Falhart grunted and folded his arms across his chest.
Hurt, Aralorn stopped and adopted his pose, waiting for him to speak.
“Ten years is a long time, Aralorn. Is Sianim so far that you could not visit?”
Aralorn met his eyes. “I wrote nearly every month.” She stopped to clear the defensiveness out of her voice. “I don’t belong here, Hart. Not anymore.”
His black eyebrows rose to meet his brick red hair. “This is your home—of course you belong here. Irrenna has kept your room just the way you left it, hoping you’d visit. Allyn’s toadflax, you’d think we were Darranians the way you—” He stopped abruptly, having been watching her face closely. His jaw dropped for a moment, then he said in a completely different voice, “That is it, isn’t it? Nevyn got to you. Father said he thought it was something of the sort, but I thought you knew better than to listen to the half-crazed prejudices of a Darranian lordling.”
Aralorn smiled ruefully, hurt assuaged by the realization that it was anger, not rejection, that had caused his restraint. “It was more complicated than that, but Nevyn is certainly the main reason I haven’t been back.”
“You’d think that a wizard would be more tolerant,” growled Hart, “and that you would show a little more intelligence.”
That turned her smile into a grin. “He’s not all that happy about being a wizard—he just didn’t have any choice in the matter.”
“You could have won him over if you had wanted to, Aralorn.” He had not yet decided to forgive her. “The man’s not as stupid as he acts sometimes.”
“Maybe,” she conceded. “But, as I said, he wasn’t the only reason I left. I was never cut out to be a Rethian noble-woman, any more than Nevyn could have lived in Darran as a wizard. Sianim is my home now.”
“Do they know you’re a shapeshifter?” he inquired coolly.
“No.” She grinned at him. “You know that the only people who would believe such a story are barbarians of the Rethian mountains. Besides, it’s much more useful being a shapeshifter if no one knows about it but me.”
“Home is where they know all of your secrets, Featherweight, and love you anyway.”
Aralorn laughed, and the tears that had been threatening since she heard about her father fell at last. When Falhart opened his arms, she took two steps forward and hugged him, kissing his cheek when he bent down. “I missed you, Fuzzhead.”
He picked her up and hugged her, stiffening when he looked over her shoulder. He set her down carefully, his eyes trained on whatever he had seen behind her. “That wolf have something to do with you?”
She turned to see a large, very black wolf crouched several paces behind her. The hair along his spine and the ruff around his neck was raised, his muzzle fixed in an ivory-fanged snarl directed at Falhart.
“Wolf!” Aralorn exclaimed, surprise making her voice louder than she meant it to be.
“Wolf!” echoed an archer on the walls, whose gaze was drawn by Aralorn’s unfortunate exclamation. The astonishment in his voice didn’t slow his speed in drawing his bow.
Lambshold had acquired its name from the fine sheep raised here, making wolves highly unpopular in her father’s keep.
Aralorn threw herself on top of him, keeping herself between him and the archer, knocking Wolf off his feet in the process.
“Aralorn!” called Falhart behind her. “Get out of the way.”
She envisioned the large knife her brother had tucked in his belt sheath.
“Hart, don’t let them . . . ooff—Damn it, Wolf, stop it, that hurt—don’t let them shoot him.”
“Hold your arrows! He’s my sister’s pet.” Falhart bellowed. In a much quieter voice, he added, “I think.”
“Do you hear that, Wolf?” said Aralorn, an involuntary grin pulling at the corners of her mouth. “You’re my pet. Now, don’t forget it.”
With a lithe twist, Wolf managed to get all four legs under him and threw her to one side, flat on her back. Placing one heavy paw on her shoulder to hold her in place, he began to industriously clean her face.
“All right, all right, I surrender—ish . . . Wolf, stop it.” She covered her face with her arms. Sometimes he took too much joy in fulfilling his role as a wolf.
“Aralorn?”
“Irrenna.” Aralorn turned to look up at the woman who approached. Wolf stepped aside, letting Aralorn get to her feet to greet her father’s wife.
Irrenna was elegant more than beautiful, but it would take a keen eye to tell the difference. There was more gray in her hair than there had been when Aralorn left. If Irrenna wasn’t as tall as her children, she was still a full head taller than Aralorn. Her laughing blue eyes and glorious smile were dulled by grief, but her welcome was warm, and her arms closed tightly around Aralorn. “Welcome home, daughter. Peace be with you.”
“And you,” replied Aralorn, hugging her back. “I could wish it were happier news that brought me here.”
“As do I. Come up now. I ordered a bath to be prepared in your room. Hart, carry your sister’s bags.”
Futilely, Aralorn tried to keep her saddlebags on her shoulder, but Falhart twisted them out of her hands as he said in prissy tones, “A Lady never carries her own baggage.”
She rolled her eyes at him before starting up the stairs into the keep.
“Dogs stay out of the keep,” reminded Irrenna firmly when Wolf followed close on Aralorn’s heels.
“He’s not a dog, Irrenna,” replied Aralorn. “He’s a wolf. If he stays out, someone’s going to shoot him.”
Irrenna stopped and took a better look at the animal at Aralorn’s side. He gazed mutely back, wagging his tail gently and trying to look harmless. He didn’t quite make it in Aralorn’s estimation, but apparently Irrenna wasn’t so discerning because she hesitated.
“If you shut him out now, he’ll only find a way in later.” Aralorn let a note of apology creep into her voice.
Irrenna shook her head. “You get to explain to your brothers why your pet gets to come in while theirs have to stay in the kennels.”
Aralorn smiled. “I’ll tell them he eats people when I’m not around to stop him.”
Irrenna looked at Wolf, who tilted his head winsomely and wagged his tail. “You might have to come up with a better story than that,” Irrenna said.
Hart frowned; but then, her brother had seen Wolf when he wasn’t acting like a lapdog.
Having heard the acceptance in Irrenna’s voice, Wolf ignored Hart and leapt silently up the stairs to wait for them at the door to the keep.
Aralorn stepped into the great hall and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She could pick out the earthy smell impregnating the old stone walls that no amount of cleaning could eradicate entirely, wood smoke from the fires, rushes sweetened with dried herbs and flowers, and some ineffable smell that no place else had.
“Aralorn?” asked her brother softly.
She opened her eyes and smiled at him, shaking her head. “Sorry. I’m just a bit tired.”
Falhart frowned, but followed Irrenna through the main hall, leaving Aralorn to fall in behind.
The cream-colored stone walls were hung with tapestries to keep out the chill. Most of the hangings were generations old, but several new ones hung in prominent places. Someone, she noticed, had a fine hand at the loom—she wondered if it was one of her sisters.
She tried to ignore the red carnations strewn through the halclass="underline" spots of bright color like drops of fresh blood. Red and black ribbons and drapes were hung carefully from hooks set in the walls, silently reminding her of the reason she had returned to Lambshold. The joy of seeing Hart and Irrenna again faded.
This was not her home. Her big, laughing, cunning, larger-than-life father was dead, and she had no place here anymore. Wolf’s mouth closed gently around her palm. A gesture of affection on the part of the wolf, he said, when she asked him about it once. She closed her fingers on his lower jaw, comforted by the familiar pressure of his teeth on her hand.