“Why?”
“Why should it matter to you?” Reina said, sounding surprised. “The child is not your concern.”
“The child looks at me and sees its mother,” Ilvani said.
“I know,” Reina said. “The two of you will provide the strongest link to Yaraella.”
She still doesn’t understand, Ilvani thought. If the child dies, in her last moments she’ll look to me to protect her. She looked at her hands, those useless appendages that always failed her. She did not want to have to watch the child’s soul slip through her fingers, but she didn’t tell Reina that. The ethran would never understand, Ilvani thought bitterly, how a soulless one could know so much about the spirits.
Ilvani left Reina at the dock to wait for the other witches and wandered along the shoreline to watch the blazing sunset. Ashok emerged from a stand of pines a few feet away. They saw each other at almost the same time.
Ashok came to stand beside her at the edge of the water. They watched silently as the Rashemi put the raft in the icy water. Ilvani recognized the tension in the set of Ashok’s shoulders. It was almost time for the ritual to begin.
“Sree believes there could be an attack during the ritual,” Ashok said. “A pair of treants.”
Ilvani closed her eyes and stretched out tentatively with her awareness. She sought restless spirits, but she didn’t want to get too close. She didn’t want to risk them lashing out at her.
Her awareness met an angry wall in the depths of the pinewoods. Ilvani recoiled from it and drew into herself protectively. When she opened her eyes, Ashok was watching her carefully.
“Did you see them?” he asked.
“In the forest,” Ilvani said. “I felt rage, pain, and madness. They’re coming.”
“Skagi, Cree, and I will be nearby,” Ashok said. “We won’t let them get to the raft.”
Ilvani said nothing. She thought if it came to it, Ashok would use the nightmare to burn the trees and perhaps the rest of the forest. Then the Rashemi would turn on them. Ilvani didn’t need prophecies from Tempus to tell her that the berserker warriors with their superior numbers would slaughter them all.
“Leave the flame in its circle,” she said. “It won’t help you this time. It will only anger them.”
“What do you mean?” Ashok said, but then understanding lit his features. “You don’t want me to bring the nightmare out of the stables?”
“No matter what,” Ilvani said. “Give me your oath.”
Ashok looked unhappy, but he nodded. “You have it. I won’t use the nightmare for the battle.”
“What-not use the pony?” Skagi’s voice came from behind them. Ilvani and Ashok turned to see the brothers approaching the shoreline together. Cree’s vacant eye socket with its serpent tattoo drew Ilvani’s gaze, but the warrior was looking at Ashok.
“Ilvani says the Rashemi won’t appreciate having the nightmare here,” Ashok said.
“Afraid to get singed, are they?” Skagi laughed. “Fine, then. We don’t need the beast or the Rashemi, not after the ice trolls.”
“And the brigands,” Cree added. “Don’t forget the winter wolves, either. What will you conjure up for us on the journey home, Ilvani?”
Ilvani said nothing. She couldn’t look away from Cree’s missing eye. The serpent had taken it. Why had she gone walking in the caves that day? She didn’t remember what impulse had led her to the pens, but if she hadn’t gone, the shadow serpents would never have gone mad. She imagined Cree’s eye in its proper place, his face as it was-whole-but she couldn’t picture it. His face was as it was. She couldn’t see him any other way.
The silence stretched, and Cree finally realized that she was not ignoring him-he saw where her gaze rested. His lighthearted expression changed, becoming sober.
“I jested, Ilvani,” he said. He pointed to the serpent tattoo and the empty socket. “This wasn’t your doing.”
“Yes, it was,” Ilvani said. She let the other worlds intrude too much. She let the snow rabbit invade her mind and mark her body. If they were to survive, if she wanted to exist fully in this world, Ilvani knew she would have to find a way to silence the voices, the shadows that invaded her thoughts and dreams. She felt lost. She’d never before asked for help from anyone.
If Natan were alive, she would have asked her brother for guidance. She’d waited too long to find the words. Now Natan was dead, and she had to find her own way.
“After tonight, your link to Yaraella will be severed,” Ashok put in. “The journey home will be much less eventful.”
Skagi groaned. “So we can look forward to the witch blasting us with black lightning every few miles, is that it?” He leaned toward Ilvani conspiratorially. “I’d rather have the monsters. Can’t you bring just a few into our path?”
They jested to put her at ease. Ilvani had never experienced this type of companionship. She saw it when the brothers bantered with Ashok as well, the ease of their friendship, the way they fought side by side. They became more and more as one every day they were together, but Ashok was the center of it all. He was the link that bound them.
The more he grows, the more shadar-kai will look to him to lead, Ilvani thought. The bonds between those here were strong, but the brothers didn’t realize how weak Ashok was without them. What will happen if that link is severed?
He will be tested, Ilvani realized with a shuddering clarity. His will against the shadows. Natan had seen a prophecy with Ashok and Ikemmu at its center. Ilvani saw something quite different looming, a shrouded future brimming with uncertainties.
She pushed the speculations aside. They would not serve her or Ashok now. Not until she was whole again, with Yaraella released from her, could she help him.
“The nightmare stays in the stables,” Ashok was saying. “We’ll have to fight this battle ourselves and trust in Rashemi aid.”
“They don’t trust us,” Cree said. “Most of them look at us like we’re ghosts. They ignore us.”
“It’s because we’re prettier than they are,” Skagi said, snickering. “Makes them nervous.”
Ilvani focused on the words and let their bantering distract her from her dark thoughts. The sun descended into the cloud-filled horizon, and the colors bled from the surface of the lake.
The wychlaran came with the darkness.
Masked and swaddled in brown cloaks and hoods, the witches walked single file onto the dock and stood facing the Rashemi berserkers. One by one, the warriors lit torches and stood them on ice patches at the shore of the lake.
Agny in her mask of water carvings raised her arms and made a sweeping gesture toward the torches. Water surged up around them and formed an icy wall to trap the flames. The cold should have extinguished the torches, but Ilvani noticed Sree had also raised her hands, and the flames answered her call, flaring brightly against the ice.
The entire portion of the lake the witches occupied was now illuminated. The Rashemi berserkers stepped into the shadows and turned to face any threats that might approach the lake. Ashok and the brothers went to join them.
Ilvani turned and met Ashok’s gaze before he left her. He nodded once, but he didn’t speak. She turned and joined the witches on the dock.
Agny went first, and one by one, the wychlaran stepped onto the raft. The ethran Reina led Elina by the hand. Ilvani came last and took up her place in the ritual circle next to the child.
She felt the power already. The symbols carved into the raft held their own magic, but the circle was wider than just their small craft. Lake Tirulag itself boiled with the ancient powers of the living and the spirit world. Ilvani felt the arms reaching up from the lake, the silent cries of the telthors.
Above her, the sky was full of bright, shardlike stars, eclipsed only by the owl’s wings as it circled the ritual ground. Ilvani traced the path of its flight and didn’t realize until a breath later that the witches had begun a chant. They’d joined hands, trapping Ilvani and Elina within the circle.