining his head slightly.
'Then we'd better make it quick.' They started towards Ephemere. 'We're following you, Ephy. Is she in bed still?'
Ephemere had dragged the door back open and braced it with a foot. She nodded.
'Sitting up but still asleep, Ana says. This could be trouble. She's in danger of becoming uncontained.'
Cleress felt fear shift through her, tensing tired muscles and catching her breath.
'Faster, Aronaar. Much faster.'
It was the flow of the mana they had to assess. The depth of any flaring and the vortices it produced. Without that knowledge, they could do Lyanna incalculable harm, shutting off streams that, with no escape, would disperse themselves inside her mind. Hurrying down the corridor, towards her room, Cleress wondered if that wasn't already happening.
Outside, the orchard was largely still, but every window overlooking it had smashed outwards, leaving jagged spears of glass and warped frames swinging on the wind that gusted strong into their faces.
Above it, Lyanna's wails ran like acid through Cleress' veins and she could but imagine the torment of the young child as she fought a desperate battle to bring her burgeoning power under control.
For days now, the four elderly Al-Drechar had kept unflinching vigil over Lyanna as she descended into her Night. At no time was she left alone in her mind; it was the only way to monitor her acceptance of the mana as part of her being and discern any hint that she was understanding control.
Only now would the Al-Drechar find out whether their terribly short time of teaching had given Lyanna the knowledge that would save her life. But what nagged at them all was that, though Lyanna
was obviously bright and a talent with no bounds or equal to her potential, she shouldn't have had to deal with her fall Awakening until her teens. Not just her mental wellbeing but her physical state too had to be monitored.
The Al-Drechar did everything they could, though in truth it wasn't much. They kept her exercised and fed during the moments she was awake and shielded her from the excesses of mana strength while she lay semi-conscious. But so much of the battle was within her undeveloped psyche and they were helpless to aid her there.
The lucid periods were shortening dramatically and, more and more, Lyanna either lay on her bed or walked the corridors of the house, oblivious to all around her, Al-Drechar shadowing her every step of the way.
A keening cry split the whistling of the wind and with it, a jolt in Cleress' brain as Aviana's tenuous grip on Lyanna's mind slipped again.,
'Hurry, please,' came the exhausted thought. 'She's breaking me.'
'Almost with you,' pulsed Ephemere. 'Be calm, Ana.'
Aronaar reached out with his free hand and pushed open Lyanna's door. Ephemere strode in first, with Cleress unwrapping her arm from the elf s shoulder before following her in while he stayed outside.
Lyanna was sitting on the bed, legs not touching die ground. Sweat matted her hair and ran down her face and across her tightly closed eyes, dripping from her cheeks and chin. Her mouth hung open and she dragged in great breaths, moaning for her mother or whimpering, her brow creased by some savage inner pain.
In a chair near the bed slumped Aviana, her face white in the gloom and drooping to her chest. Her arms were gripping the sides of the chair and her legs were tucked hard under it. She was shivering, her eyes restless as they searched the mana spectrum.
Immediately, Cleress and Ephemere attuned their eyes to the spectrum, revealing the full enormity of what they had sensed on walking in.
Rippling and shimmering, unstable but holding, Aviana's mind-mana shield played like a hood around Lyanna's consciousness, its deep brown cut through with a brilliant emerald green that was Aviana's alone. Beneath it thrummed the chaos of Lyanna's
desperate fight to accept and control the mana flow coursing through her head, drawn there by what she represented as if it was alive.
And what the Dordovans had done was there for them all to see. Dominating the gentle brown that gave them cause for hope, indicating as it did her Drechar capabilities, was the poisonous orange of the Dordovan College. Here was where the fight would take place.
Looking deeper, Cleress could see striations of deep green, pale yellow and dark, dark blue assimilated in the streams. Much of it appeared calm but at the centre of the helical structure was the pulsing orange that signified Dordovan Awakening.
Like a lunging animal, no, a snake preparing to strike, the rogue Dordovan mana bunched and coiled before expanding explosively, ripping die gently modulating brown as it did so; and punching outwards as flares or, intriguingly and worryingly, part-constructs.
Aviana, with minute adjustments to her shield, accommodated her instant decisions, letting the flares and stronger constructs escape or, if she could, containing them, allowing them to disperse harmlessly away from Lyanna and almost certainly taking damage in her own mind in the process. It was impossible to see how she could do otherwise.