It was only by chance that she spotted the brown-topped head of Par-Salian as he fought his way toward the keep. Ladonna kicked her horse forward and pushed through the crowd to reach him.
Tythonnia stared at Grandmother Yassa; she had a young face, younger than hers, but such ancient eyes they might have belonged to another woman. She’d been swept past the strange whirlpool of wrinkles around Yassa’s eyes and into their black pools. The young woman commanded authority with her words and her gaze. She was a stick of a person with thin fingers that spread from the branches of her thin arms. The beaded lace shawl that covered her head did little to hide her prematurely white hair. She was truly an ancient soul, young for her time.
Yet it was her words that had robbed Tythonnia of her senses and continued to echo and linger in her thoughts. Tythonnia struggled to say something, anything, but the arguments would not come.
Grandmother Yassa, however, continued as she swept up the painted cards and hid them back under the veil resting upon her wooden table. “You hide behind too many masks. You’ll die a stranger, among strangers. Nobody will ever know you. Change, or you live alone. Embrace that change, or you die lonely.”
Tythonnia nodded absently, trying to digest the proclamation. It was true enough: Ever since the Test of High Sorcery, her life seemed to be unraveling. She was no longer who she thought she was, no longer who she wanted to be.
“Is it your aim to be unhappy?” Grandmother Yassa asked.
Tythonnia shook her head. “No, of course not, but how do I know so little about myself? I feel like I’m turning into a … stranger, as you said.”
“It is the way of things,” Yassa said, nodding knowingly. “Magic is alive, dynamic. Not even death is stagnant. Why should you be?”
“Magic?” Tythonnia said, suddenly uncomfortable. “Why do you say magic?”
Yassa fixed Tythonnia with a scorn look that hooked into her soul. “You reek of it, girl. Your fingers are stained from powders and unguents; your hair practically dances with electricity. I smell it on you, wizard.”
“I-” Tythonnia began, but the old woman cut her off with a wave of her hand.
“I also smell the older magics on you as well. You learned the wilder ways first, did you not?”
There was no use lying, Tythonnia realized, so she merely nodded.
“Our ways are the old ways, before the moons could speak. The moons have forgotten to respect the wisdom of their elders.”
“That’s not true,” Tythonnia protested. “It’s … more complicated than that.”
“So you say. But when you are most troubled, you return for our comfort and not the wisdom of your moons.”
“I thought …” Tythonnia said, but she bit her tongue. The Augury of Cards wasn’t specific in its readings, and for all of Yassa’s wisdom, she didn’t know the details of what bothered Tythonnia. She knew only that something troubled her and there was an internal battle for her heart. But the words came unbidden in Tythonnia’s thoughts, as did Yassa’s words.
You have strangers living inside you, Yassa said. And yet they know you better than you know yourself. For they have made a home of your heart. Let them guide you.
I want children. I want to be married, Tythonnia pleaded with herself. She had promised her mother children, had promised her father a legacy. She wanted to grow old with a man and find contentment in his love. But the stranger in her heart answered with the memory of Elisa.
“What was her name?” Yassa asked.
“Sorry?” Tythonnia said, shaken into cold panic.
“The other girl I can see by your side. The one who enters and leaves your heart freely when you yourself are locked outside of it. Who is she?”
Tythonnia hesitated. She had never spoken about that to anyone before. Her inclination was to dismiss the question, to laugh it away. She opened her mouth to lie, but Yassa cocked her head in warning, as though she knew what was coming.
“Elisa,” Tythonnia managed to whisper, and the sound of it on her ears sent a shock through her system. She’d done her best to suppress the memories of Elisa until the Test of High Sorcery dredged them all back up again.
“Elisa,” Tythonnia repeated, just to be sure she’d spoken it aloud. “But it’s wrong,” she said weakly.
“That is not your voice speaking. You let other people speak for you?” Yassa responded. “It-”
A rattle at the door startled Tythonnia from her thoughts. The Vagros who brought her to Yassa stood at the door, blocking it. He had his hand on the shoulder of a girl in her mid teens. She had brown hair and blue eyes and was breathing hard.
“Tell them what you told me,” the man urged.
“Renegade hunters,” the girl said breathlessly. “They’re looking for three people. Two women and a man … renegades.”
The Vagros man fixed Tythonnia with a poisonous stare. “Go. You are done here.”
Tythonnia rose to leave, but Grandmother Yassa clasped a hand over hers and pulled her down to whisper in her ear. Her breath flushed Tythonnia’s skin with its warmth.
“It takes strength to love, not weakness,” Yassa whispered. “Trust your inner voice and worry not about the disapproval of others.”
Tythonnia left the encircled camp in a daze, her thoughts overwhelmed. There were Yassa’s words, her own uncertainties, and finally, the renegade hunters. The hunters had to be searching for her and her companions. Why renegade hunters were on their trail was a question she couldn’t answer. She had to find Par-Salian and Ladonna.
The area was in turmoil. Travelers and pilgrims alike stared in awe of the dome of shadow that rose over two stories high. Knights forced their way through the crowds, their swords already drawn and their demeanors rough.
Most of the crowd stayed clear of the shadow bubble, but Tythonnia caught a glimpse of a hooded man moving toward the High Clerist’s Tower. She didn’t recognize him, but she spotted Ladonna pushing her horse through the mob a dozen yards to his side. They were both chasing the same person.
A renegade? Tythonnia wondered. Then she realized they were both chasing after Par-Salian. Tythonnia shoved people aside with little care for etiquette. She had to reach Ladonna.
The throng of people was like a troubled sea, and Tythonnia continued to see and lose track of Ladonna and the hunter. They were heading for the central ramp leading up to the tower. Tythonnia swung up onto her saddle and prodded the Dairly forward.
As she neared Ladonna, Tythonnia could see there were two hunters in the crowd, the second a woman headed straight for Ladonna. Tythonnia almost panicked when she recognized the female hunter from Virgil Morosay’s trial. She’d forgotten her name, but she feared the other woman just the same. Ladonna had no idea she was about to be overtaken.
Less than a dozen feet away from Ladonna and the huntress, Tythonnia realized she would be too late. The woman raised her hand and uttered words that were lost in the din of the mob. More screams followed when strands of web flowed from the huntress’s fingers and snapped between two giant wood poles from which flew the Solamnic banners of the crown. The spell immediately snared Ladonna and her horse. The horse whinnied in panic and tried to buck as strands anchored it and several people together. Those not caught pulled away, sparking a stampede of humans and animals alike.
Ladonna was removing her cloak and trying to struggle out of the web. Unfortunately, the huntress was almost upon her. Tythonnia watched in horror as the huntress unsheathed her flattened blade and prepared to run the trapped Ladonna through.
Ladonna saw her attacker and tried to react, but she was still trying to wriggle free of the strands that had ensnared her right arm. She was powerless as the huntress raised her blade for the downward stroke. But for some reason the huntress hesitated, as though awakening to her own actions.