“It is a binding,” the other woman breathed in her ear. “The sensation will pass.”
Mariah still didn’t know what had really happened or what Shira meant by a binding. A part of her thought she should be angry with the other woman, but Shira hadn’t been the one to push the idea of coming into Laikos, and although Mariah hadn’t been aware of it before, Shira had been bound by her previous pact not to say a word about the wolves; it was a pact she had apparently made long before they had even met. She had also made sure that they all came out alive. Mariah wasn’t sure that she could’ve done the same.
As soon as Xae finished eating, he changed and made a point of checking and rewrapping Mariah’s new wound, careful to move her arm as little as possible. He asked Shira to shift and let him check her wound, and Mariah pulled her sleeve back down over the bandage and adjusted her sling as they argued.
Their hunger satisfied and her arm taken care of, the group was on its way in short order. Shira never did shift back—Mariah had a feeling she was avoiding conversation—so Xae adjusted the rope on the bear’s back and let her lead the way once again, Mariah along for the ride and everyone in their animal forms. The wolf followed as she had the day before, never actually with them but always nearby. Mariah had no idea what Ruby thought about Xae’s presence—he had made no pact—but she didn’t go running back to her alphas when he joined them, so Mariah decided she would have to be satisfied with that.
After less than an hour of travel through the forest, Shira stopped. She grunted softly and sat down. Her signal was clear, so Xae changed and moved Mariah to the forest floor. Mariah transformed, but Shira still sat there, staring at them. Finally, with a huff, she lifted her foreleg and began chewing at the rope under it.
“Oh, oh! I’m sorry!” Xae rushed around her and began working the knot at her back loose so that he could remove it before she changed.
As soon as Shira had given Mariah her pack and taken a long drink from her own waterskin, she looked at Mariah, her eyes widening. “Your hair, lady! That bath must have washed out the last of whatever you put in it.” Shira’s face was full of awe. “It’s pure silver! More silver than that fish you just ate. How’d you get such …” Mariah was standing in a patch of sunlight. Gwyn had told her once that her hair sparkled in the sun.
“I think it’s because of my wings. They match,” she said, but the other woman didn’t seem to hear her.
Without so much as asking, Shira ran a hand over Mariah’s scalp and through the downy texture of her hair. It hadn’t been cut since before she had left Firebend to visit the village, before she had met Xae and before Gwyn had been hurt. Bria usually did it for her. It now covered her ears and almost reached her chin. The brown fabric of her scarf had fallen down the back of her head and pooled in the hood of her cloak. “I have some dye. To make it orange again.”
Shira looked at Ruby, hovering nearby, and then behind her to the trail. “All right, but let’s be quick.”
After Mariah gave Shira the jar of dye and settled on her knees, she heard the other woman mutter, “What a shame to cover this up,” as she began rubbing the thick paste over her short locks. In a soft tone, she began to sing as she worked, and by the time the old tavern tune was complete, she was finished with her task.
Mariah felt the warmth of happiness fill her for the first time since before Brywann Pass as the other woman gathered her scarf and deftly tied it around her head until her hair was invisible beneath it. When it was dry, it would be the color of carrots again.
“Thank you,” Mariah murmured.
Shira only nodded and turned back to the trail.
* * *
The three travelers moved forward through the woods in their human forms, their new companion ghosting behind, still lupine. Shira had turned quiet again, but Mariah didn’t say anything. The previous night had been a strange and terrifying ordeal for both of them. She still wasn’t sure how they were going to find this mysterious missing wolf. If he had been taken by Rothgar’s men, he could be anywhere. It didn’t help that the wolves had confirmed the presence of soldiers in Kannuk.
In a desperate mood, Mariah sent a prayer to the Althamir, hoping that Captain Odrin and his lieutenant hadn’t sent some kind of order to Kannuk that would result in their arrest. Shira needed to speak with her man there more than ever now that they had four people to locate instead of just three.
Before another half-hour had passed, the forest started to thin, and the group passed onto a narrow, brush-covered trail that led out of the dense woods. Tall bushes and short, spindly trees hid the view beyond, although, after a while, Mariah spotted side trails leading off here and there. Soon, she saw the familiar shapes of houses over the brush to the right and left, and she realized that they had completely emerged from Laikos. Relief flooded through her as if someone had lifted a weight from her back.
Grass tall enough to hide Ruby as she traveled off to the side began to replace the brush, and the trail widened. Almost two hours after they had changed, with the midmorning sun climbing toward its apex, the little trio stepped onto the North Road. They waited, but Ruby did not join them.
Mariah started back down the trail and found a girl waiting for her, squatting low in the grass. Ruby’s pale blue eyes stared out of her dark, adolescent face. She might have been a year or two older than Xae, just on the verge of womanhood, and if she hadn’t been so thin, she would have been stunning.
The girl did not speak, but Mariah saw her problem right away. She had only leathers to wear, as her alphas had. Perhaps they had no need for real clothing in the forest, especially if they mostly kept to their wolf forms. Mariah scanned the ground around the girl. Ruby had nothing to her name, not even a waterskin. They hadn’t even given her that before they had ordered her off with a group of near strangers.
Shira joined them, and within moments and with few words, they had outfitted Ruby in Mariah’s extra clothing, the sleeves and pant legs rolled up to fit her smaller stature. She still didn’t speak, only nodded or shook her head when necessary.
That done, the three women joined Xae near the road and resumed their journey. The North Road was much broader than anything they had traveled thus far. Mariah did not recall the section of this road being so wide in Eaglespire. Two wagons could travel abreast here and still have room to spare.
There were other travelers now, more than they had passed on their journey so far. Wagons passed them coming and going, along with a steady stream of people on foot, mostly men and women who appeared to be residents of the farms that surrounded Kannuk, and a few on horseback.
The whole time they moved along the North Road, Mariah resolutely kept her eyes forward. If she looked back, she might not be able to stop herself from changing direction. The pull toward Eaglespire, toward answers to her questions, had started the minute she had read her mother’s note, and now, with her feet on the same road that went through the village she had fled so long ago, it only grew stronger.
* * *
They reached Kannuk at midday. The town itself was surrounded by a gray stone wall more than twenty feet high. Rounded mural towers connected by a broad arch sat sentry on either side of the road. The little group passed through a huge open gate and under the archway. Just inside the gates was a small, stone guardhouse with a lonely spear propped up on its outer wall.
“Do they ever close the gates?” Mariah whispered to Shira.
“Never have when I’ve been here. Never seen an actual guard at the walls, either.”
Despite Shira’s answer, Mariah had to steel herself against the urge to run, fly away from the possible threat that the guardhouse represented. Her friend, on the other hand, looked more relaxed now that they had entered civilization again. Her shoulders were back, her head was high, and her eyes actively scanned the streets around them.
“What now?” Xae’s urgent question broke through her thoughts. Ruby stood beside him, her head down. She still hadn�
��t spoken.
Mariah looked to Shira again.
“Market’s across from the temple, beyond the Westholde Road. That’s all past the inn. I’ll take you three there, and you can buy another waterskin and more food. I know the seamstress. I’ll see if she has spare clothing for Ruby before I head to the Dragon. See if I can learn anything useful.” A smile played at the corner of her lips.
“We shouldn’t separate,” Mariah said.
“The folks at the Dragon know me. I always come alone. They will suspect something if I don’t. We’ll stand out like a yellowtail in a tree if anyone starts asking questions. And, believe me, if we do what ya came to Varidian to do, people will be asking questions and looking for us soon enough. If they’re not already.” She leveled her gaze at Xae.
Mariah shivered and tried to distract herself as they passed between a number of small buildings constructed of stone and wood. Many had carved signs hanging above their doors or nailed to their walls showing off the service or goods they proffered. The town’s age showed in the wear on wooden beams and cracks and pits in the stone, but it still remained vital, with a steady flow of people, some with horses and wagons. Mariah tried to keep her movements slow and natural, but she was afraid, with the way her nerves danced across her skin, that she looked as furtive and panicked as she felt.
“Watch your step, lady,” Shira said.
Mariah looked down and started. She barely avoided planting her boot in a pile of horse droppings on the cobblestone in front of her. Ruby stood nearby, and Mariah could have sworn she saw a smile before the girl’s stoic expression returned.
“Thanks,” she said to Shira, her muscles relaxing a bit.
She paid less attention to the buildings and passersby after that and more to the road until Shira came up short. “There.” She pointed across the road to where a large building sat. It was one of the few two-story structures that Mariah had seen since they had come through the gate. Two peaked windows jutted out over the road on the upper floor near either end of the building. A sign hung over the central door, which stood open to the street. The sign was carved with large, crude letters.
“The Cruel Dragon?” Xae said.
“Yep. Best meat pies in Varidian and fairly comfortable rooms. After you stock up, come back here and get yourself something to eat. When I’ve got what we need, I’ll head out, and you can follow. We’ll see how far we can get before nightfall.”
Immediately past the inn, the North Road met another highway, which ran in only one direction—to the northwest. “That there is the Westholde Road,” Shira said. “It leads out to the second set of town gates. The third, of course, is on the other end of the North Road, farther this way. We’ll be passing through them when we leave.”
Mariah nodded, trying to memorize the details of her surroundings so that she and Xae could make it back to the inn—or out of town if they had to—without issue.
Shira had started to turn down a side road to their right when Mariah stopped, staring at a massive stone building across the road. She had never seen anything so elegant. It was surrounded by lush grass and flowers around its base, and a well-tended cobblestone path led up to its doors. The structure itself was round, its dark gray stone smooth and polished, unlike the rough-hewn walls she had seen in the rest of the town. Without thinking, Mariah moved toward it, eager to investigate.
“Hey!” She heard Shira but kept moving.
“What’s going on?” Xae asked Mariah.
“Oh. I forgot.” Shira’s voice dropped a notch, and she moved closer to them as they neared the edge of the grass. She laid a hand on Mariah’s sleeve, halting her. “You have probably never seen an Althamir temple. There isn’t one in Eaglespire, is there? Your boy here’s probably seen the one in Glenley if his folks let him. It’s kinda hard to miss.”
“This is the temple?” Mariah asked. She glanced over to Ruby, who had the same kind of awe on her face that Mariah felt.
“If I’d realized, I would have taken you to the one in Grof. It’s much smaller, tiny really, but it’s still a temple,” said Shira.
A woman in white robes tended the white flowers around the base of the structure, but Mariah’s eyes glossed over her, instead lighting upon the alcoves set at regular intervals along the curves of the walls. Each niche held a life-sized statue carved of the same dark gray stone as the walls. On the side facing the road, she caught sight of the Fox, the Deer, the Horse, even the Cat! It was as if someone had carved it using Gwyneth’s animal form as a model. She had read about all these animals and their god forms in the books she had stored away in Firebend.
Shira pulled her away from the grass and back to the road.
“But …” she protested, her head craned around toward the great gray structure as the other woman tugged her in the opposite direction.
“If ya like, you and Xae can visit the temple after you restock. It’s open to all. In the meantime, lemme show you the market. I need to get to the seamstress and the Dragon, see if I can find anything that can help us find … our people … I want to put plenty of road behind us before dark.”
Mariah sighed and gave in. Xae walked on the other side of Shira, his face grim. He hadn’t said anything, but she knew he was worried that their new mission would cause problems for his own. “She’s right. We need to get back on the road as soon as possible.”
Mariah’s heart fell in her chest. For a moment, she had forgotten the serious purpose of their journey. Gwyneth had told her that these temples existed, although as Shira had guessed, she had never seen one herself and hadn’t really believed that people in Varidian actually still worshipped the Althamir or believed that the Ceo San were the chosen of the gods. How was this possible with a man like Rothgar in charge? He had burned their spiritual books. Why hadn’t he destroyed their temples? Anger bubbled up in her, reminding her of Magnus’s ire when he had gotten lost in one of his rants. Maybe the real question was how the people had let a man like Rothgar twist their beliefs into abominations.
Shira led Mariah, Xae, and Ruby down the cobbled street away from the temple. The road ended about a hundred yards from the town wall, where it widened into a wedge-shaped, open-air market. The morning was starting to warm, and Mariah pushed back the hood of her cloak as she looked around, adjusting her scarf as she did so.
“Here you go,” Shira said. She dug some coins out of the purse at her belt and handed them to Xae. “My part. You’ll be able to find me okay?”
Reluctantly, Mariah nodded, and Shira hurried off back the way they had come without even a wave. She stared after her until Xae tugged on her sleeve, pulling her along. Ruby stayed at his elbow as if an invisible string were holding them together.
Around the edges of the market, wagons were lined up, with their wares laid out in the open beds. Some were filled with live animals—sheep, goats, and chickens in cages. Others were filled with fresh vegetables or breads and cakes.
“Let’s hurry,” Xae said. “I want to get back to Shira and out of town as soon as we can. This place makes me nervous.”
“She needs some time,” Mariah said as they started to walk, convincing herself as much as anyone. She turned for a moment to glance back at the peak of the temple, rising above the buildings behind them, before heading toward the closest wagon.
As tempting as fresh meat was, it was impractical, especially when they could hunt their own, so they skipped the animals in favor of vegetables that could be eaten raw or cooked over a fire. She tried not to screw her face up as she picked out the least offensive greens. Once again resuming the pretense that Xae was her younger brother, she directed him to pay and add their new supplies to their packs. The honeycakes looked much more appetizing. They had just purchased several of the wrapped cakes from a plump, grandmotherly looking woman when Mariah saw Ruby staring at something: a small group of soldiers standing next to one of the other wagons several yards away.
The three men wore the gold
and black of the Varidian crown. Two of them wore golden chestplates with black dragons etched in the metal. Trappers.
Mariah’s heart caught in her throat, and a cold sweat broke out on the back of her neck. She resisted the urge to pull her hood up, grab her companions, and run.
“Xae!” she whispered instead, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the soldiers.
The boy started when he saw them, but Ruby remained stock still. Xae’s gaze went to the one in the middle, and he stiffened. Mariah looked more carefully and saw that although the one Xae was staring at was dressed like the others, there was one stark difference: he had no golden chestplate, only a black leather one with gold accents.
He was tall and well-muscled like the others with a short, severe beard. Long yellow hair, tied at the base of his neck, trailed down his back. Lithe arms hung loosely at his sides, and he looked somehow ready to spring at the least provocation. Gold cuffs with small black dragons etched in the metal adorned his wrists. On the bottom side of each cuff was a small ring. A long, looped chain hung from one cuff and ran back up to a clip on the belt of one of the Trappers.
He was leashed.
The man’s long-sleeved black tunic covered his arms down to the cuffs, but the skin between the cuffs and his knuckles was pale pink, puckered, and shot through with jagged white lines. Mariah recognized the scarring. It was the pattern of old burns, bad ones.
As if he felt her gaze, the man turned and met Mariah’s eyes. His blue eyes were sunken in their sockets with dark circles beneath them.
It was Mariah’s turn to swallow. She suddenly wanted very much to go home. She froze, and Xae grabbed her left arm and began pulling her away from the market. “Stop staring,” he muttered close to her ear.
She caught Ruby’s hand in hers, pulling her along as she wrenched her gaze away and focused on the road instead. “Was that …”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never actually seen …” she trailed off, not knowing what she could say with so many people around. Their roles had reversed. On this subject, Xae knew much more than she did, but he didn’t respond to her comment.
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