He sat on the edge of his own boxbed. All he wanted was sleep without dreams. He wanted . . .
One minute he was alone, the next Lelia was leaning over him. When he’d fallen back on the bed, he wasn’t sure. Just that his eyelids felt so, so heavy. He could barely meet her gaze.
“You know,” she said, “Heralds don’t just die in fights, fires, and floods. Keighvin, the Queen’s Own before Talamir, worked himself into a brainstorm and an early grave.”
“Knew that,” Wil mumbled.
“They throw themselves into their work,” she continued, “until they’re so exhausted they wind up doing something foolish.” She smiled a little. “Lyle once told me . . . I was his balance. I keep him from flogging himself to death.” The smile softened with sadness. “I don’t know how good a job I’ve done with that, honestly.”
Even talking, her voice had a melodic quality. His eyes slid shut, his thoughts growing muzzy. He could feel the Vision unfurling, tugging at him like the waters of the river that had killed Elene, and then—
Something stepped between him and it. A soft susurration, like the drowsy chirr of insects at twilight.
And instead of plunging into deadly waters, he found himself at the edge of a clearing, though not one he knew. It could have been the heart of Companion’s Grove. It could have been any number of places in Valdemar. A faintly blue light, soft as moonlight, lit the world, but it was not of the world he knew.
Some distance from him was a woman in luminous Whites. She stood at the center of the clearing, and despite the unearthly light, her face remained obscured. Even so, he got the sense she was . . . watching him.
“Tell him I’m waiting,” she said.
Wil sat up in near darkness. Coals gleamed in the hearth, and someone was breathing lightly in the boxbed to his right. He crawled awkwardly out of bed and emerged into the chilly night air.
Vehs walked over and nuzzled his hair.
:Sleep well?: he asked. :We had hoped it would last through the night.:
Wil frowned. “It? We?” he asked, and remembered the day before. “Have you two been conspiring behind my back?”
Vehs lowered his lashes and gave him a coy look.
Wil started to speak—
Something moved in the dark.
Wil snapped his head around, scanning the forest. He felt Vehs stiffen.
:That,: Vehs said, :is not your imagination.:
The Waystation door creaked, and the presence vanished. From behind him, Lelia said, “Something’s out there.”
Both he and Vehs turned to look at her. “You feel it, too?” Wil asked.
She nodded. “Something . . . big. Familiar, but not.” She shook her head. “Whatever it was, it’s gone, now.” She hugged herself tightly. “It’s freezing. I’ll be inside.”
Wil and Vehs stared into the darkness together.
:Any idea what it is?: Wil ventured.
:Something . . . but not night-demons.: Vehs shook his mane. :Chosen, go back inside. Rest. I’ll stand watch.:
Wil could tell Vehs was being evasive . . . but he knew better than to try and press a Companion when he or she didn’t want to give details.
Lelia had added wood to the fire. She waited by his bedside, wrapped in her spare cloak.
“You sang me to sleep,” Wil said.
She nodded. “Did it work?”
Wil stretched out in the bedbox. “I think so.” The fire popped and crackled. “Can you do it again?”
“Of course.”
He closed his eyes. “Will you tuck me in, too?”
She laughed. “And ruin our professional relationship?”
Then she started singing, and the music stepped between him and the Vision, granting him peace.
Several nights of solid sleep did much to restore Wil’s spirits. A fog had lifted from his thoughts. He found himself picking out details in the Vision that he hadn’t noticed before.
Things Kyril would want to know.
So long as Lelia sang him to rest, Wil no longer dreamed of Elene’s death. The only dream he had—that he remembered having—was of the shadow-Herald and the clearing.
Tell him I’m waiting.
Tell who?
Vehs reported no disturbances from the invisible “it.” But that didn’t mean it was gone, and as soon as Lelia was delivered safely in Winefold, Wil would have to figure out what “it” was.
They reached the inn at Boarsden before dusk and enjoyed a leisurely dinner. Lelia, as usual, found the biggest chair in the house, curled up on it with her special blend of tea, and regaled him with tales of the Court.
“The clothing is the best,” she said. “Some of those women layer so much junk over the bodies the gods gave ’em, they can hardly walk a straight line!” Her eyes gleamed mischievously. “Sometimes I want to go cow-tipping . . . if you know what I mean.”
As Wil wiped tears of laughter from his eyes, she signaled a server to bring more hot water for steeping tea.
He took the opportunity to change subjects. There was something he’d been cogitating.
“Lelia, tell me—have you ever heard of anyone having a Gift like Foresight but . . .” He grasped for words. “More like Hindsight?”
She frowned. “Not sure what you mean?”
“Visions of the past instead of the future.”
“Uh. Hm.” She pondered. “Well, as you know, I am the realm’s preeminent Vanyel expert.”
Vehs snorted mentally.
“I recall stories where he did that. But it wasn’t a Gift. It was just something a Herald-Mage of his caliber could do.” She cocked her head. “Why?”
Wil shook his head. “Just—”
“Curious?” She raised a brow. “I’ve heard that before.”
He smiled despite himself. “Maybe later.”
She grunted. “Better.”
They talked until well into the night. When it came time to sing to him, she looked so sweet at his bedside that he felt a momentary wild urge to sit up and drag her into his arms.
Sleep always came before he could act on that urge.
The squat house was built into the hillside, a bit apart from the grain fields. Flowers and aromatics flourished in boxes and neat plots around the tidy stone structure. Laundry hung from a line, faded blue and green garments fluttering in the breeze.
Wil stood on the rutted path leading up to the front door, Elene’s carved box clenched in his hands.
Such a miserable recompense for a daughter.
“She’s alone in there,” Lelia said.
Wil glanced at her. She had a distant look on her face, a slight crease to her brow.
“How are you doing that?” he asked.
Lelia smiled. “It’s a Bard thing.”
“Oh?”
Lelia hugged her cloak around her. “You should go, Herald, before she notices us.”
Wil couldn’t argue with that logic. He started up the path, Vehs following.
Too soon the door was before him, and he knocked.
“One moment!” a cheerful voice called. He heard glass clink and then the thump of footfalls. The door swung open, and a rosy-cheeked dark-haired woman looked up at him.
“Yes?” she asked.
Wil cleared his throat. “Kaylene Baernfield?”
“Yes?” Her expression turned to perplexity.
“Elene’s mother?”
Her face froze, and suddenly Wil didn’t know how, or even what to say. Everything Kyril had told him, all the things he’d thought up along the way—they all scattered. With the cessation of the Vision, with all the rest, he’d thought he was prepared.
He knew now that he never would be.
“Elene?” her mother whispered.
“She died.” He swallowed, extending the box to her and thinking again: So small. So paltry. “I’m sorry.”