Wolf Justice
Wolf Justice
Chapter 3
Kacey stood by the big windows of the sickroom, looking out at Reandn bent over a fence rail and trying for an easy angle to tamp down new stones at the base of a listing post. The easy angle was to climb in there amidst the muck, but she didn’t blame him for avoiding it. Besides, it afforded her a rather pleasant view from here. The seat of his pants had dried, though there were mud-leeched edges tracing the damp spot, following Reandn’s form.No, not a bad view at all.
Rethia came up behind her, looking out the same window and seeing something else entirely. "If the sun holds, I’ll go out looking for early greens tomorrow . . . cattail shoots are up . . . and wild oats." The vagueness of her voice meant that in her mind, she was already there, searching her favorite spots and taking time to stroke the unicorn or two that inevitably showed up when Rethia was about. Anyone else from Little Wisdom, the village that was less than a day’s walk away, would be considered lucky to see the glint of a horn or the whisk of a tail, but Rethia never gave her unusual relationship with the unicorns a second thought.
Now that the creatures were back, and now that the people understood their gift of magic to Keland, they were protected and honored—and no longer hunted and captured and coveted, the very human behaviors that drove them to leave this world in the first place. Other lands had unicorns—massive creatures, to move so quietly across wood and field, and hardly what one could call safe or tame—but Keland was their home, and the place they concentrated their numbers and their magic.
It would be a good thing when the first generation of new wizards was fully trained, instead of fumbling around with half-learned spells. Tellan, for instance, was effective enough in his apprenticeship duties; he went to Solace every month to take in more classes and to discuss what he’d learned, and in the meanwhile he was perfectly suited for easing pain and helping to clear infection and stop bleeding. Those were the things he’d learned well, and practiced often. But his other spells, like that spell this morning . . .
Kacey shook her head. What a disaster that episode could have been. Poor Reandn, sitting up against the barn, pale from his brush with strong magic—and utterly befuddled at Tellan’s need to keep track of him. He obviously had no idea how much the anger still showed on his face, and how intensely his eyes blazed when he felt it.
Kacey liked his eyes, actually. She’d seen them laugh, and she knew what few others realized—that his laughter was just as intense as his anger.
Rethia bumped up against Kacey, a deliberate touch. "He does care," she said. "It’s just too confusing for him to look at it head-on."
Kacey didn’t even turn to look at her sister, who often knew far more than she ought about who was thinking what, and when they were thinking it. "That’s the thing, then, isn’t it?" She made a small, huffy noise and said, "Really, I ought to find myself some nice older man who’s gotten over losing his first wife, and who’d be happy for some companionship."
"It’s more the way it happened than the fact that he lost her," Rethia said. "Besides, the important thing is for you to be happy, and you really don’t need to have a man at all for that. I don’t."
You could if you wanted to, Kacey thought. She didn’t say it out loud, and she didn’t know if Rethia somehow understood the unspoken words anyway. She glanced at her sister. Rethia had those striking eyes, as attractive as they were odd. And she had thick hair, the fairest of blondes and just tinged with strawberry red. She was pretty, and much hardier than she looked. She laughed full and often, and judging by how she doted on the little ones who made their way to Teayo’s sickroom, she’d be happy with a family of her own. She probably could have had most any man she wanted . . . and she didn’t.
But Kacey did. She looked out at Reandn—he was stretching his back out now, shaking out his shoulders and shrugging off the tension, but in the midst of it, he stiffened, looking over his shoulder at the far end of the lane.
"Visitors," Rethia murmured. There was something in her voice that made Kacey look at her more closely, but she couldn’t read what she saw in her sister’s face. Resentment? That was unusual. She grabbed the jacket she’d flung over the stool behind her herb storage workbench and marched out of the house.
Reandn met her midway between the house and the barn, in front of the hitching rail set there. Kacey could barely hear the hooves that had alerted him, but it was enough. There was more than one horse on its way, enough to account for Reandn’s extra attention. Absently, she straightened the collar of his hastily donned jacket, and then did the same for herself. By then the horses were in sight, moving at an easy canter—and while the men she saw meant nothing to Kacey, Reandn’s face closed down hard.
"What?" she asked.
"Saxe. The others, I don’t know."
She instantly wondered if Minor Arval had changed his mind about seeing Reandn jailed, and from the look on his face, Reandn was thinking the same. And as the riders pulled up before them, she did recognize Saxe—whom she’d once met two years earlier—but not the other two.
Saxe didn’t make any attempt at pleasantries. "Dan. Need to talk to you."
"Introduce us." Reandn’s request was pleasant enough, but Kacey heard the steel that meant it wasn’t really a request after all.
So, apparently, did Saxe. Kacey reminded herself that this man had known Reandn much longer than she, and that they’d been close friends all that time. "Raley and Paton," he said, nodding at one and then the other. "Both are King Hawley’s men." Both looked it, too; their clothes were just a little too fine for extended riding, and their faces a little too pale from lack of sun.
"Who don’t they trust?" Reandn asked. "You, or me?"
Saxe grimaced; Kacey read his expression as either a plea or a warning, but she couldn’t tell which. "Neither. They have an interest in this conversation. If you’ve a mind to invite us in, we can discuss it."
Looking at Reandn, Kacey had the impulse to take them all into the kitchen and watch Hawley’s men wilt. But she sighed inwardly, and instead said, "Of course you’re welcome to come inside. I hope you keep in mind that this is a healer’s house, and we have no need for the luxuries of a court."
Saxe grinned at her, a sudden and welcome change. "I like it better, myself, meira, unless you’ve changed it greatly since last I was here."
"No, it’s pretty much the same," Kacey said, somewhat ruefully. "I can’t get my father to get rid of that old chair no matter what. Don’t worry, I’ll sit in that one."
Raley said, "Our conversation is for Reandn."
Reandn smiled at them. "Kacey is meira of this house. If you want this conversation to happen, you’ll include her."
Kacey gave him a surprised but grateful look, though she suspected he was acting from a desire to be contrary as much as to consider her. And she had to admit satisfaction at the irritation that crossed Raley’s face before he nodded. Saxe remained utterly unreadable, and Kacey placed a silent bet with herself that he wasn’t all that happy to be saddled with these men, whatever their purpose.
But she knew something, now—they weren’t here after Reandn. Otherwise they surely wouldn’t bother to accommodate his contrariness. More cheerfully, she waited as the men dismounted and hitched their horses, and then led them in through the front door, straight into the great room. She dropped her coat on her father’s sagging, cushioned chair, and left them to sort out the other seating while she got a tray for tea. Rethia poked her head out of the sickroom and Kacey just shrugged at her, unable to offer any answers. Yet.
When she returned with tea and mugs, she found Reandn standing, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed. He shook his head at her gesture with the tea tray, and said, "Saxe wants me to go on a little trip."
Paton’s lips tightened; he exchanged a glance with Raley, who tilted back in Kacey’s rocking chair and eyed her. She said, "He’s only going to tell me anyway, so you might as well have me hear your version of it. Would you like some tea?"
From the straightbacked chair by the fireplace, Saxe snorted, and Kacey raised an eyebrow at him, meeting his quiet disbelief. The truth, of course, was that Reandn was perfectly willing to keep anything from her he felt she didn’t need to know, but she held her bluff.
Raley cleared his throat. "Tea would be welcome, meira."
"Kacey," she said, and poured it for them. Both Reandn and Saxe abstained, exchanging glances that said they’d rather have this conversation alone. Kacey set the tea tray on the little footstool before her father’s listing chair, and sat in the chair itself. "A trip to where?"
"The pass." Reandn watched Hawley’s men as he spoke. "They need an escort."
"For whom?"
Paton set his tea aside. "I really do draw the line here, meir."
Reandn grinned at him, that grin where he showed his teeth and didn’t look the least amused, unless it was black humor. An intimidating expression, no doubt about that. "Someone important," he said to Kacey. "That’s all they were able to blurt out while you were gone."
Kacey gave Saxe the coldest look she could muster. "Have you forgotten that you dismissed Reandn from your Wolves, meir?" The honorific was a slap to someone she’d once received in her house as friend, and Saxe winced from it. Good.
"That is an interesting point," Reandn said, sounding much more casual than Kacey was sure he felt, as if her own acerbic response left him the room to back off.
Saxe cut through it all. "Let’s do it your way, Dan," he said. "No Highborn finessing." One of the other men made a strangled noise of protest, but cut it off before Kacey could tell who it came from. "I don’t want you out of the Wolves, and you don’t want to be out. If you can accomplish this thing, I can put you right back where you were. All of the current Remote postings are temporary."
Hope leaped in Kacey’s chest, but suspicion followed hard on it. Reandn voiced them for her. "And did you know about this when you sent me off without telling my patrol what was going on? Do they know even yet?"
Saxe hesitated, and then shook his head, short and sharp. "They don’t. And I didn’t. This just came up a few days ago, and there’s been plenty of lost sleep over it. As you can imagine, coming to you was the last thing on Ethne’s mind."
Kacey blinked, hurt on Reandn’s behalf, but Reandn only laughed. "That’s more like it. Exactly what’s going on?"
Paton would have spoken then, but Saxe’s look stilled him. "We’ve discussed some of this, but humor me. The Resiores infighting has solidified into two major factions—those who embrace magic, and those who don’t. The magic-lovers, the Allegients, want to renew their ties to Keland, and the others want to use it as the excuse to secede, which they’ve been preaching for years anyway. That faction calls itself the Shining Knife, and they’re overly fond of burning warehouses and rigging accidents."
Kacey just stared at him. She hadn’t known any of it. Well, that there were plenty in the Resiores who wanted to declare independence, yes. And everyone knew how crucial their supplies of coal and timber were to all of northern Keland. The voices crying for independence had once all said the same thing— that their region was being stripped of precious resources without enough in return, and that they were more isolated from Keland than they were from their other bordering countries. Now, with a zealous hatred of magic in the mix . . . no wonder the problems were mounting.
Well, she wasn’t surprised not to have heard of the troubles. So much could happen over a winter of isolation, and even with the reviving systems of magical messages, Keep news took a long time to reach Little Wisdom—assuming someone bothered to pass it on in the first place. "Why hasn’t King Hawley sent some Dragons over there to deal with this problem?"
"And risk the permanent loss of the Allegients?" Paton said, frowning at her as if either the answer were obvious, or the question highly inappropriate.
Raley said, "We are readying the troops, meira. When necessary, they will be used."
"Kacey," Kacey corrected again. "So you want the Resiores to return like a babe to the breast, and not like a son sent out to the woodshed to await the belt." Raley looked offended, but Kacey heard Reandn’s quiet snort. When she looked at him, he was grinning.
"You can come with me the next time I’m flung in amongst the Highborn," he said. "Translate for me."
Even Saxe had cracked a smile; he leaned back in the straightbacked chair and took a casual stab into the fireplace with the poker beside it, sending sparks flying up the chimney. "You’ve got the gist of it," he told Kacey. "Things are a mess, Geltria is sending their own ambassadors into the Resiores— wouldn’t that be something, for the Resiores to be Geltrian, sitting as they are so handy to King’s Keep!—and we’ve got something crucial that needs to be done. Reandn can do it."
"Which brings us back to Kacey’s point," Reandn said. "I’m no longer a Wolf, so why me?" He gave his former partner a sardonic look. "More expendable?"
Saxe grimaced. "Not a reason I had thought of, no. Look, Dan, the, ahh, visitor—her name is Kalena—" At Raley’s noise of outrage, Saxe shook his head. "It’s a common enough Resiore name, meir, and I’m not going to waste time hunting out secretive ways to refer to her. Kalena and her supporters are too damn aware of Resiore pride. The pass is a dangerous place at the best of times, and you can be certain there’s at least one political faction strongly opposed to the visit. But the word is, the Resiore party will be providing its own guards, and they want nothing from us but a token honor guard." His expression made clear his opinion of the decision. "We’ve already got a couple of Hounds picked out for it, but what we need is half a patrol of Wolves. We’re definitely not willing to do this job without more assurance of Kalena’s safety."
"Half a patrol of Wolves. And you want me to take their place?" Reandn shifted against the doorframe. "That’s a lot to ask."
Complacently, Saxe said, "I never said you weren’t one of the best Wolves we had. Just that you didn’t know how to deal with the Highborn."
Reandn snorted. "The best," he said. "And I know how to deal with the Highborn."
"You’d better," Saxe shot back at him, complacence vanished. "Because Kalena is nothing if not Highborn."
"I haven’t yet said I’m interested in doing this little job of yours," Reandn reminded Saxe. Paton and Raley exchanged a grim look; Kacey glanced up at Reandn to find him tenser than she would have expected.
"Reandn," Paton said, as if he was just now trying out the shape of the word in his mouth, and it didn’t quite fit. "We can’t protect Kalena as well as we ought, and her safety is paramount. The best we can do is slip in a man as the party’s remount wrangler—someone who knows the dangers of patrol, but who won’t be recognized even by the Hound escort. And someone who knows the pass area, as we hear you do. Everyone else with the skill level we need is well known around King’s Keep."
Reandn seemed to consider his words. "I’ve worked with plenty of Hounds, and I’ve been gone only two years."
"Almost two and a half, now," Saxe said. "Trust us to have picked two Hounds who won’t know you."
Raley gave Reandn a swift look, one Kacey didn’t like at all—calculation and impatience wrapped up into a patronizing delivery. "Don’t forget what we’re offering you."
Reandn straightened in the doorway. It was a casual move, with nothing overt about it, and yet it made Kacey feel like scooting out of the line of fire. He said evenly, "How could I?"
Paton caught Saxe’s eye. "I’m not sure this was a good idea."
Saxe just shrugged. "It’s the only one we’ve got." Raley all but rolled his eyes, while Paton stiffened and carefully looked at no one. Saxe gave them both a smile, cheerful enough. "Don’t forget, meirs, I too am a Wolf. I’m not interested in letting you play games with my former partner."
Reandn didn’t bother trying to hide his grin; it was one of the real ones, the ones Kacey generally savored. But at the moment she had other things on her mind. All well and good for these two to play with thwarting subtle Highborn manipulations, but someone had to maintain common sense. "And how long would this assignment take?" Raley, distracted from his annoyance with Saxe, gave her another one of those what’s she doing here looks, and she snapped, "Oh, just answer me!"
Reandn caught on right away. But then, he would. "About three quarters to get to the pass, if I’ve got Wolf’s Rights along the way—or if one of our friends there gives me the coin to provision myself as I go, instead of packing along a mule. I’d say maybe four to get back, since we’ll be slowed by Highborn notions of travel on the way back to the Keep."
"Sounds right to me," Saxe agreed.
"Then I ought to be fine, as long as no one’s working major magics within my reach. And if they are . . ." He didn’t need to finish. Kacey knew well enough what he meant, and by the Highborn sighs she heard, so did everyone else.
"That’s way too close to your limit, Dan," she said, knowing he wouldn’t want to hear it. But two full months between Rethia’s treatments was the longest he’d ever gone, and he’d been pretty sick at that. Then again, if their new elixir helped to prolong that time . . .
"We’ve thought of that," Saxe said. "We’ve still got a guide to add to the party, remember. We’re looking for a wizard who will be an added layer of protection for the Resiore party, and who can also protect Reandn."
"Teya?" Reandn said instantly.
Saxe shook his head. "She knows you as her patrol leader, Dan. She’s not seasoned enough to keep that fact from showing. No, the wizard we choose will be just like the Hounds—he’ll have no idea you’re a Wolf."
"He—or she—is going to wonder why you bother to have me along at all, then, considering my weakness to magic," Reandn warned.
Raley said, "We’ll deal with that." And then his face changed, shifting back into the exasperation this whole situation seemed destined to bring out in him. He was looking at Reandn, and Kacey glanced up behind Reandn to discover the true object of his displeasure—Rethia. Reandn didn’t look aside as she settled in next to him, directly behind Kacey. He’d known, of course. Kacey gave him a brief little frown. Once, just once, she’d like to get there first, and not be the one who was surprised.
Not likely. Besides, it was what kept him safe on patrol, and that meant she had less to worry about.
Rethia said, "That’s not enough."
Kacey blinked, stumbling over the way Rethia’s comment fit into her thoughts, but for once her sister was talking about something else entirely.
"Not enough?" Raley repeated. "What do you mean, not enough?"
She said it slowly, so he could understand; as was often the case with strangers, she kept her head tilted down slightly, looking at him through the thick fringe of her bangs. "That isn’t enough protection. He’s going to be too far away from me. If something happens—"
"What could happen?" Raley said. He looked as if he wanted to sweep Rethia away from the room like a bug before a broom.
"Listen to her," Reandn said softly. "I am."
A paragon of patience, Rethia said, "What if something goes wrong, and they’re attacked by magic? Will your wizard be able to respond to the magic and protect Danny?"
Paton said slowly, "The wizard’s first priority will be to protect Kalena and her party."
"The point," Raley interrupted, "is that by including Reandn in the escort, we’re hoping to avoid or prevent that kind of trouble."
"Hoping isn’t doing," Rethia said.
"It’s a risk Reandn will have to decide if he wants to take."
Reandn seemed to be more amused at being spoken of in the third person than he was alarmed at Rethia’s words, but Kacey read the tension in his body and knew better.
And Rethia lost patience, lifting her head to lock gazes with Raley, using her startling eyes like a shout to get his attention. "Do people from the Keep always make things so hard?" she asked. "All you have to do is give Danny a way to reach me. If I know he’s in trouble with magic, I’ll go to him."
"You’ll—what?" Paton asked, as taken aback by her eyes as was Raley.
Rethia looked at Kacey, a plea for help. Kacey said, "Meirs, you yourselves took the Wizard’s Road to speak to us— unless you want us to believe that you rode all the way from the Keep within the three days since you heard of Kalena’s arrival. All Rethia’s saying is that if Reandn is endangered by your wizard’s inability to protect him, we want to be able to reach him just as quickly. I’m sure there are details to work out, but then, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Work them out!"
"It could be dangerous for Rethia," Saxe said. "We can’t be sure of what she’ll be coming into. We can’t ask that of her."
"No, you can’t," Kacey said, not trying to hide the heat behind her words. "She’s offering. We’re healers, Saxe, and while we may not be in your precious Wolf Pack, we do protect our own."
"Danny is family now," Rethia said, her quiet voice a marked contrast to Kacey’s hot words.
Silence followed, but Kacey didn’t miss the quick look Saxe sent Reandn. When she checked, Reandn hadn’t moved at all, but there was a quiet hint of a smile on his face. For once, he knew when enough was enough; Kacey and Rethia’s words would stand on their own.
Kacey’s face warmed in a sudden, unaccountable flush; it took her a moment to understand why. Danny is family, Rethia had said. And Reandn had just smiled—no uncomfortable shifting, no objections, no evasions. Kacey, too, smiled, turning her head so Reandn couldn’t see any sign of it. For the first time she felt that whatever turn his life was about to take, he would make an effort to keep them a part of it—and not just because he needed Rethia’s healing touch.
Reandn spent the evening outside, doing chores in the chill moonlight until well after dark. Teayo returned, sensed Reandn’s taciturn mood, and exchanged only as many words as it took to accept Reandn’s offer to unharness and feed his mare. His arrival home meant supper would be served, but Reandn had no interest in food just yet, not if it meant sitting through explanations of what had occurred at the house that day—or in his quick discussion with Saxe, afterward.
That’s when he’d learned who Kalena was—the first officially sanctioned ambassador from a region whose dependence had previously been so taken for granted that the notion of an ambassador would have been laughed out of court. For their first, the Resiores had chosen the daughter of a Highborn timberlands Minor, a young woman well known to the current unofficial Resioran representative, Malik.
"Malik made this happen," Saxe had said. "He’s borderline Highborn, in coal. Odd thing, since most of the coal people lean toward Geltrian affiliation, but apparently he’s a friend of the family. Paton’s been working with him to prepare things for Kalena—though Malik knows nothing of you. Like we said . . . no one else does."
Wonderful. A new Resioran ambassador, too hills-proud to accept a proper escort—and the Keep was desperate enough to call on Reandn, dismissed and disgraced, as their clandestine security measure, just one of the many Wolves who should have been there in the first place.
"It’s not that bad," Saxe had said, reacting to Reandn’s dark expression. "No one knows when she’s coming—we’ve deliberately seeded rumors it’ll be midsummer. And a small escort is less likely to be noticed on the road. If we did send a true formal escort, everyone would know something was up." And then he grinned, a grin of old, when they’d been partnered and equally ranked. "It’s your way back into the Wolves, Dan."
His way back into the Wolves. Why, then, did it seem more complex than that, and enough to kill his appetite and keep him out here, working . . . distracted.
Because, he told himself. He had a lot to think about, and sometimes that kind of thinking was best done by not thinking at all, but just doing, until his mind wandered back to the matters at hand and he discovered he’d come to a decision. Usually, working around the horses did that for him.
But not always. And not tonight. As he returned to the abandoned kitchen, he hoped Saxe was having better luck with arrangements for Rethia—because Reandn himself, while he had quickly decided on the issue of whether or not to join Kalena’s escort, couldn’t manage to shake some feeling of wrongness about it all.
So he ate the food that was waiting for him in the unstoked warmth of the oven, grateful when the others left him in peace. Kacey came in briefly to revive the fire under the teapot, and then again to take tea out to the sickroom. Reandn recognized the odor of one of her soothing concoctions, and decided it was later than he’d thought; she was putting her patients to bed for the night. He ducked into the little wash area and took off his shirt to sponge away the day’s dirt and sweat, then rinsed the shirt out in the lukewarm, ever-present cauldron.
He’d have to come up with new clothes for the escort duty; almost everything he owned was Wolf issue. He’d let Saxe or the Highborn take care of the cost, he decided, wringing out the shirt and hanging it by the stove to dry overnight. Quietly, he moved into the short hall that sprouted the sickroom off one side and the great room off the other, their doorways just slightly offset from one another.
Rethia and Teayo had already taken to the sleeping alcoves; the light of a single lamp shone on Kacey’s workbench, picking highlights out from the curves of her face and throwing her curls into chiaroscuro jumble. She bent over paper with pen in hand. Some kind of list, then—probably how much of which herbs she needed Rethia to gather. He moved to the doorway and hesitated there.
She glanced up at the movement, saw who it was, and sat up, carefully putting her pen aside. Her lips pressed together in disapproval of some sort; Reandn knew her well enough by now to guess it was at something she was thinking, and not anything he’d done—although no doubt she was surprised to find him wandering around shirtless. She’d figure it out.
What she did was put a finger to her lips and nod toward the beds that were out of his sight. Apparently even Tellan was asleep.
He kept his voice low. "I . . . just wanted to say thanks."
She screwed her face up in a questioning expression he couldn’t possibly misinterpret, even in the poor light.
"I’m glad you were here this afternoon," he said simply.
It seemed to take her by surprise, and Reandn didn’t give her time to gather her thoughts. It had rather taken him by surprise, too. He bid her good night and drew himself up into the loft at the end of the great room, not chancing to lower the ladder when it might wake Teayo and Rethia, and moving quietly under the extremely low ceiling for the same reason. His floor was their ceiling, and the stone chimney neatly bisected the length of the loft, radiating warmth. Tucked in behind it was a thick, straw-filled pallet, and he rolled onto it, feeling for the blankets. Something gave a squeak of protest and scuttled away across the floor. Damn chameleon shrews, they were everywhere now.
Too tired to think of anything more than getting a cat for this house and grateful for the fact, Reandn fell asleep.
But sleep and rest are two different things. The evasive feelings he couldn’t define when he was awake invaded his dreams, leaving him angry and confused but with no answers. He finally woke with a start, full of fury with no outlet, and banged his head on the abrupt slope of the roof boards above the pallet. Lonely Hells! The curse resounded in his thoughts almost loudly enough to take form in the close space of the loft; for a moment he thought he’d spoken out loud.
No, just dream befuddled, a suitable finish to a day of waking befuddlement. After his breathing calmed, he fell quickly back into the sleep that had never quite let go of him.
This time, he wasn’t alone.
Someone else’s gentle breath crossed his cheek, just enough warning that when lips settled lightly on his own, he was prepared. Adela’s herb-washed hair brushed the side of his face. "Danny . . ." she said, barely loud enough to call a whisper. "It’s been a long time since you called me so strongly."
Reandn, stunned to feel her touch again after so long, tangled his fingers in the hair on either side of her face and pulled her close, kissing her long and hard, reveling in the taste and feel of her. He finally released her to bury his head in that long dark hair, right at the sweet curve where her neck joined her shoulders. His breathing was ragged and his heart pounding and—and it’s only a dream. Really Adela, and truly a conversation, but it would all disappear once he woke.
"My," she said. "I’d almost forgotten what that was like."
"I haven’t," he said, his voice as rough as his breathing. Slowly, he became aware of his surroundings—in these rare moments with Adela, he could find himself anywhere. But tonight, adding to the illusion of reality, he discovered he was right where he’d fallen asleep. Gently, he moved back from her, propping himself up on one elbow to regard her. She mirrored him, running a finger over her lower lip as if to remind her of his touch. Her bare shoulder peeked out from beneath her hair.
Bare shoulder. Bare arm. Bare everything. "What are you trying to do?" he said, his voice all but breaking like a boy’s. "Torture me?"
She looked at herself and laughed. "I wasn’t thinking. Here, is this better?" Abruptly, she wore one of his old shirts, as was often her habit when they were together at King’s Keep.
"Well, maybe not better," he said grudgingly. "But easier."
She laughed again, a loving sound. "Danny," she said, still smiling at him, "What’s got you all muddled up? I know what’s happened; I know you grieve for your patrol. But your grief isn’t what I feel." She eyed him a moment, and he waited until she added, "It takes a lot to call me, these days. I don’t even feel them as days, Danny, I just always find myself surprised by how much time has passed since the last time I touched you . . . and each time, I wonder if it’s the last. It might be. You know that, don’t you?"
A sudden cold hand wrapped itself around Reandn’s heart, but he nodded. He knew. He’d felt it happening. Kavan was already gone, as bright and inquisitive in death as life had never allowed him to be, and too busy to worry about old ties from a previous existence. "He loves you," Adela said then, letting Reandn know how loudly he’d been thinking.
He wished, in this dream world, that he could pluck the thoughts from her mind, too, and know—really know—what it was like for her. But all he could do was swallow hard and nod.
"Things change, Danny," she said. "Things change, and it’s not always for the worse. I will never, ever stop loving you." She ran her fingers down the side of his face, and whispered, "But I may change the way I do it."
"Haven’t things changed enough?" Reandn asked, unable to keep the rough note from his voice. Hadn’t they? Not so long ago, he lived in a world without magic. He was Wolf First at King’s Keep, second only to Saxe, with a wife he adored, and a foster son who filled the gap of childlessness in their lives.
Then came the magic; it took everything away, and gave back only deadly allergies. King’s Keep, aware of his inability to stay near heavily populated, magic-using communities, created a Remote Patrol, the first step in reestablishing Wolf presence outside of the Keep, and set him at the head of it. Teayo’s family, the healers who had once saved his life after an ambush, continued to save it by helping him manage his allergies. And Kacey—she was so good, and she tried so hard, but her feelings for him showed in her eyes whether she was laughing with him or lashing him with her tongue. Yes, despite what Saxe had said at Arval’s, things had changed.
And now he’d lost the patrol and the Wolves—or had he? And was he helping Saxe out of knee-jerk loyalty, or because he truly wanted to regain his place with the Wolves?
"It’s too much," he said, shaking his head at Adela. "I don’t know what I am . . . I don’t know what I want."
"You won’t know until you know," Adela said. "It’s not something you can just decide to know."
"I lied." Reandn closed his eyes. "I do know. I want you."
"Things change," Adela said. She leaned over and kissed him again, just as long and hard as the first time. Reandn made a protesting noise deep in his throat as she left him—not pulling away, but leaving—and then she was gone, her touch lingering on his lips and her voice in his ear. However I can, I’ll always love you.
He thought he was awake, then. His breath came fast and hard, catching at his throat both in and out. The loft was warm, too warm, and yet his skin still ran goosebumps from Adela’s touch. He was awake, wasn’t he?
Teayo’s massive snore broke the silence of the night, and Reandn’s doubt disappeared. He lay there a moment, perfectly still, listening to the snoring—and then suddenly couldn’t get out of that loft fast enough. Too warm, too close, too Adela. He snagged the blanket and lowered himself to the great room. Once in the kitchen, he flipped the blanket into a fold, and wrapped it around his shoulders.
The chill night air hit his face like a slap, erasing his Dela-caused goosebumps and replacing them with commonplace ones. He breathed deeply, his bare feet walking on their own volition, cold mud oozing between his toes. He was halfway down the lane to the road before he realized it, and before the cold really began to seep in.
There he stopped. For long moments, he stood there, fighting the need to do something, to make a decision, any decision—and feeling the inexplicable desire to run, just run, until his legs gave out from the effort.
Running away, he suddenly realized. That’s what it would be, it’s what he really wanted to do. But there was no running away from the way he felt, and the confusion wouldn’t settle until he somehow managed to face it head on. No matter what the Prime said, in his heart Reandn would always be a Wolf, and this confusion was just as much of an enemy as anything he’d ever faced.
And a Wolf did not run from the enemy.
In the morning, Reandn stumbled through the great room somewhat later than was his norm but not late enough to have gotten sufficient sleep; no four people could ever be moving about and yet be quiet enough for that. Kacey was in the sickroom with someone’s family, giving directions for the patient’s care at home, and Teayo’s cart—presumably with Teayo inside—was gone. Tellan was outside; from the hallway, Reandn caught a glimpse of him through the sickroom window, and heard snatches of his voice—uncertain, worried—as he helped someone out of a wagon. There seemed to be plenty of blood in evidence; Reandn guessed it was a gruesome farm accident and knew it was likely he’d be called on to hold someone down. Tellan’s improving ability to sedate patients would be well tested today, too, if Reandn was right.
Might as well get some food in his stomach first. If he recalled correctly, someone had bartered honey for herbs the day before, and it just might be out with the oat porridge—ah, yes. Warming by the stove. The porridge itself glopped into a bowl, past its prime, but the honey would make up for it. Reandn slid the bowl onto the table and discovered his neatly folded shirt waiting for him there. He pulled it over his head and commenced to scooping food into his mouth. Just a normal day, he thought, and a deadly ironic contrast to his night.
Rethia came in from outside as he was finishing up, her face flushed and muddy spots on her loose trouser knees. "It’s beautiful out!" she said happily, depositing her basket of greens and herbs by the dry sink next to the stove. "You slept through the most interesting sunrise."
"I guess I did."
Something in his voice must have alerted her—but then again, this was Rethia, so who knew—for she looked down at him a moment, her eyes clouded. "Did you talk to her last night?"
Reandn nodded without saying anything. Rethia sighed, and moved on, retrieving a small brazier and filling it with some of their precious hard coal. She shoveled already-flaming wood chunks from the stove in on top of it all, carefully fanning it so the coal would catch and burn. "I thought, maybe," she said, still in their conversation and responding to Reandn’s nonverbal reply. "When you didn’t get up before I did, I peeked up in the loft and saw how muddy your feet were."
Reandn glanced under the table at his feet, distinctly remembering that he’d wiped them off so he wouldn’t track mud. He discovered he’d forgotten about the mud that had squished between his toes and settled along their upper edges. Oh, well. "Whups," he said.
"You don’t want to talk about it, though," she said, making the statement an invitation to do just that.
"What do you think?"
"I think not." She peeled her coat off; it was long enough that it, too, had brushed the ground as she knelt, and mud fringed the edges. "I think Kacey’s going to need your help. Tellan tries, but he’s just not . . ."
Her words trailed off into nothingness and Reandn didn’t hesitate to finish it for her, knowing she’d never get around to it herself; she was probably thinking about that sunrise. Or Adela. Or their new patient—or all three. "Not strong enough, I know. What do you do when I’m not around?" For Teayo was always expected elsewhere, and counted on them to handle the sickroom without him.
She looked at him, vaguely surprised. "Struggle." And then she was gone again, there but not there.
Reandn eyed what was left of the porridge and decided against a second serving. Helping in the sickroom wasn’t something he wanted to do on an overfull stomach. Nor with a clean shirt, he thought, and pulled it back off again. Kacey would shove one of her father’s oversized old workshirts at him if she cared.
She cared. The first thing she did when he entered the sickroom was point an imperious finger at the wall behind the workbench, where several such shirts were generally available. She did not, however, hesitate with what she was doing, which was calming her patient. Reandn eyed the situation, glad to see that the family waited outside, even if they did crowd around the window. On the bed nearest the workbench—he always thought of that bed as his, considering the time he’d spent there—was a crying child, and under all the blood it was hard to see just which sex the child might be. Kacey sat on one side of the bed, murmuring soothing words, and Tellan sat on the other, looking pale as he bit his lip and tried—evidently without success—to calm the child with magic. "It would help," Kacey said to him through gritted teeth, "if you could at least slow the bleeding."
"I’m trying," Tellan said. He was holding three pads of bandages on the thrashing figure, and Reandn could well imagine that between the squalling child, the appalling amount of blood, and the nearly impossible task of keeping a grip on the slick, squirming child, Tellan had no chance of achieving the concentration he needed for his magic. There was certainly no trace of it in the air.
"I can’t get sweet syrup into her while she’s this upset," Kacey said shortly, her hand clamped down over the sopping rag wrapped around the child’s forearm. "Goddess, I can’t see a thing with all this blood. How cut up is she?"
Shirt in hand, Reandn stuck his head out the door and said, "You’re blocking the light." Startled, the confounded family only stared at him. Too upset and panicked to quite understand what he wanted, it seemed. "Leave one person to watch," he said, patient but unyielding, "and the rest of you wait by the wagon."
This brought protest, but the oldest person there, a grandmother or aunt, started rounding them up. Eventually, only the oldest son stood by the window, and the rest of them huddled together at the wagon, comforting one another.
"Thank you," Kacey said when Reandn came back inside, her strained voice barely loud enough to hear over the girl’s shrieks. "Now help me keep this child still! I have got to get her sedated if I’m going to stitch her up before it’s too late."
They didn’t have a chance, Reandn thought, not unless someone did something fast. At first he’d wondered why they weren’t trying to tie her down, but now he could see the deep cuts on her arms and legs that made it impossible. He did the first thing that came to him; he moved in, stepping right up on the bed and sliding down against the wall at its head—splinters and all—and picked the girl up to settle her in his lap. He laced his arms under hers, clamping onto his wrists where they met over her chest, and then crossed his legs over her hips. She was just a little too small to fit snugly in his grip, and she continued flinging blood around along with her arms and legs—but she was effectively immobilized throughout her body.
"Perfect!" Kacey said, quickly turning to her little cup of sweet syrup. Using a tiny spoon, she left her hand poised by the girl’s face until just the right opportunity presented itself, then darted in to deliver the pain-killing sedative. As much was on the girl’s lips and chin as in her mouth, but Kacey immediately refilled the spoon and tried again.
"What the Hells happened to her?" Reandn asked, loud above the noise of the child herself. Beside him, Tellan used the opportunity to tie down his bandages and move on to other injuries.
Kacey was grim, her voice steady as she got another spoonful into the girl. "I’m not entirely sure, they were all talking at once. Something about all their farming tools being sharpened for the season, and the girl taking a fall from the barn loft."
Plough, scythe, saws, reapers . . . Reandn winced. And Kacey said in frustration, "This just isn’t fast enough! C’mon, sweetie, just be still a moment—"
But she wasn’t. She was beyond hearing them, trapped in her own pain and terror and fighting them as hard as she could. Reandn readjusted his grip and bent his head to her ear—or as close as he could get without getting his nose broken. Sharp and loud, he whistled, the call he used to get Sky from the other end of a pasture.
Startled, the girl froze—just for an instant, but long enough for Kacey’s quick hands to get more sweet syrup into her. As the girl gathered her breath to renew her noise, Reandn whistled again, not quite as loud, and then crooned into her ear, soothing nonsense.
It only held her a few moments before she started crying, more weakly this time—but by then Kacey was sitting back on her short bedside stool, satisfaction on her face. Behind her, Rethia whisked into the room, carrying the brazier in a small frame and carefully setting it within Kacey’s reach. From one of the drawers of the workbench, she retrieved a clatter of instruments, none of which Reandn could see—except for the minuscule flat-ended poker that she stuck into the hottest part of the brazier coals.
All of a sudden, Reandn regretted his breakfast altogether. Realizing he’d stopped murmuring to the girl, he picked it up again, but in truth she wasn’t struggling very hard anymore, anyway. It hadn’t been long enough for the syrup to take effect, as he knew all too well. He looked up to catch the despair in Kacey’s eyes. "Tellan," she said. "Please."
Tellan looked up from the girl’s shin, where he’d found a cut shallow enough to slather comfrey salve on and bandage up. "I—" he said, and his gaze darted to Reandn and away again. Reandn was not slow to see the fear there.
"Stop the bleeding," he said, as much of an order as he could make it.
"Will you be all right?" Kacey asked, as if suddenly realizing the ramifications of her request. She looked at Reandn with worried eyes, blood smeared across her face, and then at the soaked cloth around the girl’s arm. "It may be too late already. . . ."
"Do it, dammit!" Reandn said, holding on to the girl a little more tightly.
Tellan did. Reandn concentrated on the feel of his own fingers digging into his wrists as he held the child, setting his teeth against the magic in his head, his body. Not as bad as the day before, he told himself, and not near as bad as what he’d endured in times past. Just something to live through . . . he’d learned long ago how far sheer determination could take him, past the thrumming buzz that filled his head, past the tightening of his chest, driving his body to do as it must.
When it faded, all he heard was the rapid sound of his heartbeat in his ears—and then, finally, Kacey’s faint, "Goddess bless."
He realized he was slumped over the girl, though his grip had not slackened. Slowly, he took a deep breath, straightened himself, and opened his eyes. Looking at the girl, he couldn’t tell much difference; she was limp in his grip now, and breathing in short, shallow gasps. But when Kacey wiped one of the cuts clean, it no longer welled right up again with blood. "That’s wonderful, Tellan. Now go in and keep her under, will you—don’t forget how much syrup we’ve put in her, don’t overdo it—and I’ll look at this arm." She glanced down at the brazier, where the coals still glowed red-hot. "I just hope we can save it."
Tellan worked in silence a moment, much more subtle magic this time. Rethia set a tray on the end of the bed with a number of fine curved needles, already threaded, lined up and waiting, and immediately began washing down the girl’s legs. Tellan, his voice faint, opened his eyes and said, "All right. I’ve got her. She’s very weak, Kacey."
"I know," Kacey said. "We’ll . . . we’ll do what we can." She looked up at Reandn and asked, "Are you all right?" but didn’t hesitate before returning to the bandage she was carefully unwrapping.
Reandn said, "I will be," and shifted beneath the girl. "What’s her name?"
"I don’t even know. Tellan has her now; you don’t have to stay."
"Sophi," Rethia said.
"I’ll stay." But Reandn uncrossed and straightened his legs, easing the girl into more of a reclining position even as Kacey worked. He stroked her hair; she couldn’t be more than eight years old, and it seemed to him that someone should be here just to tell her everything was going to be all right, even if she appeared not to hear. There were a lot of things he remembered from his time under Kacey’s sweet syrup, after all. "I’ll stay with you, Sophi."
Tellan, still remote with concentration as he monitored her wakefulness, offered Reandn a pair of bent shears and said tentatively, "Maybe you can get her shirt off?"
Maybe. Reandn took the shears, and when he was done with that, Rethia handed him a cloth and warm water and asked him to wash what he could reach. He thought it would take a good dunking before the child was actually clean again, but he did what he could, speaking to her all the while and doing his best to ignore what Kacey was up to, she with thread and needle and the lingering odor of burnt flesh.
Eventually, it was over. Reandn climbed off the bed and left a pillow to cradle Sophi’s head instead, and Rethia took the brazier away, and Tellan tiredly started seeing to the handful of other patients, some of whom had sickened at the sights before them.
"We need to get a separate room for this kind of thing," Kacey sighed, looking at the other patients. "Thank Ardrith it doesn’t happen very often." And she went out to talk to the family members, who were by this time crowding around the window again.
Reandn pulled off his borrowed shirt, feeling as worn as though he’d just worked an entire patrol shift, and went to hunt up his own. Boots, too, he thought, and finally took the time to get the rest of the mud off his feet. The horses hadn’t been fed, and after an entire morning trapped in their stalls, they were probably mighty peeved.
He’d just finished hauling water for them and was standing at the paddock fence, watching them take out their frustration on each other, when Kacey came up beside him. She was well bundled in her characteristic layers of jackets, but she had her arms wrapped around herself as though chilled despite the sun that shone strongly on her. "Must be spring," she said, kicking at the mud under the lowest fence rail. "Looks like this might actually dry up someday."
Reandn didn’t respond. He rested his elbows on the upper rail and turned his face to the sun, closing his eyes in its brightness.
Kacey sighed, and stood in silence for a while. Then, altogether unexpectedly, she said, "I’m always surprised to find you so good with children."
Oh? He gave her a little frown.
She frowned, too, but it was at herself. "That . . . didn’t come out very well. I mean to say . . . that is . . . well, graces!"
"Just say it, Kacey," Reandn told her. "You’re generally pretty good at that."
He’d gotten her ire with that one. "I just meant, well, life went on after you lost Adela. It’ll go on if you lose the Wolves, too. We can use your help here, Reandn. Since Rethia brought the magic back, so many more people have realized we’re here, and we’re always shorthanded."
"I’m not meant for cutting away clothing and washing off blood," Reandn said sharply, trying to remember that Kacey had no idea what he’d been through the night before, and no real concept of Adela’s visits at all. Life had gone on without Adela, but it hadn’t been easy—and until now, he hadn’t realized just how hard he’d been hanging on to those infrequent visits of hers. He heard her again, her gentleness as she told him, Things change.
"I didn’t mean that, I meant—well, no one else thought of handling Sophi like you did. We may lose her yet, but she’d surely be dead already without your help. There are so many reasons we’d be happy to have you stay—" Her words were running together a little, a sure sign that she was upset and trying to hide it. "Tellan can learn to protect you from his magic, I’m sure he can—" She cut herself off as if suddenly hearing how she sounded, and risked a look at him. There were tears welling in her eyes.
Reandn looked away from them.
"It’s just," she said, and he could hear those tears now, "it’s just I’m worried about you. This sounds so dangerous, sending you out with no authority, among magic and politics and some spoiled Highborn who won’t even let herself be properly protected. It’d be so much safer here—"
He took it all wrong, too full of anger at Things change and his helplessness to do anything about most of it to make the effort truly to understand her. "Do you really think Saxe would ask this of me if he didn’t think I was good enough to handle it?"
"That’s not what I meant," Kacey stammered.
No, what she meant was that she cared for him too much, that she wanted him to stay so he wouldn’t leave her—for the Wolves, or for the consequences of the risks he was about to take.
They knew each other well after two years, no matter the sporadic nature of his visits. Another time, perhaps, he would have put his arm around her shoulder—not offering her what she wanted, but sorry to see her upset.
But not now. He’d had too much thrown at him, too many decisions he’d had no part in, too many events he’d been powerless to affect. The only thing he knew was how to fight back. Suddenly things didn’t seem so confusing anymore, and all the feelings he’d wrestled during the night now solidified into the same sort of determination that had gotten him out of the kitchen and into the Pack, the same determination that saw him through the ravages of magic. He was a Wolf. And he was going to make sure he stayed that way.