"What do you remember?" Carroway breathed, rejoining them. His face was ashen and his eyes wide.
Carina pushed back a little from Tris, then a look of complete exhaustion crossed her face and she did not struggle to break away. "I heard someone calling me," she said, looking at Tris searchingly. "Maybe I dreamed it, but it seemed so real. I got up and walked over to the well, but no one was there." She shuddered, remembering. "I looked into the well and saw a face staring back at me." She paused. "That's all I remember," she said, leaning hard against Tris as Carroway helped them to their feet. Reflexively, Tris put his arm around her, and patted her hair as if he were comforting a small child. A strange look crossed Vahanian's face in the instant before the fighter turned away.
"Let's get out of here," Vahanian said roughly.
"Tris, what happened?" Carina asked once more, stepping back and looking at him search-ingly. Berry ran to her and flung her arms around the healer, burying her face in Carina's robe.
Tris glanced away, unsure how to answer. "A ghost called you," he began, telling the tale as best he could with Berry jumping in from time to time to fill in the gaps. Vahanian and Carroway loaded up the horses as they talked, refusing resolutely to look over to where the sundered corpse lay in the morning light. A look of horror crossed Carina's face as she looked from Tris to the body of the girl, then to the well, and for a moment, she was silent.
"But how—" she started and stopped. "How did her body come back to life?"
Tris forced himself to stare at the corpse. "I don't know for certain," he admitted. "When I pushed her spirit away, all I cared about was throwing it clear," he said in a hushed voice. "They say that at dawn, the spirit world is closer to our own. Maybe it was close enough for her to try to take back her own body, and close enough for Jonmarc to be able to strike her down."
"Thank you," Carina managed finally, looking first to Tris and then to the others. "Thank you so much."
"All in a day's work," Vahanian replied sarcastically. "Now can we get the hell out of here?"
Tris took a step toward the camp, felt his knees buckle, and stumbled. Carroway caught him as his head swam, pounding with a headache from the working.
"What damn good is magic if you feel like shit after you've used it?" Tris swore under his breath, struggling to walk with Carroway's assistance.
"If it's any consolation, Carina doesn't look any better. Can you ride?" Carroway asked.
"Give me a cup of kerif and a candlemark to collect my writs," Tris asked as Carroway helped him to a seat by the fire. "And then we'll ride, even if you have to tie me to the horse."
Vahanian went to calm their mounts, and Carroway pressed a cup of the strong, bitter drink into Tris's hands, then made sure Carina had a warm cloak and a cup of her own. Tris could feel the way they were staring at him, as if he had suddenly become nearly as strange and fearful a thing as the corpse in the glade behind them. Carroway went to help Vahanian, and Carina settled into a seat beside Tris, saying nothing for a while.
Mercifully, Carina did not ask the questions he knew she must be thinking. With the headache that pounded behind his eyes, Tris doubted he could supply more than one-word answers. He had only been partly joking about the need to be lashed to his horse. While Vahanian might have had the experience of riding back from battle more dead than alive, Tris felt as spent as if he had completed an exhausting day's labor without food or a night's sleep.
Sweet Lady, if this is what a real working takes, then I better get it right the first time when I take on Arontala, because I'm hardly likely to survive it, Tris thought. For the first time, he considered the possibility that magic and not battle might kill him before he could take the crown. Even if I don't live to be king, they can hardly find someone worse than Jared if I can just take down Arontala, he thought, before the pounding in his head made thinking too painful.
Though no one mentioned the incident for the rest of the morning, of one accord they rode more slowly. Tris managed to stay seated on his horse without lashing himself to the saddle, but only just, and he doubted that he could have kept his seat at a gallop. Carina was too unsteady to ride unassisted, and accepted Vahanian's offer to share his horse without her usual barb. They rode as hard as they dared, anxious to put as much distance between themselves and the haunted well as they could.
By late morning, when Carroway's time riding point was over, he let his horse drift back to match the stride of Tris's mount. They rode side by side in silence for a while, until Carroway finally spoke.
"Are you all right?" he inquired awkwardly. "You look a bit worse for wear."
Tris managed a haggard smile. "I'll get over it."
Carroway looked as if he were about to say something, thought better of it, and began again. "Tris," he started, "before your grandmother died... did she ever tell you that you were—"
"Her mage heir?" Tris supplied with a hint of bitterness in his voice. "No. But then again there are things I see in dreams, workings that I did with her that I didn't remember at all." He paused, staring at his hands.
"Are mages born or made?" he continued. "You know, I've been able to see the ghosts at the palace, talk with them—not just on Haunts, but all year— ever since I can remember. But this..." his voice drifted off, lacking the words to continue.
"Your grandmother was the greatest summon-er of the age," Carroway replied thoughtfully. "I often wondered why no one in her line seemed to have her talent. I guess we have our answer."
Tris's head still ached, but he could sense that Carroway needed to understand. "When I was little, grandmother let me tag along, watch her do her workings. When I got older, she let me help—simple things like calling a flame to light a candle or the fireplace, small workings. There were some that she let you help with, too," he said, and Carroway nodded.
"I always thought it was her way of giving me something special, since I was the second son." Tris gave a lopsided smile. "We all know second sons are only spare parts," he added. "When she swore us to secrecy, I figured that was because Jared would pitch a fit if I got to do something and he didn't."
Tris paused, waiting out a stab of pain from his throbbing head. "Then right before I went for fostering, she brought you in on more workings, and we did some complicated magic. When I came back from fostering, grandmother was ill." He looked off at the horizon, remembering. "Don't you remember? She asked that I be the one to serve her. I guess they didn't have any better use for me, so they let me. I was with her when she died."
"Did anything... unusual... happen?" Carroway pressed gently.
Tris looked at him, frowning against the headache, and against the blank in his memories. "I don't remember. That's the problem. I never noticed before, but there seem to be whole stretches with her that I don't remember. Goddess, I've tried! But I can't." He looked down at the reins in his hands. "Back with the caravan, Carina and Alyzza helped me with some basic things. Grandmother came to me in a dream, told me that I would remember the training she made me forget—for my own safety—until it was needed." He gave a sharp, mirthless laugh. "Well, I can't think of needing it more than now, but so far, I still can't remember."
Carroway listened in silence, as if he were carefully weighing what Tris was saying. "Perhaps," he said finally, "things will seem more clear when we reach the Library."
"I hope you're right," Tris said fervently, closing his eyes as his head throbbed again, "because there's far too much at stake to try to make this up as I go."
Breakfast was eaten cold as they rode, and they would have done the same for lunch had Carina not begged them to stop. For once, she and Vahanian did not spar the entire morning. The morning's battle had cast a cloud over all of them, Tris thought as he sat by the small fire. He was thankful when the evening came with no further surprises awaiting them, and they made a cold camp that night, just a few days' journey from where the river set the boundary between Dhasson and Principality.