“You think that was the same one? That it’s following you?” Rane looked up, but the heron was long gone.
Sooty finally looked down, no longer tense and ready to strike, and batted playfully at something in the grass. “It just reminded me of what happened, that’s all. If it is following me, what can it really do?”
He looked like he was going to argue with her, then shook his head, took a deep breath and focused back on the cottage again. “Last chance. Are you sure you want to set Ylana free?” He reached out and slid a big, calloused hand along her shoulder, feathering his fingers along the back of her neck. She grabbed his wrist, gave it a squeeze.
“I can’t leave her enchanted.” It was as simple as that. Kayla had barely been able to walk away from Ylana after she’d trapped the witch. It had been one of the hardest decisions she’d ever made, and she didn’t want it on her conscience any longer.
She had hated Eric for enchanting her and Rane, and hated even more that he’d put her in a position where she had had to enchant Ylana. The thought of it scraped at her, making her feel raw and bruised.
She took a step into the cleared land around the cottage, waiting just a moment in case Ylana had set some kind of trap, and then walked forward, drawing a ball of wild magic with her.
The door of the cottage was shut, just as she’d left it, along with the shutters over the windows. There was an air of anticipation, of waiting, as if the forest and even the house itself was holding its breath.
She gave herself a moment to push down her fear and then grabbed the doorknob.
The handle turned easily under her hand, the door swung open, and Kayla peered carefully into the gloom of the closed-up house.
Ylana stood beside the kitchen table, exactly where Kayla had left her, absolutely frozen in place.
Her eyes were still just as alive, fury snapping from them at the sight of her. Kayla saw the moment she got a view of Rane, too, standing as close to the doorway as he could.
He had an affinity to the strange and wonderful things wild magic created. But there were so many packed onto the shelves covering every wall in Ylana’s cottage he wasn’t able to enter the room without falling seriously ill, pulled in too many directions at once.
Ylana dismissed him with a contemptuous blink, and focused back on Kayla.
Kayla lifted her hands up in an offering of peace. “I’m sorry for enchanting you and leaving you this way. I was afraid if I let you go you’d take the golden apple, and we needed it to rescue Rane’s brother.” She chewed on her lip as she saw the malice in Ylana’s eyes when Rane’s name was mentioned. “I wanted to believe you wouldn’t, that you would help me, but I couldn’t take the chance.” She dropped her hands back to her sides. “I came back as quickly as I could to free you.”
Ylana’s eyes sparked then. Kayla imagined her drawing on her power, the earth magic embedded in the forest around them, to strike as soon as she was set free.
Kayla pulled the wild magic closer, let it loom over her shoulder. Let Ylana see the size of it.
Last time she’d been here, she’d drawn wild magic from where it hovered between the trees near Ylana’s cottage, and she had managed to get the best of Ylana then, although she knew that had more to do with the fact that Ylana had trusted her, had been taken by surprise.
She pressed the point home. “This is only one of a hundred balls of wild magic which have followed me here. They are all around your clearing. And I am even more adept at using it now than I was before. I can see you are thinking of harming Rane or me when I release you. I want to warn you, if you try, I will retaliate.”
Even though Ylana was held frozen in place, Kayla could see from the way her eyes lost their spark that she had abandoned her decision to retaliate.
She looked back at Rane, to let him know she was going ahead, and he lifted his knife in salute, widened his stance.
He didn’t want her to do this. Had argued against it ever since she told him what she planned, but he was here, helping her anyway.
Even though this wasn’t the time or the place, she let the swell of love she felt for him rise up and show in her eyes. She blew him a kiss and he lifted a brow, his face impassive, but there was heat in his gaze as he waited for her to free the witch.
She looked back at Ylana, let the wild magic brush up against her back, let its light halo her as she concentrated on reversing what she’d done.
She looked down at her hands, at the purple green sparks at the tips of her fingers, and felt the surge of power as she lifted the enchantment.
Ylana straightened from her half-bent position over the table, put a hand to her lower back, and then pulled back her lips to show her teeth.
“I have killed for less than this, little witchling.” She took a step, and hissed with pain as her legs moved for the first time in three days.
“Let me help you,” Kayla moved forward. “I can make you something to eat.”
Ylana jerked away, hand raised, the threat of magic in the air between them. “Why did you come back? You could have released me from a little way away. Run. Why have you been so foolish?”
It was what Rane had asked her, again and again. “Because I wanted to apologize to you, face to face. If I thought there had been any other way, I would have taken it rather than enchant you. And I wanted to ask you to teach me.”
“Teach you?” Ylana curled her arm closer to her body.
“To use my power better. To be a wild magic witch.”
Ylana laughed, the sound dry and hoarse, like leaves crunching underfoot. “And why would I do that?”
“Because you know a war’s coming. That Eric is in a contest with other sorcerers to see who can be more powerful. You know it’ll soon spill over into actual war, and you know the damage that would do.”
“That means I have less inclination to teach you, not more. I have work to do. Work I’ve been kept from for the last three days.”
Kayla shook her head. “Gathering all the wild magic items you can find so the sorcerers can’t use them isn’t going to be enough anymore.”
Ylana shuffled slowly to a chair, sank down on it with a tight expression of relief as she took the weight off her legs. “And you know what is?”
Kayla pulled a stream of wild magic from the ball hovering behind her, let it swirl over her palm. “Teach me everything I don’t know about being a witch, and maybe I will be.”
CHAPTER NINE
RANE KNEW Ylana was just behind the house. He’d been watching her since Kayla stepped back and left the witch to decide whether she would take her on as a pupil or not.
Kayla had helped him set up camp on the edge of the clearing, and then taken some soap, a bucket and some clean clothes down to the stream to wash while Rane got the camp fire going. It wasn’t so easy now he’d lost his fire stick to Travis. He had to do it the hard way.
Ylana had eaten a meal, and then shuffled out of the cottage and disappeared around the back.
Rane gave her five minutes, and then rose from his place by the fire.
He didn’t like the sudden silence, now that both women were gone. Didn’t like the thought that perhaps Ylana had been gathering her strength, biding her time, and now she was feeling better, had followed Kayla down to the stream and was bespelling her right now.
He didn’t even pretend casual disinterest as he rounded the corner, fingers flicking as he contemplated pulling his knife.
His gaze flicked over the woodpile, the path leading to the right. He spotted the small drying shed, leaning drunkenly against a massive oak, just as Ylana stepped out of its crooked door, some dried herbs in her hands.
She stared at him with deep enmity.
He knew she disliked him, but it appeared that had changed to hate in the last few days. Or she wasn’t bothering to hide her true feelings any more.
Something snaked up from the ground at his feet, striking his cheek before catching hold of his wrist.
A creeper, he realized, as it yanked him d
own, forcing him to one knee. Mint. He could smell the freshness of it as it wound around his forearm.
He reached for his boot to get his knife, his gaze on her as he did.
Ylana didn’t move, watching him as a rope of woody green tightened around him with painful, bruising force, her face alight with satisfaction.
His knife sliced through the stem easily, and he staggered back, flicking off the pieces still twined around his arm.
Her eyes narrowed, and he sensed her building her power for another strike, when it seemed as if the shadows themselves gathered together and leaped at her.
Sooty.
Taken by surprise, Ylana fell against the wooden door of her shed, her hand drawn back to strike out at the cat, and Rane dived toward her, knife out, blade lengthening, until it was up against her neck.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you. Sooty belongs to Kayla.”
Ylana lowered her hand, looked away from him to the cat as if the shimmering blade wasn’t pressed against her skin.
“I’ve seen her before, hunting in the forest. She used to be Gert’s daughter’s cat, until the wild magic touched her.”
Rane nodded.
“I would never have taken her as a familiar. Not something transformed by wild magic.” Ylana struggled up on her elbows, and Rane let her, moving back a little, but he kept his knife ready.
“Kayla did.” He reached out a hand, and scratched Sooty between her ears.
The cat was still looking at Ylana with an unblinking stare, paws on either side of her shoulders, but she bumped her head upward at the feel of Rane’s fingers, tipping up her chin.
“She’s protective of you, too.”
Rane scratched a little harder. “Yes.”
Ylana’s face was sour with anger. She looked the furtherest thing possible from the suave, flamboyant Jisuel, Rane and Soren’s best client for wild magic items.
But Ylana and Jisuel were one and the same.
Ylana had shown him, had changed from one to the other before his eyes a few days ago, and revealed a deception that had gone on for over a year.
He couldn’t help but see it as a betrayal.
Jisuel had drunk with him and Soren at the inns of Therston after a good day at the Hidden Market. And while there had always been a dangerous edge to the client Rane had thought a young, reckless nobleman, there had been camaraderie, too.
Or, he’d thought there was.
He’d been wrong.
Ylana had drunk ale and laughed, but now Rane knew it had been at them, not with them.
She’d bought up every wild magic item he and his brother had for sale from seemingly bottomless pockets.
“How did you pay for all those things you bought from us?” The gold had been real enough. Jisuel wouldn’t have lasted long if the coins he’d paid with had disappeared or turned to leaves or acorns the next day, but seeing her cottage, the way she lived, Rane couldn’t fathom where the money had come from.
“I used earth magic to find some troll gold hoards.” There was something in the way she said it, something a little guilty, that rang a bell.
“Troll? That’s why that troll was chasing you the other day? It caught you stealing some of its hoard?” He’d risked his life to bring that troll down. And Ylana had taunted him for his efforts, when she should have been thanking him.
Her mocking smile showed a mouth full of surprisingly good teeth and then she shrugged. “Seeing as we are sharing secrets, why did you always ask about wild magic?”
“What are you talking about?”
“In Therston, whenever I saw you at the Hidden Market, you were always asking people about wild magic. Asking me. Why?” Ylana pulled herself out from under Sooty, and away from the tip of his knife.
Rane sat back on his haunches. “My father was touched by wild magic. He’s a tree now. Or, mostly a tree.”
Ylana blinked at him. “You were trying to find a way to release him? Change him back?”
It was most likely futile, but he had never given up hope there would be a way. The fact that his father was growing leaves made it impossible to dismiss that he might be alive inside his wood and bark shell. “If I could.”
“I thought you were a sorcerer’s spy.” Ylana leaned against the sun-bleached silver of the drying shed’s door, and rested her head against the frame. The bitterness had gone. She just seemed tired, now.
“I thought the same of you.” Rane had often wondered if Jisuel had been buying the items as a front for a sorcerer, so other sorcerers didn’t notice one of their own building up a stockpile.
He had never come close to the truth. That Ylana had taken on the guise of Jisuel to buy up as many wild magic items as she could, to keep them out of sorcerer hands.
“How many sorcerers do you think are up to a fight for control against Eric the Bold?” If they were going to stop Eric, they had to stop the other sorcerers he was competing against, as well.
“Two.” Ylana moved restlessly, and he rose to his feet, stepped back so she could stand. Sooty stared at her, unmoving.
“I’d hoped there was only one.” Rane gripped his knife at the thought of two more like Eric.
“If Nuen of Harness wasn’t injured, it would be three, so it’s better than it could be.”
Rane hunched his shoulders at that. “Nuen isn’t injured anymore. When Kayla rescued Soren from Jasper, the golden apple was knocked out of Soren’s hands inside Jasper’s stronghold moments before Kayla got them out. There is no question Nuen has it, and has used it to heal himself by now.”
Ylana stared at him with such horror, he forced his shoulders back. Looked her straight in the eye.
“What are you going to do about it?” Her voice was flat.
“I thought, if Kayla was busy here with you for a few days, I could spy on the sorcerers you think are up to Eric’s level. Get a feel for their weaknesses. As that includes Nuen, if I get the chance to steal the golden apple back, I will.”
She gave a derisive laugh. “And how likely do you think that will be?”
Rane shrugged. “I’ve gotten the better of Jasper and Nuen before, and so has Kayla. You never know.”
She looked as if she wanted to attack him again, clenching her fists as green light danced over her knuckles.
Time for a distraction, because no matter how he’d love a good, hard fight with her, in whatever form she chose to take, that wouldn’t help Kayla.
“I have your gem.” He slipped a hand into the leather purse at his belt, drew out the gem covered in a small piece of cloth.
She hesitated, then put out her hand to take it, the magic she was pulling to her fading away. “Ever since Kayla took it, I’ve wondered what Eric could have wanted with it. It isn’t even wild magic-made.” She pushed back the cloth carefully.
He frowned. “Not wild magic? But . . . the light when it’s touched is purple.”
Her lips twisted. “And just because a thing shoots out purple light, it must be wild magic, eh? So a sorcerer wanting to make people believe a thing is wild magic-made, need only imbue purple light into it, instead of blue, and everyone is fooled.”
Rane grimaced. He’d been so sure it was wild magic-made, he hadn’t realized it didn’t call to him as wild magic always did.
“One of my other suppliers—Jisuel’s suppliers, I should say—found a sorcerer’s stash in the forest. There were a few wild magic items in it, but most were sorcerer-made, and this was one of them.”
“Is it Eric’s? Is that how he knew you had it? I’ve heard sorcerers’ things can call to them.”
Ylana shook her head. “I’ve stolen things from Eric before. This isn’t his. It doesn’t feel like his magic. But it could belong to a sorcerer he’s killed or stripped of power. If he used their staff, he could get an approximate idea of where it was.”
“And if it’s sorcerer-made . . .” Rane had thought Soren was lost to him. Wild magic was capricious, unpredictable. He’d thought if Soren wasn’t dead, he was mo
st likely in a place no-one could reach him, or turned into something else entirely. But now . . . “The people who touch this or get caught in the blast of light from it when it’s touched disappear. What use would a sorcerer have for something like that?”
Ylana looked down at the stone, glinting in the last of the evening light. “A quick escape, perhaps. Touch it, and get taken to a safe place. Even if you’ve fought hard and your power is depleted, you could easily get away if you’ve imbued the gem with enough power earlier.”
“And if the sorcerer has created the illusion it’s wild magic-made, most wouldn’t risk touching it again if it’s left behind, which it always is, because they’d be too scared of where they’d end up. Or at least, they’d think long and hard before they did, which would give the sorcerer time to get away or prepare a defense at the other end. So Soren could be alive. Someplace the sorcerer who made this thought was safe.”
Ylana shrugged. “It’s a possibility. Not a certainty.”
Rane didn’t care. A possibility was more than he’d had before. “It doesn’t work very well, if that’s its purpose. Those caught in its light go, too.”
“Perhaps the sorcerer didn’t get it quite right, or he anticipated having someone with him he wanted to protect, so the possibility of an enemy coming through with him was less important than the idea of leaving someone behind who was in his care.”
“What’s going on?” Kayla’s call came from the woods to the left, and Rane saw her step out from between the trees, hefting a full wooden bucket.
Sooty turned to Kayla and gave a chirp, but she didn’t leave her position, blocking Ylana’s path.
“Rane?” Kayla brought the smell of spring water and crushed river ferns with her, her damp hair clinging to her neck, her clean shirt and trousers crumpled from their time in her bag.
His princess.
He took the water bucket from her and set it on the grass, lifted her hands and kissed her fingertips.
She looked down. “What is that on your wrist?”
He looked down himself, saw the red welt where Ylana’s plant had grabbed him.
He said nothing, and she looked from him to Ylana, noticed the knife in his hand.
The Silver Pear (The Dark Forest Book 2) Page 6