Wolf bent his head, and Aralorn was aware of the currents of magic he drew. The Archmage closed his hands on his son’s shoulders; Wolf flinched slightly at the touch, then resumed passing his power on to his father. Lightning flashed, and the magic he held doubled, then trebled, in an instant. Slowly, Wolf lifted his arms, and lightning flashed a second time, hitting him squarely in the chest.
He called it to him on purpose, thought Aralorn, stunned. If he had been wholly human, he would have died there, and his father with him. For a green mage, whose blood comes from an older race, lightning contains magic rather than death—but he would have had no way of knowing that. He didn’t know what his mother had been, not then.
For an instant, the two stood utterly still, except for the soundless, formless force Wolf had assembled; then a stone exploded into rubble, followed by another and another. The broken bits of granite began to glow with the heat of wild magic released without control. Aralorn couldn’t tell if Wolf was trying to control the magic at all, though the ae’Magi had stepped back and was gesturing wildly in an attempt to stem the tide. Shadow was banished by the heat of the flames. Aralorn saw Wolf smile . . .
“No!” cried the ae’Magi, as molten rock splattered across Wolf’s face, from a stone that burst in front of him. Wolf screamed, a sound lost in the crack of shattering stone.
The ae’Magi cast a spell, drawing on the very magic that wreaked such havoc.
A warding, thought Aralorn, as a rock fell from a parapet and bounced off an invisible barrier that surrounded the ae’Magi as he knelt over his unconscious son.
“I will not lose the power. You shall not escape me today.”
The scene faded, and Aralorn found herself back in the corridor, but she was not alone.
The ae’Magi stepped to her, frowning. “How did you . . .” His voice trailed off, and his face twisted in a spasm of an emotion so strong she wasn’t able to tell what it was. “You love him?”
Though his voice wasn’t loud, it cracked and twisted until it was no longer the ae’Magi’s voice. It was familiar, though; Aralorn struggled to remember to whom it belonged. “Who are you?” she asked.
The figure of the ae’Magi melted away, as did the corridor, fading into an ancient darkness that began to reach for her. She screamed and . . .
Awake, Aralorn listened to the muffled sounds of the inn. Hearing no urgent footsteps, she decided that she must not have screamed out loud. This was not the kind of place where such a sound would have been dismissed. She sat up to shake off the effects of the nightmare, but the terror of the eerie, hungry emptiness lingered. She might as well get up.
She’d begun having nightmares when Wolf disappeared a few weeks ago. Nightmares weren’t an unexpected part of being a mercenary, but these had been relentless. Dreams of being trapped in the ae’Magi’s dungeon, unable to escape the pain or the voice that asked over and over again, “Where is Cain? Where is my son?” But this dream had been different . . . it had been more than a dream.
She pulled on her clothes. Her acceptance of what she had seen had been born of the peculiar acceptance that was the gift of a dreamer. Awake now, she wondered.
It had felt like truth. If the ae’Magi were still alive, she would have cheerfully attributed it to an attack by him—a little nasty designed to make her doubt Wolf and make his life a little more miserable. An attack that had failed only because she had a little magic of her own to call upon.
But the ae’Magi was dead, and she could think of no one else who would know the intimate details of Wolf’s childhood—things that even she had not known for certain.
It was a dream, she decided as she headed out to the stables. Only a dream.
TWO
The path to Lambshold was all but obscured by the snow, but Aralorn could have followed it blindfolded even though she hadn’t been here in ten years.
As Sheen crested the final rise, Aralorn sat back in the saddle. Responsively, the stallion tucked his convex nose and slid to a halt. The roan gelding threw up his head indignantly as his lead line pulled him to an equally abrupt stop.
From the top of the keep, the yellow banner emblazoned with her father’s red lion, which signaled the presence of the lord at the keep, flew at half mast, with a smaller, red flag above.
Aralorn swallowed and patted Sheen’s thick gray neck. “You’re getting old, love. Maybe I should leave you here for breeding and see if I can talk someone out of a replacement.”
Sheen’s ear swiveled back to listen to her, and she smiled absently.
“There’s the tree I found you tied to down there, near the wall.”
She’d thought she was so clever, sneaking out in the dead of night when no one would stop her. She’d just made it safely over the wall—no mean feat—and there was Sheen, her father’s pride and joy, tied to a tree. She still had the note she’d found in the saddlebags with travel rations and some coins. In her father’s narrow handwriting the short note had informed her that a decent mount was sometimes useful, and that if she didn’t find what she was looking for, she would always be welcome in her father’s home.
The dark evergreen trees blurred in her sight as Aralorn thought about the last night she’d lived at Lambshold. She swallowed, the grief she’d suppressed through the journey home making itself felt.
“Father.” She whispered her plea to the quiet woods, but no one answered.
At last, she urged Sheen forward again, and they walked the perimeter of the wall until they reached the gate.
“Hullo the gate,” she called briskly.
“Who?” called a half-familiar voice from the top.
Aralorn squinted, but the man stood with his back to the sun, throwing his face into shadow.
“Aralorn, daughter to Henrick, the Lyon of Lambshold,” she answered.
He gestured, and the gates groaned and protested as they opened, and the iron portcullis was raised. Sheen snorted and started forward without urging, the roan following behind. She glanced around the courtyard, noting the differences a decade had made. The “new” storage sheds were weathered and had multiplied in her absence. Several old buildings were no longer standing. She remembered Lambshold bustling with busy people, but the courtyard was mostly empty of activity.
“May I take your horses, Lady?”
The stableman, wise to the ways of warhorses, had approached cautiously.
Aralorn swung off and removed her saddlebags, throwing them over one shoulder before she turned over the reins for both horses to the groom. “The roan’s a bit skittish.”
“Thanks, Lady.”
Not by word or expression did the stableman seem taken aback at a “Lady” dressed in ragged clothes chosen more for their warmth than their looks. By then, both the clothes and Aralorn had acquired a distinct aroma from the journey.
Knowing the animals would be well cared for, she started toward the keep.
“Hold a moment, Aralorn.”
It was the man from the wall. She turned and got a clear look at his face.
The years had filled out his height and breadth until he was even bigger than their father. His voice had deepened and hoarsened like a man who commanded others in battle, changed just enough that she hadn’t recognized it immediately. Falhart was several years older than she was, the Lyon’s only other illegitimate offspring. It was he who had begun her weapons training—because, as he’d told her at the time, his little sister was a good practice target.
“Falhart,” she said, her vision blurring as she took a quick step forward.